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She knew she was destined to be in water. Or, well, at least on it. She wasn't a merling, after all; she was a pirate. She should be, anyway. She watched the fish in her bucket swirl around. Being not only a pirate, but a pirate origin (which only happened when you had pirates on your mom and dad's side), you could only eat things like fish and kelp. Ad since her mom absolutely refused to live by the ocean, it was fish for every meal. Some people would say it was disgusting, but for Juliette, it was the only way she could be her true self. Well, that and this.
It didn't really take her all day to collect fish for an entire week. The poor things flocked to her the second she dipped her fingers underwater. Sometimes, she would only grab a couple, partly because she felt bad and partly because it was another excuse to come to her favorite place: the river. She wasn't sure if it had a name, but that didn't matter to her. It was her only escape from her mother, and she took it no matter what.
This should've been a visit like any other: come down at 11:00, stay there for a couple hours, and then come back when her mom called her, which was anywhere between 3:00 and 6:30. But this time, something new happened, and in Juliette's dry, miserable, isolated life, 'new' was a mostly unfamiliar concept.
She had never seen a real origin before. 'Real' as her mother called it, anyway. She said that origins were only a origins if they looked like one, denoting back to the term of 'hybrid', which was used before origins like pirate, witch, etc. were discovered. Juliette thought it was so her mother could deny being a pirate or origin of any kind. She disagreed. To her, being a pirate was just like having gills or being see through; they made you an origin.
But still, she respected her mom to some extent, so in her mind, origins like blazeborns and shulks and endermen were real origins because you could see it. So when she saw a phantom quietly bobbing along the riverbed towards her, talking to someone in the water who had to be a merling, her heart beat faster. Because maybe, maybe someone just like herself was coming along, for the first time in forever.
The phantom caught sight of her and waved. The cloud cover today was heavy, and rain was heavy in the air, so he could be here without burning. He smiled and floated across the river, seemingly carried by the wind. The merlings head crested the river, revealing pink hair miraculously not soaked, and sparkling green-blue eyes, the color of the sea. Or, what Juliette imagine the sea to look like.
"Hello, there!" the Phantom called to her with a lopsided smile. He was wearing a cheerful yellow sweater, with curly brown hair and thin, lopsided golden glasses. The merling soon resurfaced by her feet, pink and gold scales forming webbing between her fingers and a long, matching tail fanning out in the water behind her. "I'm Wilbur, and this is Niki! Who might you be, because I don't think we've seen you before, have we Niki?" he asked, half rambling. Niki nodded.
"No, we haven't," she agreed gently, shooting Juliette a smile. Her eyes flickered to the fish flocking both Niki and Juliette's legs, which were dangling in the water. It was risky, because if her mom saw she would be flayed, but it was a risk she just had to take.
"Juliette Caspian Jr.," she told them quite honestly. Soon to be Captain Juliette Caspian Jr., she thought, but just stuck out her hand to Niki, and then to Wilbur. Niki's hands were wet but not pruning, and warm with the summer water. Wilbur's, by contrast, were ice cold, though that wasn't really his fault, now was it? "Have you just now come 'round? 'Cause I've never seen you 'round here before." "This is our first time walking out this far," Niki answered sweetly. "Or, well, floating and swimming this far. We didn't think anyone lived upriver. Is that your house?" Niki asked, pointing a finger over Juliette's shoulder. She glanced behind her and nodded. It was the house she had lived in all her life A humble wood cottage, decorated with think wool rugs and little wooden statues that her grandmother's mother had bought years ago, back before piracy became the family legacy and before villager's refused to trade with us. "Yup. Not close to the water though," Juliette lamented, her eyes following the river's current and pulling her gaze downstream, where Niki and Wilbur supposedly lived. They must live quite far, she thought, peering into the distance, because I can't see where their house would be. It was just grass, flower fields, and the occasional oak and birch as far as she could see. "You want to live closer to the water?" Wilbur asked, his eyes straying or where the sun was beginning to poke out from behind the clouds. Only slightly and just for a moment, but his worry was well earned; phantoms and the sun didn't have a friendly relationship, to say the least. Juliette bobbed her head. "Oh, that's cool. Hey, maybe you could come 'round to ours sometime! We have all these waterfalls and underground water tunnel's, 'cause Niki can't really leave the water. In fact, the only people who don't like the water are Jack and Ranboo, but they're blazeborn and enderian, so that's understandable, isn't it?" "He rambles," Niki said with a teasing roll of her eyes, using her tail to splash some water near Wilbur. He laughed a little and tugged his legs up, so he was floating with them crossed in mid-air, well out of reach from any splashes. "But I think everyone would love to meet you," Niki added. Juliette began to deny - her mom was overprotective to the extreme - when something Niki said caught her attention. "Everyone? So it's you, and Wilbur, and Jack, and Ranboo... is there more?" They both nodded, and Wilbur explained that it was one big, happy family of origins. Phil was basically the only adult and father figure to almost everyone, and an elytrian. Tommy was an avian, and best friends with Tubbo, who was a bee. Tubbo and Ranboo, the apparent enderian were close, even though Tommy didn't like Ranboo near as much as he liked Tubbo. Then there was Jack, full name Jack Manifold, who was a blazeborn, Charlie nicknamed 'Slimecicle' because he was a slime hybrid, and Fundy, a fox hybrid and - apparently - Wilbur's son. Juliette didn't get how that worked, because 1. Fundy was a fox, 2. Wilbur was a phantom and therefore not tangible and not a fox in any way, and 3. because Fundy's mom was apparently a salmon. Not even a fish origin, no, a literal salmon. She just didn't ask questions about that part. "Juli!" She didn't like that nickname, maybe because her mom used it. She winced, pulling her feet out of the wat much to the disappointment of her fish friends, and grabbed the bucket of fish. She thought a bit, before tipping most of the fish back in the river. "I'll be back tomorrow, same time, same place," she promised the pair. They looked between them, bewildered. "Are you a pirate?" Niki spontaneously asked. "Because all the fish seem to like you. They want you to swim with them, you know." Oh, right, Merlings could talk to fish. Juliette nodded, and was about to add more, when her nickname was called out shrilly from behind her. She winced, quickly waved, and left, running as fast as her still wet legs would carry her across the hills.
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Niki and Wilbur walked back to their house (floated and swam, but you get the picture), silently mulling over their encounter with Juliette. She seemed nice enough, if a bit lonely. But she didn't seem to like her mom. And Niki had learned a lot about water-themed origins, in case she ever swam into one, and pirates loved being in the water, and sailing, especially. So why was she living so far away from water?
They almost didn't notice they were back home, but when you lived with master mischief maker Tommyinnit, it was impossible not to notice. Crashes and angry but mostly playful shouts echoed from their large, shared house. Phil and Wilbur had spearheaded the design process, while Niki designed her room - a front porch/patio area aquarium, with a proper bedroom behind a stone wall decorated with coral and kelp - on rainy days. There were a lot of mostly empty rooms, because at the rate Phil was going, a lot more origins would need rooms here.
"Dinner!" Phil yelled, which was the only thing that could quiet everyone down. People rushed from all over their plot of land. Tommy ran, carrying something over his head that was probably Jack's, given that he was chasing him angrily, the grass behind him charred. Tubbo floated over, Ranboo walking next to him. A small orange fox ran from the forest, shifting mid-run into Fundy, who nearly careened into Charlie, who was waiting inside the door. Niki dove down, no doubt swimming into the tunnel that led into the house, swimming past her room and poking her head out the trapdoor in the kitchen for her. Wilbur merely concentrated before gliding through the walls and windows, scaring Tubbo shitless, which prompted laughs from everyone except Ranboo, who patted his shoulder with a smile.
Which of course prompted the usual argument of 'Ranboo's stealing my best friend' from Tommy, which inevitably led to Tubbo promising that he could be friends with both of them while Ranboo was flustered and Tommy was pissed. Phil glanced between Niki and Wilbur, but Ranboo spoke up before be could, half because he was curious and half because he wanted to shift the attention off himself. "Niki, you and Wilbur are being awfully quiet."
Fundy nodded, adding, "Was it something upriver? Because you guys never go upriver." That was true; Niki and Wilbur went to walks near daily, except for when it was raining, because that was a cause for celebration. But in all their walks, they never went upriver. When they had asked Phil what was up there, he shrugged and said it was just more forest. Niki was far more interested in visiting the sea, so they always went downriver, Niki floating on the current and Wilbur on the breeze.
"You never told us people lived up there, Phil," Niki said, taking a bit of her grilled these. Everyone glanced down at her, where she was leaning on her elbows on the floor, then up at Phil. His brow was furrowed.
"No one does live up there. Well, the last time I checked was a long time ago, but I've never seen a village while flying," he said. "It must be pretty recent, or just small." Wilbur shook his head, his semi-translucent curls bouncing on his forehead.
"Not a village, Dad. Just a little house on a hill." Everyone was paying close attention now. It was well-known that villagers didn't just go off on their own to live in random ass cottages. "It's this girl, and her name is Juliette, and she lives with her mum, and she's a pirate. Niki said the fish really like her," he said warmly, nodding down at Niki, who nodded back.
"But even though she was a pirate, she didn't live near the water," Niki said with a frown. This face was her I think something's wrong but I'm not sure so I'll just try to ignore it face. It usually came up when she was stuck watching them do things only people outside of water could do, or sometimes when she was building and it didn't look right but she couldn't tell why.
"Do you think her mom's doing something?" Charlie asked, unnaturally serious as he fidgeted with one of his many slime balls, careful to wipe the slime away with his napkin before he touch his fodd. "i mean, it's only her and her, right?" Niki nodded, and a silence spread over the group. Tommy spoke up first, which was to be expected, to be honest.
"Well, I want to meet her. She's a pirate, plus, she's a woman!" Groans sounded from all around the table. Tommy huffed. "Just you wait; soon, 'll know all the pirate women and you'll have to listen to me, eh?" Jack slammed his head to his plate, charring his sandwich, breaking the plate, and almost searing the table.
"I do think someone should visit her besides Wilbur and Niki," Ranboo mentioned. "She sounds pretty isolated; she'd want new friends, right?" The enderian was always like this, second guessing and hesitating with his usually brilliant ideas, like the water wheel he had designed to fir under the mini waterfall of the stream, which powered the redstone lantern lights. Or growing a small, warped and crimson wood forest for Jack, watering the saplings in lava and using ground of wither skeleton bones instead of bonemeal.
"How about you go, Boo?" Tubbo suggested. No one - besides maybe Tubbo - missed the way Tommy's face tightened at the nickname. Tubbo continued, oblivious. "You're good for not being lonely. And besides the whole 'Tommy meeting a woman' thing, I don't know if Tommy would be the best for this. I mean, you are a bit- loud."
"Oi, what's that mean, bitch?" And just like that, it was like nothing had changed. Except, so what if Phil was already planning what his new child's bedroom might be like?
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"How's the fish?" Juliette's mom, Kairi asked. Kairi always said her name meant fire, or from the nether, or something to do with fire. but Juliette had asked her grandmother on the last day she visited - nearly 4 years ago, now - and she had said that it really meant 'from the sea'. That was the day when she had stopped referring to her as mom in her head. No, that day was years and years ago, wasn't it? Juliette couldn't remember exactly when.
"Great, Ma," Juliette told her, like she always did. Kairi was temperamental. Sometimes, she would be nice, calling name sweetly to that they could cook together, and on those days when she would swear off drinking and say that they would go one walks soon and maybe even adopt a bird, she was stoked. But then the bad days came, like they always did, and it was shouting and thrown wine bottles and crying inside her room, the lights off and door locked, gazing through tears at the river, which could be her escape... in more ways than one.
"You didn't catch many fish," Kairi reflected, looking at the forlorn, beat up little bucket that she always took down to the river. "You never had trouble catching a lot before."
"There are less of them now that we've been fishing for a long time, Ma," Juliette told her, half paying attention to the conversation. "Maybe we should move further downstream; there might be more fish down there." She let her eyes glance up at Kairi's. They looked nothing alike, which Juliette was grateful for. Something Juliette slightly resented, however, was how much her mom looked like a pirate when she didn't. Her mom had stormy gray eyes, the color of turbulent waters and churning tides, and sun damaged caramel hair, as well as a years old, natural tan, crows feet, and taut, somewhat out of use muscles.
Juliette, however, looking something like a moobloom origin might; she knew that because while they were traveling here, they passed a family of mooblooms origins, and she looked more like them than she did her own mom. She had brown eyes, the color of her mom's favorite whiskey. Her hair was lightening in the sun slightly, but it was still a dark brown. She still had fair skin and a natural blush, as well as freckles and a lanky build. She looked more for the earth than the water, and she hated it. She wanted her hair to lighten to maybe even a blonde, she wanted a deep tan from days spent under cloudless skies on the ocean, she wanted a body toughened by the sea. She wanted to be a real pirate.
"Absolutely not." As she always seemed to, her mother cut her from reality. Instead of on a boat in the middle of the sea, 'Captain' Juliette was right back at the dinner table, her mother's blue eyes looking more like storms than ever. "We are fine where we are. Understand?" Juliette nodded, dipping her head quickly. Although she was loathe to admit it, her mother still terrified her.
"Aw, dear, you know I didn't mean it," her mother cooed, her demeanor switched like a light switch. Her mother's bitten nails were tipping up her head, their eyes meeting. "You know I don't like scolding, right? It's just that you make it so difficult sometimes." Juliette nodded, picking up her plate and her mother's and taking them to the sink. "Bring Momma a glass, wouldn't you? Oh, and some wine, silly me. The clear bottle, Juli, the one with the green label." She nodded again, delivering both to her mom.
Gathering her nerves as she walked over to her bedroom door, her escape if need be, she tentatively said, "Tomorrow I'll swing by the river again, to see if I can catch enough fish to last the week." Luckily, her mom only waved her off, her attention more on the generous glass she was nursing than her daughter. Juliette sighed, closing the door behind her and locking it, like she always did. She knew that soon, her mother would be drunkenly pounding on the door and that soon, she would be subjected to yells she had already heard before, but somehow always managed to sting but for now, for now she focused on the fact that she had actually made friends.
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Just as promised, Juliette was there when Niki, Tubbo, and Ranboo walked upstream at around noon. The sun was high, so Wilbur had elected to stay home and entertain a pouting Tommy. They had just drawn straws to see who would get to go, and Tubbo won, so the boy was happily floating along, occasionally buzzing a song or chattering about the different kinds of flowers they passed ("Those are lilies of the valley, they're the ones Niki has next to her tank", "Peonies, they grow in the forest sometimes, very pretty!, "I don't know if I've ever seen a cornflower!", etc.).
"Hello?" Juliette asked when they're close enough, squinting at the person who definitely was not Wilbur and the random 14 year old who was just here for some reason. Her eyes flickered to his wings and his bobbing antenna, and mentally guessed that me was Tubbo, the bee hybrid. And she didn't know what an enderian typically looked like, but nearly 8 foot tall, two toned skin and hair, eyes that looked like two perfect ender pearls, and little claws tipped her off that this was Ranboo. "Oh. Hello!" she greeted more enthusiastically. Tubbo was there in an instant, his wings carrying him across the river for him to ask rapid fire questions about being a pirate. Laughing, she answered them as Niki settled by their feet and as Ranboo carefully teleported across the river.
"Do you want to go to the sea and sail?" Tubbo asked innocently, his large brown eyes wider than usual. Juliette froze. Everyone noticed it. Juliette was always moving around; her leg was bouncing, or her head was nodding along, or she was talking or fidgeting or something. But she had just froze. Tubbo shot Niki a concerned look, but before anyone could say anything, she settled back to normal and gave Tubbo a smile he had seen from Niki many times: that patented protective/fond older sister look.
"'Course I do," she answered, her smile turning more sad than anything. "But I'm happy here, with my little river." Tubbo nodded and kept questioning, eventually sparking a conversation that lasted the afternoon, a calm afternoon full of chatting and happiness, something Juliette had never really experienced before.
This went on for several weeks, Niki always swimming up to see her. Sometimes it was just her, but usually she had at least Tubbo with her. Ranboo and Wilbur common guests, the only other person ever dropping by was Fundy, whom she liked a lot. Tommy was too loud, Phil too overprotective, Jack too... arson-y, and Charlie too squishy to come along, and the four were fine, as long as the visitors told them everything that happened.
It all came to a head, as things often do, because stories had to have an ending. The beginning of the ending came on another of Kairi's drinking nights, but the first where Juliette forgot to lock her door. She was okay at drawing, so she had drawn everyone who had come to visit her, and was now trying to finish her drawing of Wilbur from memory. She was having trouble with his glasses, but she figured it would be fine, because after all, it was set to rain tomorrow, which meant that Wilbur was likely visiting.
Her door flung open with abandon, making her flinch hard enough to drag her pencil across the paper, cutting Wilbur in half with a think black mark and ripping the paper a little too. "Mom?" Juliette asked, getting up with her paper in hand as she tried to grab her mom, maybe give her some water and help her to the couch. But her mom grabbed the paper and stumbled away, unsteady on her feet.
"Who. Is. This?" Her mother - quite literally - growled. Juliette froze. Everything was coming down around her, the world of fantasies had been made on a rickety foundation of lies, and it was all coming crumbling down. Guilt pooled in her stomach, making her words trip and stumble over each other, nearly not understandable as she tried to blurt out an explanation as fast as possible, all while her mother was swaying in front of her, her cloudy eyes somewhat sharpened with rage.
Her mother hurled her wine glass at Juliette without warning, sending glass and blood scattering to the ground. Juliette's hand touched her face blankly, looking at her mother with wide eyes. In all the years of her mom getting drunk like this, she had never, ever hurt her. Maybe it was because of her locked door, and maybe if she had left it unlocked more, or maybe if she was never given a lock in the first place, this would be commonplace. But the 'maybe's and 'what if's didn't matter, because right here, right now, her mom was blocking the entrance to her room, while she was pressed against the window, and... the window!
Gritting her teeth, she slammed her elbow into the glass, sending cracks through the think pane and pain all up her arm, but she just swung back again, slamming and slamming until it shattered, glass raining down. As quick as she could, she hefted herself out the window. She winced as broken glass cut little gashes on her feet, but she just kept running, knowing that she was slower on land. Good news was, so was her mom. She didn't look back, she couldn't afford to. Instead, she ran around the side of the house and began sprinting downstream, leaving bloody footprints on the wet grass.
She stumbled to the first tree she found and quickly broke it, making a crafting table and the standard rowboat that came with a crafting recipe. She hurtled down to the river, aware of her mom catching up to her. Juliette frantically threw the boat into the water, before diving into it and earning some nasty bruises. Groaning, she pulled herself to an upright position, squinting in the dark to see her mom, swaying and cursing and stumbling along the edge of the river.
Juliette wasn't sure how long she rode the currents, but she did know that she sun was beginning it's climb when her boat finally came into view of a large house, made out of oak and stone in the distance. The river was slow, so it was another 45 minutes before she was in front of the house. She tried to get out, but in her still panicked, sleep deprived mind, she only tipped the boat, sending her into the river headfirst. The water sharpened her wits, and she quickly swam to the riverbank. She was reluctant to get out, but managed to pull herself out of the water. She tried to pish herself into a standing position, but the world was fading in and out and spinning, and soon, the grass was rushing up to meet her.
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When Phil had commented that he wanted to meet Juliette the Pirate, he didn't exactly mean like this. He meant for tea or some shit, maybe showing her around their plot of land and asking her if she would like to be adopted into their little family. He did not mean having Niki and Wilbur and Tommy and Jack and- well, basically everybody screaming his name at an hour past dawn. He was still half asleep when he made his way outside to find his family all hunched over someone near the river. He quickly pieced together that his was Juliette.
"What the hell happened?" he asked, still slightly pissed at being woken up this early. Niki burst into tears as she tried to explain, and through sobs and hiccups, he eventually managed to get that Niki had woken up to see a boat floating on the wat, not even being paddled. She had watched, terrified, as Juliette fell in and blood spread through the water. Then, she poked her head out of the water and had seen her collapse, which was when she had started screaming bloody murder, which was got everyone else out here.
"Okay, okay," he muttered, hefting her up and carrying her to the spare bedroom everyone had been decorating for her. There was pirate maps drawn by Ranboo, and an old fashioned anchor that Niki had found, and flowers from Tubbo, and some seashells and bottles of fine sand, collected by Wilbur a couple months ago. He set her down on her bed, a traditional red and white one, and a bee immediately flew through the window, accompanied by a dark blue and yellow parrot. The bee buzzed its way over to Tubbo, who hugged it tight, while the parrot cawed sadly and perched on the nightstand. Tommy bolted off, before running back with a handful of seeds. He threw them at the bird, heard. Again, it cawed, this time angrily, and flew up to peck Tommy.
Which then led to Phil, Wilbur, and Ranboo trying to patch up Juliette with Niki trying to help from her tank, all while Tommy was cursing out a parrot trying to peck his eyes out and Tubbo and Randboo helping him. Fundy, Charlie, and Jack were content watching Tommy panic, hurling more seeds all around the room.
And when Juliette blinked into hazy consciousness and saw this, this chaos mixed with love and care mixed with humor mixed with belonging... she knew that this was her family. Then, she quietly let herself fall back into blackness, assured in the knowledge that her found family would be there when she woke up again.