Travelin' Jahlee

Roy C. Lackey · 18 Aug 2005, 20:58 · from 2005-August.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu Aug 18 20:58:03 2005
Subject: (urth) Travelin' Jahlee
Message-ID: <001b01c5a472$318a4760$f93ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Andrew quoted and wrote:
>>Jahlee expressed similar sentiments on her death bed, a time when
>>she had
>>nothing to gain or lose by lying.
>
>Sorry - don't understand this one???

Oh, I was referring to your speculations about "Why would going to Blue to
prey on humans meet a need to become more human-like?"  And Jahlee's
"day-dreams of returning to the tower room after making the Return Crossing,
to spend time there thinking about herself and 'what she had done for her
children.'"

When dying she said, "You think we don't care . . . ." [. . .] "You do, so
we must."

Silkhorn thought she was speaking about her children, and went on to explain
to Nettle, "To pass among us, they imitate us -- even our emotions. Most of
their spawn are eaten by fish while they are still very young." Jahlee then
gave her version of the Secret, and almost the last thing she said was,
"Krait was my son, the only one who lived with the mind it took from yours."

Presumably she was expressing, and feeling, the inherited human emotion of
grief for her lost children, particularly the loss of her only son. Nettle's
firstborn was also effectively lost to her, to say nothing of her husband.
Jahlee had attacked Nettle not because of a need to feed, but because of the
human emotion of female jealousy. At the same time, she felt empathy with
Nettle, which is why she did what she could as she died to balance the score
by revealing to Nettle the Secret, something she knew Silkhorn wouldn't do.

It was the last entry Silkhorn himself made in his book, which should give
his opinion here more weight than elsewhere.

-Roy

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