Here's a Thing:

[greenstorm]

Physical human contact is vitally important to me. Without it my mind is sluggish, I'm sad: it's the same as being without light, really. I don't mean sex, here, but simply touching another person sometimes. Do you know that _locke put his hand on my shoulder for perhaps two seconds today, and Estry has hugged me twice, and that is my human contact in the last week except for the drunken neighbor, which didn't count?

What do I do with this? It's useless to call it a need; you don't get something just by calling it a need. It's something to keep in mind, though. Even in the worst times with Kynnin, we touched each other once per week, holding each other at night. Again, a new thing, a thing with consequences which are almost wholly dark to my perception as yet.