The sea was calm as Dipper swam towards the familiar beach. Calmer than him, at any rate. He hadn't seen Norman in forever, but the day before he had found a message from him, written on the flimsy material humans called paper and stuffed inside what he knew now as a glass wine flask. Norman had brought it down to the beach, and they had half buried it in a small shoal of rocks and sand in order to pass each other messages when they couldn't meet face to face. Norman's message had told him that he had missed his company during the rain, that no, most dogs did not grow large enough to be ridden, , and that he had something he wanted to talk about when they met, tomorrow night if possible.
Dipper's heart leapt when he saw Norman waiting idly on the shore ahead, so he did a few jumps like a dolphin to speed up on his way to the shore. He grinned back at Norman's smile as he crawled his way up the shore a little.
"How's it going Dipper? Sorry I couldn't make it here very often. My parents think I can't survive rain."
"Well, you humans do lack natural resistance to the cold and wet conditions, so I forgive you." Dipper broke down into giggles at his own attempt at serious talk.
Norman laughed too, and then looked sadly up at his castle. "It was pretty boring and lonely up there, without being able to talk to you."
Dipper slipped his hand into Norman's comfortingly, and squeezed. "Well I'm here now, so what did you want to talk about?"
Norman looked down at their joined hands, squeezing a little himself as he searched for words to say. "Do – Does – how does the throne in your kingdom get passed down?"
Dipper scrunched his nose a little. "I think it used to go to the strongest of the sea-people, in battle or whatever, but it's been passed down through our family for a while now."
Norman nodded awkwardly waving his free hand. "And um… how did your parents…I mean…"
"How'd they get the throne?" Dipper asked, and Norman nodded quickly. "Well, my grandpa got too old, and died fighting the tiger sharks during season, so my dad trounced his brothers and fought the neighbouring king for his daughter, then they got married and went off to battle whatever random stuff they wanted, so Gru- uhh, my father's uncle, Regent King Stannis, took their place to make sure nobody tried to steal our throne."
Norman sat staring at Dipper, speechless. "…Mermaids are much more violent than I thought."
"Not so much violent as…terrifically bored. All the time. If we can't do something mindlessly entertaining, we go crazy, cause we live too long." Dipper rolled onto his back and smiled up at Norman. "If it wasn't for you, I'd have left to fight sharks and giant squid by now too."
"Well, I'm, um, glad I stopped you, I guess. So your father chose his wife?"
"Yeah, of course. What, how do you land-dwellers do it?"
Norman scowled. "Up here our parents choose who they think will be the best partner for their kids, mostly based on how rich the other people will make them, or how much they don't want them to come and besiege the castle. That's how my parents met."
"Gee, that sucks! How the bejeezus do they expect you to find love and romance then?!"
Norman and Dipper both looked in horror at Mabel, chewing on a strip of seaweed and grinning at them from her prone position in the waves.
"Who are y-"
"How'd YOU get here?!"
"Please Dipper." Mabel wriggled closer. "It was so obvious you were leaving to do something fun, I just couldn't resist following you. And this is great! A human! Sooo crazy."
Dipper shot out of the shallows and tackled his sister back into the deeper water.
"Why are you here? If Grunkle Stan-"
Relaaaaaax, he's entertaining dignitaries, getting them all ooh-y and aww-y over his land stuff. Why didn't you tell me you've got your own land stuff?"
"He isn't 'land stuff'." Dipper hissed.
"'Kay, yeah, but do you know how much fun I need? I braided all the seaweed in the garden, that's how bad it is. I'm always bored. " Mabel's voice got whinier, and her eyes got shinier too. "I won't tell Grunkle, I promise, just let me have fun with youuuuu guuuyyss."
Dipper gritted his teeth in complete exasperation. Norman was his friend; he didn't want to share him out with his brat of a sister. But he knew she'd rat him out to Grunkle if she didn't get her way.
"Fine, but if you tell Grunkle ANYTHING, it's all over."
"Yeah, yeah, just introduce me to boyfriend now."
"Wha- hey, he isn't-"
But Mabel was already crawling her way back onto shore, towards a rather bewildered looking Norman. Dipper sighed as he breached up beside her.
"Norman, this is Mabel. She's my sister."
"She…looks a lot like you."
That's because we're twins."
"I'm also the most lovely mermaid in the ocean." She wriggled her eyebrows coquettishly, swirling her purple tail behind her in what the maids of their castle called "Alluring patterns". For his part, Norman just looked confused, which made Dipper pleased.
An hour or so later, Dipper was contemplating whether he should have just tied her up in the nearest seaweed bed and saved himself, and Norman, the trouble of listening to her talk. He could've dealt with the consequences later. Maybe with murder.
"So if we have tails, and you have legs, d'you think there might be wing people somewhere? That'd be great, maybe they'd live in the clouds and help it rain and snow and do you get ice on land? Ice on the ocean is scary, because you can get crushed or frozen, have you ever seen something frozen in ice? It's scary. But it's usually warm enough here not to get any. But if ice did get here, you could float out and we could all play out in the deep water! But you can't breathe underwater right? So we'd have to find a way to – "
Dipper punched Mabel in the arm, and she yelped. "At least give him some time to answer your questions before you continue running at the mouth."
Norman grinned. "It's okay, I'm just, um, happy to meet up with you guys, and not be stuck up in the castle."
"Oh yeahhhhh, why were you asking about our parents? And talking about your parents?" Mabel asked. "That's pretty boring stuff to me."
Suddenly Norman looked uncomfortable again, and twisted his hands in his lap. "Well, um, y'know, there's uh, things they expect of me in our castle, and I was wondering if it was different…for you guys."
"Expect?" Dipper looked at Norman searchingly, worried about his friend's discomfort, now ad from earlier. "What do they – "
"C'mon, it's obvious!" Mabel crowed as she bounced in the water. "They're expecting him to get marrieeeeeeed!"
Dipper was stunned, turning slowly to see Norman's conflicted gaze darting here and there. "What? Since when?"
"Um…during the rain, a party of people from another kingdom came to our castle, including…my…fiancé. My father has been organizing – "
"Normaaaaan!" A stranger's voice drifted over the beach and Norman leaped up suddenly.
"Her! She can't see – "
"Norman, wait!" Dipper pleaded as Norman began edging away. "When can we – "
"I don't know. But I have to go, she can't see you, or start coming over here."
"Okay, but…come back in three days, if you can. I'll leave a message if you can't make it then."
"Alright…bye!"
Norman raced off across the beach, and Dipper watched him climb over the jagged rock shoals and out of site. When he turned to leave, Mabel was grinning at him knowingly.
"Shut up. I know what you're going to say, and I don't need to hear it, so shut up."
"Me? I wasn't saying anything. Not a peep from me. In fact, I have no idea what you're talking about." Mabel kicked out into the waves lazily on her back. "Although I am wondering how you're feeling about this whole situation."
Dipper swam past her, ignoring the grins and questions she threw at him as they made their way back to the palace. He needed to sort out his own mind on this matter, without her meddling. But one thing was for sure. The thought of Norman, married to some faceless human, bothered him. A lot. And he was going to find a way to fix this.
*Alriiiiiiiight, good old vague-y determination. I'm having a lot of fun with this story, it's remarkable how easily the plot flows into my head once I sit down (lay down. On my bed .) to type. Whether the plot is flowing into the story well, I have no idea. It's hard getting all the nuances in my head into the story, I always feel like I don't have all the words to properly convey it. But next chapter….I dunno when, don't ask. But I'm trying not to take OVERLY long.*
