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“Buhbyeee Pretzel!! Have fun with Aunt Aslana!!” Gillion calls, leaning far over the rails of the Albatross, sailing to somewhere he’d rather she didn’t go.
“Okay, what’d you wanna do?” Aslana says, putting the frogtopus down on the sand. As she leaps from the water herself, allowing for use of her legs, she doesn't expect to look down and see a girl.
She looks up at her with the widest smile, her hair big and wild and falling into her eyes. Her skin just the lightest shade of bubblegum; layers of fabric poof outwards in a white petticoat, anchored down by a heavier pink pinafore.
“Pretzel! You’ve got legs too!! Do the pirates know?”
The girl furrows her brows and shakes her head in denial.
“Well, i think you’re beautiful. What’d you wanna do, we could climb?”
Her pink eyes light up with joy, and she takes a tight grip on Aslana’s hand, racing along the shores of the Isle of Ire towards the forests, Aslana laughing along with her. Pretzel takes a running leap at the biggest palm tree either had ever seen, scaling it like a monkey with incredible speeds. The mermaid follows her up, climbing the tree with not much grace, but still efficiently; the the time she reaches the top, Pretzel is looking at her upside-down, hair falling like a cloud on top of her head.
“You’re speedy! When did you get this good?”
Pretzel’s response comes in a flurry of hand motions, and Aslana thinks back to the pocketbook Gillion gave her, with “PRETZEL TRANSLATION GUIDE” scrawled across the cover. She retrieves the leatherbound pages from a pocket and flips through, finding each translation to be for the Frogtopus, but they carry over ok.
“When Gilly isn’t looking! I’ve been doing it for years!” she translates as Pretzel giggles to herself, “Ollie knows, i think. He saw me do it once.”
“Well, I'm sure he won’t tell.” Aslana warmly says, running a hand through her hair. “Wanna get up? Your head’ll go funny if you stay like that.”
The girl sighs greatly, but she sits up.
“Do you think they’re good pirates? I do, but you’re my girl on the inside”
“Yeah, i think so. I think you’d like it there, it’s fun.”
“Oh yeah? What’d you get up to? Surely you cant do much as a frogtopus.”
In the tree, Pretzel explains every little thing, from the way she’s undefeated at chess (and how good the pieces taste), to how one time she saw Chip sneeze and wipe it on Gillion and she had to tell someone about it so she told some fish, to Gillion’s dismay when he couldn't find her.
“That sounds wonderful, Pretzel! I can see why you and Gillion like it.” She trails off, “how long have you known each other? He adores you.”
“Oh, I've known Gill my whole life! I was a present from Edyn for him to keep, but i don’t mind! He’s wonderful, honest. We’ve been through hell and high water together. Since we’ve been on the surface he’s been so much happier. I have been too, to be honest, the undersea gets boring when you look at it too long.”
Giggles fill the air around their tree as the conversation moves onto local gossip, as Pretzels usually with Gill, she gets all the best insight. Aslana learns about how Chip and someone called Jazz had a weird moment a few weeks ago, how Jay and Lizzie had a big fight, but they’re getting along right now. She learns about how the last time they saw everyone, Edyn and Caspian sat real close to each other, which is new. They spin wild conspiracies together that anyone who listens too closely would call crazy, and laugh to themselves about how likely they actually are. They place bets on random things, “Where do you think Gilly’s allowance goes?” pretzel signs slyly when asked about how she gets money, to which Aslana laughs loudly.
“How about we get down? I can do your hair if you want?” She questions, met with a big nod and a scramble to not fall from the tree.
Once they settle on the sand, hair tools in hand, Aslana sets to work. Sat like this, it’s harder for her to read Pretzel’s signs, so they sit quietly save for a whistling melody Aslana sings as she works, twisting the notes like the hair around her fingers. Pretzel joins in, eventually, finding the repetitive nature of it calming. Before long, the untamed mane she had before is orderly, braids trailing up her head into two big poofs, curls wild and unruly even now. She decorates it with little shells, beads, and bells, until she jangles when she walks. Once Aslana’s hands leave her hair, she shoots up to look into the waves for her reflection, and a scream of delight could be heard anywhere on the island.
“I take it you like it?”
She gets her answer with Pretzel’s arms around her waist, forehead pushed into her side, and she wraps her arms around the girl as she watches the horizon.
And on that horizon, is a speck that wasn’t there a moment ago.
“Pretzel, look! A ship! Recon it’s the Albatross?”
“Maybe, it’s so far away though..” Pretzel responds, leaning against her, “Do you have a… a.. Spyglass? We could see then!”
“Ooh, good call, kid! Come here, i’ll pick you up so you can see.”
Aslana hoists her up onto her shoulders and hands up a spyglass, after a moment she winces as Pretzel’s heels knock into her bones with joy.
“It’s them!!” she signs widely, smile plastered across her face.
“I thought so! Wanna help me make some snacks for when they get in?”
“Sure!” Pretzel motions, hopping down from Aslana’s shoulders with a thunk and a semi-graceful roll.
The pair wander back to the cove where Pretzel was dropped off, she dives headfirst into the waves and returns with a big armful of fish, that Aslana prepares skillfully and sets over a small campfire. The girl shakes herself perfectly dry, resets the hairstyle in place, and plops herself down next to her aunt. But not an aunt in a blood way, but in the way that your parent’s best friends are an extension of that familial branch.
After a while, the mahogany planks of the Albatross come into view again clearly, docking on the shore; and Gillion vaults over the fences built high in an attempt to keep him in and runs down to meet them.
“Gilly!” Pretzel yells (names are some words she learnt in common, none of the other words are deemed “important enough” to her.), shooting up from where she was sat and rockets along the beach and into his arms.
“Pretzel!? You could be human the whole time?”
“Apparently so!” Aslana calls, tending to the fire
“Yeah! I only recently got good at it, Edyn showed me how the last time we saw her!”
“So, you’ve had a human.. Triton.. Humanoid form for three months, and didn't tell me?”
“Triton, i think. But I wanted to figure it all out first, but look!! Auntie Aslana did my hair all pretty!!”
“It’s beautiful, Pretzel.” he says, running a hand through the coils, “Chip, Jay! Look at Pretzel!”
“Woah, sick!” Jay shouts back, “You're like her what? Her dad?”
“Well, what do you think, Pretzel?” Gillion says, crouching down to see eye to eye with her.
“Yeah! I mean, yes and no, but I mean it’d be nice.”
The riptide pirates join Aslana on the sand, Pretzel gleefully tells them about her adventures (as chip and jay pass back and forth the translation guide), once she is tuckered out, and dozing steadily against jays side, at which she wells up because she chose her to nap on, Gillion wanders along the surf, and makes a call.
“Hello?”
“Edyn, did you do magic on Pretzel?”
“I figure she showed you, then? I didn't do anything per se, just gave her the nudge she needed to figure out she could do it on her own”
“I love that she can do it! Now she's like my daughter and a companion! But that's so scary, Edyn what do I do?”
To calm his worries, she talks him through how to deal with tangled hair and inevitable arguments, and tells him to talk to Jay about the intricacies of raising a daughter. After a while, he does calm down, and returns to the group. He settles on Pretzel’s other side, and thinks that maybe this isn’t so scary. Hell, they've been with each other this long, they were basically this way already.