Murals

MAY
Murals
Jasmine Leaf Tea II
May 2020
-Three Months Later-
Raleigh finds work painting murals on the Wall to brighten it up. It started with a simple doodle on a napkin in front of one of the project managers and had expanded from there. He paints quickly, the sure brush-strokes belying the turmoil under his calm façade.
"You're really stable in that harness." 
Raleigh leans back from his mural with his boot-tips as he tucks the paintbrush behind his ear. 
The man who interrupted his work obviously had no idea what he was doing in the art lean-to over this section of the Wall. 
He hates it; he hates that the Wall is even an option.
"Gotta be. Don' wanna fall to my death." The reply is rusty, caustic because he doesn't feel like making friends anymore. It only hurts more when they leave. "'M busy." Planting his feet solidly back onto the Wall, he goes back to painting the wide streak of Kaiju blue on Reckoner as he remembers it.
"I've got an offer for you."
"Well?" Raleigh shifts the brush to create short streaks of Kaiju blue along with dots for light. 
The Wall would glow in the dark once the sun hit the paint to charge it up. 
He gets a smear of the paint on his hand and some on his face as he dips the brush back into the can hanging by his side.
"I need someone to weld the Wall section here." 
Raleigh snorts derisively as he continues to paint, switching out the buckets of paint to snag the ugly green of Reckoner for the lumbering limbs. Tacit Ronin is outlined in stark white paint, paused mid-strike against the beast. He paints until he can't stand the burning gaze of the construction worker any longer.
"Look," here is where he pulls the sweater off his left side, the scars still a deep red, "I can't help you out. I'd love to, pal, but I can't work without a harness. This one belongs to a friend of mine." Raleigh sneers when the man stumbles away from the livid damage he suffered in Gipsy Danger. "Goddamn asshole, ain't he Yan?" 
Silence greets his question and the broken link gets agitated as he sends his emotions. 
"Shit." He shivers, gripping his left side with glazed eyes and a pained grimace. Hoping no one had heard him talking to thin air, Raleigh gets back to work slowly aching in places that are raw for no reason at all.
Category:Ficlet
Category:Jasmine Leaf Tea
Category:Reckoner (images)
Category:Team Tacit Ronin (mention)
Category:Tacit Ronin (mention)
Category:Raleigh
Category:Raleigh (ficlet)
Category:Raleigh is an artist
Category:Team Tacit Ronin (art)
Category:Yancy is dead
Category:Judgement Day (mention)
Category:Wall of Life (setting)
Category:Raleigh hides out at the Wall