Maps || Joel

3: Alone

"𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝖍𝖎𝖒 𝖙𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖍𝖎𝖒 𝖆 𝖜𝖆𝖞 𝖙𝖔 𝖌𝖔
                     𝕾𝖔 𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖆𝖑𝖐𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉 𝖆𝖑𝖔𝖓𝖊"

So he just left.

After I told him he couldn't be on earth, he did exactly what his wife had done a hundred years ago. He just left and dropped himself into a random timeline—or so he naively thought.

I have to admit, it was cruel what I had done. But the council liked it, and that made me feel pitifully better. I had dropped him with their reincarnations. I had given him warnings, he would lose everything we had built together. But he didn't care.

It did sting, but I didn't do anything about it.

"If he wants it to be like that, so be it." Is what I had thought, my mortal feelings were still very present as I did it. The councillors haven't figured that out. I was a new goddess myself, I hadn't gotten them under control yet. It would take me Sausage's second near-death experience to calm myself.

He was a human for a while, not rising above anyone as he lived with a small village. Joel helped out, doing everything to help anyone else struggling. I didn't intervene, I was bitter about it. How dare he betray the council? Betray me? He was the only other person who remembered Aeor's Resolution and he didn't want to stick together?

Who did he think I was? A simple mortal like Katherine? I apologize for my unprofessional questions. Joel seemed content living like a mortal, everything was calm. It was the calm before the storm. Nobody had suspected he was a god. The small family he lived with were happy to let him live with them.

The only thing wrong was when night fell. I would watch as he experienced night terrors like no other, they were about everything. Most commonly featured though—his previous alliances. The people whom he failed to protect and save. He was a failure in those dreams.

Everyone was in them eventually; Lizzie, Jimmy, Pixl—even Fwhip. It all ended the same, pitch black before he was shook awake by one of the worried family members. I know who was behind these night terrors but didn't stop it. Another example of my mortal feelings. I hadn't even bothered to contact him until it happened.

The night of the fallen gods.

It's exactly what it sounds like, dear listener. The council just fell. I don't know what had happened but they all just disappeared, I was left picking up the pieces. I didn't know where any of them were, so I had been forced to contact him.

How? Via the fountain he had found in Lore village. I gave him the ocean orb, granting him the immortality and features of a god. I needed someone quick, but Joel didn't seem to understand how everyone disappeared either. It was dumb of me to think he would know, I told him what he knows.

If I don't know, he wouldn't either.

So he left for the mortal world, I didn't strip him of his powers this time. "I had given up," I told myself. But now I know that's not what had driven me to do that. I felt bad. He deserved to keep his powers.

Once he returned to the world as a god, he met them.

I remember the first night after he met the new rulers. He was sobbing in his new palace, not as large as his old one in Mezalia, but it was still quite spacious. His eyes were puffy, he was in his mortal form as he cried out. He cried out to me, my name felt tainted as he kept shouting it like a maniac.

He had asked me a lot of questions that night, demanding answers. I didn't give him any. I had already been generous enough. The wind outside whistled and blowed harshly, as to try and empathize with his stupid mortal emotions.

I realize now that the person he loved the most was also the reason for his sad episodes. He choked out a cough, walking over to the window to try and cool down. Gods don't get cold. So he just stood there, taking in the fresh cool air.

It was refreshing, but I'm sure the reason he had come to the air in the first place was for one reason—he wanted to ruin it with his ringing problems. Scream out in hopes it would blemish and pollute the clear air. Selfishly hoping someone else would also have to experience what he did as they breathed in his issues.

It wouldn't work like that of course, but it was weirdly comforting to Jupiter. He's just like that when it comes to touchy subjects, weird. He acts like a stranger to love and sadness, as if he hasn't experienced any of the two even though he most definitely has. He's a con artist.

Then she came along, trying to get up to his glorious empire. She was persistent, just as how the council described her. She was cunning, persistent, beautiful. courageous, wild... someone Jupiter needs for all of eternity.

~ facts about her ~
she is 5'5 reincarnated—three inches shorter than mortal Jupiter
she's obviously a feline hybrid
she has flashbacks of the past, her past as Salacia. she isn't Salacia, she never will be again.
she was the main reason he was crying. she was the only person who could make him, god or not, cry.

She was drenched in rain once she had made it up. A wet cat. Beneath the clouds that supported Stratos was chaos. I had failed training Jupiter and his control over his powers, but then wasn't the time to confront him about it. Salacia's reincarnation, Lizzie, had come to visit.

She wanted to trade quartz, going up for permission (something she doesn't do later as she learns he doesn't care if she talks to his villagers) to trade with his people. She looks around for him, calling out his mortal name because that's what he's given them. The cat jumped around, she was a bit scared of heights but continued on.

The moonlight shined through the stained glass of every building. Every temple floated up and down unsteadily as their creator was in a mental warfare. "Sir Joel?~ I have a trade for you!" The feline had made it to the end of the bridge, there it was. 'Joel's' palace, the eight towers surrounding it beyond sky-high.

Lizzie cautiously made her way to the gate, shaking it with all her strength (which isn't a lot) to try and unlock it. "I didn't think gods went to sleep." Lizzie muttered, precariously parkouring around to snoop inside. "Hello?~ Anyone home?" Just as she was about to leave, she heard something.

Jupiter's selfish problems.

Cats have very good hearing, better than dogs. She couldn't mistake it for anything else. If I was a mortal, I'd be perpetually terrified. Joel can do a lot of things, one of those things happen to be making bloodcurdling screams. It sounds like someone had just been shot by their best friend multiple times. It's horrid.

Lizzie peaked inside the nearest window she could find. She stood there, just watching him scream out another window across the room. She just stared, not saying a word as she clenched onto the windowsill to try and not fall to her doom. I could read what she thought; she wanted to help him.

It was cute, I'll be honest.

She's been one of the few people who know about his mortal form. The other two being Sausage and his first child—Hermes.