Dragon metamorphosis and regeneration (spoilers for Liveship and Rain Wilds books)

[Farseer]

Farseer - I think that the discussion that you are searching for was posted in the "Human Diversity" thread.

Thanks maulkin but I thought I'd posted something in here as a response to your first post, though sometimes I post directly to the web page and other times I write a word doc first and then cut and paste. Possibly I never ended up cutting and pasting (or saving!) my post.

In the meantime though, I thought of this thread when I was re-reading about ** Spoilers for Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies**

WARNING! CONTAINS HIGH LEVELS OF ELFBARK

Verity's visit to the Skill river in AQ. As you'd all remember, via a Skill-link with Verity, Fitz was also there and therefore saw/experienced all that Verity had.

Fitz says of Verity as he places his hands and arms into the river, 'So I screamed with him as the hot current ate the flesh and muscle from his arms. I swear I felt the acid lick of it across the bared bones of his fingers and wrist and forearm.... "

Later Fitz tells us of Verity, 'He carried his forearms stretched out before him, palms up, the fingers curled into cups as if he begged something. In shape they had not changed. But now arms and fingers gleamed silver with the power that had penetrated and fused with his flesh..'

I wonder if this can't shed light on the topic of regeneration and the Skill? Firstly Fitz clearly told us that Verity's flesh and muscle had been stripped from the flesh, and only bare bone had been left behind. Then they were whole again, and unchanged in shape. In effect, they underwent a process of loss and then regeneration, and were healed by the Skill itself?

Even further, could this passage not only shed light on regeneration but on how a Skill-healing actually works? The Skill penetrates the body and by its power, fuses with the flesh, thus allowing it to heal? I haven't thought this latter idea through but possibly it could work? It may also further strengthen the link between the Skill with memory in that a Skill-heal, in a complete form, seems to revert an injury etc back to its original pre-injury state eg Fitz's face and all scars etc were erased once the process was begun by the coterie?

My apologies that this is off-topic to the current discussion, and is instead going back to the maulkin's original thought on regeneration, but I have not long come across it again in AQ.

Something else I have to add is one of Sa's precepts, mentioned by Wintrow at the very beginning of The Ship of Magic. Berandol was retelling Wintrow of the stunted arm he'd had as a youth and how the priests had cured him of it. I think that this precept of Sa fits well with all that the dragons have experienced and, indeed, everything that has been experienced by ALL of those in the RotE who have mistakenly been considered 'weaker'. The precept goes, 'For the weaker has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.'