113: Gone Derpin'
Jingling her keys, Karyn waited for Derpy to arrive. On several occasions, she removed and replaced her sunglasses, as though she would be unable to see the mare arrive if she had to see through the polarizing lenses. More often than that, she checked for the time on her phone, as well as making sure it stayed fully charged. There was nothing she could do to hasten Derpy, but still she was impatient.
When at last she heard the sound and felt the change in air pressure, Karyn stood up and put her phone back in her purse. “Morning, Karyn!” she heard Derpy say.
“Good morning. Can you go invisible? And get in the car?”
“Got it. One of those, ‘No time to explain, come with me’ things. It’s always annoying when the person doesn’t come, so I will and you can tell me on the way.”
While Derpy was saying this, she was not idle, and indeed the end of the sentence came as she passed through the door, already invisible. Only once Karyn had pulled out of the driveway, had shifted into a forward gear, and was free to face forward with no more than the usual attention on the road, did conversation resume.
“Thanks for being quick. The mapping app on my phone said we have time, but I always like to add a little cushion for getting lost.”
“I can completely agree with that,” said Derpy. “Does this have to do with your new job? How’d that go, by the way?”
“It went just fine. Like you said, nothing too arduous on the first few days. But rather than talk about that—because I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time in the future—let’s relax and have what fun we can.”
Derpy looked at Karyn’s outfit for the first time. In addition to the sunglasses, she wore a baggy T-shirt over a pair of shorts. It was similar to the beachwear she had shown off in two weeks prior, but not as daring. Privately, she wondered how much of it was real. “Are we heading back to the beach?” she asked.
“No...yes, but that’s not our destination.”
“What possible destination could have a beach as a way station? Unless it’s on the water.”
“Got it in one,” said Karyn as she checked her GPS. “What happened is that a friend of the family is graduating, and as a present he asked that we all go on a fishing trip. I tried to get out of it, but no luck.”
“Fishing can be fun and relaxing. Remember when we fished on the way to Muland?”
“Oh, yeah, with Stubby. I wonder what he’s up to. Well, we’re not just going to put our poles in the water. The idea is to catch fish to eat. So everyone else will have a goal. I’ll be trying not to catch any.”
Derpy grumbled her approval. Humans eating other animals was something that she knew happened, but preferred not to be in front of her, in any stage of the process. “Are there any other activities you can do?”
“Well, most of the people there will be drinking heavily, as is often the case with these large get-togethers. For a lot of people, especially men, fishing can be an excuse to just drink.”
“Maybe I should sell Berry Punch on the idea of going on fishing trips. She always likes to have a good occasion to imbibe.”
Karyn followed the same route she had the last time, but before they could reach the bridge that Derpy so loved the last time, Karyn turned off. They had to take a separate bridge, one of steel trusses and rivets, and they did not enjoy it nearly as much.
“OK, now here’s where I really need the GPS. Derpy, can you read it off so that I can keep my eyes on the road?”
“Of course. Too bad they can’t have a GPS that works by voice.”
Karyn didn’t want to admit that she was too cheap to get one of those, and too lazy to try to find one that was free. “Yeah, that is a shame. Maybe I’ll invent it.”
In between giving directions, Derpy said, “So you said this event was for someone who graduated school?”
“Yeah. High school, though. I’m still ahead of him, technically.”
“Because this is exactly what we had on our calendar.”
Karyn pulled her eyes off the road anyway. “We had a fishing trip?”
“No, a boat trip. But we’re going for the fish on a boat, right?”
“Oh. I guess then we’re doing what we planned, just not in the same way.”
Derpy didn’t respond, and Karyn thought about letting it go. But with Derpy being invisible, she had learned to pic up on sound tics, and this silence wasn’t just a conversational pause.
“Are you very disappointed that it’s about fishing?”
“That’s not it,” said Derpy. “It’s just that when I read the calendar, I didn’t realize that there would be a boat trip scheduled here, or that there were boats at all, so I sort of went ahead and booked one for a lake at one of the parks outside of Ponyville.”
“Oh, wow! That sounds great! We’ll do that.”
“But if we’re going on your trip...”
“Then we’ll use the time difference in our favor. When it’s time to go, I’ll step away, we’ll head to Equestria, take a long, leisurely cruise, and then return with no one being the wiser.”
Karyn pulled the car up to the booth ahead of the parking lot, and so Derpy had to remain silent while Karyn paid and took her change. Then she had to slow down for a traffic circle and check that the sign pointing toward the dock actually pertained to the turnoff right beyond it. One more curving turn, and they could see the long line of boats.
“Which one is ours?” asked Derpy.
“It’s called the Lady’s Pride.”
“Nice feminist name.”
“I think it’s supposed to be a kind of joke.” Karyn swung around beyond the lot so she could drive slowly and check the names on each boat. “There are lots of boats with names that reflect their harbor. So if it was Seaville, you’d see them named Seaville Lady or Seaville Pride but this one combines the two and leaves out the name of the harbor.”
“Did you see it on the drive? I wasn’t looking too carefully.”
“I didn’t, but we’re early. It could still be out on the water. Now our choices are to park on the left, which will mean the boat’s on the right; or on the right, which will mean it’s on the left.”
Derpy read Karyn’s connotation of Murphy’s law. “So park in the middle.”
“Even worse, because then whichever way we go, the boat will be at the other end. And we’ll have to go one-and-a-half times the length of the entire dock to get to the boat.”
She turned right and found a space at the right end. In addition to her purse she grabbed a bag of chips from the trunk. “Ooh, snacks,” Derpy observed.
“Yeah, my mom said I should bring something.” They made their way along the dock, looking for the name on either the boat itself or the slip. They found it close to the middle, and it did not appear to have just pulled in. They had simply missed it.
“See, you should have listened to me.”
“Nah. If we had parked here, it would have teleported to the edge.”
They hung out waiting for the party. One of the crew saw Karyn looking up and said, “Coming with? We’re going out for fluke and porgy.”
“Actually, I’m part of a group.”
“Ah! Group of 16? Come on, you’re already signed on.”
With no further proof needed, she boarded and was escorted to the stern, where fishing poles were waiting in metal rings.
Karyn put her bag inside the cabin and waited. Derpy sat on the back of the boat. “This water doesn’t smell great,” she said.
“Yeah. I hate to think of how much gasoline, oil, and other fluids have leaked or been dumped here.”
Other people were arriving, and Karyn had to cut off speaking to Derpy. It was a boring twenty minutes before they finally cast off and headed for open water.
While the engine was loud, the ride was smooth as it was a calm day with almost no wind. For Derpy, who could close her ears for the most part, she could pretend that it was an unpowered boat being propelled by magic and enjoy it. Karyn’s relief from the tedium of watching her family break out liquor was knowing that Derpy was there.
She stared at the wake, watching it unfold and diverge like a hypnotic spiral, occasionally colliding with the wake of a boat going in the other direction to bounce back and forth, battling out for which wave would overcome the other.
Overhead, the seagulls kept pace with the boat, perhaps hoping for a morsel tossed their way or enticed by the smell. Over her time with Derpy, Karyn had, not entirely by choice, become a student of flight. She watched the difference in how the birds flew from Derpy’s pattern. They took long glides and then made the tiniest of vibrations with their wingtips to regain lift. When Derpy flew it was a constant flapping that kept them aloft in defiance of physics. The graceful birds used the aerodynamics to their advantage. As they kept the steady course, the birds circled back to their nests.
They were still making their way through a channel, and to either side land could be seen on the horizon. Here and there, the boat turned inward to get to deeper water, and the beaches got close enough that they could make out the indistinct shapes of people. It amused Derpy to think that, two weeks before, they had lounged there and watched the ships on the water, thinking how much of a difference there was in their positions. Now it was reversed, but if she really wanted to, she could fly between them. She was proud to be a pegasus pony.
The engine spun to a halt, and for a moment the only sound was the splashing of the smallest waves. Then everyone took their position at a fishing pole and set up. Surreptitiously, Karyn managed to get her pole in the water without bating it. This was doubly advantageous for her, as not only was she less likely to catch a fish, but she did not have to touch the clams they were using as bait.
Another round of drinks was drunk, and then everyone fished in earnest. Karyn was amazed that the technique of just leaving the hook on the bottom and hoping for a bite worked, as people in her group and out were hauling up catches. The crew did much of the work of detaching the fish from the hooks, measuring them, and, if necessary, throwing them back. It was truly a chartered affair, with none of the difficult parts having to be done by the paying customers.
For Karyn, and for the unlucky ones who got no nibbles, it was a boring affair. The younger members of her family showed no patience, interpreting every vibration as a potential catch, and reeling in their line often.
After a while, she felt the tap of a wing on her shoulder. She pretended that she felt something and jerked the pole up. Then she reeled it in as the two relatives on either side of her watched intently. Of course, when she pulled up the hook, they were disappointed.
“Something took your bait, though! That’s good!” one of them said.
“Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
She marched into the cabin and realized the difficulty. Derpy could fit—barely—but mounting up would be difficult when anyone could look through the windows. It wouldn’t do to see her with her legs spread in midair. The best they could do was to move as far forward as possible and have Derpy squat to the floor.
Activating the spell, Derpy had little time to react and get her legs under her and her wings spread to catch the air and not plummet. Once she got her bearings and Karyn’s stomach moved back into its proper place, Derpy reached for her next spell and was visible once more.
Karyn looked around and found that the distance they had gone away from her home also put them over the water in Equestria. Not as big of a body, as she could see land on almost all sides, and the one narrow strip that did tail off to the horizon had the two coastlines growing nearer, so for all she could tell it might be just a large lake. Derpy ducked her head and made for the shore.
“Hey, Derpy. Did you see the birds that were trailing the ship back on Earth?”
“I did.”
“Do you think you could fly like that? Not pumping your wings, but just using them for lift?”
Derpy did so, but rapidly lost altitude. “I don’t think I can. I can glide, though, and that might be enough to make land. Let’s try it.”
Karyn was sorry she’d asked, but she held on and tried to calculate their rate of descent against how far they were going. She could see the tips of Derpy’s wings moving up and down slightly. It didn’t look like they were going to make it. At the last moment, right when her hooves skimmed the water, Derpy gave one large pump and trotted to a stop. Frazzled from the flight, Karyn got off and walked as they skirted the lake to the dock. Derpy passed over a few bits.
“This is different from how the fishing boat was,” said Karyn. “Everything was pre-arranged.”
“Yeah, but you had a larger group. Probably I didn’t even have to reserve the boat, but I liked that it gave me something to do to get the event moving, even if it didn’t save us any time.”
The mare at the dock smiled at this and went over a few safety tips. Then she held the boat at the edge of the water with one hoof while Derpy and Karyn got in and settled down. With a powerful kick, the boat scraped the mud and then was free in the water.
Karyn took notice of the oars. They had a notch in them about six inches from the end, and the notches were trapezoid-shaped. This confused her until Derpy put the edges of her hooves in, at which point it made sense. Hooves could grip, but for generating power it would be inefficient and tiring for a pony to have to keep adjusting her position. With those oars, Derpy could lock her hooves in place and let her shoulders do all the work.
“I hope you’re not planning to do all of the rowing,” said Karyn. “I’m not going to be ferried around on two boats today.”
“Neither one of them are really a ferry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to take my turn at the oars.”
Derpy eyed them, where her hooves were locked in. “I’m not sure they’re built for you.”
“Let me try before you say that.”
They changed positions, which involved some careful balancing aided by Derpy’s wings. Karyn faced the rear and took the oars. The part outside the two notches was too wide for her to grip, but the notched section was thin enough, even though it had two corners instead of being round. She could feel the edges digging into her hands when she pushed them back through the air, but it was worth the trouble.
Karyn had never been on a rowboat before, and enjoyed how with each stroke they barely lost any momentum, but kept accelerating. She abandoned the right oar for the moment and steered them toward the one part of the lake that was hidden, then let some of the speed play out as they approached.
“You want to go to that little section there?” asked Derpy. “It doesn’t go much further, but it’s cozy.”
“It doesn’t? I was hoping it would be the start of a stream or river. Spoiler warning next time.”
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize that you were looking forward to it. Derpy, you fool!”
Karyn reached out and tapped her shoulder. “Hey, I was joking. Even if you did spoil something important, people get too hung up on those things.”
Now mollified, Derpy took over the rowing and pulled them back into the little cove. It was thick with reeds, and there were insects flying around, but in contrast to Earth, they stayed over water and plant and did not approach the boat.
“We don’t have an anchor, but we should be OK floating here.” Derpy went for her saddlebag and pulled out something small and white “Ta-da!”
“What’s that?”
“Sandwiches. No fish or bait or anything nasty in them. Just good old fashioned Equestrian bread and flowers.”
Karyn unwrapped hers. She had gotten accustomed to identifying the edible plants, and saw nothing that would damage her health, so she tucked in. “Thanks for knowing what I needed. I try not to be in people’s faces about my vegetarianism, but for times like this, it’s hard.”
Since the boat didn’t have chairs, they slouched and used the ribs as backs while they ate their sandwiches. Afterwards, Karyn took her shoes off and dipped her feet in the water.
“Ooh, that feels good.”
“You won’t be happy when you have to put your wet feet back into socks.”
Karyn leaned back. “I’m OK with staying here until they dry. It’s just so peaceful, you know? Maybe I should take a nap.”
“If you like, I’ll do some more rowing while you do.”
“No, I wasn’t being serious. I’m sure I’ve got to get back to the boat.”
It took Derpy a second to get it. “You mean the other boat.”
“Yeah.”
“I know you’re always concerned about spending too much time in Equestria, but would a few hours hurt you when you really need it? You’ve spend the whole day here sometimes, so you’re not that worried. But then some Sundays we spend all our time on Earth, so you’ve saved up time you could have spent in Equestria. Or did I just contradict myself?”
Karyn laughed. “It’s not that. I couldn’t relax here knowing that as soon as I finished, I would still have to go back. I’d much rather get it over with and then we can have fun.”
Derpy didn’t say anything and rowed back for the dock. But her pace was slower and she didn’t look fatigued, so Karyn worried.
“Is everything all right?”
“Would you be very offended if I didn’t want to go back with you to that place? Like I’ve said, I know that humans eat things like fish, but...”
“Stop the boat.” Karyn put her hands on the oars.
“I don’t know if I can halt it directly.”
“Doesn’t matter. Just stop rowing and pay attention. You know that you can never offend me by...well, anything you do. If something bothers you, absolutely I want to get you away from it.”
“Thanks. Plus I’ve been having so much fun out here and, even if you’re not around, I’d like to keep rowing. It’ll be lonlier, but, just for once, loneliness is preferable to being where Karyn is.”
She nodded. “Can you take me back?”
“What if I just gave you the spell and you went on your own?”
“That would work, and I could give it back to you later. Except that I would be underwater when I went, and no one wants to have to do a man overboard drill.”
“Good point.” Derpy got up. “I’m just going to head up, blink in, let you off, and blink out, OK?”
“Sure.”
Derpy didn’t even bother going invisible, and Karyn hopped off as soon as she saw—and smelled—that they were back on Earth. Back over the lake, Derpy dove for the boat which had drifted a little from where they’d started, but was still within reach.
She put her hooves back in the oars and pulled. For Derpy Hooves, all was peace.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Karyn resumed her place at the fishing pole. Others were reeling in lines and occasionally fish. She watched the line bouncing in the water. She missed Derpy, but she understood. The waves were so relaxing.
The next thing she knew she heard the engine starting, and one of the crew was telling her, “Reel em in, that’s it.” She had slept through the rest of the catch.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep!”
“Hah! If you had just had a beer in your hand, you would have been the perfect picture of a fisherwoman.”
Karyn pulled in her line and hung it up. Everyone around her was comparing catches and swapping stories. They had all had a great time. Well, so had she, if not in the same way.
As the boat headed for the dock, a few miles out, the seagulls rejoined them in hover. Under her breath, Karyn muttered, “You don’t know how good you have it, when you can fly free.”
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4604354
Can't write Zecora? I call bullshit
It's easy as pie; nothing to it
A simple procedure, not complicated
And one when learned can be duplicated
Things couldve got real rticky with teh differences in water level and such. Changeling cant handle seapony form. Then again, look at all that delicious bait?
Have fun at Bronycon. I'm stuck at work, but it would be super cool to meet you.
have fun.
4776679
well you write Zecora for him then.
4777850
If I do it for him, it wastes both our times
He need to learn the way to post speech in rhymes
Ghost-writing is lazy, and shows no spirit
He should try for himself, and should not fear it
Man, makes me want to go on vacation.
Too bad I already spent my vacation allowance on BABScon, would totally to to BronyCon if we still had monies....
Keep going! ;)
Why can't Derpy go to Bronycon? Well, maybe not Derpy, but I'm sure Dash would take to the fawning of fanboys like a fish to water.
The title reminde me of this song
Gone fishin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s73ax81TUzk
Oh! And I'm going to Bronycon this weekend! If anyone's coming, message me if you want to meet up!
My response to that is that if I did meet you I would say "I really like this story. even though it's a little slow but it's the first story that I found to be really long."
Oh and I question I would ask "do you watch Doctor Who?"
5457136 Sadly this was a few months ago, and the convention is long over. But I'll be at Ponycon in Brooklyn and Bronycon in Baltimore this year if you can make those.
To answer your question, no, I've never watched Doctor Who. The closest I've ever come is when David Tennant was a quest on QI.