The passage of time certainly hadn't gotten any clearer as morning faded to afternoon, and Shaw's tenuous grasp on it had been blown to oblivion as the liquor had soaked its way in, barely slinking back as the effects of her meal had gradually faded. Not that it mattered, but it had to be one of the more bizarre breakfasts she'd had – and her guest certainly took the title of the strangest companion present at a meal.
They had both simply sat in silence once their meal was finished and their glasses drained, Elizabeth staring at the ceiling lost in her own thoughts as the Engineer's gaze remained locked on the landscape outside. Perhaps Gin wasn't the best choice she could have made. It always left her feeling a little melancholy at the best of times, and given the utter catastrophe her adventure had been thus far, it was all she could do not to burst into tears again. The lump in her throat had well and truly made itself at home for at least a few hours, or until the red from the sky had long since faded to a dull, stormy blue-grey behind the blanket of debris still whistling about the lifeboat. Any attempt to dislodge it had been met by a barrage of self-pitying excuses, her brain unable to focus on much else.
Its effect had apparently been somewhat different on her guest. It had barely been light by the time he'd nodded off, still sitting on the couch, his head rolling back against the top of the cushions despite his tipsy slouch, such was his immense height. He'd stayed frozen in that position for quite some time, snoring softly, before momentarily jerking awake and instinctively lying down along the length of the couch, legs dangling awkwardly off the end and head propped against one arm, and immediately started snoring again. Given she had passed out twice since he'd been awoken from hypersleep, she figured it was about time he got some rest – God knows how much time had plodded by.
Reflecting on her own awakening only days ago, she realised just how much further Humanity had to go in this space-age game; having felt like utter death for quite some time after waking up and emptying the contents of her stomach rather violently in the aftermath, it only just occurred to her how differently things had played out when the Engineer had been raised from two millennia of hypersleep. He'd sat straight up the moment the waking cycle had been initiated, and whilst he'd briefly collapsed after standing, he had hardly been worse for wear. He'd been quite energetic, in fact, she remarked glumly, watching the sleeping creature on the opposite couch with the same trepidation that refused to leave her the moment she placed him back in the context in which she'd met him.
It was difficult not to begrudge him, still; it had all seemed so irrational and outrageously unfair at the time, as any violent outburst tended to be in her mind. All they had were questions. It wasn't as if they'd pointed guns at him and demanded his treasures.
Except they had, hadn't they? Weyland hadn't hesitated in making grandiose and entitled requests, and Jackson's rifle had been aimed defensively at the enormous being from the moment he moved. It was unlikely he was planning for Human guests when he'd gone into hypersleep, and being woken up by them, unannounced, can't have been a pleasant surprise. Until now, all she had remembered from their initial encounter was pain, awe, desperation and terror – all, selfishly, in relation to herself. She hadn't for a moment considered how it must have been to have been dragged to consciousness by aliens all shouting at once in a foreign language after years in hypersleep, unaware of anything that had happened in the interim. She somehow doubted she would have been so composed herself if she'd been revived aboard the Prometheus decades later, outnumbered by alien creatures in the midst of chaos; she'd undoubtedly be a shit-storm of screaming, vomit and mindless panic.
She pressed her eyes closed, trying to recall more of the encounter, trying to etch the details into her memory permanently before they faded into the endless abyss of their current predicament. She'd been so focused on counteracting Weyland's narcissistic bluster that she had barely noticed the most significant discovery in Human history. How stupid! First Contact with an alien race, the first alien race Humanity had ever encountered, and they had spent it briefly bickering amongst themselves before being torn to shreds. It wasn't like he'd stepped out swinging, either; he'd barely acknowledged them at first, simply staring in a half-lidded, baffled gaze as incomprehensible chaos and noise unfolded at his feet. She realised he hadn't even interacted with them until David started translating Weyland's nonsense…
No, he had looked on in horror as she'd been floored with a rifle to the belly. She had caught the briefest glimpse of his mortified expression before she kissed the deck.
Now that she thought about it from a few paces aside, his actions seemed less baffling; he'd watched his uninvited guests yelling and screaming at each other, proceeding to drop one of their own with sudden violence, then turned to make demands of immortality. They hadn't even introduced themselves.
Something about what David had asked, or perhaps David himself, had clearly proven so offensive that it warranted beheading the Android. That she still didn't quite understand, as he'd clearly known who was responsible; Weyland had been his immediate, second victim. As for the other two, she supposed being shot in the chest was reason enough to see to the armed intruders with deadly force. Not that it had slowed him down at all; perhaps he hadn't meant to kill but had underestimated his own strength against far smaller creatures, or perhaps he'd intentionally neutralised what was clearly a threat in the most efficient and permanent way possible.
Why he came after her with all that said and done raised more questions than she had the capacity for in her current state, let alone questioning why she was still alive – or how, or why, he had gone back to his ship and returned here, with medical supplies. Her running assumption about the violent, unpredictable nature of the Engineers – or at least the singular one they had encountered – certainly lost integrity when she considered the violent, unpredictable display they had put on for him, and came unstuck when she brought into question everything that had happened after her offspring had been dispatched.
The snoring man on the couch was an enigma wrapped in mystery.
Perhaps the most frustrating part about the whole ordeal was that the only other living creature left on this death-ridden rock had no common language, no common culture, and apparent hostility toward her entire species. There was little to be gained without some sort of understanding. An upper hand in this department would certainly be helpful.
Part of her mulled over the chances a different Earth language would provide overlap. After all, these people had visited Earth many times in the past, hadn't they? Some of the lexicons carved into the walls of the structures they'd just finished defiling had seemed familiar, but nothing she could read. Could there be Mesopotamian connections, even enough to cover the very basics? Were there any useful goddamn books on this bucket?
There was only one way to find out.
As her guest snored on, dead to the world, Shaw set about bringing some form of order to the books still left on the ground. For a moment she faltered as to whether she should at least group them by some kind of genre or simply jam them together by author, but given the enormity of either task, she simply opted for the path of least resistance and scooped an armful from the floor.
The top shelf, far from her reach, had been munged together in haphazard earnest; there was no rhyme or reason amongst them, let alone order, but if the Engineer couldn't read a word of English, it was as good as he could do. The rest fell into place in due course as she paused to inspect the occasional, somewhat interesting example, hoping each new book she picked up would be something relevant to the task at hand. Unfortunately, it seemed neither Weyland nor Vickers had any interest in history.
Some of the books that hadn't been kicked aside were badly damaged, she soon found. Mutilated as if burned by chemicals, they smelled acrid and somewhat foetid; her stomach churned as the stench brought with it images of giant, flailing tentacles when she closed her eyes, bound to its source most likely now rotting outside. They would have to be disposed of, preferably with fire and brimstone and a splash of Holy Water, as soon as the opportunity arose. She nudged the desecrated books aside with a boot, instead focusing on the other, intact examples that needed filing.
Someone had terrible taste in entertainment, she mused as she kicked aside another third-rate murder-mystery novel with a fire-themed cover and cliché title. She was tempted to add it to the pile of half-dissolved refuse in the corner, but begrudgingly tucked it alongside the others on the increasingly loaded shelf beside her as she reached for another armful.
The lifeboat gently swayed back and forth below her for a few seconds, its oscillation rocking the glasses and rattling the forks still on the coffee table by the windows; outside, the wind had reached fever pitch and had filled the air with increasingly large chunks of silica, dust and assorted debris as it uprooted what remained of the vast, barren landscape, pummelling the vessel with a ruthlessness she hadn't often seen on Earth. It still lacked the incredible gusts of the first storm she'd encountered and nearly died in here, but there was no damn way she was stepping outside in that.
Oblivious, the Engineer fidgeted on the couch in his sleep; with a nearly-inaudible mumble he rolled onto his back, one knee curled beneath the other on the cramped couch, and resumed his slumber. It wasn't exactly warm in here, she realised, glancing down at the gooseflesh gripping her bare legs. If their metabolism was anything like that of a Human, it had probably dropped enough in his sleep for him to be feeling the cold as much as she was – that is, if his bizarre suit didn't compensate for it.
Giving it less thought than she ought to have, Shaw padded back over to the couch she'd resided on for the last indeterminate period of time and quietly shook the duvet loose before carefully, gently draping it over the sleeping behemoth. If anything it was a gesture, she reasoned – a returned one, at that.
The pile of books had grown smaller, but she'd barely put a dent in it when she considered just how many were still sprawled across the deck. She would have to break for more food before it was even half-done, and she'd rather spend the time actually narrowing down language options from every inch of what she knew of the cultures with records of Engineer interaction. It wasn't like she could just spit up the most useful parts from memory; while she could make the connections, draw links from the text, she needed the damn text to refer to in the first place before she could start work. A dictionary would be ideal, but at this point she would settle for a magazine, a high school textbook, anything.
As luck would have it, at the bottom of the pile near the piano was a significant collection of National Geographic and Time magazines, some of which were likely of historical value for their significant age. Easing herself down, mindful of her healing wound, she pushed aside the trashy romance novels cluttering the pile and began sifting through the magazines, wide eyes scanning for the most vague of references she could possibly consider useful. Thanking whatever she had any faith left in for bestowing upon her the twin gifts of patience and vigilance, she soon began to build a stack of reference material beside her, pausing to flick through the most promising candidates and dropping them into a separate stack for closer inspection.
Given how difficult it was to tell the time, especially with the days seemingly shorter on this small moon and the storm outside diffusing the majority of the daylight, she was only somewhat sure it would by now be afternoon. Her stomach was inclined to agree however, eliciting a wavering gurgle as she began thinking about her next meal. This time, at least, she had far more interesting entertainment. Perhaps lunch would require a little more sobriety today.
She set about moving her half-metre stack of reference back to the coffee table, squatting for small handfuls in several journeys rather than trying to be a hero and risking fresh damage to her insides. As she rearranged the growing stack on the table, she noted the Engineer had shifted in his sleep, having rolled over again and wrapped himself into a compact burrito of blankets, only the top half of his head and one hand visible at one end, with his calves sprawled out the other. It was oddly endearing, and she couldn't help but grin as she turned back to fetch more books.
Dropping the last of her reference material on the top of the pile had been enough to jolt the huge humanoid from his sleep; he sucked in a breath as he flinched awake, blinking in the artificial light before letting out a dazed groan and an enormous yawn into the palm of his hand. Opting to give him some room to regain consciousness with slightly more decorum than their first time they woke him up, she set about clearing dishes from the table and making some sense of the bar in preparation for lunch.
The Engineer eventually sat up, still tangled in the duvet, as she tidied the utensils off the floor and threw the majority of the cutlery and crockery about the place into the dishwasher. Yawning again into the crook of an elbow, he seemed to be drinking in his surroundings with considerable confusion; twisting about as the dishwasher drawer unceremoniously crashed shut, he regarded her with the most perplexed of sleepy squints, the corners of his mouth downturned and drawn. After another brief scan of the room, his eyes widened with realisation – it was as though he'd remembered the previous day, or days had not been some horrendous dream. His gaze found the floor soon after, his expression one of...sadness? Concern? She didn't quite know what to make of it, apart from obvious unhappiness. You and me both, buddy.
The least she could do was offer him some food, she reasoned. It wouldn't fix their current situation, but they still needed to eat as they found a way out of this place.
Wait, when did she become plural?
Quickly dismissing the thought, she set about scrolling through the food dispenser's ostentatious menu. Eating pasta two meals in a row sounded dreadful, but she had no idea what these people ate. He could have hated their meal last night and simply eaten it out of politeness, or she could have accidentally stumbled upon his new favourite. She had no frame of reference. Toast, cornflakes, eggs? Oatmeal struck her as a good neutral option, but it wasn't exactly appetising to look at. In fact, it was off-putting at best. Still, it would be filling and nutritious, and with enough seasoning it might just pass inspection.
Filling two bowls as the dispenser artfully went about its duty, she turned to hunt down intact mugs. If she was going to get back to her old ways of meticulously picking through the finest of details, she was going to sate her old coffee habit, too. Placing the piping-hot bowls of ornate grey mush onto a tray, she swapped the coffee mugs onto the dispenser's rack and called up two Long Blacks. After a moment's consideration she threw a jar of sugar onto the tray too, silently thankful for the rich folk's expensive taste only for the fact that she had a predilection for the taste of the big, chunky brown crystals over sachets of over-processed white grain.
The Engineer had climbed out from under the duvet by the time she returned to the table, tray in hand; she immediately noted he'd gone to the trouble of folding it, dropping it neatly at one end of the couch as he rubbed at both eyes with the heels of his palms. Something told her hypersleep was easier to wake up from – or, at least, that he was more used to it. Staring down at the tray with sleepy disinterest, he huffed softly before being rocked by another debilitating yawn.
Pushing a bowl, a spoon and a mug of coffee toward him, she set about prepping her own meal; she didn't hesitate in digging a significant spoonful of sugar from the jar, sprinkling it over the top of her porridge with pointed determination before hacking at the side of the mound of goo and promptly shoving it into her mouth. A swift swig of coffee followed, though she found herself all but choking on the intensity of the brew. This was not the freeze-dried swill she was used to gulping down on the run on the way to a dig.
Watching her with semi-conscious trepidation, the Engineer had simply sat half-slumped as she set about ploughing her mouth full. After a moment spent what she could only decide was chewing on his bottom lip or something, he finally reached down and cautiously plucked the cup from the table. It looked more like a ceramic flute than a mug pinched between his immense fingers, and she found herself wondering if she should have made the effort to find a larger vessel.
One restrained sip from the mug left him looking as though he'd bitten into a lemon. He plopped it back onto the table with an unimpressed grunt, lower eyelids twitching as he tried to clear the taste from his mouth. Yep, that'll wake you up.
Remembering her own recent reaction to the potency of the drink, she demonstratively grabbed the sugar jar and twisted it open again, briefly making eye contact with the enormous creature as she piled a heaped teaspoon's worth of crystals into the mug and stirred, before offering both to her guest. A second gulp of the dark brew slid down like velvet, even though a small voice in the back of her head that sounded distinctly like Charlie's began to scold her for defiling a perfectly good coffee with an excess of sugar.
She clearly hadn't quite earned his trust, yet; lips pursed thin in thought, the Engineer poked at the crystals with the spoon for a period before pressing an index finger against the few he'd caught at the tip of the utensil and gingerly putting them in his mouth. He sucked on them for a while, expression relaxing as they dissolved – shortly after, he proceeded to follow her example and dropped two excessively heaped scoops into the mug, stirred, and watched them dissolve into the swill with intrigue.
Having half-finished both her coffee and her oatmeal by the time he had begun to hesitantly poke at the grey blob with the larger spoon, Shaw opted against continuing her frantic pace and instead turned her attention back to the stack of magazines at the far end of the table; pushing her meal to the side, she grabbed three of the Nat Geos on the top and began thumbing through them, leaving two of them open on spreads depicting edge-to-edge photos of ruins as she came across them. The third she continued to pick through as the Engineer set about eating, quickly picking up pace as the featureless, unappetising look of the meal yielded to the flavour of apple and cinnamon.
Having found another relevant spread fairly quickly, she placed the ageing, yellowing magazine down on the table and reached for several more; by this point, she noticed, her guest had set about knocking back his coffee in one large gulp and had since begun carefully sniffing the contents of the other bottles scattered across the table. Plain old water had apparently found favour, and after a test sip poured into the dregs of the coffee mug, he'd refilled and skulled it twice before turning his attention back to what remained of his serving of porridge. He seemed entirely uninterested in her work, unsurprisingly.
Ancient forms of Greek and Macedonian, a small snapshot of Biblical Hebrew, she felt like these may be dead-ends. The Engineer had grazed over them momentarily, his disinterest rather telling. Closing the lot of them and thumbing through the next four magazines in the stack, she set about at least categorising open leads and discarding more unlikely candidates to the growing pile at the opposite end of the table.
Pausing to finish the rest of her cooling breakfast and another gulp of lukewarm coffee, she left two more articles open in front of her and idly plucked from paragraph to paragraph as her guest refilled what must have been his fourth or fifth mug of water. She idly wondered just how hard hypersleep was on the body compared to the stasis that had damn near ruined her after a mere two years; by now he was significantly more alert, dark eyes having since drifted back outside as the storm raged on, thumbs idly picking at the lip of the mug pressed between both hands. There was the slightest bounce in one of his knees, leaving his right arm jiggling against it. She supposed he was waiting for a break in the weather so he could get the hell off this vessel, likely disoriented by its alienness to him and keen to figure out what had befallen him and his crew.
As she reached for another round of magazines, dropping several on the table as she paused to scrutinise a hot lead, she noted a shuffle against the couch and a hushed whisper; scowling, the Engineer reached down in front of her and carefully plucked one of the Nat Geos from the mess, bringing it to his face with both hands and staring intently at the cover. She hoped the scowl meant he was interested and not intent on destroying it – or anything else, for that matter – and cast him a quick glance before returning to her own study. He hadn't noticed, such was his total absorption in the book.
Placing the current issue on her lap, open on another full spread photograph of ancient ruins, she reached for the next and thumbed through as the Engineer did the same, scowl deepening and jaw falling slack as he delicately fanned through the pages, pausing occasionally to scrutinise a page, silently mouthing words to himself. She soon lost interest in what she was doing, finding herself entranced as she observed her guest, gazing in wonder as he apparently did the same. Catching a glimpse of the cover behind his long, thick fingers, she felt her throat tighten in excitement – there it was, that was the lead she needed. A short article on the lost Sumerian language was what he had likely stumbled upon, and the cover art for that particular issue was a snapshot of an ancient tablet that had been unearthed more than a century ago...undoubtedly obscure, she hoped against hope there was at least one other magazine in the stack that covered the topic. She set about rifling through, feverishly scanning cover after cover before discarding them in a pile beside the shrinking stack as they yielded everything except what she was looking for.
Deep scowl still welded above wide eyes, the Engineer had fixated on a spread displaying an assortment of ancient tablets, their text barely legible with age. Good, this will keep him busy for a while.
Shaw was barely able to contain her excitement as she happened upon an older magazine depicting several related languages; cursing softly but emphatically as she grabbed the issue and rifled through it, she skimmed through the first article she came across as the Engineer snapped his attention to the tiny creature in her sudden increase in activity, before tilting and lowering his head to catch a glimpse of the cover she was holding, staring momentarily at it, then back at her, jaw still slack as he returned to staring at the pages in his grasp.
The lifeboat rocked again beneath the wind as she murmured to herself, totally absorbed in the montage a few pages further along. He, too, had become engrossed again, silently mouthing words – or mere sounds, perhaps – as he squinted at the eroded lexicons chipped into the photographed stone. The broad dot gain of the magazine surely wasn't helping, even as he angled the page in the bright overhead lights. It was a shame he'd chosen one of the older magazines to inspect, having been produced back when printers relied on rolling pages through a series of presses with data etched into giant sheets, each with its own colour. It made for a messy result when scrutinised, especially with details as small as these.
He murmured something with a deep, growling whisper as he angled the issue again; she froze halfway through turning a page, reflexively whipping her attention to the huge, pale humanoid. Whatever he'd said seemed vaguely familiar, nestled in the vestiges of her mind, conjuring up memories of the days of writing her Master's thesis, staggering about campus as a caffeine-fuelled zombie, head full of rocks – the historical and metaphorical kind – and oblivious to her surroundings as one might expect. "Say that again," she all but whispered.
Black eyes once again upon her, his gaze probed her for a heartbeat, picking her apart. He drew a breath and spoke again, hushed and deep, mostly repeating what he'd just said as he poked at the tablets depicted in the spread with a long index finger; amongst the foreign gibberish, this time she picked up that one familiar word. It had been a strange, nearly-incomprehensible pronunciation of Atra-Hasis.
Her eyes just about rolled out of her skull as she glanced back down at the page. The featured image was, in fact, one of the tablets depicting the Epic of Atra-Hasis, while the image immediately to the right was a grainy photo of one of the Sumerian King Lists. He murmured something else she had no hope of understanding before trailing off, gaze falling to the book in her lap. She found herself poking at the page in his hand, resisting the urge to go on a long, winding diatribe about the article in a language he would be equally lost in as she was his, settling with acknowledging the content quietly. "That's part of the Epic of Atra-Hasis, yeah...you can read that?"
The Engineer flinched almost imperceptibly as she repeated the one word he recognised; regarding her for an extended, wide-eyed moment, he hesitated before gesturing for her to hand him the magazine on her lap. She complied, watching with baited breath as he squinted at the photographs and silently mouthed words in between staccato pauses. If only they had some sort of dictionary…
If only they what! Scrambling to her feet with enough vigour to startle her guest, she hurriedly shuffled to the pile of books still spread across the floor, nudging one after another aside with a booted foot. Finding nothing of value, she changed tactics; before long she had set about upturning the bar with a series of crashes and clatters, growling in frustration as nothing came to hand, then turning on a heel and marching toward the bedroom as her search continued.
After upending the book stand on top of the dresser and rifling through the wardrobe, she let out a loud ah-hah! as she finally stumbled upon a large digital tablet lying amongst unrelated clutter in one of the bedside drawers. She was back on her feet and all but running back out to the main room as she stabbed at the power button, blissfully unaware of the Engineer gawping at her as she threw herself back down on the couch with gusto.
"Where is it, where is it," she breathed as she poked at menu after menu on the glowing display. For as much data as these confounded things could hold, they hadn't made it easy to navigate – even after nearly a hundred years of similar technology being available. Knees jiggling as she slid the tip of her finger about the display with growing excitement and impatience, she happened upon what she was hoping would be there almost purely by chance. Another loud hah! escaped her, and she began scrolling through the long, exhaustive list of foreign words the tablet had burped up after a moment of hanging, frozen, on the menu screen.
How had she not thought of this before?
The Engineer's intense gaze had flitted back and forth between the book and the tablet a dizzying number of times before he'd quietly cleared his throat. Complete absorbed in the task at hand, she hardly noticed the noise and kept scrolling; expelling a sigh after a drawn-out pause, he reached across the table and gently tapped the back of her hand with two fingers.
She flinched hard enough to draw a loud gasp, staring back at him with wide-eyed surprise; the contact had been unexpected, and even at the best of times she would have jumped, let alone while she was completely enveloped by an all-consuming project. Wasting little time, he offered the flat palm of his left hand, holding it parallel to the table; he pinched the index and middle fingers of his right against the thumb, rocking them back and forth against his palm as if scribbling something with a pen.
A pen and paper...genius!
Offering an understanding nod, she flew to her feet again and skittered toward the bar. Surely someone had left something to write on aboard this godforsaken barge. Upturning the bar yielded somewhat more luck this time, with an A4 pad emblazoned with Weyland Corp branding quickly finding favour; she tossed it on top of the bar as she continued her search, rummaging through the drawers once more with increasing fervour as not one single pen made its presence known. Cursing under her breath, she set about hunting through the rest of the ship, skimming through the pile of books on the other side of the room again before moving to the bedroom, the bathroom, back out over the piano, and, after sucking in a breath, through the ruined medbay.
Of all the places to find a stash of cheap, Weyland-branded ballpoints, why did it have to be the medbay?
Hurrying back to the table with a handful of pens, she skidded to a halt as she remembered the pad still sitting on the bar; dropping the pens on top of one of the many stacks of magazines strewn about the surface amongst bowls and coffee cups, she turned on a heel and marched back to the bar, retrieved the pad of letterheads, and sat back down with a breathless heave as she handed it to the Engineer.
He quickly grasped one of the pens, fumbling with it briefly before finding purchase against the rubbery grip; as many of the items aboard had, having been designed exclusively for Human use, the silvery, plastic tool seemed comically small and awkward to use in his immense grasp. His fingers fell still the moment he pressed the tip against the pad; he pinched his lower lip between his teeth, eyes darting about the blank page before glancing back and forth between the white expanse and the magazine pages scattered across the table below his knees. After momentarily lifting the pen and pressing it back against the page, he fell still again, scowling at the tiny implement pinched between his fingers, seemingly at a loss.
Shaw considered tugging the pad free and having a go herself, but was immediately struck by a looming vacancy herself; what on Earth did she even want to write? She'd been so full of questions since she first stumbled upon the ancient inscriptions, bubbling with when and how and why, but not a single one came to mind when faced with the most vague of chances that one of her questions might even reach one of her fabled Engineers. Shit, she didn't even know where to start.
All of the 'w/h' questions, and not one seemed suitable. Barking demands had ended poorly with their first attempt to say the least, and it was patently obvious a different approach would be required in the here and now. The selfishness of their first encounter still burned in her mind as the Engineer opposite her struggled to put thoughts to words; they'd been so hungry for answers that they hadn't even considered the creature they'd awoken.
Who.
Yes, that was probably a better place to start.
Fumbling with the tablet again, she scrolled from page to page as she hunted for something that may translate, even if it required a few iterations. He seemed to have responded at least vaguely to the Sumerian scripts, and possibly some scraps of Akkadian that had appeared alongside them, so she reasoned she would first give the former a chance.
She motioned for him to hand her the pad with a tap against its top corner; after a moment's consideration he passed it to her, watching intently as she bounced the top of the pen against it before flipping it, pinching the rubber grip between her fingers, and carefully scratching the lexicons she'd found amongst screeds of others on the tablet display onto the paper as clearly and accurately as she could.
Upon finishing, she realised how God-awful they looked, cringed somewhat, and handed the pad back to him, hoping she'd guessed the words 'who' and 'name' at least somewhat correctly.
He scowled at the haphazardly-assembled characters for an aeon before glancing back at her, jabbing their forms with an index finger that he then pointed at his own chest. His scowl had become more of an intent, quizzical look of almost-understanding.
She nodded emphatically, unable to suppress a grin.
Pausing for thought, he eventually began scratching at the pad below her scrawl, stopping when he realised no ink was making it to the page. She'd clicked the other end, he seemed to realise, before doing the same and making a second attempt. The characters he drew were certainly not of the languages she'd studied, but they were strikingly similar – similar enough that she now understood why he had reacted to the magazine articles with such intensity. As slowly and clearly as he could, he enunciated something that sounded like zuh-eel to her uninitiated ears; she mouthed the syllables back to him clumsily as he handed her the pad, though he tugged it back with a thoughtful scowl after her stunned attempt at mimicry, adding a second pair of characters below those he'd just written after briefly scrutinising the magazine spread closest to him.
Taking the pad back from him, she dissected the characters briefly before turning to the tablet and hunting for their translations. After a significant period of scrolling before the Engineer's patient gaze, she found a match for both characters; zà, the border, outskirts, frontier; íl, to lift, bear, carry or endure. A voyager, in a breath. It sounded more like a title than a name, she reasoned, but she could be wrong.
Sucking in a breath, she attempted a second enunciation of the characters. "Za'il."
Apparently she'd met his approval, as his expression softened with a nod. After a moment's consideration he gestured with a finger toward the first characters she'd written, then pointed it at her. Asking the same of her.
"Elizabeth," she mouthed slowly and clearly, pressing a hand to her sternum.
His jaw hung slack after mouthing his way through half of it, eyes glazed. Probably a bit of a mouthful for the uninitiated, she mused. Quickly flipping through the glossary still displayed on the tablet, she went about printing the syllables with the full knowledge they would end up meaningless despite being pronounceable. "This will be nonsense, but it might help…"
Squinting at her new scrawl for another extended period, he gave it another awkward, almost shy attempt. "Eh-LEE-zuh...beh?"
"Elizabeth," she repeated again with a warm smile. "Uh...Ellie. Ellie is fine."
"Eh-lee," he quietly mused, staring down at the page before meeting her gaze once again. He'd followed up with something in his own tongue, his expression almost feigning a smile but falling away with a thought-laden sigh before his lips could curl upward. In the next breath it became serious, his scowl returning as he scratched at the pad in an unmarked section further down.
She set about translating as he handed it back to her. Why are… why are you… the first characters were easy, but the final one held its secrets for a frustrating period as she scrolled back and forth, back and forth, until…
She swallowed despite herself, lingering over the translation before meeting the Engineer's gaze, now terrifyingly intent.
Why are you here.
Author's Note: Wao. So, we're here.
It's worth noting that this point that I'm obviously and unashamedly late to the party; many stories have been written in this fandom before, and quite a few have leveraged the same historical sources for their Engineer lore. As much as I didn't want to stand in the shadows of better writers before me, having conducted similar research, it just makes so much sense - the sounds of the languages, their historical roots and contexts, and the beautiful way it all just slots into place. This isn't forgetting, as I understand it, the deleted language scenes in the movie leveraging Sumerian(?) language in the first place.
So, some familiar words may start showing up soon.
I feel like this story may close faster than I originally planned, it's not exactly an epic; frankly, that won't be a bad thing, given my propensity to drone on for hundreds of thousands of words and never actually FINISH a story.
Also: thank you to WhitePhoenix357 and XxLittleBirdxX for your kind words. I wasn't actually expecting any feedback so soon, so it was a wonderful surprise to see some reviews waiting for me! For the record, I'm considering a one-shot AU where they DO, in fact, end up raiding the bar. Also, XxLittleBirdxX, I'm going to keep you on the edge of your seat for a little while yet!