Chapter Text
When Rayla arrived at the University, she wasn’t looking forward to the day ahead. As the acting field researcher, she had been asked to sit in on the interview process for the applicants hoping to join their team. Whoever they picked was going to go on digs, and organise the lab notes; probably end up writing out the manuscripts, stuff like that. They had a bunch of people to go through, but Rayla didn’t have her hopes all that high.
Grabbing a coffee to get her through until lunch time, Rayla slouched her way into the office, checked herself over in the mirror to make sure she was neat and presentable, and sat down behind the desk to wait for her boss and the first applicant. Her hair was trying to escape the ponytail she had wrangled it into that morning before walking to work in the wind. She sighed, uncapped a pen, and started doodling in her notebook. By the time Professor Tenebris arrived, she had drawn the rough outline of an Avizandum tempestas skeleton.
“Morning,” the Professor said bracingly.
“Mornin’, gov.” Rayla replied, taking a sip of coffee.
“Right,” they sat down beside her, and gave her a level look over their glasses.
Rayla rather liked Professor Tenebris. They were immensely passionate about their work, but not stuffed so hard up their own backside that they weren’t willing to listen to what the young whelps like Rayla were hypothesising (which could be a massive deal when you were trying to carve a niche out for yourself in the world of academia). That, and they were always dressed spectacularly; today they had gone for a tie with a bunch of cartoon archaeodraconids in technicolour, and a salmon pink button-down shirt.
“Lovin’ the tie, Prof.” Rayla admitted with a sly smile. “Brings out your eyes,”
Tenebris gave her a wry smile of their own before tapping the doodle on her notes. “Loving the sketch. Right then. Shall we get started?”
The interview process was long and boring, and by the third applicant downright unbearable; some rando from Neolandia who tried to flirt with Rayla and probably had his brains in his biceps. She highly doubted he had done a lot, if any work towards his apparent masters, because he couldn’t answer the simplest palaeobiology related questions either of them threw at him, and couldn’t even remember the title of his thesis. The woman who came after him at least knew that much, but she was severely lacking in confidence and admitted that she’d rather do anything than statistics. What they needed on the team was someone who was comfortable with the research process, capable of balancing independent enquiry with following directions, and fit in with the other nutters already in their department. And who preferably knew their way around statistics would be a massive bonus because that was currently Rayla’s job, and she hated it.
“Please tell me we’re done here for the day,” Rayla moaned, staring longingly at the clock on the wall and wishing lunch time would get here sooner.
“Two more to go, and then we can eat.” Tenebris promised, rearranging the glasses on their nose. “Prince and Smith. Okay then, bring the next one in,”
Rayla went to the door and stuck her head round the corner, barking impatiently, “Callum Prince?”
One of the two guys sitting in the chairs against the wall stood up, and Rayla looked him up and down dubiously, noting his messy, windswept hair, among other things. His laces didn’t match his shoes, and he had buttoned up his navy-blue cardigan incorrectly. The kind of mistakes her PhD supervisor would have crucified her over if she’d ever dared turn up to meetings dressed like that. He smiled pleasantly enough at her, shook her hand at the door, and Rayla invited him in with a jerk of her head. She sat down beside the Professor, and the interviewee looped the strap of his messenger bag over his head to sit on the other shoulder.
“Please, sit down,” Tenebris gestured at the chair on the other side of the desk.
“Thank you,” he said politely, and took his seat. He was wearing a red scarf wound round his neck, despite being indoors in a warm building.
While Tenebris went through the usual ice breakers, Rayla flicked through Prince’s CV, and found herself not overly impressed. Going through the notes this week for the interviews, Rayla had found this prospective assistant distinctly lacking. His degree – just a bachelors, not a masters – was in wildlife ecology, and he’d studied a bunch of artsy fartsy subjects at school (Fine Art, Psychology, Katolian Literature and Classical Draconic), then gone to an art college and worked for a few years in freelance graphics design before doing an HE Access course and going onto a science degree. They needed a hard-core scientist, not a Humanities reject who thought that because he knew his way around a graphics tablet that meant he was an artist. There had been someone on her degree course like that, who had always been drawing her own diagrams and renditions of what she thought a particular species might look like. And while there had been nothing wrong with that, the bitch just never shut up about it – to the point that anyone else in the department in the habit of drawing pictures for their assignments kept their mouths shut for fear of being tarnished with the same brush.
Being Rayla, she was rather snarky to the guy when it came her turn to ask questions.
“So what makes you think you’re qualified for this position?” she asked.
He nodded, and replied with, “I’m very conscientious with my notes, I have a good eye and memory for detail, and I feel my artistic skills could assist in your work on archaeodraconids.”
“Mmhmm.” Rayla hummed dismissively, turning over his CV in her hands. “This is an interestin’ choice in A Levels for a scientist.” She tapped the offending paragraph and looked over the top of the papers, leaning back casually in her chair. She was pretty much done with this for the day by now.
“I had a change of heart in my early twenties,” he said evenly, sitting up straight in his chair. “So I went back to college to do an HE Access course in biological sciences, and I got the qualifications I needed to go study ecology. If you look at my transcript,” he gestured at the paperwork in Rayla’s hands, “I took several modules in evolutionary biology, and my mammalian biology module covered a lot of palaeobiology.”
“But your degree is in ecology.” Rayla stated more than asked. She put the CV down and turned to look at Tenebris, who was watching her steadily and said nothing for the moment. She knew she was going to get a lecture on her attitude later, but this close to her late lunch break, she was almost beyond caring. When she was already stressed about something (like their lack of hands on the team, and with deadlines to meet, grants to chase), Rayla was very susceptible to fits of hangriness; the rest of the team knew to keep out of her way when that happened.
“Yes.” The applicant said slowly. “It is. But a lot of the knowledge needed to underpin successful conservation efforts relies on understanding the evolutionary biology of your species of interest. I may not have the specific training in palaeontology, but a lot of the fundamentals are similar. I’m a quick learner, and I have a lot of transferable skills to bring to this role.”
Tenebris opened their mouth to speak, but Rayla beat them to it, “What kind of transferable skills? Bein’ able to draw well and organise an office space isn’t exactly what we’re after.”
Before Tenebris could speak, the guy nodded to a heavy book by their elbow on the desk. It was the most up to date copy of the Draconia, procured for the team’s mini library collection by pre-order at great expense just a few months ago. It catalogued every known species of dragon, both extant and extinct, in excruciating detail.
“Pick a page from that book, and I’ll tell you what species is on it.”
Rayla snorted with laughter, and then stared at him disbelievingly when he shrugged and gave her a hard look, like he was daring her to do it. And because he made it a challenge, she wouldn’t back down. Rayla grabbed the book and held it up so that he couldn’t see what page she went to, and checked behind herself for any mirrors.
“Two hundred and sixty-three.” She said, fighting down the urge to smile at the picture on the page.
“That would be…” he tapped his fingers on his chin, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment. “An infant cloud dragon – specifically a cumulus, drawn by the palaeoartist Kirst specially for this edition of the Draconia.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly at Rayla. “And I believe on the previous page there’s a diagram comparing the known gaits of cloud dragons to modern storm dragons?”
Rayla’s jaw dropped open as she hastily flipped back a page, and saw that he was absolutely right.
“Intriguing.” Tenebris said, raising their eyebrows.
“You’re cheatin’.” Rayla said bluntly. “How could you possibly know that?!”
The wannabe palaeontologist grinned. It wasn’t a triumphant smile; it was gentle, reaching all the way to his dark green eyes, and full of passion. “I have a photographic memory, and my Dad’s friend collects textbooks. I borrowed his copy to have a look through for my portfolio.” He lifted three thick sketchbooks out of his messenger bag, and laid them on the table. “I haven’t had formal training, but a couple of my classmates at Uni loved fossil hunting, so we used to go beach combing together after coastal surveys. And whenever my family go on holiday near any good dig sites, I go out with my camera and sketch book to document what I find.”
Tenebris had a quick skim through the books, and started asking more pointed questions that Rayla only half listened to as she went through his portfolios. One sketchbook was purely drawings, in graphite and charcoal, and the occasional watercolour; the second was full of photographs of fossil sites, neatly catalogued and cross referenced with the first book. The third was a mixture of photos, print offs and newspaper clippings, alongside beautiful sketches of a variety of ancient animals as science informed how they had probably looked in life. This included a double page spread of a variety of different Parasaurolophus walkeri colourations and patterns, drawn in different postures and gaits, captured midstride. Prince’s own rendition of what a cloud dragon had looked like involved a mottled pattern of blue, grey and white, that looked like real clouds you would see in the sky. The annotation underneath it read: gratuitous artistic licence taken.
“How long have you been working on these?” Tenebris asked as Rayla tuned into the conversation again, putting the sketchbook down on the pile, trying to cover her surprise and utter delight with his pictures.
“A few years now,” Prince slid the books across the table to sit in front of him, and gave them both a shy kind of smile. “I’ve always been interested in dinosaurs and things like that. I chose to study ecology because I, rather naïvely at the time, thought conservation biology was more relevant and important today. Then, our lecturers kept bringing us back to the importance of evolutionary science in conservation, so I kept tinkering with this as a side project for fun. When I was doing some wider reading I found your project in an article and followed the links to the University page, because the title sounded so interesting. After graduation, I saw you had a position open, so I thought I’d apply.”
“And what about the project drew your attention?” Tenebris asked, looking at the man over their steepled fingers.
“I guess…it really struck a chord with me. I’m really passionate about protecting our natural world, and I thought your aims in this research to support current conservation efforts for dragon species was such a great idea. I mentioned I was going for this interview to some colleagues in that field, and I believe they’ve already emailed you about potentially collaborating in the future,”
“Ah, yes. The Pentarchy Institute have been in touch,” Tenebris smiled at him. “They seem very engaging and enthusiastic on the subject.”
Rayla folded her hands together and sat quietly while the Professor chatted to their prospective research assistant a bit about the Institute and who there he went to Uni with. She felt she had pegged him at the beginning all wrong; listening to him talk now that he had found his footing, he was so compelling and passionate, and actually quite knowledgeable, albeit not quite in the way she had originally been hoping for with regard to the position. And his drawings were absolutely beautiful. And so detailed! Her mind was already running through all the uses she could put that memory of his to. She had almost forgotten her hunger by the time the interview ended.
Tenebris asked her if she would like to add anything, and Rayla said, “No, I think we’re good.”
It was a good sign for this Callum Prince that both she and Tenebris stood up and shook his hand before seeing him out. He smiled warmly and thanked them both for their time today before he left. Back inside the office, Rayla fixed her boss and mentor with a steely gaze.
“And that look is in aid of…what, precisely, Rayla?” they asked with a tired sigh as they adjusted their tie.
“Do we really need to interview this-” she looked down at the list. “Smith person? Wow, this hand writin’s terrible. Is that an ‘X’ or an ‘R’ after the M?”
Tenebris chuckled as they sat down in their chair and waved at the door imperiously. “Bring forth the next victim, Rayla.”
XOXO
Instead of spending the afternoon on those grant deadlines, Tenebris and Rayla mulled over the applicants, and took their thoughts to the rest of the team before the end of office hours. They were a mixed bunch; the University was in Katolis, but was right on the border with Xadia, and half the team were Xadian. Camille was from Lux Aurea, and the Professor from the Feywood, which was a valley over from where Rayla had grown up in the Silvergrove. They also had a Katolian native called Mary and a PhD student from Duren named Evan.
The group stayed in their conference room (the fancy word they used to describe their kitchenette) for a good two hours debating what their primary needs were, and who in the list of applicants best suited them.
The Neolandian guy looked good on paper, but Rayla shot that thought down pre-emptively, thinking that someone like that would have made the work environment unbearable for everyone. She thought Prince was the best candidate, and argued with Evan for ages about it. He was good enough that investing some time in training him further would be worth their while, and he had demonstrated his enthusiasm for reading in and around different subjects. That, and Rayla thought he would be a good fit personality wise; everyone here loved their work and were incredibly passionate about what they were doing, and this guy was both confident within himself and gentle in his bearing, meaning he was unlikely to contribute to a toxic work environment.
Evan remained mostly unconvinced, for the same reason Rayla had initially looked down on the guy: those early A level subjects and his chosen degree.
“You’re telling me the art college reject whose dissertation title is-” Evan squinted at the notes from the meeting. “‘The disturbance effects of urban development on small mammal distribution’, is the one we should pick? This Patel guy can’t have been that bad,”
Rayla snorted into her coffee cup. “Trust me. Mary, Camille’n ’I’d’ve killed him before the end of the first day.”
“Yes,” Camille said with a frown. “Let’s avoid that scenario.”
“As Rayla pointed out,” Tenebris said evenly, leaning over the table and fixing them each in turn with that calm expression of theirs that discouraged further argument. “He’s eager to learn, takes initiative, and has a lot of useful skills we can make use of.”
“Well,” Mary threw her hands up with a shrug. “I’ll vote for him. The comment about the Statistics SOS Manual fill me with hope.”
“Yeah…” Evan flopped back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. “It’d be great to give the stats to someone else.”
Rayla pressed her lips together in a thin line to keep from sniggering. Prince had pulled a face and said he could do stats, and could use the programmes specified by the institute, but he wouldn’t be happy about it. Very few ever were, but at least he was prepared to do it – which was more than could be said for the applicant that came before him.
“Okay,” Camille said, a bit more brightly. “Professor, what do you think?”
“I won’t appoint him without your collective approval.” Came the measured response.
“Bring him in for a couple of hours. What do you call that? Call back interview?” Mary asked. “Then we can make a final decision.”
“Rayla, could you contact Mr Prince and arrange for him to come back…hmm, say early next week sometime? And Miss Hartridge, too. That is, if you are all in agreement about her credentials…?”
Rayla jotted this down on a scrap piece of paper while the rest of them umm’ed and ahh’ed over the question, hoping that whoever they did decide on was a good note keeper. Goodness knows they were going to need it.