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She was looking for a book on the complexities of the fall of the Dales for a paper in her Elven Studies class, a class taught by an old Elven man with greying hair and a carefully lined face. It hadn’t been what she had expected when she had signed up, her professor the sort of man who thought that the lover of the Elven man at Red Crossing had seduced him on purpose to start a war.
Revasel herself knew the truth, had seen the writings of the Emerald Knights who lived at that time with her own eyes, but they had been given to Clan Hawen, and Clan Hawen and Clan Lavellan had always had a close relationship. Her brother, the Second, had requested to look at those documents specifically, and she had joined them, sensing the remorse in the script. If the people who knew the “traitor” Knight the best thought him truly in love, and thought her the same, who was her professor to say otherwise?
He didn’t have any proof.
Of course, at this rate, she wouldn’t have any proof either if she couldn’t find sources by good, reliable, Elven authors on the fall of the Dales. There were few, however, most authorial sources either Orlesian Scholars or archaic Dalish Keepers who had lived long before the time when the nuanced socio-political chain of events that had caused the Dales to fall had occurred.
She doubted she would find a source in the entire place that didn’t blame either the Elves or the Chantry, but she had to hope. She was determined to prove her point.
“Do you need assistance?”
The voice was not a deep voice, but it was uncommonly smooth and almost decidedly polite, and so she turned around to find a tall, bald Elven man with a lanyard around his neck identifying him as school staff. He was wearing a sweater that made him look old and formless, peering at her from over the edge of a thick pair of glasses.
“Er… Maybe?” Revasel looked back at the shelf and ran her hand along the spine of one of the books. “Is this really all you have on the fall of the Dales? I have to use at least one text source for this paper, and the library… It’s a bit lacking.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” the man said, stepping forward to stand next to her, adjusting his glasses, presumably so that he could read the spines. “There are more texts, but they are not in this section. You would have better luck with the academic journals.”
“I’m going to have to resort to looking through journals?” She tossed her head back and nearly audibly groaned.
“I suppose you have Orsino?”
Rey straightened and looked toward him again, considering him carefully. He adjusted the collar of the shirt that peered from underneath his large sweater and folded his hands carefully in front of him for all of two seconds before he rocked forward onto the balls of his feet and seemed to lean toward her, something almost conspiratorial in his smile.
“You do not need to confirm. Too many students have come through here, as of late, looking for sources on Elven this or Elven that, and Dalish whatnot and which,” he shook his head slowly. “The man is a fool, and has been since we attended school together.”
“I take it you don’t agree with his methods?” Rey watched the man more closely, trying to read his name tag, but the font was too small.
She had taken him for a librarian at first, but…
“His tenure in Elvhen Studies is among the greatest mysteries of the modern world, I assure you, da’len.” He chuckled, and motioned for her to follow. “I know his assignment and he wishes for you to write about the fall of Elvhen civilization. Might I suggest, then, that you look farther back? The resources on Ancient Elvhen are more readily available.”
“That’s because we know less about them so no one’s willing to take that risk,” Rey volunteered, and the man’s smile widened.
“We know more than one would think. As the writings of more early Tevinter slaves are discovered, we learn that much more about The People, and the less enigmatic their fall seems.” Despite her earlier words, she trailed after him, his footsteps sure as he led her through the school’s impressive maze of books.
Perhaps he was a librarian after all?
“There was a dig near Minrathous last year,” he explained, “and the journal of one of the earliest slaves was found, the granddaughter of one of The People conquered by the Imperium. From her journaling we learned of her grandfather’s accounts, of what he said of The People and their descent from glory. I assure you the results are quite… fascinating.” He continued on, “and more than that, it was supported by other sources we have found in other ruins. Orsino will not be happy; he will likely know I have pointed you in the right direction…”
The man stopped, motioning to the oldest, dustiest bookshelves in the entire library, still grinning like a mad fool, “It is worth it. Nothing could conceivably be more worth it at this point in time.”
Rey stepped forward, pressing the palm of one of her hands against the back of the books. For a moment, time seem suspended, the dust motes caught in a beam of light giving the books themselves an otherworldly feel, as if she could reach out and touch the past through them.
“Are these all translations?” she asked, but she asked the air, for the man was gone and when she scanned the room with her eyes, he was nowhere to be found.
It wasn’t until weeks later, after her paper had been written and turned in, that she saw him again.
It was only a moment, as he slipped out of a classroom, a beat up green blazer hanging from his shoulders, brown sweater vest again making him look shapeless, like a cloud made of knitted wool. He was holding a briefcase, and she could see the stack of papers clutched to his chest, which marked him almost certainly as a professor, and not a librarian at all.
The man didn’t see her, hurrying off down the hall, his shoes making little noise as the hit the tile floor and he took a sharp left toward the stairs, not the elevator. And yet she wondered if she could find him on the university’s website now.
In a way, she was afraid, for a while she had almost convinced herself he was a very homely and helpful ghost. To give him a name beyond “Eccentric Elf” was a bit daunting, but she quickly opened up her browser regardless and quickly tried to find him under History professors.
He was there, staring back at her, a rather severe expression on his face that was completely different from the one he had worn in the library. She wasn’t surprised to see him listened as a professor of Ancient Elvhen History, specifically, but there was very little information on him besides.
Rey didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. Part of her wanted to talk to him, to learn more about his mysterious grudge against Orsino (a literature professor who professed to understand the complex history of the last several thousand years of Elven oppression better than anyone), but she held back. She wasn’t sure what to do now that he had a name and a face.
Solas, Professor of Ancient Elvhen History.
Solas, the man in the library.
“Do you always sit on the floor in the hallway alone?”
Rey started again, looking up into the face of the Professor, his briefcase still in hand, papers still under arm, a curious expression on his face. She could only assume he had forgotten something, and then noticed her sitting alone out here (where she had gone to get away from the noise of the Commons on Reggae Tuesday).
“Only when the music would give me a headache otherwise,” she said, searching his expression for… she didn’t know what. “I… Uh, took your suggestion, though I’m not sure how Professor Orsino would feel about a History professor giving me hints.”
“It’s not as if you have to cite me as your source, and he cannot prove it,” the man said, smiling easily again. “Did you choose to write your paper on Ancient Elvhenan’s collapse?”
He was so curious that she couldn’t help but give him an honest answer. “Yes, actually. It felt… I don’t know… It felt like it would be a waste not to read those books after you showed them to me.” She didn’t mention how lonely they had felt, and that was part of why she had read them. “My brother is interested in the study of Elvhenan, so it reminded me of a bit of him.”
She took a breath and continued, not giving him a chance to speak, though he didn’t look in danger of interrupting her. “I had no idea there was supposedly a civil war several hundred years before the Imperium ever marched on Elvhenan. I had no idea that the Quickening had happened before steady contact with humans, if it was something that really happened at all. There’s so much we don’t learn in school, not even on the Rez.”
“The Dalish do not have any more access to the research than any other group of Elves, considering that the Elven Education Act is a development of the last 60 years, and even then, most are not taking advantage of it.” To her momentous surprise, he sat down beside her, setting his briefcase down on the ground between them. “There is not much that can be done to change the situation. Magic is a memory, and even if it were not… The means to revive it completely were long ago lost.”
“Do you really think there’s no chance at all?” Rey looked at him, feeling skeptical, the vallaslin on her face feeling as heavy as the last two thousand years. “Of things getting better?”
“I did not say there was no chance, just that the chance was small. People would have to care more, but alas…” he waved his hand. “We’re far past the point where violent revolution would do anyone any good, and protest is seldom heard, if at all. Men like Orsino can scream all they like, but their voices will never be listened to until they learn how to navigate a society where the shemlen rule.”
“And have you done that?” She looked at him. “Have you… learned to navigate their society? Or have you given up?” Like her Keeper, resigned to the fate of the Dalish on reservations for the rest of eternity, never again one people, never again themselves.
“I never give up,” he said, and in that moment she saw something in his face that was almost… attractive, ageless, outside of the shapeless sweaters and the threadbare blazers, something noble and powerful. “Submission is not in my nature, nor, I suspect, is it in yours.”
For a moment, she wavered, wondering how she should respond to his words. There were a million things she could think of doing, and all of them were probably stupid. Besides, there were 10 minutes left before her next class, and it was in a third floor biology room. She would have to sprint to get there, since students weren’t allowed to take the elevator unless they were disabled or injured.
Finally, she settled on a course of action, perhaps the stupidest, most rash thing she could have done, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
Revasel smiled, tore off a page in one of her notebooks, and wrote her cell phone number in purple pen for him. “I don’t know,” she said, “why don’t you call me and find out?”
The surprise in his face quickly gave way to a wolfish smile.