A fishy tale

1 - The begin

It was another hard day for Gigi. Gigi wakes up in her shed at the beach after a bunch of seagulls keep squawking non-stop on top of her shed. She stretches and yawns, before screaming at the poor animals. The birds fly off and Gigi slumps against her "bed", which are literal pieces of wood put on a wall inside the shed she lives in. Ever since she got an extreme amount of taxes, she became broke, couldn't afford all of those taxes, and was forced out of her house. She's been living on the beach ever since. She sits up and sighs. "Another day, another chance at treasure hunting... and perhaps catching breakfast." Because she's at the beach, broke, she also heavily relies on fishing to keep herself nourished. She gets out of the shed in a Shrek way; flinging the door open. Maybe a little too hard, because she swore she almost unhinged the door. Then, she steps afoot on the beach and breathes in the fresh air. She walks to her usual treasure hunting spot, where she still left some tools from yesterday. She also has a net there for catching quite the amount of fish, and she has to catch more today because she ate the last fish yesterday. She puts the net inside the water. Little did she know, someone is watching her... on top of a rock in the massive ocean behind her, a mer-Toon had perched. His name? Finn. Finn decided to rest on a rock after a massive swim, but found her instead. He is flustered, the water in his fishbowl head boiling. Despite Gigi being a land-dweller and his fellow mer-Toons warning that land-dwellers poach mer-Toons for their scales and fins, he can't help but fall in love with her. He leans forward, his head resting on his webbed hands, a typical "love-struck" expression on his face as his heart races. Because he's so caught up in his mind, he didn't notice his tail relaxing and landing into the water with a SPLAT. The splash alarms Gigi. She turns around to see... nothing. Finn got underwater JUST in time. She shrugs, thinking the waves are wild today or that a fish coincidentally, maybe slapped a rock with its tail or something. She continues to search for treasure in the sand. Finn, too busy admiring her from underwater, didn't even notice the net she put in the water; the hopelessly in love mer-Toon prince gets tangled inside it. Gigi, noticing the pull from the net, immediately stops digging, realizing she got a catch. "Ooh, some lucky good amount of food!" She pulls and realizes it's REALLY heavy; The same weight of a fellow land-dweller, whom are also known as 'Toons'. "Jeez, did I catch a whale or something?! How in Qwel's name is this so heavy?!" She groans as she keeps pulling, until she finally gets it out of the water and sees Finn all tangled up. She screams, letting go of the net like it just burned her hands. She scrambles to grab her makeshift pocket knife and aims it at Finn once she found the blade. 

"I don't know what sick joke this is, but what are YOU?!" She studies Finn closely as he tries to struggle against the net, thinking he's about to die. She grabs a stick, still on guard, and slowly pokes Finn with it. He screams and struggles even more. Since mer-Toons speak a different language than Toons, he doesn't know Gigi is just on guard as him. He's too panicked to notice her body language anyway. Her eyes widen in realization. I just caught an alive mer-Toon... she thinks. It's impossible, right? They're supposed to be myths. She's convinced her eyes are decieving her. "... a male mer-Toon... maybe he'll disappear if I just..." she covers her eyes with her hands. And then looks back at Finn. He's still there. "... maybe he disappears now?" She does it again. He's still there. Her hands hang to her sides as she stares at him in shock. She gasps in realization. She's probably choking him by keeping him trapped in a net on land like this because mer-Toons are known to only be able to breathe underwater! Though, it's never been known if that's actually true. Only the writers of books about mer-Toons know, but she's too impatient to even read a single page. She uses the knife to cut him out of the net, making him roll back into the water with a big splash. She sighs. No more food for her if she doesn't find a way to fix the net or a new net at all. She had to break her only way of getting food to save an unfortunate mer-Toon she doesn't even know! She's too kind-hearted to poach him instead too. She thinks that the money made with their poached scales and fins is bloodmoney. Literally killing another Toon, that lives underwater, for tons of cash. How deranged can one be? Finn, who didn't forget about her, is perched on another rock in a different spot. He's confused. Why did she save him? Instead of speaking up or thanking her, knowing she won't understand because of the language barrier, he just goes back underwater. He's quite clever for a mer-Toon, and quickly picks up the distress of others (even if there's a language barrier in the way). He noticed her distress about lack of food. He slowly sinks into the water as he decided on hunting fish for her. She lets him live? He'll help her with her food crisis. Simple as that. Fair tradeoff.