Solo His Other Name

[Philomena]

Winter 17, 512
Wright Memorial Library, Zeltiva
------------------------------------

//Everto… Everto… Everto… here we are! 'Effertew.' Maybe that is them? The address… that is a sailing address - or, no, its grown out of that now, with the new row-houses, but it was, certainly when I was a girl… Effertew, house, seventeen occupants. Names not provided. Petch. At least there's an address...//

"I'm trying to figure out how to show… that Grimbault wouldn't have used a house metaphor to refer to his mother."

Duna Hawpuller was a prototypical poor little rich girl, and Minnie knew that this predisposed her to dislike the student. But nonetheless, she began to believe that Hawpuller was purposely looking to interrupt her when she looked busiest, simply to annoy her into giving her answers. Minnie did not care so much about fairness, if she was honest to herself, but she hated the though of this little brat obtaining a doctorate simply because she knew how to wheedle professors into doing her work for her.

"Have you read the hagiography on her? Its remarkably well-sourced as far as such things go."

"But how do I take the sources and find what I want from them?"

Minnie sighed, audibly. Duna smiled in a dull, mindless way.

//Petching Hawpullers have enough money, they'd probably get this little nit a place on the faculty, too. Doctoral process is the only safeguard we have.//

"Well, you'd have to read them, Duna, and then see if they lead you on to anything else."

There was a moment of silence, and Minnie turned back to the book: an epidemiological census of the Lower city, made as part of an effort to map and fight a bloody flux that had laid half the sailing fleet low in 472(?).

//Come on, think Minnie… why would they have not taken any names?//

"Dr. Lefting, don't you ever get tired of it all?"

She cringed slightly, "What is that, Duna?"

"Don't you ever get tired… you know… of figuring out these little mysteries? I mean, none really reads them anyway, except for… you know… more of us. Just scholars."

The grouping of herself in with the flighty ne'er do well made Minnie cold.

"No. I do not get tired of it. It is what I do."

"Yeah, but, I mean… like someday you'll be dead, and people will say, like… this is Dr. Lefting. She wrote some books none of us have ever read."

"Duna… why did you enter University?" the question came out much harsher han she meant it too, and Minnie immediately reproached herself. The girl wasn't bad. She wasn't even lazy. If Minnie was honest, she even saw a bit of herself in the girl - more than anything else, the child simply lacked confidence. She'd been the same wreck during her own thesis - only she had taken the opposite tack, and withdrawn from any help at all.

"I…" the girl was a bit shaken, "I dunno. I was just kidding, really, I… I mean, I guess, its 'cause I like poetry."

Minnie nodded, and put down her stylus.

//This is your job, Minnie. You need to do this. Do you think none will notice if you withdraw from your work, to this little mystery of yours? If you are to do this, you must do both.//

Minnie looked at the girl, hard, and her smile had a genuine gentleness to it, "But, what'd you like about it? The sound? Reading it? The history?"

"Oh god, not that last!"

"So what was it, Duna?"

Duna squirmed, frowned, looked down at the table, "You know. I just like it." The answer didn't sound sullen, it sounded evasive.

Minnie frowned. She did not like to touch her students, but then, that was largely because she knew they did not wish to be touched. There were moments, perhaps when that changed - usually Minnie was wrong about those moments. But she could not resist the draw of them, and she moved a hand forward now to touch the one Duna rested on her book, "Tell me."

Duna turned a dark red, and stared steadfastly at her book. But then, if scholarship teaches one anything, it is patience. Minnie waited. And waited. Finally the girl spoke.

"I was… when I was little, I had… this is stupid…"

"No, tell me. I'm your advisor, anything you say, I will keep to myself," Minnie worked hard to push the whining quality from her voice.

"I had these dreams, okay?"

Minnie frowned, said nothing for a moment, but then spoke, softly, "Dreams? Good dreams?"

"No. All sorts of dreams. I had these dreams, and in the dreams, nobody ever talked, or… like, they did… like they were talking, but… you know how in dreams, sometimes theres… like theres something you just can't do? I couldn't understand people talking. Then, when I was nine I had this tutor, who read me these poems, you've probably never heard of them, they were… stupid kid poems. 'The Rose and the Bladderwrack', stuff like that."

"Puffin's Book of Pedantic Verse. I have read it. It was published as a duodec the same year as the second edition of the Circumnavigation."

Duna gave her an odd look, but ignored the comment, "Yeah. Ok. So, I read it, then, I could hear people talking in my dreams, they talked in poems, just like the ones in Puffins."

Minnie took a deep breath, and smiled, squeezing the hand, "Duna, that's an absolutely beautiful story."

"Yeah, sure."

Minnie squeezed the hand agin, more insistently, "No, I mean it, I … do you know, the problem with your thesis is that you aren't interested in it. Where did you get this topic, anyway?"

"You pointed it out to me."

Minnie dropped the girl's hand, waving her own hand dismissively, "Pah, you took an idea from me? Duna, why would you do a thing like that? I like dull, tedious things that drive you mad."

Duna, shrugged, hunched in, "I dunno. I figured, that's what professors study, you know? That's what they talk about it in class. So and so is from the such and such period. This or that shows the influence of who or what. Blah-blah."

Minnie shook her head, "No! No, that's poppycock! Come, get up. Get up. We're throwing that damned thesis away."

Duna frowned, "Dr. Lefting, I've been writing this for two months."

"Petch it. Two wasted months. We won't waste another day. Do you want to check the box and get a degree? Then I'll write the petching thing for you. Do you want to learn to be a doctor? A real doctor, in the real sense of the word? Come. We must find you a better subject. Dreams. Dreams, that is a good place to start."

Duna shook her head, "Look, its just a thing… I mean its stupid, none will read a paper about how I had weird dreams when I was a kid."

"No, no, of course not. Get up. Have you read the Nysellian poets? You haven't, I'm sure of it. You need to, come…"

Minnie walked, and waited for the girl to follow.

-----------------------------

Thirty minutes later, Minnie had loaned Duna a second tablet. The girl sat between two small piles, one a stack of the works of the poet Alice Wherryoar, the second a pile of her annotated journals and letters.

"What is a leviathan?"

Minnie looked up from a student list for the University from just before she was born - No Everto's, but then in the 'no surname' section, she'd found an Igon. And then nothing to match it the next year. This seemed odd, but it was so close close to Ignotus…

"Leviathan? Old word, mostly in middle common, it means whale. Does she use the word?"

"Yes, in 'On a Dream of a Thousand Fishes."

Minnie frowned, "Really? I didn't realize that… I don't know her as well. But Leviathan… write down Dorrin Howell, eh…. The White Leviathan. Its an oral poem from just post Val, big influence on the Dirians, because of its non-linear style… you might find some connections there that would interest you."

"White? White!"

The comment made no sense, but the girl reburied herself in the book, with an excitement that Minnie felt a certain almost-motherly thrill for. She turned back to the page.

"Names… multiple names… why would he change it? Why…"

"What's that?"

Minnie looked up startled, "Oh… I'm sorry, was I talking out loud?"

"Yeah… what are you studying."

Minnie frowned cagily, "Just… something for a friend. They have a… character who changed their name, that's all. Trying to understand why."

"Like their first name? They a magician?"

Minnie looked startled, "Maybe…"

"I took history of magic my first year, thought maybe… it'd be more fun. Totes wasn't. But magicians, they used to change their names, long time ago, if they were, like, poor or something. Magonyms. Only freaks do it anymore. Some of the kids in class used to do it as a joke. Called me 'Duraria'. Sounds stupid, huh?"

Minnie frowned. There was a poem where a mage's name changed - The Lay of the Benshira, she hardly remembered it, now. There was so much to know in the world!

"No… no, that's… that's very helpful."

//Magonym… Magonym… ashamed of his past. Yes, of course…//

[Delirium]

Experience Rewards

Philomena :

Experience

Teaching	3xp
Research	1xp

Lores:
dreams where people talk in poetry
History: mages change their names

Notes: Sometimes I wish Philomena was my teacher >.> I simply adored how she handles her student. A wonderful threads as always

If you have any queries with the grading, pleas don't hesitate to PM me