A/N: Wow, I didn't expect any comments, so thanks~!
My brain has put together more detail about these two's lives on its own than I normally decide on my original characters, which is a little crazy but hopefully enjoyable to all of you. Thanks again for reading.
Truly Inspirational – 2
Lyra Kamiya/Lyraeon
"We're here," he announced minutes later, stopping at a barely lit corner and throwing his arms out. There were several warehouses around, and a dead end sign falling off its pole a block down, but he seemed to be motioning to the one in front of him, despite the hole in its roof.
"And where's here? I'd say you were planning something, but this is too quiet for a party."
"You really can't believe I didn't just pick out the perfect place for photos ahead of time?"
"Not when you have spray paint in your bag," Lenora countered, one hand on her hip. "Now spill."
He mirrored her, unable to contain his smile again. "I will, but you have to wait out here for a moment first."
"I'm not going to be your lookout, if that's what you want. I look like a street walker in this dress, and I'm not getting arrested the night before graduation."
"Whoa, calm down. It'll just be a second. Nothing for you to lookout for."
She tapped her foot as she waited, smiling despite her impatience. Burgh was infamous for small-scale harebrained schemes, and she had no doubt there was some art project waiting inside. She heard a generator kick on, followed by the flickering of fluorescent lights. "Alright, come on in," he called, and she obeyed.
She'd expected some sort of art project; what she got was a full blown mural. The entire inside of the warehouse was covered in designs and colors, leaving only a few spots where the decaying wood still showed. Buckets of paint lay around the floor, a ladder leaned against one corner, all of it lit by a single large construction lamp sitting beside the generator in the center of the floor.
"Burgh," she whispered, truly awed as she took in the scene. One short wall was covered in images of models in dresses, one of which she recognized as what she was wearing. The far wall was a mural of Nacrene University, surrounded by smaller views of other landmarks around town, against what seemed to be Pinwheel Forest. Part of another wall was a large version of a photo she'd seen repeatedly on his bulletin board at home: the port in Castelia. "How... how long has this taken you?"
"A year or so, on and off."
"And you haven't gotten caught?"
"Oh, I have. The first two times, Officer Jenny let me off with a warning. The third time, it was by the landlord of the area."
She looked panicked, but didn't stop taking in his art just the same. "Should we really be here, then?"
"Well, you see... this warehouse is mine, now. The landlord said it wasn't doing anything but costing him property taxes, so if I paid him enough to cover that, he'd let me do whatever I wanted."
"Wow," Lenora whispered, beginning to walk the perimeter, studying his art more closely. "It's beautiful. All of it."
"I told you I'd picked out the perfect place for your photos," he teased. She started to giggle, only to be caught off guard by the realization he was actually pointing to a specific part of the wall, which had been painted to look like a catwalk. "I admit, the lighting could have been better, but by the time I was done it was already getting dark."
"You just finished this today?" She stopped mid-reach, her fingertips only an inch from the wall.
"You did say I'd been missing for three days... this by day, the dress by night."
"And your capstone project at some point during that, I hope," she frowned. He hadn't started the year-long project last time she'd asked him about it, the weekend before.
The answer dawned on her the moment the words left her lips though, and she backed up slowly, taking in the entire warehouse again. "Well, you see..." he smiled, one hand resting on the small of her back, the other still tightly gripping his camera, "If you recall, the assignment for my major was to express what was most important to us."
He'd started the warehouse nearly a year before, and now here he was, the night before graduation, before the due date, asking her to pose there.
"I hadn't been able to shake the feeling it was missing something," he continued. "This wall has been blank this whole time, and that's when I realized... I needed a piece of you in here, too."
Lenora felt her cheeks heat far further than two glasses of wine should have allowed. "You're just full of flattery tonight," she joked.
"It's nothing like that, even... It's just that, Nacrene isn't complete without you. These walls are the story of my life, Lenora... You're a huge part of that."
"I'd call you drunk, but-"
"That would be beside the point."
She smiled. "Yes, it would. Alright... Where do you want me to stand?"
For several minutes he fussed with the lights, making her shift a few inches at a time while he found the right angle for each shot. The first few were made to look like she was on the runway; the next became a little sillier, at which point he started taking her around the room, posing with other parts of the mural. Each Polaroid was pinned carefully to one of the center beams, though their angles grew more obtuse as Burgh's creative fervor grew.
By the time he put in the third roll of film – the last, he promised – she'd caught his excitement. Her heart was pounding in her throat as he cracked open a half-used bucket of paint and urged her toward the blank section of wall with it.
She wasn't the artist. That was his job, while she was the practical half of the duo. And yet the spirit of the night got to her, and she was soon swooping her brush across the wood. Her strokes were far less skillful than his, but her joy was genuine, her spirits higher than she remembered feeling since high school.
And Burgh captured each moment of that elation on film. As he ran low on film, he needed a distraction so that he wouldn't waste the last shots – no, it wasn't that any of them even could be wasted on this night, but he didn't want to risk missing the perfect ones. So out again came the pipe and a small flask, both of which Lenora gratefully stole hits from, demanding new colors for her section of wall as she went.
Finally he put down the camera, leaving the last two pictures to be used once she was done, and he grabbed brushes to join her.
He tried to stop her from climbing up the ladder, but Lenora wanted more room to continue her work. It was hard to tell what part of her boldness was intoxication and what part was adrenaline. She pulled her curls back into a ponytail and hoisted the supplies to the top of the ladder, making it up only two rungs before she slipped. She was fine – her reflexes were surprisingly sharp, even while stoned – but a smear of white and pale blue ran up one side of the dress and one arm.
Before she could fuss about it, Burgh assured her that it would wash out, then helped her climb the rest of the way. He was honestly unsure if it would, but one dress wasn't worth ruining her elation over. He could make another dress; this night would never happen again.
At some point a rather dusty boombox was plugged into the generator as well, dimming the light slightly but adding ambiance to their project. The tape was an odd mix of current rock and true classical, all clearly recorded off the radio from the occasional second or two of DJ or commercial that accompanied the music. Truly the product of Burgh's tastes, though Lenora had no complaint toward either. Instead she just demanded it be turned up louder, to which he obliged.
"You should have hung a disco ball."
"Careful, or I'll cut you off." He snatched the nearly empty flask off of the ladder.
She threatened him with her paintbrush, leaving a spot of red across his nose when she misjudged the distance between them. They both laughed, shrugging it off, though he occasionally retaliated by flicking a brush at her.
Over the next two hours a painting of their childhood emerged, covering the old wood. Burgh worked on the colorful stucco house he'd grown up in, including the wind chime and a pidove perched outside his window on the second floor. Lenora's work was less detailed, but still came out recognizable – the row house she'd lived in with her mother and aunt, three blocks over from Burgh's house, complete with house number and her aunt's car that always billowed smoke but never stopped running.
And between the two grew the park and the elementary school within it where they'd first met. It was fall in Lenora's version, so Burgh wiped the green from his first two trees with his sleeve, replacing it with a few shades of brown and yellow.
The tape ended for the third time, but neither of them moved to flip it, their exhilaration running high even without violins and guitars to fuel it. Any track of time beyond "past midnight" was long lost, and their art was nearing completion at last...
The generator groaned, sputtering on the last bit of gas. Its solar charge had been used up before they'd even started painting, and now the light started to flicker and dim further.
"Quick, let's get a photo."
"But it's not quite done," Lenora insisted, leaning closer to the wall as she worked on the playground.
"It'll do," he insisted. When she still didn't budge he grabbed her by the waist with both hands, lifting her off the ladder, much to her surprise. "It'll more than do," he assured her, kissing both her cheeks before pushing the ladder out of the way.
She found herself in a daze, slightly confused at how she'd found her way to the ground, but she stepped off to the side diligently anyway, wiping any wet paint off her hands with her increasingly messy dress. She was more than a little overwhelmed between the adrenaline and the rest of the evening, her hands coming to rest at the part of her sides that still seemed a little warmer from Burgh's hands a moment before. But a few more steps back and she was able to take in everything they'd worked on.
Nothing was to scale with each other, but the effect was endearing. It almost seemed intentional, from Burgh's part at least, as though he was trying to make it childish to fit with the memories.
She heard the camera click behind her, startling her a few inches off the floor. "Arti!" she scolded, and he grinned, waving her out of the way gently.
"You just looked so thoughtful about it. I had to capture that." He set the still-developing picture aside, moving closer to the wall and kneeling to steady himself. He'd worked far more intoxicated than this before, but film had never been his best medium, and Polaroids were far from the best of cameras, so he was putting the extra effort in. "I should have plenty for the project," he announced after finally snapping the photo, "but I think I'll bring another roll when it's daylight tomorrow."
"I'll come with," Lenora announced without hesitation, shifting from foot to foot. She was growing antsy, not wanting the night's excitement to end already.
"One left. Why don't you come over here and-"
He was cut off by the generator giving one final grunt before the whole room went pitch black, leaving total silence in its wake as well.
"...Damn't," he finished, blinking as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. With the roof as broken as it was and a nearly full moon outside, there was still enough light to see, but no longer enough to paint or even get the lids back on the buckets. He started to stumble toward the pillar he'd posted the photos on, meaning to collect them, when he felt Lenora's hand on his shoulder.
She stifled a snicker before both burst out laughing at once, overcome by leftover adrenaline and the silliness of the situation. Emotion and substance alike had intoxicated them fully. For a few minutes they just leaned into each other and giggled.
As they calmed again, Burgh hugged her tightly for a moment, then cleared his throat as he let her go. "Let me grab these and then we'll head home."
"This place is still beautiful," she responded, pointing straight up at the large gap in the ceiling and the stars behind.
He stared at the sky for a moment, then back down at Lenora, her eyes shining in the dim starlight.
"There's still a little pot left... this is our last night in college. Let's just stay here a while. Lay and watch the stars, like we used to."
Like they hadn't, not since that last summer at her grandpa's farm half a decade earlier. He took a deep breath, defying the new surge of creativity that ran through him suddenly as she made inspiration strike him again. "I should paint the ceiling with stars," he murmured, eyes drifting upwards, only to be pulled back down by a soft hand wrapping into his.
"Please?"
One more part, coming soon.