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Into the lab comes a distinguished visitor. She is tall, dark, and beautiful; her name is Marie Solanuit. Dr. Solanuit does not knock at the door, but enters moving silently, and the graduate student does not notice, so intent is he on his work. A word from her husky voice, his name. "Arthur." He looks up, his hazel eyes meeting her dark gaze. Arthur sets down the scalpel and tweezers he was plying so delicately, and stands, starting to offer his hand, but when he sees it, covered in the latex glove and over that, ratsblood, he withdraws the offer and bows his head in greeting instead, unimpeachably polite.
"You must be the visiting scholar that Professor Silver said would be visiting one day this week?" Arthur asks, hoping his surmise was accurate. It is, as the lovely woman nods her head, her shoulder-length dark brown hair hardly moving. He notices then that it is held in a fine gleaming mesh, a very wise laboratory precaution. Arthur's own long hair is held back by a coated rubberband and covered by medical headgear to keep it out of his way as he works.
"Please," says the woman with a light French accent, "you must finish your work. Then we may talk." Arthur nods; his own priorities being shared with hers, he assents silently and returns to work. It is a half hour later, the woman having watched silently the whole time, when he has finished, replaced the rat in its cage, cleaned his workspace and implements, and finally removed the gloves and washed up. The ritual complete, the woman speaks again. "You have a gift," she says.
Arthur gestures self-effacingly, as etiquette and his own nature both demand. "I am careful and work hard. It's ninety percent perspiration, as they say." He is both egotistical and humble; like most graduate students, he is realistic. He does the work, the professor takes the credit. It is how things are in the academy, and Arthur is not one to fight the system.
Marie smiles. "Then you have a gift for sweat," she says, an easy pleasantry, a bit of banter. The mood lightens. Arthur gives her a smile and it catches a gleam in his eyes. "Allow me to take you out of the lab for a little while?" she asks.
"Certainly, anything for a friend of my advisor's." Arthur pulls out his keys, ready to lock up as the two of them make their way out.
She took him to her car, a gleaming Japanese luxury sedan, and they rode in its quiet interior, the motor purring like a well-fed cat, to a small gathering of friends and colleagues. It was a late hour for a cocktail party, but Arthur did not let it disturb his equilibrium, knowing well that many of his fellow researchers cultivated the aura of eccentricity. Let them -- he knew the proper ways; it was not proper to correct one's hosts in any event. Arthur accepted a drink from the bartender, and offered to obtain one for Marie as well, but she demurred. "Not thirsty?" he asked her, but in answer she only smiled and tilted her head slightly.
Arthur knew she was flirting with him, but he did not know why. Certainly a woman as beautiful as her could have no lack of willing suitors. He discovered as the night went on and they went from conversation to conversation, that she was also highly intelligent, witty, and self-assured. Even more so was he inwardly confused by her advances. What could she see in him, really? Obviously she was interested in his research, but he would of course share that with a colleague of Professor Silver's, so she had no need to woo him for that. He had little else, he thought. His trust fund was certainly not enough to draw a woman of her caliber, nor were his looks, nor his charm... he did not know. And this made him uneasy.
He found himself, though, not wanting to resist. The reason was important, but he could think of no reason that would make him demur. She was everything he wanted in a woman, and more. After the party, she took him to her home - a truly beautiful, though small apartment. He found it odd that the windows were tightly shuttered with thick wooden panelling so that not a bit of the night shone in, but otherwise it was perfectly reflective of what he sensed as her personality: contemplative, tranquil, ferociously interested in knowledge, rapt in appreciation of human achievement over the millennia.
She had many books, but arranged so as not to appear cluttered. She had space and perfectly arranged lighting. A collection of glass paperweights; she gave him one to hold, it warmed at his touch, making him shiver slightly, and look at her again, and realize just how beautiful she was. Pure white walls, lovely portraits of women from earlier eras. He spotted a painting done in the manner of John Singer Sergeant, of the woman herself in nineteenth century garb, very clever and subtle joke, he thought. He looked at it, then at her, smiling to let her know he shared the joke. She smiled back enigmatically.
Gracefully, they danced the mating dance. Each knew the steps, each saw in the other a partner worthy. They joined in the bedroom, and he discovered the press of her mouth to his neck brought a bliss unlike any he'd known before.
By the end of their third date, he was hopelessly in love with her. When she asked him if he'd join her research team, leave the college for a while and work with her on her latest grant, he assented immediately, even though the work of his past two years was almost complete. He left it for another student to complete, or for the professor if no other student would take it up, and he entered into the Chantry walls for the first time. It was a year before he was allowed to leave, a year in which he learned many things, both startling and mundane, and in which he was carefully conditioned as to what secrets he could never reveal to anyone not an initiate. There were still many secrets he did not know, of course. He knew enough to know that. He also knew he'd found his true calling, these secrets called to his deepest being. Called to be known to him, Arthur Wake.