Chapter Text
Mabel Pines was a mermaid.
Not that that was a big deal. The dimension she resided in was home to a wide assortment of creatures. Why her very own brother was a cervitaur! (His little nubby antlers were so cute!)
Being a mermaid was great, she couldn’t imagine being anything else. Her scales were the most prettiest pink and living underwater meant she got to befriend all the schools of fish and have first dibs on the best shells. She’d even adopted one of the pink pufferish and named him Waddles!
Yeah, life as a mermaid was great.
Currently, the brunette was swimming along the deep rivers that ran through the thick forests in search of her twin. (How were they twins if they were different races, you ask? Never mind about that!) Every so often she would boop her head through the surface and do a quick scan of her surroundings before returning underwater and carrying on. It was Hunting Season after all so she had to be careful and make sure she didn’t run into that nasty and mean and o h my god shiny thing!!!
Mabel gasped, bubbles flying from her mouth as she turned around and made a bee-line for the shiny object resting on the riverbed. As she drew closer, it looked sort of like a golden framed hand-mirror?
With a wide grin she reached out to grab it―
―and instantly found herself launched high into the air, and trapped within a net.
Wait, what?
Mabel blinked rapidly, feeling slightly disoriented from having been snapped up out of the water so quickly. She quickly shifted her breathing to her mouth instead of her gills after a moments delay. As she peered around she realised she was in a large net suspended from an overhanging tree branch with rope.
A heavy weight dropped in her stomach as she peered up at it, the realisation of the situation sinking in quickly.
‘Oh no…’ she whispered, clenching the mirror tightly against her chest.
Abrupt laughter reached her ears and when Mabel turned her head, she saw a tall human male stepping out from behind the foliage and grinning ear to ear. Wearing worn-out jeans and heavy-clad boots, a dark padded waistcoat partially hid the yellow checkered flannel shirt underneath. But more concerning was the threatening, large shotgun slung around one of his shoulders in plain sight.
Mabel could only stare at him in fright. Well crap.
As his laughter trailed off, the blond man gave her a gleeful look whilst tilting his head to the side to regard her. The excitement in his expression was undeniable. ‘Well, aren’t you the catch of the day!?’
Mabel parted her lips to reply when-―
Wait.
No.
Oh no no no no.
HELL NO!
Mabel sucked in a sharp breath of air and snapped her gaze down to the words written along the inside of her arm in pink messy scrawl. They matched his phrase word for word.
‘No…’ she whispered, feeling tears of frustration well up in her eyes as she snapped her head back up and pinned him with a ferocious glare. ‘No, it can’t be a jerk like you!’
The smile dropped from his face in an instant.
The mismatched pair stared at one another. Her expression one of frustration and anger. His one of surprise and astonishment.
What evil deeds must she have carried out in a past life to be saddled with a hunter for a soul mate?
The human stared at her for a long moment in silence before his expression eventually shifted, lips pressing into a tight line and gaze narrowing. He began to approach her, a gloved hand delving into one of the many pockets lining his jeans.
He pulled out an item that when pressed sprung out a blade, and Mabel felt her heart leap into her throat.
‘Ah, no wait…’ she stuttered, trying to escape from the net. But it was no use, it only swung helplessly at her attempts to break free.
The human reached the river shore and stretched out an arm, grabbing the rope holding her net aloft and yanking it towards him. Mabel released a short yelp and for a moment their eyes met, glowing anger burned in his gaze like a fire as he raised the knife above her. Her heart skipped in terror.
―And then he sliced the rope through.
Mabel dropped into the river with an abrupt splash and wasted no time in speeding through the water down-hill. Her heart beat like an erratic drum within her chest and only when she was safely within the small underwater cavern that she called home did she allow herself a respite.
Oh God, that had been terrifying!
She clasped her hands over her chest, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to steady her racing heartbeat. But, even when her heart was no longer trying to leap out of her chest, Mabel still found herself close to tears that merely melted into the water around her.
Opening her eyes, the mermaid peered down at the words that had been marked into her skin since birth with melancholy. She’d always assumed they were her soulmate’s attempt of a pick-up line.
She couldn’t have been any further from the truth.
It was then Mabel realised she still had the cursed hand mirror in her grasp. Mabel gave it a look of disgust and threw it out of her cavern, allowing the current of the river to drag it away out of sight.
So much for her happily ever after.