When Mariver Week was first announced by SquidRyder/Homunerd, I wanted to write a short piece every day, all to celebrate my favorite gay cephalopods. I even told my beta reader that was the plan.
But it turns out, work makes you tired! Very, very tired! So instead I focused on a meatier fic based on this idea I've had in my Notes app since forever. It just so happened to fit the prompt well, though perhaps not in the way you might initially expect~ Please enjoy!
"You sure you two will be okay without me here?"
Marie leans out of her walk-in closet; a hand clutches her muddy-grey calamari ring cap against lime-tipped tentacles. As the Squid Sister slides her headpiece into place, she also threads her fisherman's rib white scarf through the needle of her bent arm.
Callie and Shiver occupy the kotatsu in Marie's Flounder Heights apartment. Callie sits with her legs tucked beneath the ocean currents quilt, leans back on her elbows, and smiles directly to her cousin against the backdrop of bedsprings folded against the wall. Shiver has to glance over their shoulder from the opposite end of the table, and they brush a tentacle off their left eye with the hand not on their kneeling thigh.
"We're a couple of grown cephalopods, Marie." Callie's singsong tone breaks into laughter. "I think we can handle ourselves!"
With a slow nod, Marie's discerning golden eyes squint in her black mask.
"Right."
Marie folds her scarf, right end over left, until it completely blankets her broad neck and the golden frill tops of a black yukata, patterned with chalky green swirls. Her head then dips behind the cover of her closet. Shiver's shoulders relax.
The duo in Marie's combined living and bedroom share a near-identical style to their host. Callie's pink-toned yukata looks to be a perfect fit, but whoever lent Shiver's navy-accented set is a size too big for the scrawny Octoling. They swim in fabric. Even a tight-wrapped obi leaves the outfit hanging loose on each shoulder, which exposes a binding sarashi down their deep neckline.
Shiver fills their garment by posturing the moment Marie reenters the main space.
"Well, I should only be a half hour or so." Marie affixes her fluffy, light grey winter coat mid-stride. "But if you need me, I'm just a shellphone call away."
She opens the apartment's front door, letting in crisp breezes from the winter wonderland battling wall-sized French doors at the far end of her penthouse. These windows are frosted over, obscuring a city of glowing fireplaces entirely to the horizon.
As Marie gives her companions an apprehensive glance (she wonders, "Have Callie and Shiver ever been alone in a room together?"), her ensemble is stark against cool sunlight. Marie's fashion sense shines through the monochromatic blend of mismatched pieces, which drizzle her innate lime ink coloration hair-to-toe.
Shiver gazes with one glossy, infinite pupil; their mouth hangs off its hinges.
They're smitten.
The spell shatters as Marie mutters "stay fresh," and then slams the door behind her. Shiver turns their attention to the knowing grin that lounges across the table.
Callie's recognition leaves them blue in the face.
"Well." Shiver's attention is dedicated to spinning a puddle of cold tea, scattering flecks of ground leaf around porcelain. "It's not like Marie to forget something for any kind of event."
Callie shoots upright, and throws her arms over her head so she can slam them onto the kotatsu's mahogany tabletop. Her twin pigtails follow the same arc.
"She didn't!"
The double impact of Callie's drumming hands and voice forces Shiver to lean against the floor, at risk of falling off their kneeling cushion.
"I sent her out so we have time for a real hearts-to-hearts." Callie swings her legs out from the quilt, and hops onto her feet. "Squido-a-octo."
The Inkling's soles pound against hardwood as she runs across the apartment, going to rummage through one of the drawers beneath Marie's chibi Judd incense holder — a sacred space so far as Shiver is concerned. They watch in stunned silence, triangular blue brow twitching as Callie wiggles her rear to the hum of her searching song.
Compared to Marie's low-key vibe, Shiver finds Callie's energy and unbridled enthusiasm to be somewhat exhausting.
They live with Frye: a being of pure chaos, and a tornado that marks her path with a trail of abandoned activities and eel yoga mats (usually in Shiver's painting space). But Callie is a different breed of extrovert. Callie is life itself, bubbling over with love for everything she sees.
She trails joy in her wake.
When Callie emerges from her raid, she pivots toward Shiver with a sharky grin. Her hands fold behind her back, and wrap around something of an awkward shape.
"You and Marie have been dating for a little while now." Callie can't help but giggle as the emphasis paints a darker shade on Shiver's cheeks. "Which means I have to uphold one of the oldest and most important traditions afforded to quote-unquote 'sisters' the world over."
Shiver tilts their head this way and that. Their bang pendulums, briefly covering both eyes.
"Uh huh…"
Callie's wayward steps back to the table carry stronger remnants of sandalwood incense. She drops to her knees beside Shiver and uses all the strength in her toned arms to throw a thick binder on an empty space between them.
The fine china of Marie's tea set and Shiver both rattle in equal measure.
The Octoling absorbs this horizontal tome. Its plastic cover boasts an overwhelming collage of stickers that range from the logos of tourists destinations to music venues, from online emoticons to Squid Sisters merch, from foodstuffs to family photos. A lot of the pieces are worn down, scratched, cut, and faded to such a degree that the assortment of colors nearly coalesce into another snowy landscape.
One banner of legible text on manila tape sticks out: "Memories"
Shiver's maw completely unhinges as they look to Callie for confirmation.
The Inkling nods.
So, Shiver's red fingertips hungrily dig in, flipping three or so pages into the book. The cover clips an abandoned tea saucer, which leaves it clattering for a moment.
Callie immediately bursts into a fit of snorting laughter. She repeatedly points to a photo on the left page. Shiver is drawn into a moment frozen within a rectangular frame of scraggly white edges.
"This was one of the first times Marie and I met! Our families went to Camp Triggerfish that summer."
"Oh. Oh my."
Shiver covers their mouth. The eyes of false Callie and Marie in a Squid Sisters poster on the wall seem to leer upon the same scene.
A toddler Marie sat cross-legged on an ocean of mud, nappies so caked with the stuff that she sank into her backdrop. Her neon lime-green face was similarly speckled by a mud ball in her right hand with a sizable bite taken out. The young girl's expression screamed agony through a wearily executed smile and crossed eyes on the verge of shutting. More mucky earth squeezed through the gaps in her teeth.
Callie bumps Shiver's shoulder, forcing the Octoling back to reality. Shiver finds Callie proudly pounding her chest with a tight fist.
"I made her that mud pie." She speaks as if describing her first platinum record. "How could she refuse?!"
Shiver instinctively plucks their fan from the kotatsu. They jut its blunt edge out toward Callie.
"Having seen Marie try street gyoza, I can confidently say she's no less of a messy eater."
The fan then unfolds over a toothy grin and button nose, but can't hide the spark in Shiver's eye, or the breath that expels from their nose.
Callie blows a sputtering raspberry that evolves into her distinctly whiny, unadulterated laughter. She crashes into Shiver again, this time wrapping her arm around the Octoling tight enough to rival Big Man.
"She so is!"
Though Shiver struggles to catch their breath in Callie's embrace, they laugh along. At least until Callie pulls away to flip through pages in the scrapbook.
"That reminds me! You have to see this one, Shiver."
Shiver does their best to glean as much information as possible from the fluttering pages. A few flashes of Marie's old school projects and trips to landmarks beyond Inkopolis catch their attention; they make a mental note to return to pages 4, 7, and 16. They also hope to get a look at the wrinkled concert ticket on page 10.
Yet Callie doesn't stop until she reaches page 19. She presses the left side of the book until it crinkles flat, and points Shiver's attention to a horizontal image with curling top-right and bottom-left edges that aren't taped down.
"Found it! Here, check this out!"
Shiver leans over Callie's hand, and pulls the fan closer to their pursed lips.
Marie was markedly older, in her preteens. Her skin was still jaundiced with a childhood tone of lime ink, but she was beginning to look like the Marie whom Shiver knows and loves — chubby cheeks and all. However, this Marie was sadder than they've ever seen. She's clearly wailing, with tears down her cheeks, and stood against a collection of red lanterns from a festival full of tents and stalls. A caramel apple hung by the cornflower thigh of her kimono, stick clutched in white knuckles.
"You wanted to show me a picture of Marie crying?"
Callie's giggles crack through her hand as Shiver gives her a peripheral glance.
"This was the… Second? Third? Contest we did together as 'The Squid Sisters.' We were talented — obviously — but hadn't figured it all out yet. I mean, light blue is not Marie's color." Callie circles her outfit with a finger. "We lost this one, and she couldn't stop bawling for three whole hours!"
"Oh…"
The Inkling reveals her cheek-straining grin to Shiver. "Deep beneath that stony sarcasm, my cousin has always been a big ol' softie! Once you get her going, it's hard to turn off that faucet of emotions!"
Shiver looks to preteen Marie again. It suddenly makes more sense why they wanted to keep this particular memory. Seeing the girl feel with all her heart…
"Poor Marie."
… That blooms a smile behind their fan.
"Don't worry about her. We'd win a folk-singing competition three months later, and we've been chasing that high ever since." Callie drags her finger across the grainy picture until she lands on a crowd of faceless squid. "If you look close enough, you can see me here!"
Shiver leans comfortably into Callie's shoulder as they peruse a few more pages.
There are a variety of sights to see: Callie and Marie visiting a zoo, Callie using her Turf War roller to refresh the paint on a torii gate, the Squid Sisters performing in a grungy basement venue that's too dark to get a good photo.
But Shiver gasps when they turn to page 28. Their chest burns with extended breathlessness as Callie claps eagerly.
"Oh! Yes! I love this one!"
There's one photo in the center of this page, with a date scribbled in chicken scratch. A series of medals, grading sheets, and extracurricular notices form its border.
Marie stood in the middle, holding a rolled-up diploma as though she were collecting an item in a video game. Her graduation robes were a touch too loose, her cap too big given the way they sagged. Marie's parents flanked either side in their fanciest dress attire, towering over the young Inkling.
Shiver hardly pays them any mind. The thick set of wires crowding Marie's mouth makes for a more entrancing sight.
"She's so…"
Shiver chews over their words.
Callie chimes up, giving them ever-more excited suggestions:
"Nerdy? Adorable?" Callie snaps her fingers. "Skrunkly, even?!"
"… perfect."
Now it's Callie's turn to gasp as Shiver tries burying their face further behind their fan. Callie soon explodes into a flurry of slaps against Shiver's arm.
"No! Stop it, you're too cute!"
She laughs unabashedly, shrinking Shiver deeper into themselves to avoid the onslaught. It's a futile venture.
"We definitely have to pick out more to use for whenever the two of you—"
Callie is interrupted when the apartment's front door squeaks on frosty hinges. The rustle of a plastic bag collapsing like a souffle against the floor follows.
Marie looks mortified.
"Callie."
"What?!" The girl's laughter burns brighter than ever. "You did this when I brought that Urchin boy home last year!"
"Sleep with one eye open tonight."
Their argument plays out beneath Shiver's perusal of the scrapbook, bouncing between dire fury and playful jests. Even Marie's screams can't pry their scarlet-eyed spotlight away from her goofy braces.