Gossamer

And you know what, Thin Elderly? Sad parts are important. If I ever get to train a new young dreamgiver, that's one of the things I'll teach: that you must include the sad parts, because they are part of the story, and they have to be part of the dreams.

Why do some of us turn menacing?' she whispered.

Forgetting her promise of no questions, Littlest suddenly asked, "Might we be human?" But Fastidious did not reply.

Everything that you're a part of. Your own story fills you.

This gathering, this dwelling place where they slept now, heaped together, was only one, a relatively small one, of many. It was a small subcolony of dream-givers. Every human population has countless such colonies—invisible always—of these well-organized, attentive, and hard-working creatures who move silently through the nights at their task. Their task is both simple and at the same time immensely difficult. Through touching, they gather material: memories, colors, words once spoken, hints of scents and the tiniest fragments of forgotten sound. They collect pieces of the past, of long ago and of yesterday. They combine these things carefully, creating dreams. Then they insert the dreams as the humans (and sometimes animals, for occasionally they give dreams to pets, as well) sleep. The act of dream insertion is called bestowal.