In which Korval Sees Shan yos’Galan.
Hah. I wonder how much difference it would have made if Anne had been less careful of decorum and had kissed Er Thom like a lifemate in front of his kinsman and Delm. (Perhaps not so much, though; after all, Daav knows if anyone does that the significance of such gestures may be less depending on local custom. He and his current bedfriend are not careful of the face taboo, and only see how that will turn out.)
This chapter gives our first solid indication of how long it’s been since the great migration, though I could wish for it to be solider. Anne says that if the Tree is the same tree Jela had, it must be, she guesses, nine hundred years old. Older, says Er Thom, but it’s not clear whether that means Anne’s lowballed the distance from Jela’s time, or just that he’s acknowledging that the Tree had some years on it before ever it met Jela.
PA: This chapter gives our first solid indication of how long it’s been since the great migration,
Of course we get a much closer accounting later, I believe…although I confess, when it comes to any type of math (even comparing numbers of years) it all sort of flows on past me.
PA: if Anne had been less careful of decorum and had kissed Er Thom like a lifemate in front of his kinsman and Delm
The face-touching taboo notwithstanding, if she’d kissed him with the kind of fervor we’ve been seeing—in the presence of Jelaza Kazone—Daav would have been so overwhelmed by the Tree’s joy, that he would have at least queried the Tree about it later even if he did not recognize the lifemating on the spot!