Work Text:
"So, well, sometimes Dad makes Aed and me go fishing to help out the village. Not as much now since Lynn catches so much on her own, but sometimes. It's not something we really like to do, but it's only fair that we do our part for the village. Well, Lynn loves fishing, but you see, we didn't know that at the time. I remember the first time she asked if she could go fishing with us. Aed and I kinda looked at each other as if she was crazy and, well, we couldn't see the harm in it, so why not let her?
And, my goodness, were we wrong.
The first problem we ran into was asking Dad for permission. He said something along the lines of 'but Balar, what if she punctures her eye' or 'what if she falls in the water and catches a cold, Balar' or 'what if she gets eaten by a killer whale, Balar'. Dad, I love you, but Lynn's basically the same age as me, she'll be fine. So we had to argue with him for a while before he'd let us go.
Well, we finally set out fishing at the beach. Aed brought the boat, Lynn brought the fishing rods and bait, I brought the nets and buckets, you see. We'd have felt bad making Lynn haul the heavy stuff, even though she did offer. Well, since we weren't sure if the boat could carry all of us along with the fish, one of us had to stay back. So Aed had to get out of the boat. He went off chasing deer or something.
So, then, Lynn and I were stuck on the boat and, well, fishing involves patience and luck. Sometimes, you see, you need to wait a long time to catch anything. So, well, we were stuck there for hours. I wanted to come back to shore, but Lynn didn't mind staying. Aed got the better end of the deal. I wanted to row around and see if there was anything interesting out by the whirlpool, but Lynn really wanted to catch something and there's nothing good to catch out by the whirlpool. So we stayed the whole day.
Well, it was getting dark and I wanted to go in, but Lynn tugged at my arm. She thought she got a bite. 'This late?' I thought to myself. But I told her she should try reeling it in. So she did, but you see, she said it was too heavy. I thought she snagged her line on a rock or something, so I took her rod and tried wiggling it, but you see, it wouldn't come loose. And what's more? The line was moving on its own, not with the current, but as if something was actively dragging it around. So it really was a fish then.
I didn't have much luck reeling the fish in myself, so Lynn and I both pulled on the fishing rod. It was bent at a crazy angle, like 40 or 50 degrees; I thought it was going to snap in half. But eventually, we pulled the fish into the boat.
It was a shark.
Lynn's first catch was a shark.
The only thing that beat out the fear in her eyes was how awe-struck she was. She wanted to pet the shark, wanted to name it and keep it as a pet. I told her that no, no way we were bringing in a shark as a pet, since, well, one, it'd probably die by the time we got it back, and two, where on earth would you even keep a shark? So she reluctantly agreed that it'd be best to chuck the shark back in the ocean.
Dad might have been disappointed that we didn't bring back any fish that day, but the look on his face when we told him that Lynn caught a shark was worth it."