Were they actually good friends? Alistar couldn’t help but wonder as they continued to jeer at one another. Though the two were constantly at odds, he knew from his weeks of ghosting along with the Dozen that Zech primarily hung out with Jaden and Woods.
An hour into the competition, Zech caught his fourth fish.
“Another one!” laughed the lean, sandy-haired boy. “Watch the master as he works.”
So far, Jaden had only caught one, while Alistar hadn’t even felt a nibble since his first bit of bait had been stolen.
Alistar sighed to himself as he watched several fish swim by, sensing dozens of smaller life forms in the area that he took to be other aquatic creatures. I wish they would just take a bite already. He preferred his uncle Raidon’s method of using a spear, and was tempted to try to find a suitable branch to fashion into one.
“It’s the rod.” Jaden eyed the other boy’s fish with jealousy. Peering into the water-filled bucket where six fish were now clinging to life, Jaden turned to look at Alistar. “Wow, you’re really bad at this, aren’t you?”
“You’ve only caught one.” Alistar pulled his line in and cursed inwardly. His grasshopper was missing.
“That’s right, I’ve already caught one.” The boy dug another grasshopper out of his pocket and dropped it onto Alistar’s lap. One of its legs was still twitching. “Keep going, patience is the key to catching fish.”
Zech chuckled as he recast his line.
Alistar picked up the grasshopper and frowned. As far as he was concerned, this method of catching fish was too slow. His inability to catch anything hadn’t bothered him until Jaden had pointed it out, his competitive spirit surging to the surface.
“Zech,” he said politely, “the other day you said I could have this rod?”
“Of course you can. Why?”
Alistar thanked him and then stood up with the rod in his hands. They watched him curiously. It had been fashioned from a rough tree branch, the wood crudely carved but fairly sturdy. “Well then.” Alistar stepped on the neck of the stick with force, snapping out a jagged edge.
“Hey now!” Jaden started up angrily. “Is that what you do to presents that people give you?”
“Give me a minute.” Alistar stripped until he was only in his undergarments. “I just made a modification. I’m still going to fish, but I’ll do it the way my uncle taught me.”
He recalled the day that his uncle Raidon had shown him the spearing technique that he had in mind. He would never forget the soothing melody of the flowing waters, the interesting fish that had squirmed around on the end of his uncle’s makeshift spear, or the majesty of the starlit skies that had glossed over his awestruck gaze once the sun had set. Everything about the day had been new to him, even things as simple as a fresh breeze, a bird’s song, or the sun’s presence high above. That had also been the last peaceful day that he had spent with his uncle, the only other person in his family that had made it out of Crystellum alive.
Fighting away unpleasant thoughts, Alistar decided to dedicate his first catch to his uncle. Without cringing from the cold, he waded out into the water until the surface was just below his knees. Once he was at a suitable depth, he examined the area immediately around him in an astute manner. Raising the crude spear so that he could throw it at a moment’s notice, he focused on the little life signals that he could vaguely sense beneath the crystalline waters and tracked them until some were close enough for him to see with his own eyes.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Still as a statue, he waited for five minutes before a fish came close enough for him to act. The setting was quite serene until Alistar suddenly sent out a calculated thrust, feeling some resistance as a cloud of scarlet began to spread in front of him. Zech and Jaden watched with fascination as he raised a skewered, struggling fish into the air. He had stabbed it cleanly through its neck, killing it quite quickly. Once it’d stopped moving, he pulled it free from the splintered tip of the branch and then chucked it toward Zech, who caught it without thinking.
“Gross,” his friend muttered, dropping it onto the grass after rivulets of its blood began dripping down his hands. “I can’t put this in the bucket. This method of yours is awesome, but we’d have to eat the fish soon after catching them.”
“Then what are you standing there for?” Jaden called as he sloshed into the water like a delusional man that was dying of thirst. “Get a fire going already!” He had also stripped down to his undergarments and snapped his precious fishing rod in the same manner that Alistar had done. “What a sight that was! Quickly, show me how to do it.”
Looking at the other boy’s expectant expression, Alistar decided that Jaden wasn’t so intimidating as he’d previously thought. The reason for his brashness was simply the fact that he was very straightforward and untactful.
“Sure. But only if you teach me how to cook fish over a campfire.”
“What? But that’s so easy. You just stab a stick into its mouth and roast its body over the flames.” Seeing that Alistar was waiting for a more agreeable response, the boy’s tone grew impatient. “Alright, I’ll show you. But we need to catch the damn things first.”
Alistar shook his head with a poorly hidden smile and hefted his bloodied spear into the air. “The trick is to aim for their heads. Do that and you’ll have a good chance of hitting their bodies.”
“Why not just aim for their bodies, though?”
“Because water makes things look out of place. Something might seem like it’s right below you, but it could actually be a bit to the left or to the right from where it seems like it is.”
Jaden scratched at his head and frowned. “Can water really do that?”
“How do you not know that?” called Zech, who was busy gathering twigs and detritus to fuel the coming campfire. “I’ve seen you pull about a hundred fish out of this river. You’re telling me you never once noticed the thing with the water when the fish broke the surface?”
“Oh! I get what he means now.” Jaden gave Alistar a judgemental look. “Why didn’t you just say that instead of using all those confusing words?”
Confusing? Alistar wasn’t sure what to say, since it had been an extremely simple explanation as far as he was concerned.
“And why does it do that, anyway? Don’t tell me water can somehow cast magic?”
“Do you even hear yourself? Lucian’s sake, you sound dumber than Ann—ahem, than Woods.”
“Shut up, Zech! Before I come over there and shove one of those sticks up your ass.”
The other boy quickly returned his attention to gathering supplies for a fire, more so out of eagerness to move on from mentioning Anice’s simplicity in front of Alistar than out of fear for Jaden’s threat.
“Hey Alistar, why does the water do that? Don’t confuse me this time.”
Remembering his uncle Raidon’s words, he smiled. “That’s just the way things are, like how the sky is blue.”
Jaden didn’t seem to be listening, as he’d spotted a fish right after he’d asked the question and had been busy tracking it with the utmost focus. Without saying a word, the stocky boy hurled his spear into the river. The broken branch simply returned to the surface and began to float away, though its owner quickly retrieved it with a curse.
“What the hell? The tip just snapped.”
“You hit a rock.” Raising his own spear, Alistar tracked a fish as it swam within arm’s reach of his knees and then speared it with a strong yet controlled throw. “It’s not about how hard you throw the stick, but how accurately. Oh, and did you aim for the head like I told you?” The fish he raised out of the water this time was quite large, at least the length of five of his hands. Same as before, he’d stabbed it right through the neck, which soon saw its struggling figure hang limp and lifeless.
“Whoa, how do you do it so easily?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “It must be all my training with Master Tramon.”
He had been wondering the same thing, since it had been very difficult for him to spear a fish back when his uncle had first showed him, unlike now where he could seemingly catch one on sight. His practice of swordsmanship surely made a difference considering that most of what he had learned thus far involved clearing his mind, controlling his strength and accurately striking at a moving target.
“Training really helps you that much?” Jaden wore a complicated look for a few moments before he began to laugh. “Well, if you two fail to become knights, you can always sell fish at the market.”
This time Alistar and Zech laughed along with him, the latter kneeling to light the kindling that he’d gathered with two stones of flint.