(urth) Fava in the Whorl, and where the Neighbors went

[Roy C. Lackey]

Andrew wrote:
[snip]
>Almost certainly, Fava was put on the Whorl by Neighbors as a young
>inhuma (if "where I lived as a girl" is true & has its natural
>meaning), in pre-Exodus times. Since she was born sentient, that
>means at least one of her parents must have fed on the Whorl
>(assuming no pre-Exodus humans on Green etc). Which in turn tends
>to support the idea of Neighbors shuttling inhumi to & fro between
>Green & Whorl.
>
>Now this of course indicates another possibility for Jahlee - the
>same kind of beginnings & placement on the Whorl as Fava; descent
>to Blue, perhaps in Horn's own lander; and a subsequent Crossing to
>Green, to give birth to Krait. I note that Krait has the appearance
>of a boy several years younger than Sinew in OBW, which would fit
>with Jahlee Crossing to Green at the first conjunction after her
>attack on Sinew, in Blue year 4.

It occurs to me that, *if* Jahlee was imprinted with Chenille's spirit (due
to her mother having fed on Chenille on Green), and if Jahlee went to Blue
to feed on Sinew when she was too young to fly unaided and then returned to
Green to give birth to Krait, then the difference in age between
generations, at least in the case of Jahlee and Krait, can be only a few
years. At the beginning of OBW, Blue year 20, Jahlee could be no older than
Sinew, who would be 19 years old. I doubt that there is much of a
correlation between human and inhumi ages, but Krait would have to be
about 16 or 17 in Blue year 20.

If, per your theory above, Fava had been born before the Exodus, she would
probably have to have been older than Jahlee and was *certainly* older than
Krait, no matter what she said or how she looked in her chosen disguise of a
human girl about the age of puberty.

Jahlee disguised herself as both a young woman and an old woman at that
farmhouse. She habitually went among humans disguised as a loose woman in
order to entice men and get them alone to feed on them. Those were conscious
decisions. My point is that inhumi appearance cannot be a reliable guide to
actual age. And they lie.

>A snippet on where the Neighbors went: Silkhorn tells Inclito's
>family, "They have gone elsewhere - found a new home circling
>another short sun." (IGJ, p72) At least from that, it seems that
>the "Neighbor Whorl" is a "real", and the Neighbors' removal there
>a physical event.

I'm glad I waited as long as I did to respond; now it's *your* problem
dealing with certain knotty theories. <G>

-Roy