Hey there! Welcome to the newest Mabill adventure I've decided to write! Because who doesn't need a pirate au? Everyone needs a pirate au.
Summary: An old legend, almost forgotten. If one could find a mermaid scale, butterfly wings, their most prized possession, and blood from someone pure of heart, they could create the potion for eternal life.
For Mabel Pines, just came down to being in the wrong place, and knowing the wrong people growing up. Gideon was seriously unbalanced if he thought that kidnapping her would make her more willing to be with him. Yet would she be willing to take chances on another pirate ship to get away from Gideon?
"Do ya know what I like most about butterflies?" Gideon asked with a small smile on his chubby face, talking to the girl who seemed to be asleep on his bed. If it wasn't for the fact that her hands were bound before her and a head wound revealed just how injured she was, one could have thought she was sleeping.
He didn't expect a response from her, and Mabel didn't give him one. Her eyes were opened to slits, staring blankly as she was still working on recovering. Mabel had expected a lot from Gideon over the years, but never something so violent. He sat at his desk, looking like a fat king with his feet on the desk and a jar with butterflies right by his feet. Except for the sound of waves washing against the boat, there was only the sound of Gideon's labored breathing and the tap tap tap of butterflies hitting themselves against the glass to break free.
"It's their wings, sugar plum. Don't they just have the prettiest wings?" Gideon tapped on the glass, his nail making a sharp noise that just made Mabel bring her bound hands closer to her chest. It was getting harder to stay awake, and everything in her vision was starting to look just like a blur.
"Captain, she don't look so good." Someone spoke up, and Mabel struggled to even move her gaze to Gideon's second in command.
The burly man was kneeling by the bed to get a good look at her, even though Mabel did her best to move away and protect herself. His blank, vacant eyes scared her, even though his touch was gentle as he examined the cut on her head.
"She needs the doc." Ghost Eyes was always firm with Gideon, and Mabel wondered if they were just long lost brothers. Ghost Eyes just got all the height and Gideon got all the fat.
"Fine, fine, don't ya worry one bit, sugar plum, we'll get you fixed up." Gideon moved as though he was terribly inconvenienced by her, even though he had been the one to bash her on the head in the first place.
"Told ya it was a bad idea bringing a woman aboard." Gideon grumbled, which only made Ghost Eyes sigh.
They left, and Mabel was struggling to put back the pieces of her memory. Grunkle Stan would be so disappointed to see her like this, but even he had the best ways to heal yourself and get back on your feet. She wasn't sure what he would always put in her bowl of soup when she got sick, but it always made her feel better.
Eyes closing as she struggled to think, Mabel listened to the tap of butterflies against glass and felt the smooth rocking of the ship. If she had been with family, or friends, this might have just been relaxing. Yet instead it was like she was trapped in a nightmare where she couldn't move.
There had been a fire. Mabel remembered that. Not at her house, but close. Close enough to where she had just enough time to grab a sweater and bolt from the Mystery Shack before the flames got any closer. Dipper had been talking rapidly, getting buckets of water from nowhere and trying to protect the Shack while Mabel ran for help.
Then, there was nothing. It was like someone had wiped her mind clean of memories, from the moment she started running through the woods to when she woke on Gideon's boat with her head pounding and her hands bound. Struggling, she did her best to sit up, managing at least that before Gideon came back into the room with Ghost Eyes and a doctor on his heels.
"Marshmallow, you should be resting." Gideon chided as though she was a child, hands on her shoulders and pressing her back into the mattress. Mabel whined softly, hands going up to push him away from her.
"Captain, let me take a look at her." The man who Mabel was just assuming was a doctor, actually pushed Gideon out of the way to start examining her head. Now that she was poking and prodding at it, she could feel the dried blood on her temple and the pain the simple prodding had on her.
After several, pain filled minutes for Mabel, her head was wrapped up in a bandage and she was told to sleep. Mabel didn't really have it in her to protest, but she didn't fall asleep as she closed her eyes. No doubt they just wanted to talk about her when they thought she was asleep.
"She has a concussion. You didn't have to hit her so hard, captain." The doctor said, his voice now slightly warped to Mabel as she started to fall asleep. Try as she might, she wouldn't be able to hold on for long.
"I forget how fragile my angel is." Gideon sighed. "She'll get better in a couple days, won't she?"
"Yes, as long as you actually let her sleep. She's important, remember?"
"I know that, ya idiot. I didn't just pick her because she's my future wife, she's gonna change everything...now go find…"
Mabel didn't hear anymore, unable to stay awake much longer. Without any movement, Mabel finally fell into sleep, curled up on her side and unaware of the men still talking about her.
Waking up for a second time wasn't nearly as bad as the first. Her hair, in some places, was caked in blood, sticking to her forehead and making her grimace. Mabel gently held a hand over the bandages wound, as though that would make her feel better, sitting up with a wince and finally feeling somewhat like herself.
There was no one in what she could only assume was Gideon's room. The butterflies had stilled, sitting quietly at the bottom of the jar, wings fluttering on occasion. Mabel stared at them for a moment, before finally rising out of the bed. It was just as soft as the one she had back home, but it wasn't the same, and the amount of perfume radiating off it clearly told her it belonged to Gideon.
Her hands were still bound in front of her, but her teeth quickly made work of the shoddy knot Gideon had used. For everything he knew about her, he always seemed to forget how capable she was, and what she could do. Mabel stumbled slightly as she got out of bed, still wearing the nightgown which which had been marked with grey and streaks of ash. At least Gideon hadn't tried to change her clothing.
Gideon had a large desk in the center of his room, with the bed Mabel had been laying on off to the side and a rather large looking closet on the other side of the room. Mabel made her way over to the desk, searching through drawers to find a map with a route or something she could use for a weapon. Instead all she found was random papers with foreign words written on them and a dusty old book that Mabel was even afraid to open because it looked so close to falling apart.
The click of the door latch almost sent her into a panic, but Mabel immediately straightened, hiding the book behind her because it would take too much time to try to hide back in the desk. The book was shoved into her nightgown, just barely staying in place but managing.
"You're awake!" Gideon said gleefully, closing the door after him. Mabel already knew that she was out at sea, and trapped, and should probably play along, but that didn't stop her from her next move.
"You creep you kidnapped me!" Mabel shouted, ignoring the pain that caused her head as she grabbed the nearest thing to her and chucked it at Gideon. It looked like some kind of decoration, and hit Gideon neatly on the head with a satisfying crack.
"Sweetheart-ow! That hurt, peach!" Gideon pouted slightly, rubbing the new red mark he had on his face.
Mabel backed against the wall, glaring at him fiercely even as he took a step closer. She didn't even have anywhere to go, not with Gideon so close and being on a ship. Unfortunately, she had met all of his crew the last time he had come to visit her. Back then, they had treated her with respect, and she would make sure they did the same thing now.
"What did you do?" Mabel asked, asking about the fire, asking about her head, asking about everything. To think that she thought he could be better.
"Ya ran from me, marshmallow, and I just had to get you here. It's about time we got married and started our life together!" Gideon clapped his chubby hands together, looking around his desk at the damage she had done and then checking on the butterflies. He actually seemed more concerned with them than with her.
"I cannot believe we're going through this again." Mabel scoffed, not so subtly searching through his nightstand for a dagger, luckily her hand wrapping around the handle of something sharp before touching the blade.
"Going through my desk, sugar? You know you can have anything you want. What's mine is yours." Gideon cooed once he seemed to put his desk back together.
"You just want me to be like those butterflies." Mabel finally produced the blade, which actually made Gideon take a long step back from her. She was deadly without a weapon, but with a weapon she was just downright dangerous.
"Ya know what I like best about butterflies?" Gideon asked, and Mabel had to blink away the sense of deja vu that overcame her. Nodding her head slightly, Mabel still had a white knuckled grip on the dagger, held out in front of her like a spear.
"Ya know me so well, sugar plum. I love those bright wings of theirs." Gideon cooed, as though talking to her like a child would make her calm down.
"And ya know what I like most about those wings?" Gideon sneered, taking a step closer but still out of the range of the small blade. "I like how I can tear the wings off a butterfly, and it keeps livin' because ya know what? Some pretty girls with wings look so much better with them clipped."
She knew he was cold, she knew he was callous. He almost killed her brother when they were younger just because Dipper got in the way. Still, it didn't stop her heart from picking up the pace, it didn't stop the small tremble in her hands that came from knowing just what Gideon Gleeful was capable of.
"Now, are you going to be a good girl or am I going to have to clip those wings?"
Mabel would have replied if it hadn't been as though the ship hit a rock, making even Gideon stumble and have to grab onto his desk so he wouldn't go crashing down to the ground. Mabel was still leaning against the wall, but her concerns were still about what Gideon could do, even as he glanced upwards towards the deck.
"All hands on deck! Enemy ship spotted!" Ghost Eye's shouted, obviously taking on the captain role since Gideon wasn't there. Gideon gave a small snarl, upset he had been interrupted, but still turned back to Mabel before moving.
"Don't go anywhere, my little butterfly. I'll expect that answer when I get back." Gideon even had the audacity to blow her a kiss before he finally moved, leaving her alone once more.
Hand still shaking, and still trying to get through everything that was going on, Mabel had two options. Endure hell on this ship, or face the unknown on another ship. For all she knew, it could be part of the navy guard. A while ago, she would have stuck with what she knew, but her family was waiting for her. Mabel did love rolling the dice and taking chances.