Forgotten People

Chapter 11 – Gone Fishing

The sun peeked through the curtains to shine the whole living room. Two Pegasi lay on the sofa with their arms round each other peacefully asleep. The sun tinted into their eyes making them wake up slowly with a smile. As Alec looked at the time however, their moods changed quickly.

“Dash, do you know what time it is?” he asked rhetorically, knowing the answer.

“No, why?” she asked while stretching.

“It’s 11:30! We were supposed to meet Hamish and Luna half an hour ago!” Both their eyes widened as they rushed around getting ready. Alec had never slept in much, and his body was always used to walking up at 5:00am to go to school. But this time he felt refreshed, having more sleep had affected his speed a lot. Rainbow Dash on the other hand was used to this sort of thing. A couple of minutes later they were both ready to head out.

“We should fly to the stadium, it’ll be quicker than trotting.” Alec said prepping his wings.

“Trotting? Is that what you call it? What ever happened to ‘walking’?” Dash said with a mischievous grin. Alec rolled his eyes and set off ahead of her, but she caught up quite easily. The friendly flight to the stadium turned into a race for it, with both Pegasi flying full-pelt straight at the stadium.

“I’m gonna beat you!” Dash jeered in a friendly way.

“No, I am!” Alec jeered back. Both Pegasi flapped their wings harder to go faster, and they were both neck in neck as the stadium came into vision. Suddenly, Alec’s breathing started to sound weird; it started to wheeze and squeak. He dropped down from the sky to the ground as he couldn’t continue much further. Rainbow Dash saw him and also flew down to see what was wrong.

“You okay?” she asked, noticing what was wrong with him. Alec was on his knees spluttering and coughing. His asthma had set off, and he hadn’t taken a Ventolin earlier.

“No, my…breathing is…really…tight.” He said tightly. “Sorry, but…I have to…walk the rest…of the…way.” Dash understood and trotted alongside him. She had yet another question on her mind that she had would have preferred to ask him earlier, but didn’t have time.

“Can I ask you another question?” she asked him. Alec’s breath had recovered a little, but not fully.

“Sure, what is it?” he asked in reply.

“Is it okay if I told my friends? You know, about…us?” Alec bit the inside of his lip. He wasn’t sure of how to answer that. If he said no, she’d be disappointed. If he said yes, then how would her friends react? Would they be happy? Angry? Confused? Or just plain disappointed? Alec wasn’t sure whether to tell them or not.

“Dash, um…Can I think about it? If that’s okay?” He responded anxiously. Rainbow understood why.

“Sure.” She simply said. The stadium came into vision and so did Hamish and Princess Luna and Applejack. The two Pegasi quickly flew over to them.

“Hey Hamish.” Alec said.

“Hi.” He simply replied, “So, what are we all gonna do?” They four equines and one human looked among each other. No-one was really sure. But them Alec came up with an idea.

“We could go fishing?” he asked innocently. He awaited a reply, which didn’t take long too long to happen.

“Sounds good.” Hamish said merely.

“I’ll give it a try.” Dash said enthusiastically.

“I love fishin’!” Applejack said happily.

“I’ve never tried it…but I guess I give it a go.” Luna said anxiously. So with an agreement, they all wondered down to the lake. However once they reached it, AJ came up with a problem.

“Do we have any rods?” she asked. Alec didn’t really care, as he had a trick up his sleeve. He could make fishing rods using tall grass, a branch and a thicker stick to wind in the line.

“I know how to make them.” Alec replied reassuringly, “They’re quite strong and easy to make. I just need to find some things…” Alec looked around the area. The area was covered in tall grass, and there was a heap of freshly cut wood, and a couple of long branches were sticking out of the edge of the grass. Wow, that was easy! So after collecting everything and fastening everything together, the rods were complete. Now they needed some bait…

“There’s an Apple Tree over there.” Luna pointed out. Alec flew over to it and picked a couple of good ones. Little did they know that the tree belonged to AJ’s farm, who secretly concealed her disappointment. After fastening the bait onto the end, they were ready to go. Everyone plonked the lines of their rod into the water and waited for a fish to bite.

One hour later…

“Not even a nibble!” Rainbow Dash cried out. “Why aren’t the fish biting?”

“It’s either because of the bait, or the exceptionally loud noise coming from somepony.” Alec whispered. Dash apologized quietly and got back to watching the line. But soon, Luna’s line began twitching.

“I’ve got something.” She whispered in excitement. Hamish quickly went over and told her what to do next.

“Right, just wait for it to fully bite on, and when you feel a huge pull, jerk the rod up, but not too hard or the fish will swallow the bait.” So they waited as the fish sniffed at it, and sure enough…

“Now!” Hamish said. Luna jerked the rod up with medium strength as the fish became aware of its situation and began struggling about. Luna began reeling the line in slowly, but the grass line began to tighten. There was no release line feature on these rods, so once they snapped, they snapped.

“Stop!” Hamish said, “Let it struggle about it. When it’s tired, reel in.” So the fish struggled and struggled for a couple of minutes, but finally tired out. Luna reeled the fish in with ease as it finally surfaced. Hamish reached down into the bank to pick it up, but fumbled about with the slippery fish.”

“Well, it’s big and heavy. I’ll say that. Well done, your majesty.” Luna blushed at his benevolence.

“Thank you  Hamish. You really are useful.” She said kindly. The rest of them kept on fishing, except for one sandy-haired Pegasus who wolf-whistled at Hamish.

“Alec, get over here.” He said fake-sweetly. So Alec dumbly trotted over.

“What? Is there anything wrong with making a certain sound-effect?” he asked. But before he could continue any further, Hamish had picked him up and thrown him into the water. The splash scared away any other fish in the area, making everyone else annoyed.

“Hamish!” Dash said.

“What was that for?” AJ said angrily.

“Sorry, but he teased me! What else was I meant to do?” he replied annoyingly.

“Oh, I don’t know…Ignore it maybe?” Dash replied angrily.

“Um, am I the only one to realize that Alec hasn’t resurfaced yet?” Luna said anxiously. The others stopped and realized that fact. Alec hadn’t returned to the surface yet. Everyone started to worry, could he have drowned? An external splash of water at the far side of the lake caught everyone’s attention. So Alec hadn’t drowned, he’d merely swum underwater to the other side of the lake. He got out of the lake, soaking wet, and grimly trotted over to Hamish.

“Ordinarily I’d shake all this water onto you. But, I can’t be bothered.” As he walked off, Hamish screwed up his face at the smell of a mixture of lake and BO. Finally, the others decided they’d had enough, so they packed up the rods and walked their separate ways home, not before they’d all wished each other luck in the events tomorrow and congratulated AJ on her third place medal again. It was only 2:00pm, but they’d all had enough outdoor time for one day.

***

As Dash opened the door to her house, a letter lay on the doormat. Alec picked it up, opened it and  began to read it aloud,

Dear Rainbow Dash and Alec Bishop,

Remember those pictures I showed you the other day Alec? Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is that I have discarded them into the fire never to be seen again. Bad News is I have a couple more new pictures of you two. That’s right, I know about you two. And while I may have lost the race in the Quarter Finals, I have been allowed back in on account of being famous and respected.

The pressure’s on. Give me the medal if you win, or face humiliation and corruption.

Ace Swift.

The two Pegasi looked at each other worryingly. What were they to do now?