Hard Light (NaNoWriMo15)

Chapter 8 - Intruder

"I'll be fine," said Leah quickly. "You keep recharging. I'll see you later."

She slipped inside and made it to her room without seeing anyone else. The low sun was still streaming in through the window, so Leah threw it open and set herself up in the puddle of sunshine to top off her heart as she worked.

As Kieran had promised, he'd gathered everyone's work from the day and left it in an organised pile beside the expedition journals she was to compile it all in.

Leah spent the first few minutes flicking through everyone's personal journals, trying to figure out the best way to organise it. Ideally, she'd have a map of the ruins at the beginning followed by an index, then the entirety of section one, then two, and finished up with three before she started extrapolating. It was more than a little frustrating not having all the information on hand, knowing she'd have more over the next two days and might run out of room.

Though what was perhaps even more annoying as she flicked through the journals was the lack of detail in some of the sketches. There were a few that had made the attempt to include the backgrounds of each mural, but most had done the bare minimum to capture the scene to the point that section one's sketches were nearly useless.

Section two's were a little bit of an improvement. Leah ignored her own journal and flicked through the other four. Three had an improvement to detail past a certain point, but there was one in particular that Leah found herself lingering on.

Kieran's drawings were not only above average, but there were notes beside each mural, linking them to others he'd seen in the past with potential links. It was clear which murals were beside eachother, their orientation, their location. Even the borders were included above and below, to the point where Leah realised he'd gone back and drawn them into his earlier sketches.

It kept a smile on her face as she went through the dismal mess that was section three's sketches. Sef, though his effort could be commended, didn't seem to possess many artistic tendancies. Maybe the technique she'd taught him today would help him with these interesting proportions, because she was pretty sure the figure's arms in the murals weren't twice the width of their bodies with their fingers looking more like sausages than digits.

Leah was lost somewhere in mapping out a plan for this mess when there was a knock on her door.

"Dinner," said Kieran, glancing at her notes on the floor. "This is breaktime, Leah. You don't have to work yourself every hour we're outside the ruins."

Leah shrugged. "I don't mind."

"Up to you," said Kieran. "You'll have time back at the League to sort it all out and record it. Keep in mind that it's only your job to make sure it's all compiled and together--you don't actually have to have anything past a basic organisation down for it. The researchers do that."

Leah nodded, even if she'd already made plans to do otherwise. She'd do the compilation for the records, but she was going to make a second copy, one that she could do her way. That was the one she'd present to Emrys, and it was going to be better than anything his other researchers had ever done.

"How are the drawings?" said Kieran. Leah picked up a journal from section one and showed him. He grimaced. "I'll have a talk with them about it for tomorrow."

Dinner was a lively event.

Most of the team were already halfway through by the time she arrived. It amazed Leah how they never ran out of things to talk about. The table was constantly filled with laughter and weird impressions of the ancients as they carved the murals that struck a strange chord within Leah. She managed to get through her dinner without glancing up at Sef too many times before he and a few others left the table, claiming first dibs on the showers.