[Dragaera] [Issola, Dzur, Orca spoilers] GWs and aging (was: A Devera thread)

[Scott Schultz]

>Ah-ha, he said.  I had been thinking along the lines Max Wilson 
>indicated, that Lord Brimford's longevity was more closely tied to 
>his witchcraft than anything else.  

We know that Verra can grant unnaturally long life to her Easterner
followers when it suits her, so there's some precedent to believe that
witchcraft and/or the favor of the Gods could account for Brimford's
lifespan.

Pararectally, there are other possibilities.

For instance - How do we know that Brimford is even alive?

All we know in Vlad's time is that Zerika has an Easterner lover. We know
nothing about this lover except Zerika's admission that the rumor is true.
It's easy to read Paarfi and assume that the two are the same, but that's
all it is; an assumption.

Zerika uses an interesting turn of phrase when discussing this with Vlad -
"He is my lover because I love him and he is an Easterner because that is
the House in which his soul resides."

It's been implied that Eastern souls are subject to reincarnation just like
Dragaeran souls, though the mechanism may (or may not) be different. If
Zerika and Laszlo are "soul mates" it's possible that Laszlo has died and
reincarnated multiple times by now. With the Orb at her disposal as well as
a discrete and sympathetic Court Wizard who happens to also have expert
knowledge of Eastern Witchcraft, it's within reason to suppose that Zerika
could track down Laszlo's reincarnated self, befriend him, awaken his
past-life memories as Aliera offered to do for Vlad, and resume her
relationship with "him". Given a Dragaeran's lifespan, the twenty years or
so between the death of the current "Laszlo" and the maturation into
adulthood of the new "Laszlo" wouldn't amount to more than a small "break"
in the relationship.

That Dragaerans can create emotional attachments to a particular soul is
heavily implied in _Orca_. Vlad, at least, seems to believe it when he makes
the comment that he understands now why Kiera was so interested in him. She
knew before he did that he was the reincarnation of Dolivar, Sethra's
compatriot back at the dawn of the Empire. That's a pretty extreme case of
soul "recognition". If Sethra has truly befriended him and aided him
primarily because of who he used to be, then it's a small stretch to imagine
that the Empress would view the various incarnations of her soul mate as
being the same person despite the attributes of whatever flesh and blood
body that soul might currently count as home.