From: "David Silberstein" <davids at kithrup.com> On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Erik Dahl wrote: >KG (>>) and Casey Rousseau (>) wrote: I asked Steve about Kiera showing up in Taltos if Sethra couldn't leave Dzur Mountain, and this is his reply: SKZB> Sethra didn't leave Dzur Mountain. Ask anyone. Did anyone see SKZB> Sethra outside of Dzur Mountain during that entire period? [snippage] >>I wonder if we'll discover in a later story that Kiera was covering >>some other complicated plot she was involved with at the time? >I think that Steve might be hiding something about *how* Kiera is >Sethra. The more obvious notion is that Sethra changes her shape, >or is using a sorcerous disguise, but I wonder. hmmm. just came across something in orca that made me think the same thing. i too had always assumed that kiera was simply sethra in non-magical disguise with perhaps some subtle magical assistance, but this line, along with the current conversation, has caused me to reconsider: kiera, to herself: "his name was indeed loftis, a dragonlord of the e'drien line, same as morollan; and he was the viscount of clovenrocks wood, which was in a far northeastern province, *if i could trust a memory that wasn't my own* [emphasis mine]." what is *that* supposed to mean? sethra's memories are separate from kiera's, but accessible? weird. the first possibility that occured to me, from previous references to sethra taking a moment and concentrating to access old memories, was that sethra's memory, going back a skezbillion years or so, mightn't all fit in a human/dragaeran brain, and is perhaps, in part, stored externally (dzur mountain, iceflame, etc.) and accessed psionically by sethra, or kiera in this instance. whatever kiera is, she still seems to operate under the rules and conditions of being undead, as when vlad notices her only picking at the wonderful breakfast he's prepared and asks if she doesn't like it, etc. so, what do we have? sethra couldn't leave dzur mountain, but kiera could. sethra has to concentrate to access old memories. kiera has access to memories not her own. anything else that's missing? so many possibilities, so little data. just had a fleeting thought of sethra being a fusion of two people, one dragon, one dzur, since she has attributes of both houses...nah. i still think sethra's a half-dragon/half-dzur, from way back when, and kiera's just a persona, but... ...it just keeps getting better and better.