• Memory • That's a load of carp!

[Oram Mednix]

Saun, Arc 703

The pole bent more than Oram had ever seen a fishing pole bend before; he wondered if it would break, yet the bamboo flexed without any distress that the boy could see. The man holding the thing was a different story. He grunted and swore as he fought the fish. His face strained and reddened. His back and forearms strained. His fingers were white as they clenched the wood in a death-grip.

Oram exchanged a look with Osric, who stood eagerly poised at the smith’s side, holding the landing net at ready. The fish, whatever it was, was heavy and slow, so much so that Oram at first thought the line had snagged on something. But the line was clearly moving; something living was pulling on it. And it was bound to be bigger than anything either brother had ever caught, or indeed even seen caught in some time. Oram wondered if maybe it was some sort of lake monster. Just behind Oram, Oleg watched, too, although his interest was more detached than that of either of his sons.

Osric had recently started apprenticing with the smith, and this outing was the first time Oram had spent time with his older brother since. It was also Oram’s first chance to get to know the smith himself, whom he now watched with fascination as he wrestled with his lake monster. It was the townie who had suggested this outing, claiming to be a decent fisherman and, although he was no Oleg Mednix, he did generally seem to know what he was doing. As would be expected of someone in his trade, he was big and strong, probably more so than his dad, though Oram would have denied this. So while he swore and protested the whole while, it was more out of impatience than frustration or dismay; bit by bit he pulled the thing closer to shore. The line rarely jerked or wiggled but only persisted in a slow, steady resistance; the fish on the hook seemed less inclined to escape than to play tug of war, a game that it was slowly but surely losing to the burly smith.

Os pointed and cried out: ”I see it!” Oram turned to look where his brother was pointing, but didn’t see anything but dark water. The older brother stepped close to the bank and began to extend the net expectantly.

”Not yet, Os,” called Oleg over Oram’s head. The older son caught himself up and drew the net back. A moment later, Osric gasped again, and once more Oram looked. He saw it this time, a long, faint shadow against the surface of the water that shimmered in and out of view. A few trills later it reappeared, taking a more definite fish shape this time, and Oram gasped too. It *was* big, not quite sea-monster big, but big for a fish in this lake. Now he started to see glimpses of color, and fins.

”Or! Go help your brother!” shouted Oleg. Oram ran around behind the smith to join Osric’s side, giving the big man a wide berth so as not to jostle him while he struggled to finish landing the great fish.

Os held up a warning hand for Oram to keep his distance, for the moment, as he waded into the water close to the fish. Getting the net into position was a one-man job. He would only need Oram’s help once it was coming out of the water. The fish’s body broke the surface and it started to thrash, splashing both boys with water. Undeterred, Osric got the net behind and around the creature’s waving tail. The smith gave one last heave and brought the front of the fish out of the lake, and Osric was now able to scoop the net completely under its body and begin to lift it up. This time he welcomed his younger brother’s help when he stepped in to take a hold of the net’s handle and help lift. Oleg also joined in, walking over and grasping the fishing line just above the fish’s mouth. Awkwardly, the four of them shuffled away from the water. Once they were all on shore, they paused to regard the catch they held among them.

The fish was massive. Not just long-nearly as long as Oram’s arm- but also thick—set. It was brown with large, well-defined scales. It had a mouth that stuck out and puckered, like a catfish’, and it made a strange slurping sound as it sucked at the air. ”Carp,” announced Oleg, stepping closer to look at the fish. Panting for air almost as strenuously as the fish, the smith nodded in mute agreement as he and the boys lowered their lake monster to the ground.

[Oram Mednix]

Preheat the campfire to 450 degrees

The fish lay on its side, mouth working, while the two boys and two men regarded it. The smith, though still panting from his effort, spoke first. ”Osric, get my tools. We may need them to get the hook out.” Osric looked briefly up at his father. ”Don’t look at me,” Oleg told his older son softly. ”Do what your master tells you.”

The smith, unsurprisingly, had good pliers and a hook-removing tool with him, and when Osric had pulled them out, he pointed to the fish. ”I’ll hold it down while you get the hook out. You know how to use those, right?”

”Let Oram do it,” Oleg suggested. ”He needs to learn, and his fingers are smaller.” The suggestion startled the smith, and he looked up sharply for a moment. Then he shrugged. ”Sure, okay. Oram, come here, do you know how to use these?”

The younger son looked at the two tools. ”The dehooker, sure” he said. ”What about that?” He pointed at the long-nosed pliers. Osric showed him how they worked. ”You hold the handles slightly apart, then reach in to grab the barb of the hook. Then you squeeze the handles to cut the barb off. See?” He squeezed the handles a couple times so that Oram could see the jaws squeeze together. ”The cutting happens at the edge of the jaws, not in the middle. Try it.”

It took a few trills of playing with the pliers for Oram to get the feel of it. The carp, which had been laying still the whole time, suddenly began to flop. The smith pushed down to steady it. Osric grinned. ”Don’t think it likes the pliers. You ready?”

Oram got down near the fish’s head and peered down the mouth. ”Will it bite me?” he asked. Osric looked up uncertainly at their father.

”Their teeth are well back in their mouths,” answered Oleg. ”Don’t stick more than the tip of your finger inside its mouth and you’ll be fine.”

Oram looked dubiously at the carp’s mouth, then reluctantly took hold of it and pried it open to look inside. He had pulled hooks out of catfish before, so this wasn’t that different. Except that this fish was a lot bigger. The hook wasn’t that deep in the fish’s mouth, but it was stuck pretty firmly in the flesh. The boy started wiggling the line to loosen it.

The fish flopped again, and Oram dropped the tools he had been holding in one hand. ”Take care of my tools, young man,” called the smith, as he held down the carp.

”Sorry.” Oram picked up the pliers and dehooker and dusted them off. He resumed loosening the hook from the roof of the fish’s mouth.

”What are you going to do with it?” asked Oleg while he was doing that.

”Throw it back as soon as I get my hook back,” the smith answered. ”It’s too big for the creel. Carp are no good to eat anyway.”

Oram’s father snorted. ”’No good to eat!’ Where did you hear that?”

The smith glanced up at Oleg. ”Everyone I know who fishes,” he answered, his tone getting a bit defensive. ”You know Quinn Peavers?”

Oleg scratched his beard thoughtfully. ”Met him and his brother a while back, I think,” he answered after a moment. ”Not sure I’d listen to what he has to say about making fish, though. Plenty of people eat carp. They can taste pretty awful if you just fillet ‘em and grill them on a campfire like salmon, but they cook and eat just fine if you know what you’re doing.”

Oram had got the hook loose enough by now that he was ready for the hook removing tool, the ‘dehooker’ as he called it. This was a simple handle with a small hook at the end. He threaded the hook over the fishing line that still ran out of the carp’s mouth to the smith’s pole. Pulling the line taut with his hand, he pulled the tool down it towards the fish’s mouth. When it was close enough, he pulled on the tool so that the hook pivoted, then he pushed the end of it so that it slid loose from the flesh. He hadn’t even had to use the pliers. ”Got it!” he announced brightly, as he held up the retrieved hook.

The smith glanced up at it. ”Excellent. Now if you could please put away my tools.”

”I got that,” cut in Osric. ”I know where they go. You take care of the pole and line, Or.”

While his older brother retrieved, cleaned, and put away the pliers and dehooker, Oram started wrapping the hook and line around the long bamboo pole, securing them loosely so that the hook wouldn’t swing around and catch on anything.

The smith looked back at the hunter. ”Quinn Peavers told me about his family recipe for cooking carp. Says after you’ve filleted it, you rub it with lavender, and then baste it with lemon juice.” With a grunt, he rose, heaving the fish up to chest level in his hands. The fish flopped again in his hands. ”Careful, big fella! I’m trying to get you back home! Anyway, you do that, then you nail the fillets to a hickory board.” He turned and began to waddle back towards the creek.

Oleg was intrigued. ”Nail it you say? Why nail it? Why not just put it on the board?”

The smith continued. ”’Cause you’re going to slide the fish under hot coals to slow cook for a couple breaks. You use the hickory board to pull it out. Nailing the fish to it prevents it from slipping off in the coals.”

The hunter shrugged. ”I guess that makes sense. What next?”

The smith had nearly reached the waters edge, and he peered around the bulk of the fish he held to check his footing. ”Anyway, you build a fire, let it burn down until it’s coals, then you put the fish under the coals like I said before. You let it cook for a couple breaks.” With a grunt, he heaved the carp and let it drop with a loud splash into the water. Two trills later, it was gone.

The smith turned back towards Oleg. ”Finally, you pull the hickory board out, pull the nails out of the fish. Then you throw the carp away and eat the board.”

Oram had been leaning the smith’s pole carefully against a tree when his father’s laughter broke out. He looked over; he didn’t often hear his father laugh so long our loud. ”You got me good, heh,” Oleg said after his laughter died down. ”’eat the board.’ Well done! But you’re still wrong about eating carp.”

The smith briefly cast a thoughtful glance out over the water. ”So maybe I shouldn’t have thrown it back?” he asked.

Oleg shook his head. ”No, you did the right thing there,” he answered. ”Like you said, it’s too big for the creel. Besides, I left my hickory board at home.”

Now it was the smith’s turn to laugh.

[Doran]

Oram:

Knowledge:
[Fishing] Using tools to remove a hook from a fish’s mouth.
[Fishing] Using a landing net to help bring up a big fish.
[Fishing] Peculiarities of carp.
[Fishing] Even good fishermen sometimes believe bogus lore.
[Cooking] Carp is harder to prepare than many other types of fish, but is edible.
[Storytelling] Setting up a shaggy dog tale by initially pretending it’s a true story.

Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.

Points: 10

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Comments: I enjoyed the last couple of memory threads with Oleg and little Oram. You write him very well, so I hope that this won’t be the last one.

I hadn’t realized that Oram has a brother though. I hope that we’ll see more of Oscric!

I’m amazed by the detail in which you described Oram, Oscric and Oleg dealing with the fish – and how entertaining you managed to make something that could have been quite dull.

Enjoy your rewards!