Put It On Me

To say Raijin’s schedule was packed would have been an understatement. His days were spent helping his cousin plant bamboo, crafting or mending fences, patrolling or training his students. In whatever little spare time he had left he was restoring the main house of a small complex on Rekaru island. It had certainly been a delight to hear about from Hattori, who’d offered it to him. Despite it being dilapidated, it was still salvageable with a labor of love and the style reminded him of the more pleasant memories of home. The man had employed his fox companion, Himi, to go to the mountains to recruit a troop of monkeys to help them, promising them dried fruits, nuts and shelter while they aided him. A dozen or so had returned with her, much to his pleasure, and they’d been spending the past few weeks making fairly good progress, weather permitting.

The few days before, mother nature had not been so generous and had, instead, dumped a few feet of snow at their paws. Thankfully, the first thing they’d patched in the main house was the roof for just this instance, so they were safe from above, but there were still holes in the walls and the floors and the house still needed a good cleaning. Spider webs clung to several corners and dust settled on most surfaces, but he had a comfortable tatami mat to sleep on and a functioning fireplace to keep warm, so he didn’t feel he had much to complain about.

The snow had finally let up and Raijin had set to work with his lackeys, their main goal of the day was to get the general skeleton up of one of the collapsed walls in the back. He’d borrowed a sled from Ashen’s storage and spent most of his time hauling lumber and plywood to and fro, working up a sweat as he did. It was certainly a good work out.

At that particular moment they were pulling a wall up. A rope and pulley system had been rigged from the inside and once the skeleton had been constructed, they needed to get it upright and secured. His teeth grasped onto the rope and a few monkeys behind him grabbed on as well. He planted his feet on the wooden floor to steady himself, taking a moment before he let out a deep growl as the signal to begin. Then, they were tugging, the pulley squeaking as it began to lift the heavy structure from the ground. His muscles grew taunt with the exertion, his pelt already glimmering with beads of sweat and he grunted. It rose higher and higher, so close to being upright…