Page 5 of Tossing the Caber

“Laurel,” Rodney says, tone properly sharpened.

Nodding with false resolve, Laurel flips the package to keep the paper from falling apart. “Yes, Papa, you’re right.” His last day of freedom crumbles to ash, as black as the smudge on his dark fuchsia fingertips when he pinches the flame from the candle.

Sparing one more lingering look at the unfinished work on his bench, Laurel fetches the clothes he hung up to dry, finding the fabric still damp. He exhales a spell that trickles from his ash-stained fingertips, drying his clothes the rest of the way.

After a moment of hesitation, he says, “Papa, can you wait outside?”

Laurel isn’t embarrassed by the way he looks. He modified his body for a reason—well,reasons—and the changes were primarily for himself. Drawing attention was an unavoidable consequence, but not one he minds. It pleases him to have total control over his appearance and advertise his skills in the same glance. Body modification has grown in popularity amongst elfkind, and Laurel has become incredibly skilled at wielding magic to give his clients nearly anything they could dream of.

Laurel’s father doesn’t approve, of course. He pays rent for the workshop and could easily take it away, provided he be willing to deal with Laurel’s despondent languishingafterward, but that’s exactlywhyhe allows Laurel the workshop. So he’ll stay away.

“Don’t take long,” Rodney says. “I know your propensity for distraction. It’s the last thing we need today.”

“I’ll hurry, Papa.”

The loss of personal time might have hurt less had his father seemed apologetic or sympathetic to Laurel’s distress. But he’s not, and on his way out, he disturbs a broom that was hanging on the wall beside the door.

Laurel hovers in place for several seconds, just in case. When he appears to be truly alone, he tosses a spell toward the broom with a half-hearted gesture. A silvery thread of magic wraps around the handle, returning it to its place.

Movement brings Laurel’s exposed skin into the light, rays of sun hitting the flecks of green quartz he embedded into his limbs and cheeks. At the moment, all he wants is to hide, so he sighs and covers the bright freckles with his palm, smothering them until all that’s visible is the skin he’d accidentally turned fuchsia years ago. He’d loved the shade so much he made it permanent…

And then Rodney had blamed him for the loss of his mother a month later, claiming her weak heart couldn’t handle the shock of their son’s mad experimentation.

There was no point arguing with him. Not then, not now.

Disinclined to stoke Rodney’s frustration any higher, Laurel changes quickly. His tail lashes as he approaches the door—Laurel has never figured out how to stop it from channeling his emotions so vividly, and it’s a permanent installation, fused to his spinal column. He’s learned to deal with the way it has turned his mental state transparent, like a temperamental housecat.

All Laurel wants is to finish his work, but he locks the workshop and follows his father to the horse-pulled rickshaw he brought, even though he knows they make Laurel nervous.

Must be his punishment for pretending to have autonomy.

The rain is falling even harder when Laurel exits the tailor’s shop, and the clouds have stopped smiling. Behind him, Rodney is arguing with the tailor, claiming he should receive a discount due to the last-minute debacle.

Laurel shakes his head in exasperation, then pulls his hood down nearly to his nose, and steps into the downpour. The raindrops are so fat and heavy, they might as well be tiny fireworks with how they burst against Laurel’s cloak, magically-reinforced to repel water.

Everything he can do, and all his father wants is to see him married off so he’s no longer his responsibility.

“Laurel!”

But until then.

“Where are you going?” Rodney calls, still under the relative safety of the shop’s awning.

“Back to my workshop,” Laurel responds. “You interrupted while I was only partway through wrapping my orders.”

Rodney’s expression grows thunderous. Fortunately, when he speaks, his voice raises only enough to be heard through the rain, not because he’s preparing to yell. Laurel hates when he yells. “You’ll have to make sense of it tomorrow, after you meet Slight-of-Foot.”

Laurel blinks, taking a few steps closer to the awning so he can lower his voice, preventing anyone from overhearing his father use the wrong clan name for his intended. “Sure-of-Foot, Papa. Not slight. BeaconSure-of-Foot.”

But in an unsurprising fashion, Rodney waves thecorrection away. “It’s no matter; the outcome is the same. You don’t have time to go back to the shop.”

“Papa, it’s barely after noon. I won’t need more than?—”

“Laurel Lushroot! You know as well as I do that if you go back to your little projects, you will be too distracted to mind matters that areactuallyimportant.”

There’sthe yelling, dampened by the sound of rain, but not quite enough. It’s possible the tailor will have overheard; the thought of someone witnessing Laurel’s scolding is deeply embarrassing.

“Alright, Papa. I… will come home.”