A Star Wars Reylo AU: The Taming of the Professor

Six

The problem with Dr. Solo's office was that there wasn't anywhere to sit. There were chairs, besides the one at his desk, but they were covered with books and papers. Rey had followed him up after his lecture and was standing by the door, feeling awkward. He didn't appear to notice her as he trailed a finger along the spines of a group of books.

She moved around his desk to the big, round window and began to move and neatly relocate the books to the floor on either side. When she was finished, a wide windowsill made of rough bricks was exposed for sitting. She dropped her book bag down beside her and pulled out the texts he had assigned. She waited patiently, enjoying the cool glass against her back. Her apartment was stifling.

"What comedy did you select?" he asked over his shoulder.

"The Taming of the Shrew."

He turned then, focusing his attention on her. "An interesting choice. Why?"

She shrugged. "It's funny."

"As is appropriate for a comedy."

"It's the funniest. In my opinion, anyway."

"And the tragedy?"

"King Lear."

A curt nod. "What about it intrigues you?"

She squirmed a bit, shifting on the bricks and pulling her legs up under her. "Lear suffers so much hardship. But the worst is that the only daughter who truly loved him ends up dead just like the rest. It's an unbearable kind of tragic. Power twists people, and Lear doesn't understand how deep it cuts until it's far too late. Lear is a paragon of hubris."

"Why are you in this program?"

Because I'm so accustomed to school that I can't imagine living as a normal person. Because my undergrad loans are deferred if I'm in grad school. Because I secretly want to be a perpetual student. Because I love literature, and I can't imagine being away from a place like this where others love it, too. Because I have no where else to go. She forced her face out of a scowl and and took a moment to adjust to the shift in questions.

"Because I want to learn to write." She decided that was the most appropriate, benign response.

He sat in his desk chair and swiveled to face her. She couldn't read his facial expressions, and it set her on edge. She realized too late that she had placed him between her and the door. Stupid, she chided herself.

Then she reconsidered. He wasn't dangerous. She could spot dangerous men with very little effort. Bar tending offered the perfect opportunity to practice that skill. She just didn't know him. He must sense her tension though. She was apparently much more transparent than him. He shifted back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. Not dangerous, she amended, but he moved with an abnormal fluidity that made her wonder if he could be.

"You are the most skittish student I've ever advised," he said, his tone light. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"No." She couldn't think of anything she wanted less.

He studied her for a moment, and then looked over her head out the window. "As you wish. I've been told to consider the needs of my students. My last advisory experience was . . . trying."

"Finn?"

A pause, and then an absent nod.

She hadn't seen any of the behavior from him that had scared her friends so much or facilitated the creation of his reputation. Sure, he had established high expectations and was demanding, but he hadn't been mean about it. She wondered how hard he was trying to "consider her" in response to his most recent failure. She had a strong suspicion Finn wasn't the only student on that list. Thinking of how he treated undergrads, scaring the living daylights out of them at every opportunity, she had some idea.

"I can't teach you to write," he said. "I can give you the best tools to become a great writer. What you do with them is your business."

She had heard such statements in the past. "OK."

"When you have read a thousand novels, you will be ready to consider publishing an original work. How many would you say you've read?"

"In my life?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. Maybe three hundred and fifty?"

"You have some work to do, then. I am attempting to explain why I assign so much reading. In the past, my students have struggled with the volume. I expect you will as well. It is critical that you read. I cannot stress this point enough. I'm not doing it to punish you."

She didn't know what to say in response. He almost sounded like he was pleading his case, not explaining it.

"Send me an analysis of Lear," he said after an uncomfortable stretch of silence. "Discuss Shakespeare's method of highlighting political authority and the risk of failure as opposed to Absalom and Achitophel. I'm interested in which you think was more effective at the time and place it was written."

'Piece of cake,' she thought. 'I'll just whip that right up.' She was proud of herself for not blurting it out.

"I'm not very politically minded," she said instead.

"Politics are laced through everything we read, write, and experience. You cannot divorce yourself from it. It is highlighted in governments and the rule of monarchs, in the case of Lear, but it also has to do with how we interact with established systems, our beliefs about policy, and our communities. It will play a role in everything you write. What is your favorite novel?"

"Pride and Prejudice," she said without thinking.

Actually, Dr. Solo could play a convincing Mr. Darcy - he was all aloof and 'early in the novel' Darcy-ish. He raised an eyebrow.

"I side with Mark Twain on that particular subject. Perhaps you should revisit your favorite novel and look for the politics oozing out of every chapter, both spoken and unspoken."

He dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and she was glad to be released early. His assignment would take her all weekend.