A Human History

"Of course not," Urvi answered first.

"Not in the centuries I've known her," the Professor added. "She did marry Darlae after all. Was quite the bit of news when everyone found out, wasn't it Urvi."

"Half the people who knew her didn't see it coming," Urvi chuckled. "The other half... well, we saw the signs ages ago."

Kir almost breathed out a sigh of relief. He didn't know how he'd react if the answer had been any different.

"But yes, back to Bridget." Ingotszen said, clearing his throat. "How did my worst student manage to raise a son with such an appreciation of the historical process?"

Kir flinched. "Well... it wasn't by teaching me history. My scores were abysmal, remember?"

"Yet your class participation has been exemplary and your insights logical, even if they are based more on material circumstances than the ideological narratives of the times we've discussed," Ingotszen said. "So I must ask what Bridget did teach you, or if it was Darlae that provided for your insights?"

Urvi snorted a bit into her tea at the notion that Darlae taught Kir his appreciate for history.

Kir suppressed a grimace, remembering when Darlae once told him 'I focus more on dealing with people trying to kill me than knowing why they're trying to kill me'.

To be fair, participating in class was better than falling asleep, and he needed a good grade. "I'm not really much of an idealist," he said. "Bridget taught me that magic is fundamentally the process by which mind and spirit impose themselves on the world, drawing forth mental phenomena and converting them into physical ones. I apply the reverse of that logic to history because physical phenomena inform mentality." He was dancing around the subject of what he really believed because he didn't really know his audience.

"How so?" the professor asked.

Kir pursed his lips as he tried to think up an example that Bridget might have inadvertently brought up. But then he realized he was sitting in this meeting because of something very much related to what he'd explained. "Take your memoirs for example. You want to include human opinions from a known and trusted source, but the woman you want isn't physically here. Therefore, you asked to talk to me to supply you with something you wanted but couldn't otherwise get without spending more resources to contact her."

"That sounds like basic economics," Ingotszen chuckled. "Are you saying that the understanding of history you learned from Bridget is fundamentally economical?"

"In a manner of speaking..." Kir answered. "All beings being equal, the scarcity of resources informs how societies grow and develop and what form of society fits the environment. Where would Norneau be without witches to improve farming? The fields would need to be everywhere instead of just along the roads." Kir had noticed closer to the city that farms mostly followed the roads, with forests beyond. As Bridget once told him, there simply was no need to put farms everywhere when one witch could refresh the land and encourage crops to grow to fruition on a weekly basis, or even shorter depending on if a country or city even wanted a surplus.

The professor reached behind him and pulled a small notebook off of the bookcase next to the couch. He started scribbling notes into it. "Remarkable. I had thought you and I had a bit of a kinship in understanding that history is alive and useful; and while I still think that, you have given me an entirely new direction towards which to think. Tell me, are you aware of Paragon Theory?"

"I am not," Kir readily admitted. "What does it entail?"

"The notion that great individuals define history. You, my boy, have the makings of a great historian... if you can prove your economic theory of history that is," he smiled wistfully. "Perhaps Bridget's inclusion in my memoir can be your footnote if you apply yourself to this nascent philosophy of yours. Fill it with facts and sources."

"You see, most of your peers simply memorize the facts and sources, they won't come at history with theories like yours until much later. If many of them stick with history as their core of study, they'll likely simply tell the stories for decades like I did. It's creating a lens that matters; a mode of thinking through which to view what has happened. I saw it in the first paper you turned in, just as I saw hints of it in your entry exam. The things you have demonstrated to me are things I did not approach until halfway through my life... and you aren't even twenty yet." He chuckled.

Kir felt odd about the notion of himself as a historian, much less a philosopher. Just as he felt odd about having this conversation about Bridget turn more towards him. What he was sure of, though, was that he didn't want to define history by writing it. He wanted to make a life for himself on his terms, whether or not that meant winding up historical.

So he said, "With respect, Professor, but I would rather spend my life changing the world for the better than interpreting it. That is the purpose I mean to set for myself. Perhaps afterward I can consider adding a lens to the practice of history, but not now."

Not until I'm done sorting out things with my family, that is. Kir thought.

Urvi took that moment of silence to add her opinion.

"Groyg, you just want someone who's going to outlive you to slot themselves into that chair over there," she gestured at the one behind his desk with a clawed hand. "Let the boy live his life." Then she turned to Kir. "He tries to have a similar conversation with students like you at least once a year. Last year it was this foxkin girl-"

"You are simply jealous because I never had this conversation with you," Professor Ingotszen disagreed.

"No, but since we became colleagues you've had it plenty of times in front of me over the last century. You should just write Karl and offer him your chair so you can finish your damn books." She jabbed him in the chest with a claw before lifting the teapot with her other hand and offering him a refill.

He picked up his cup to be filled. "Karl is a radical. I'd sooner hand my chair over to a rotten wheel of cheese than let that dragon take my seat."

Those words piqued Kir's interest. "Is he a literal dragon?" Kir asked.

"Don't be silly. He's a human. Or half-human, I forget. Just one who believes in strange historical conspiracies," Urvi said. "For a mere mavin, I think he's interesting."

"Mavin?" Kir asked.

"Someone with a specific supernatural talent or ability, but no general ability to use magic. A lesser mage in terms of capability, but often strong in their specific power. They pop up from time to time," Urvi explained. "They commonly become guards, knights, or adventurers."

"Karl thinks all the world's races crawled out from the Great Dungeon of Duat," the Professor added incredulously, "Of course, his theory can't be proven unless someone gets to the bottom of that dangerous hole, which no one has done in recorded history. The last expedition to make it past the sixth stratum returned half insane and more than half dead."

This was the second time this week that Kir had heard about dungeons. The subject simply had never come up with his moms, who were more interested in having a good life with each other.

"May I ask... what is the Great Dungeon of Duat?" Kir ventured. "And what does this Karl believe about it, specifically?"

"It's just a big hole in the ground," Ingotszen said with a huff.

"You're just mad because we never got past the tenth layer," Urvi said. "Tell the boy something useful. He'll hear about it eventually." She returned to sipping her tea.

The Professor rolled his eyes before continuing. "Some call it the Mother Labyrinth, the Prime Dungeon, the Tower Unreal, or the Abyss of Madness. It is under the oasis city of Aaru, and all dungeons connect to it somehow. A place of anomalies and monsters, where only the strong survive."

"It's also the one place in the world that has never suffered under a Heavenswar," Urvi added. "I imagine it will be quite crowded now that the Eye of Hell is opening." She gave Kir a wink, and he knew that what she said was for his benefit; should he reject being sought out as a weapon in the war to come.

"It's also in the middle of the Whirling Ocean, which is why Karl's theory is rotted iron," Ingotszen asserted. "I doubt he's even been past the tenth layer!"

"He sold the school samples from the third strata last year, Groyg," Urvi prodded. "Each stratum is ten layers," she added for Kir's sake.

"Probably hired stronger adventurers to do it for him. There were inconsistencies in his sketches-" the Professor huffed.

"He forgot to sign one! The page was torn!" Urvi countered. "You're just mad the most interesting historian of this boy's generation is from Drohke," she gestured at Kir.

"I'm just saying that history shouldn't be so... sensationalized. It should be established through primary sources, not by trying to become both source and storyteller. He's no better than a bard," Ingotszen defended his position.

Kir sat there with his thoughts for a little while before finally standing.

"If there's nothing else, Professors, I'd like to go..."

By then, the two were so caught up in their argument they barely paid him any mind as he quietly picked up his chair to replace in its corner before slipping out the door, using the tip of his tail to pull it shut behind him.