The Fusionist -- Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was a bit of a trek, but he knew it wouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to arrive back in the house he shared with his family, where he could practically smell the delicious food his mother had cooked for them all. He didn’t know what it would be, but it was bound to be great-tasting and filling. Even if they weren’t exactly well-off in terms of luxuries, at least compared to the scant stories he heard of people living in some of the fancier towns in the Kingdom of Androthe, the local Baron who oversaw Rushwood and the Loggers keeping the forest at bay provided them with more quality food than they could ever eat. Theirs was an important job, after all, and the last thing the noble in charge of the area wanted was for them to them collapse from hunger.

From what Larek had heard, he didn’t do much more than provide them with food, a small amount of compensation in the form of copper and silver coins each year, and the tools to do their jobs – but that was enough for the families that lived out there, and it was more than enough for him. The Baron gave him his axe, after all, and his best friend was a powerful one, at that. It had not one, but two Fusions on it, magical effects that enhanced the tool in different ways. One of the fusions kept the blade relatively sharp, even after a full day’s use against the trees in Rushwood Forest, though with the rate he used the axe, it became a little dull by the end of the day. Thankfully, it was always sharp by the time he used it again in the morning, which was a miraculous effect of the magic inside of the axe head.

Thinking about that particular Fusion, he pulled the tool away from his shoulder and held it in front of him, noticing that the normally shiny appearance of the axe head was a little scratched up from the use it had undergone over the last few months. It was still shiny enough even in the fading sunlight to show his face looking back at him, which he thought was quite decent, if not the most handsome 16-year-old he’d ever seen before. Granted, he didn’t know a lot of people, especially not around his age, but he looked generally like the rest of the males in his family, with thick dark-brown eyebrows over deep-set, light-blue eyes, and a relatively squared jawline that looked good with his tanned face. That face was completely free of any facial hair, other than his eyebrows and eyelashes, but it wasn’t because he shaved it off every morning; rather, it seemed he was incapable of growing a beard like his father. Even his younger brother was starting to grow a little bit of stubble, but it didn’t bother Larek; he had heard how much it itched Marco, and he’d rather not have to deal with that, especially if he got hot and sweaty working in the Forest.

As he put his best friend back on his shoulder, the haft of it cradled by his collarbone, he was doubly glad that the other Fusion was for that steel-cored wooden haft.  It somehow strengthened the material to the point where it could withstand even Larek’spowerful swings without snapping. If it wasn’t reinforced with the magical effect, it probably would’ve broken within a few hours of the abuse it was subjected to during the day.

Unfortunately, the Fusions only lasted a few months before they had to be redone. He had no idea why or how that was done, only that it was the way all Fusions worked; they enhanced an object – or even a person that was holding an object, though that could simply have been a rumor, for all Larek knew – for a limited time before it faded. Each time the Fusions were set to expire on their tools, the Baron would send out a fresh batch of them for the Loggers near Rushwood, where they would be exchanged. It was always a little painful to let his best friend go whenever that happened, but he knew that he’d be getting a new best friend soon enough.

Gripping onto the haft of the axe, he could somehow feel that the Fusion was starting to fade on the tool. Frowning, he realized that it had been a few months since the last exchange, so it wasn’t that unexpected. From what he understood about the magical effects, which wasn’t all that much, not many people could sense that about Fusions; he figured the only way that he could was because he spent so much time with his best friend that it was only natural.

“There you are! Did you have your head in the clouds again?”

Startled, he looked at his sister ahead of him, noticing that he had somehow been thinking so furiously about things that he had traveled all the way home without realizing it.

Larek chuckled at her and shook his head, ruffling her short, dark-brown hair as he walked by her with his long strides, her haircut very similar to his own. He didn’t even have to lift the hand from his side very far to do it, either, as the 13-year-old was just under 5 feet tall – and it was unlikely she would be growing much more than that. His own height of around 7 feet was a rarity, he was told, which he thought was probably accurate; his brother, Marco, was 5 foot 6 inches, and he was one of the tallest people in all of Rushwood – other than Larek, of course. Apparently, anyone near 6 feet or above was nearly unheard of, which made his own size stand out more than a bit. Unfortunately.

Which was why, a few minutes later at the dinner table, as he gorged himself on a huge bowl of grilled strips of beef and mixed steamed vegetables on a bed of brown rice, he suddenly lost his appetite.

Shaking his head at his father with what he hoped was a pleading look on his face, Larek said, “No.” His deep voice reverberated through the kitchen and dining room, and he didn’t say anything more than that. He didn’t have to; his father – and everyone else – already knew why he didn’t want to go to the village.

“Larek, we need you to go,” his mother said softly, coming around to stand behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders. Even sitting down, his shoulders were nearly head-height on her. “You may not have noticed because I know how much you get lost in the work, but you made tremendous progress out in the Forest, and it is going to take a while for us to catch up and clear them all.”

Thinking about his walk back to the house, he suddenly remembered passing by a lot of felled trees – more than he had planned to fell that day. He had been so caught up in what he was doing that he hadn’t realized he had accomplished so much.

“Son, the Exchange is tomorrow, and supposedly a new family is coming to take over for… the Cordens,” his father said, a slight hitch in his voice as he spoke about the family that had been killed. “With you so far ahead, we’re the only family who can spare someone to show them around. I’d go, myself, but it’s going to take all three of us,” he continued, gesturing to Marco and Kendee, “to get through what you were able to fell today.  We can’t leave them too long or they could be incorporated into new growth, as you know.”

He did know, of course. Left too long, any new growth could latch on to the felled trees from below, which would allow them to grow and expand even faster than before. Granted, it typically took a few days for something like that to happen, but when it did it was annoying and difficult to get rid of; the downed tree would essentially turn into one long stump as roots burrowed into it from below, which meant having to chop the entire thing into dozens of large pieces, instead of one long log.

Larek going to the Exchange and to show the new family of Loggers to their new place – recently rebuilt after the collapse that killed the Cordens – was actually the right choice as things went, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. He tried to think if one of the others could go in his place, but then he realized that they would have to take at least one of the mules and the wagon to bring the tools to the village to exchange them and bring them back. Only Larek was strong enough that he could transport them without the need for a wagon. Taking one of the mules away would make their efforts in clearing the logs almost useless, as it typically required all three of the ones they possessed to move their massive lengths.

Therefore, it would have to be him, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. Nothing evergood came from his going to the village, as far as he was concerned, and he doubted this time would be any different.

Looking at his family around the table, he saw the pleading expressions on their faces, which were probably much better than his own attempt. His sister was actually whispering under her breath, “Please go, please go, please go,” and Marco was holding up his left hand which had a clean bandage on it; from its location, Larek figured that he had simply been cut by a stray branch or splinter, but from the way he pleaded and gestured with it, he was acting like he had broken his arm. His father just looked at him with an expression that said, “You can choose not to go, of course, but I’ll be severely disappointed.” He refused to look at his mother for more than a second, because from the brief glimpse he had of her, she appeared as if she was getting ready to cry.

That didn’t stop her from whispering to him, however. “I know it will be difficult, but none of the other families care what you look like,” she said placatingly. “They’ve all been out here for years and don’t hold to the same ridiculous prejudices as the rest of the Kingdom. Just keep your head down and it should be alright.”

He noticed how she didn’t mention the people from the village not sharing those prejudices, because that was far from the truth. He didn’t know why they didn’t like people of his size, but he was more than aware that was the case – from personal experience, nonetheless.

“Fine. I’ll go.” It wasn’t like he really had any choice in the matter at this point, because they were right; he was the one they could spare, and who could bring everything to and from the Exchange without the need to use one of the mules. Even if they could spare a mule, the only one that wasn’t going to actively participate in the cleanup tomorrow would be his mother; given that his mother was still a bit frail from a sickness the year before, from which she had never fully recovered from, traveling far enough to show the new family around could affect her health negatively.

Letting his mother hurt herself to spare her son potential embarrassment was a crime – and Larek was no criminal.

As he looked down at the rest of his food when his family breathed a sigh of relief and went back to their own meals, he realized his appetite had come back after the decision had been made, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. Shoveling the rest of it in, and refusing to look at anyone else, to evade the relief and pity in their expressions, he quickly scrubbed out his bowl in the kitchen’s wash basin, set it to dry on the nearby rack, and stomped a little on his way to his room, ducking under a few crossbeams that were just a little too low for someone of his height.

Once there, he undressed and practically threw himself into his oversized bed, which was essentially two normal ones connected together, cradling his best friend in the whole wide world as he slept.

“You’ll keep me safe, won’t you?” he whispered his question, as sleep quickly overtook him. If the axe answered him, he never heard it.