To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

Plants and nature are a motif threaded throughout the novel, representing Kira’s growth as she comes to accept and cooperate with the xeno. Kira, as a xenobiologist, has a professional interest in alien species, but her personal life has also been shaped by nature, as her father worked in the greenhouses on Weyland. Kira’s childhood comes to her in dreams, which the Seed often uses to communicate with her: “Kira had long, deeply strange dreams of the greenhouses of her childhood and of plants sprouting and twining and leafing and spreading life, good and healthy” (515). These dreams are an amalgam of Kira’s deep connection to plants and the Seed’s desire to create.

In addition, once Kira and the xeno are more fully connected, their creations manifest as plants, with the same shapes, symmetry, and growth. When they cooperate to heal Falconi’s destroyed bonsai, Paolini uses an actual tree to reinforce the motif again. Kira’s relationship with the xeno has grown into a new understanding of their purpose and the possibilities of their collaboration.

In the end, reinforcing this motif even more strongly, Kira discovers that the actual name of the xeno is Seed. When they remake the Maw together, Kira’s personal room and her representation of herself as a physical body reflect plant life as well.