Chapter 1 #2
“And then proceeded to waste the university’s time and resources on a subject of no practical or scholarly use.”
“How can you say that?” Of everything she’d imagined hearing when she went before the committee, Ryn had never considered this.
Never dreamed that they might dismiss her without asking a single question.
“The Five Thrones share a significant stretch of border with the night elves, and there is a history of animosity between us, due in no small part to differences in language and culture, not to mention our entire understanding of the world and our place in it. If we could only gain a clearer perspective on their history through the study of their own myths and legends, perhaps we could…”
“They are just stories,” Hapscombe barked out. “For the training of children and the entertainment of the uneducated.”
“Nothing is just a story,” Ryn retorted sharply.
“And they aren’t just for children. Stories give a voice to our deepest selves, and tell us about something real in a way that everyone can understand.
I am convinced that folk tales such as these are an invaluable source of truth about intangible cultural rhythms and beliefs. ”
The man on Hapscombe’s left openly rolled his eyes. “And now the Baron’s unruly daughter will presume to explain how the most respected scholars in all of Abreia are wrong.”
“You are wrong,” she snapped, all decorous intentions left trampled in the dust of her indignation.
“Wrong about night elves, wrong about my father, and wrong about the value and meaning of myths and legends. The stories I researched for my paper are real, and the focal narrative has been a part of Dunmaren’s oral tradition for centuries.
Whether the people in it are real or a metaphor, I cannot say, but I know that the place exists because my father was there. He saw it, and…”
“Enough,” Hapscombe thundered. “Your so-called scholarly work is preposterous and your application for field research is denied. No matter how much money your father chose to donate to this university, we can no longer support your studies or your misplaced ambitions. Go home and find some petty lordling to marry, then foist your maudlin ramblings on your children. We are finished here.”
“This is completely and utterly unfair,” Ryn seethed, with a sense of injustice so profound it nearly brought her to tears. “I did everything you asked of me. Every bit of my work proceeded according to your own guidelines, and I have checked my sources painstakingly. You cannot just…”
“Out!” Hapscombe bellowed, “or I will be forced to call someone to remove you.”
Ryn’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes stung as sharply as her pride, but she knew when she’d reached the end of a chapter. Fair or not, there was nothing left for her here.
But she would never let them see her defeated. With a defiant tilt of her chin, she stared at each of the council in turn.
“You can bluster all you want,” she said firmly. “Tell yourselves whatever lies you need to justify your rejection of my application. But my work is sound and my story is true. With or without you, I will prove one day that my father is not a liar… and neither am I.”
Hapscombe opened his mouth, probably to call for her immediate removal, but Ryn was finished. She’d said what she needed to say, so she turned on her heel and stalked out, leaving the ashes of her hopes and ambitions behind her.
Anger carried her as far as the student dormitories.
It lent her the energy to stuff everything she owned haphazardly into a bag, then look around her with an almost dazed sense of finality.
It then sent her stomping out through the corridor, past a dozen or so wide-eyed junior students and through the front gate into the street…
where she was nearly run over by a wagon full of fish and forced to jump into a gutter full of muddy water, which promptly soaked her already dingy robes all the way to the knees.
A fitting end to her time as a scholar.
She’d had the nerve to be born to privilege, so they tossed her aside. Her wealthy father had always supported and encouraged her pursuits, so she was dismissed as a dilettante.
Eight years.
And they’d not only sneered in her face, they’d insulted the man who raised her to love stories.
To pursue the things she was passionate about, whether or not they were “acceptable.” They’d called his passion for life a mere obsession, his accounts of his travels hallucinations.
Belittled his scholarship and trampled on his love of learning.
No matter what they said, this wasn’t over.
She’d come too far to give up. With or without the support and funding from the university, she couldn’t go home now.
Her mother would only say thank goodness she’d abandoned her unrealistic ambitions.
Her aunt would pinch her lips together and say that’s what came of her brother’s indulgence of his youngest daughter, and then Ryn’s brother would suggest that she marry one of his friends and settle down.
They would laugh about her little “phase” and pretend that everything would be better now that she’d gotten over it.
Well, she hadn’t gotten over it. Maybe she never would. And not only because she didn’t want to, but because… it refused to leave her alone.
Yes, she’d always loved learning. Loved books, loved the pursuit of knowledge.
But more than that, this particular story had haunted her ever since she read her father’s journal at eight years old.
Waking or sleeping, she could see it, feel it, imagine every heart-rending detail until she knew she had no choice but to find out how it ended.
So she wasn’t about to quit. Not until she proved to everyone that this was more than just a phase or an obsession. Prove that she’d been justified in punching her cousin, and prove that her father had been telling the truth about the dreamlike place he’d encountered on his travels.
And maybe… just maybe… when at long last she laid eyes on that mysterious mist-shrouded valley for herself?
The dreams would finally stop.