timeimmemorial [One Last Fire]

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====== Time Immemorial: A Mural ======



It has to be that stupid golden pear that is making you feel this way. That is causing your tongue to loosen and your fingers to twitch. It's strange. You're not ordinarily a very chatty person, nor the type to share personal details that aren't relevant to the mission at hand. You're //certainly// not the type to unnecessarily  burden people with your... uh... greatest aspirations and most closely kept secrets.

You pause for a moment, fingers still tapping the side of your thigh. Stories... artwork tells stories... you just need paint... and a brush or two...

"Sarah?" Your head jerks to the side, momentarily removed from your reveries and you notice Adam staring at you curiously. "You're acting kinda weird, what's up?"

"Maybe I am... but... but I don't feel 'bad'. Just... 'different', d'ye know what I mean?" The look you give Adam is one you have used hundreds of times in the past. One searching for understanding, for empathy, for forgiveness, even.

Adam had also used it on you many times before.

He raises an eyebrow. "Sure, sure. But, what are you thinking? I'm no mind reader."

"Adam... you know how to paint, right? How do you feel about painting a mural?"

"Now?"

"//Right// now."

"But, what paint-ah!" Adam's question turns into a startled yelp as you grab his arm and drag him through the chambers of the tomb, searching for paints or materials to make paint.

You're not dumb. You studied the ancient Egyptians once upon a time. As a school kid who was much more interested in physical sciences and beating other kids at sport, sure, but your mind is like a steel trap when it comes to the funniest of things.

You and Adam peruse the Hall of Glory and the Hall of Knowledge until you find lapis lazuli to make blue pigments and the dried husks of cochineal beetles from which you can squeeze vibrant red. Adam makes a face when you explain this process to him and you are about to launch into one of your sisterly 'if you had paid more attention in school like Mum and Dad wanted' lectures, when he points out the obvious.

That there are pre-prepared pallets of pigment and reed brushes in a wooden chest in the Hall of Knowledge.

You take the lapis lazuli and beetles anyway.

Materials assembled, you and Adam stand before a mostly blank wall in the Great Hall. You say 'mostly', but there are some faded depictions of Beketaten with a cadre of cats while Amenken looks off into the distance like he wants to ignore his wife's feline obsession.

Huh, look at you, feeling so giddy from this pear-induced passion project that you are inventing stories for people long since dead.

You turn to your twin brother, a reed brush dipped in blue dye in hand. Adam glances back, having rolled up the sleeves of his simple black turtleneck, and grasping a brush of organish-red.

"I'm counting on you to help bring this to life, Adam," you say solemnly.

Adam nods, equally serious, though you see the corner of one eye twitching. Trying not to laugh.

"Of course, Sarah. Through our powers combined..."

"...A mural for the ages!" you declare, only feeling a little bit silly.

And that final shred of reservation fades as soon as you set the tip of your brush to the wall and make a giant swath of brilliant azure.

You no longer care 'why' you are gripped by such a desire to paint a story, to make some your inner thoughts and emotions visible for all who see this mural. All you care about as your fingers and arms are stained by pigment, your cheeks splashed with bits of excess dye, is that you convey 'what' you are feeling.

What you have been thinking and dreaming of since you landed in the very first Library Incarnation. No, before then, much, much earlier.

Since the day the meteorite cluster, with the Simplex aboard, hit Earth and all of your lives changed forever. Yours, Adam's, your parents, Hidashi's... every other former member of your crew on Antares 9.

You and Adam say nothing as you paint. You don't need to. The warmth of his body beside yours, arms move in sure strokes, and his brow furrowed in concentration in a way so uncannily similar to your own it reminds you again that you do share blood. And that you were forged in the same struggles.

Adam just chose to deal with the impact, the invasion, and its aftermath differently from yourself.

Your vision comes to life in bold, vibrant colour. The background is a myriad of expressionistic splatters and strokes across dramatic depictions of the Megalith 32 meteorite cluster piercing Earth's atmosphere, sending the parasitic Simplex across the world, disguised by natural disasters.

Painting such horrors was not as painful as you imagined. You and Adam are illustrating how the world changed broadly and not the individual struggles--the tiny agonies that accumulate and kill you slowly.

But the disaster that forever changed the Earth of your timeline is, again, only a backdrop.

You and Adam briefly discussed your ideas beforehand, but you are still stunned as it comes into being. Portraits of people. Your people.

Mum and Da have the forefront. Mum beaming warmly, a smile that needed no words. Da, looking as stern as ever, but with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, just like Adam had... has!

//Why do I keep thinking in past tense?!// You toss your head and dive further into the painting.

Hidashi is next. Again, still alive, but stuck in suspended animation. His loyal and hard-working personality captured in hues of warm oranges and yellows.

You add all the other crew members whose faces you can remember, even attempt the ones whose faces have blurred over time.

You notice Adam adds his friends and coworkers from his quirky art cafe, showing them as a rowdy group clinking fresh pints of lager together. Your heart swells in pride and affection as Adam crafts the lush highlands, sturdy stone buildings, and rugged cliffs of your homeland, of Scotland.

When you and Adam are finally done with the mural, your arms are aching and your eyes sting. You touch your cheek and your fingertips, dyed in pink, come away wet.

"Sarah."

At Adam's voice, you look at his face for the first time since you began the mural. His eyes are swollen from fresh tears as well.

"What do you want to call it?" he asks.

You pause for a moment, hands on your hips, gazing at the masterpiece you two had created together. Finally you decide.

"Time Immemorial."

Adam makes a soft sound of surprise. "Alright, but... why?"

"Because it will last outside of time, outside of memory, outside of history."

You extend an arm and wrap Adam in a side hug while you both gaze up at the newly titled mural.

"Just like us," you murmur.
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