Home in the Highlands by heget

Gone Fishing

Angrod and Bregolas in Dorthonion before the Dagor Bragollach.

When Bregolas asks his liege lord if he wants to join in on a brief fishing expedition, leading with “Dagnir says they’ve been biting this week”, Angrod almost refuses. Reports need to be filed, a younger brother needs to be watched over for if he hears of orcs Aegnor will rush after them headless of personal safety, and once-sweet memories of uncles, aunts, and grandfathers fishing on the quays and boats of Alqualondë are now dark and stained. But Bregolas is insistent, and the long thin poles he carry sway beckoningly, and Angrod wavers. Bregolas promises that fly fishing on the mountain streams is quite different from sitting on the lakeside and silently waiting for the fish. True skill and dexterity is needed to cast such a line. To lure a fish to the surface with the imitation of a fleetingly landing insect takes cunning and timing. To not entangle the line around oneself or in the branches of the pine behind one - that is the warning Angrod thinks Bregolas should have made.

Yet the outing is fun, a welcome distraction from his troubles. The constant flicking of the lures, swishing of the poles, to reel in a trout every once and a while. Bregolas chatters away in his pleasant rough twang, talking about his sons, of his many siblings and their children, of the people back in Ladros. Of how pleasant the beer they brought tastes on the tongue. That part especially Angrod appreciates, though he thinks back two hundred years to when he first tasted the brew and winces. Finrod still disbelieves he can drink the concoction willingly, but Angrod boasts in a falsely mild voice that as an acquired taste, one must truly live shoulder-to-shoulder with the mortals and attend at least four weddings, three funerals, eight barn raisings, and one “Thank Eru they called off the engagement because I refuse to have them as in-laws” party before the exposure overwhelms good judgment and beer tastes now as refreshing as miruvor. It ends up as the most relaxing and refreshing afternoon Angrod has spend in years, and he thanks Bregolas for the invitation. The Bëorian smiles and reminds the elf that the fish will return tomorrow.

A box of brightly-colored and finely crafted lures, made to mimic the jewel-like bugs of a distantly remembered Aman, bits of feather and thread around each sharp hook, make their way into a new year’s gift to Ladros that year. A matching set of lures and a custom pole with bands of green and gold and white thread carefully wrapped around the cane make their way from Ladros to the fortress at Foen in return. A note accompanies it. In roughly-crafted letters it reads, “For next time the fish are biting.”

Chapter End Notes

In memory of my grandfather, who even with Parkinson’s would handcraft custom decorated fly-fishing poles for everyone at his workbench in his garage, and took us fly-fishing one year at the family cabin in Montana.