AU IDEA
Bowuigi Mermaid au!
🌊🦭🐚🦭🌊
In this au, Mario and Luigi are exploring the sea to find their own place in the world. When Mario stumbled across Peach's kingdom, it didn't take long for him to fall for the mermaid princess. Thus, the two selkie brothers decided to stay there. It's a nice kingdom, peaceful even.
Of course, peace doesn't last forever, especially in the sea.
When the Koopa King attacked, the ruler of the kingdom born from the molten lava bursting from the sea floor, he was seen as a monster of some kind, and it was to everyone's suprise when he was defeated. By the selkie brothers no less! However, as the celebration ensues, Mario gets swept up in the praise. Every mushroom kingdom citizen was delighted that the selkie their Princess had become friends with had saved them. Luigi, all the while, lets himself float away from the crowd, used to the feeling of being forgotten in the shadows of his brothers brilliant confidence.
Instead, the quieter selkie brother finds himself swimming back to the "battlefeild". He didn't understand what had happened, not fully, but he knew that the Koopa King wasn't gone forever. Mario had used his magic and some power ups to defeat the sea dragon. Yet Luigi knew it was all just some elaborate show.
He loved his brother, he did, but Mario wasn't strong enough to defeat a sea dragon.
Luigi was always the strategist of the two. It was no wonder he was so against joining the battle in the beginning, though he didn't correct anyone when they mistook it for fear. Not even Mario. No, instead, he followed his brother in hopes of helping him at least escape with his life. Luigi knew they shouldn't have won, knew that he should've had to drag his injured brother away and hidden until he could find a different, safer place to call home. He didn't care if people saw such a thing as cowardly. They weren't the ones used to living in the wild parts of the sea. They weren't the ones who knew how to survive outside of a nice and safe kingdom. His brother would've been upset, concidering just how much he'd come to fancy the Princess, but he would've understood. Would've known Luigi was just making sure he lived.
But that isn't what happened, not at all.
Luigi remembered the battle, vividly so. He'd been staying hidden in the background, making sure Mario never got hit hard enough to injure him too much. Keeping track of the entire area, who was fighting, who was down. Realistically, nobody should've noticed him, but today wasn't a day of normality. Instead, the Koopa King paused, not enough for anyone to notice unless they were paying close attention.
Luigi was, of course. His brother was in a battle that was going to get him killed. Not paying attention wasn't an option. He had to make sure he could get Mario away safely when it finally got to be too much.
What made Luigi freeze was when the Koopa King looked in his direction. Briefly, but with such sharp eyes, Luigi just knew the sea dragon understood something or someone was hidden in the shadows of the battle. It was as if the King had somehow sensed Luigi. What made it worse? That seemed to be the moment the King.. shifted. He started looking like the hits he took hurt.
They didn't, couldn't. He was strong, too strong, they shouldn't have won and he shouldn't have lost... but they did.
Luigi looked through the mess left behind on the so-called battlefield, blue eyes like sapphires crackling like lightning as he stared at the scene. Smart, cunning, predatory in a way. Such a stark difference from the cowardly, kind, timid selkie everyone mistook him for.
"You let yourself lose.. why?"
He murmured to himself, voice echoeing through the empty battlefield. Shaking his head, he turned. Beginning to swim back to the Mushroom Kingdom, the celebration, his brother.
Unaware of the red eyes hidden in the shadows, staring at him as he leaves.