Chapter Text
The proprietor of Arlathan Books fell into that class of bookseller who kept a store, not for any kind of profit, but as an overflow space for their personal library. This particular store occupied a narrow building squeezed between a house that had been “FOR RENT” for the last ten years and a diner whose chef was from Starkhaven, resulting in a permanent, vague smell of fish over the whole block.
The bookstore made a token nod to the modern world, with a few “Kirkwall Times Bestsellers” on display, and several stacks of advance reading copies of books that never saw wide acclaim on sale for just a few coins. The yellowing lightbulbs were ancient, though the place’s electricity was up to date to prevent fires. Otherwise, the place was a labyrinth of tilting shelves that smelled of old paper and ink, not a single book under the age of thirty on display.
An average browser would have been immediately put off by the chaos. Aged science fiction novels from the Anderfels sat side by side with first-edition translations of Dalish epic poems and three-hundred-year-old folios of Orlesian operas. The Dewey Decimal System would have run away if someone had asked its assistance in sorting all the books out.
As a result, very few people bothered to come by the store, and even fewer bothered to purchase anything. A polite mutter or two and they’d flee, looking for brighter and slightly more organized stores. On most days, the dusty bell over the door hung silently, gathering dust.
Which was exactly how Solas liked it.
-
He was in the back reading on a quiet Tuesday afternoon when the door opened. Before Solas could even look up, there was a shout, a small crash, and a series of violent expletives. Then silence, except the merry jangling of the door bell.
Slowly, he came out to the front, looking over the counter. In the doorway was a towering Qunari woman, over seven feet tall and built like the statue of a hero, wearing the ugliest red-and-yellow checked coat Solas had ever seen, whose horns were tangled in the string of the bell. She let out a surprised squeak on seeing Solas, cheeks dark.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
So much for a quiet afternoon.
“Let me get a ladder,” Solas said.
In the course of getting the very flustered woman free, it transpired that her name was Kubide Adaar, she found his store on accident, she was looking for a gift for a friend, and she was absolutely, positively, certainly not going to look at any other store.
“Josie loves old books,” Kubide said, looking over Solas’s head toward the back. Wisely, considering the low ceiling and narrow aisles, she made no move to go herself. “So...”
“What kind?” Solas asked with a heavy sigh.
“Biographies,” Kubide said. “Not my thing, but she loves them.”
Solas glanced back. “Wait here,” he said.
He had heard what he was about to do termed a ‘fuck-off price.’ Name too high a value and someone might be scared off. He hoped that this book, a reasonably rare biography of Kordilius Drakon by a Tevinter magister in the Glory Age, would be too expensive for this woman to buy.
She bought it.
“Thank you,” Kubide said fervently, as Solas, dumbfounded, passed her the paper-wrapped book. “I’ll be back next time I need a book.”
Oh, how he hoped she wouldn’t be.
-
A week later she was in front of the counter again.
“You came back,” Solas said, looking up at her in some shock.
“Josie loved the biography,” Kubide said, smiling. It was infectious. Solas felt a smile—the first he’d worn in a while—tugging at his mouth. “Her boyfriend was very taken with it—he loves old books.”
“And I suppose he wants one?”
Kubide looked sheepish. “He didn’t exactly ask,” she said. “Blackwall runs a bakery though, and I thought maybe an old recipe book...?”
“Do I look like I stock cookbooks?”
Kubide looked around. “I honestly have no idea what might be lurking here,” she said. “You might have the original Canticle of Shartan, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
It was a third edition, actually.
“I must admit, I’m surprised anyone outside the University or Chantry is familiar with the Canticle,” Solas said.
“It made more interesting reading in high school than whatever the Sister assigned us,” Kubide said, and grinned. “I was a bit of a rebellious kid. They cut it out of the Chant? I’d better read it!”
Solas shook his head. “I can imagine it.”
And he could: a young woman, too tall for the desk, ignoring the preaching Chantry Sister, in favor of reading a forbidden book that made her eyes shine with the same delight he saw in front of him now.
“I do have a few old recipe books,” Solas admitted. “Wait here. I’ll have to look.”
-
Three weeks.
In a row.
“It’s my dad’s birthday,” Kubide said, leaning on the counter with both elbows, legs crossed. Though the counter barely came up to her waist, she made the lean look easy and elegant.
“You have quite the collection of bibliophiles around you.”
Kubide laughed. “Yes, I do,” she said. “My dad’s a poet.”
Solas raised his brows. “A Qunari poet in Skyhold?”
“Parents were asylum seekers,” Kubide explained easily, though there was a tightness around her eyes. “Dad’s retired and writes essays and poetry for a Tal-Vashoth publication now.”
“I see,” Solas said.
“Anyway,” she said, “I was wondering if you had any elvhen poetry around. He’s trying to branch out.”
“Do you want the short list or the long one?” Solas asked, pointing back at the shelves. “I have many examples, from rediscovered Dalish poetry to the more modern classics—“
Kubide interrupted him. “You could just show me,” she suggested. “I promise to be careful of the lights.”
Solas stood up. “Follow me,” he said and, over his shoulder, “How much of the language does your father speak?”
When he looked, Kubide had her hands in her pockets, looking at the books on either side with great interest. Her shoulders nearly brushed the shelves. “He has an app,” she said.
Solas stopped in his tracks. Kubide nearly ran into him. “An app?”
“I thought I might get him a book to—to work up to,” Kubide said.
Up close, in the faded light of the bare bulbs, Solas could see that her irises were truly yellow, startling against black sclera. “I have a better idea of what you need,” he said, and turned away. “This way.”
-
In over a decade of owning this store, Solas never had a regular. Three or four antique dealers who appeared a few times a year, but never someone who came by week after week. And certainly never someone who seemed to want to see Solas more than his books.
He was getting used to hearing the bell jangle every Tuesday when Kubide arrived. The conversations at the counter got longer each week.
It was “my friend Dorian, from Tevinter, he wants some book on magic in Old Tevene and I thought you’d have a lead.” Then it was “Josie is looking for a biography of Genitivi and I thought of you.” Then “I want to get something for Vivienne, I wondered about Orlesian literature.”
And then, finally, “I need something to read for myself, do you have suggestions?”
Solas did not tell her that he had already set something aside for her.
“You are monolingual?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And you enjoy nonfiction.”
“Yeah.”
“Your feelings on mythical creatures?”
“Isn’t that fiction?”
“Not if it’s an exploration of legends framed through a modern anthropological lens.”
“...hit me.”
It was a book on dragons. The profusion of myths across Thedas, the connections between such myths and the possible grains of truth, comparisons to what was actually known about the habits and biology of living dragons. A bit dry and dated, but Solas acquired it for the incredible illustrations, color plates, and extensive marginalia left by the previous owner.
“Did you write all these?” Kubide asked, leafing through the book.
“No,” Solas said. “They are part of its charm.”
“Wait, this is your book?”
“All of these are mine,” Solas said, waving a hand. “I acquire what interests me and sell part of the stock.”
“I can’t possibly—“
“Yes, you can.”
-
“Checkmate,” the Iron Bull said.
Solas started and looked down at the board. It was, in fact, checkmate. He sighed. “You win.”
The Iron Bull looked hard at him, eye narrow. “Making rookie mistakes,” he said. “Something on your mind?”
“Nothing,” Solas said, looking away.
This was the single event of his social calendar: weekly chess club hosted by the local game store, who rented out their large back room to all sorts of people. Miniature war games that took up half an acre, roleplaying game guilds, strategic card players...and chess. It was a motley crew. Two players—Dorian, who played in Tevinter for several years, and the Iron Bull, whose history with the game was obscure—were ranked masters. The rest were hobbyists, new players, participants through the local lyrium rehabilitation program, or Solas.
Cullen turned from his game with Dorian. “You lost?” he asked, in some surprise.
“It happens to all of us,” Dorian said, and moved a knight. “Check.”
“He’s got a point,” the Iron Bull said. “I can’t remember the last time you lost to anyone.”
“A first time for everything.”
Dorian leaned over as Cullen considered the board. “I still don’t understand why you don’t attend tournaments,” he said for the hundredth time. “I hate to admit it, but you could quite easily rank as a grandmaster. And they’d never see you coming!”
“I prefer a quiet life.”
Something about his tone must have hinted that more was afoot, because the Iron Bull pressed, “What’s up?”
Solas sighed. “If you must know, I am waiting to hear the opinion of a friend on a book,” he said.
Cullen, Dorian, and the Iron Bull exchanged looks. While their skill in the game made them the only people Solas enjoyed playing chess against, it also made all three of them frustratingly good at reading him. That tended to happen, when one played games of strategy with a person so often. It had never been an issue, until now, when they were apparently seeing something unusual.
“Well,” Cullen said after a moment, “I hope they enjoy it.”
-
She rushed in five minutes before closing on Friday night. “I finished the book,” Kubide said breathlessly.
“You finished it?”
“Fast reader,” she said.
The next words out of Solas’ mouth were inane. “Did you like it?”
He had never, in his life, asked someone if they liked a book he recommended.
In part because he never recommended books to anyone.
Kubide’s face lit up, as if the sun walked into the store. “It was fantastic,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see a dragon, so that...that was incredible. Even if the Qunari mythology wasn’t quite right.”
Solas leaned on the counter. “I thought it comprehensive,” he said.
“No, the author seemed to think the necklace thing was about...showing off for a potential mate.” Kubide made a face. “I thought Mom would laugh herself sick when I told her.”
“Then what is it about?”
She told him. A colorful, animated discussion about custom, language, and myth, which lined up in interesting ways with certain elven mythologies. Solas forgot himself a little, standing there as the streetlights came on outside and the diner next door began to thrum with activity. The conversation wore on until her phone buzzed.
Looking as if she’d been shaken awake, Kubide looked at her phone. “Oh—huh, it’s almost seven,” she said, after typing off some message.
Solas looked at the clock. “I’ve kept you far too long,” he said. “I should finish locking up and let you get about your business.”
“I’m pretty sure I kept you,” Kubide said. She lingered, hands in her pockets, as Solas finished closing and put on his coat. “I know it’s ridiculously late, but would you want to continue the conversation over dinner?”
An unfamiliar warmth suffused his chest and he found himself lost for words. Solas had never been one to yearn for companionship, but—
“As long as you have no plans,” he said, “I would be glad to.”
“They can wait,” Kubide said, smiling down at him. “Anywhere you’d prefer?”
“Not next door,” Solas said with a grimace,
“Great,” Kubide said. “There’s a good Antivan place in walking distance.”
It was more running distance, since Solas had to keep pace with a much taller companion, but the conversation was very much worth it.
Even though they were thrown out at closing time.