Chapter Text
The sounds of seagulls were the first things to awaken Bowser from his sleep, being more annoying and persistent than any alarm he could set. Living by the sea had its perks, but if he could erase one thing from it, they would be seagulls. Or at least their screeching.
Bowser sat up in his bed, stretching his arms above his head and letting out a big yawn. He looked to his right at a nightstand, specifically at his alarm clock. 5 am. Way too early to be awake for someone like him. Being rich meant he didn’t have to work, letting him sleep as long as he wanted. The seagulls had different plans.
“Fucking birds…” he groaned and got up, feeling tiredness escape him, not allowing him the bliss of being asleep for just a few more hours.
Bowser crossed the room to get to his desk, grabbing his phone. First thing that popped up was a missed call notification from last night. Actually, 5 missed calls, from the same woman. Peach, his girlfriend. He groaned once again and swore under his breath, deleting the notifs immediately. He did not want to deal with her, especially not at this hour. When he bought this house with a private beach, he wanted to get far away from the city, and therefore her. Unfortunately he still had to deal with her phone calls everyday, which was starting to get tiresome. He considered blocking her, but knowing Peach, she would just come over instead, and that was the last thing he wanted.
Bowser turned his phone off and set it back down, forgetting why he took it in the first place. He turned around and walked to the door to leave his bedroom. In the hallway, he reached the stairs and walked downstairs towards his kitchen. He wasn’t very hungry, so he only made himself a black coffee and a single, dry toast. A miserable breakfast for a miserable morning.
He waited until his coffee was done, then grabbed the plate and mug and went outside to eat on the porch. The view was so beautiful it almost made up for waking up this early. Seemingly endless sea, sparkling like glitter from the barely risen sun. The soft splashing of the waves relaxed him, and the squawking of the seagulls blended in nicely, no longer irritating. Bowser took a deep breath, the tension in his body easing. The sea has been good at calming him down, which was one of the nice things about living there now. Bowser was always prone to anger, so finding something that made him relax and forget about the world was nice.
It sure was easy to forget about the world here. The bigger city was hours away, and barely anyone lived close. The beach his house was right next to was private, so he had all this space just to himself. Any food he had was ordered, and business matters were sorted by him over the phone, so human contact was minimal. This was exactly what he hoped for, especially after his last argument with his girlfriend months ago, which caused him to even think about buying this house. If only she could stop bothering him with the phone calls…
He snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed one of the birds landed next to him, spotting his toast, and was watching him intensely. Bowser shrugged, breaking off a piece of the bread and giving it to the bird, being sneaky so the other seagulls wouldn’t notice. Maybe if he formed a truce with some of them, they would stop screaming in the morning. He laughed at the idea as he watched the seagull fly away with the piece of toast. His eyes then shifted back to the water. Then to the small pier that his beach included. It wasn’t very long by any means, but it was long enough that where it ended, the sea was so deep Bowser didn’t have ground under his legs. He often swimmed there, and today was the day he wanted to do so again. Drinking the last drops of his coffee and, still not being very hungry, tossing the remaining toast to the seagulls, he got up and went inside the house to change clothes. Getting out of his sleep clothes, he put on his swimming trunks, and went back outside. The morning sun was warm, not hot but enough to warm the sand beneath Bowser’s feet. The man made his way towards the pier. He slowly walked onto it, wood creaking softly as he went further towards the sea.
When he reached the end, the wind started to pick up a bit, but he paid it no mind. The wind was often stronger further into the sea, and it has never been a problem for him when swimming. Bowser sat on the edge, dipping feet into the water, getting used to the pleasant coolness of the sea. The waves lapped at his legs, stronger than he was used to, and his heart raced at the thrill of swimming in more aggressive water. Taking a deep breath, he sunk beneath.
After a few seconds, he swam up, taking a deep breath. He laughed, then swam further into the sea, seeking the thrill of not having the pier near enough to grab in case he needed to get out. He never thought himself a thrill seeker, but the sea has made him realise he loved it.
The thrill, however, came with danger.
The wind was even stronger now, causing the waves to grow larger, and Bowser started to regret drifting so far from any safe ground. As the waves played with him, pushing him around, he turned and tried to swim back to the pier. With his back turned, he did not notice the huge wave coming down on him.
It happened in an instant. Bowser was pulled under the water from the crash of the wave. It was too fast for him to react and take a breath, and he gasped instinctively under the sea, causing salt water to flow inside his mouth and lungs. He coughed, but it only made things worse, as all oxygen escaped him. He tried to swim back up, his vision blurring at the edges, but he was unable to clear any real distance. He wasn’t even sure he was swimming up at all, and not deeper into the sandy floor of the sea. He was always a great swimmer. The sheer humiliation from not being able to swim up and the panic from his lungs filling with water and burning mixed into an agonising sensation.
Whoever told him that drowning would be a peaceful death was a fucking liar.
His head pounded, and he felt unable to keep his eyes open. His limbs hurt too much to keep struggling. Resigning himself to his fate, his weak struggles stopped.
That’s when he felt hands on his shoulders. Soft, too smooth to be human. He couldn’t open his eyes from the exhaustion, but he could feel the hands go below his shoulders and pull him up. Whoever, or whatever, was pulling him up was surprisingly strong, despite how frail its hands felt, managing to pull his weight up with only minor struggle.
From his half conscious state, Bowser realised that he wasn’t necessarily being pulled up, but rather to the side, towards the shore. Sure enough, Bowser felt himself break out of the water and get dragged onto dry sand. With air being available again, he started trying to take quick, desperate breaths, couching water out of his lungs. It took a few seconds for his vision to get clear enough to see in the corner of his eye that there was someone sitting next to him.
Weakly, Bowser turned his head.
And recoiled, energy somehow rushing back from shock.
Sitting, or more accurately, laying, next to him was a man. Pale, with almost green undertones in his skin. Eyes wide but calm, bright blue. His hair reached his shoulders, brown, curly, and somehow, his hair and the moustache he also had, were not damp despite the rest of the man’s body being soaked from water.
More importantly, below his waist, instead of hips and legs, the man had a long, green siren tail. His whole body was also sprinkled with green scales, and he had gills.
Bowser also noticed he wore a bunch of gold jewellery. Pretty nice, in fact.
Bowser was staring at him, mouth hanging open. He was taking in the appearance of the strange… man? Creature? It was clear he was a mermaid. Or a siren. Which meant those apparently exist.
“Are you alright?” The man asked in a soft, squeaky voice.
Bowser did not respond.
“Umm…” the siren crawled over to him, tail dragging on the sand “H-hello?”
Bowser blinked a few times, before realising the siren was talking to him.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. I’m okay. I think…”
The siren smiled at him.
“Oh well that’s a relief! Good thing I thought nobody lived here still, or else you would’ve drowned, hehe.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds.
“…I guess that wasn’t very funny, sorry…”
Bowser stood up.
“Who… what are you?!” He yelled out. He didn’t mean to yell, but the shock has build up inside of him.
The siren flinched from his tone, but didn’t look scared. Thankfully. Bowser didn’t mean to scare the person who saved his life.
“Oh, right, humans don’t exactly know we exist… well, I’m Luigi.” He smiled
“…Luigi”
“Mhm! I’m what you would call a siren. Or a mermaid. I’ve been called both by sailors.”
“…Luigi is a very human name for a siren.”
Luigi pouted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Uh, I-“
“Haha, no it’s okay! I’m messing with you!” Luigi cut him off and lit up once again.
“We sirens don’t have names, we recognise each other by scent.” He continued.
“So, why Luigi?”
“Me and my brother heard sailors call each other by names and we thought that was cool, so we basically named ourselves after names that we liked that we’ve heard from sailors.” He explained.
They sat in silence for a while more after that.
Bowser eventually broke it.
“So, thank you for saving my life.”
“Eh, no problem! Wouldn’t let someone drown.”
Luigi looked around the empty beach.
“You live here alone?”
“Yeah. Private beach.”
Luigi smiled brightly.
“So. Would it be okay if I visited you again?”
“Huh. I mean, sure. Don’t you have any other things to do though?”
“Hmm… not really. My bro is the only one I really know. Sirens don’t really travel in packs, and Mario doesn’t want me to be around humans, you know?”
Bowser nodded.
“Sure. Come anytime you want.”
Luigi thanked him, excited.
“Could you, umm… throw me back into the water please?”
They were far from the shore, and Luigi really didn’t want to crawl back to the water. Bowser picked him up and carried him towards the sea, then gently set him inside the water. Luigi thanked him again and swam off.