Maps || Joel

5: Hold On

"𝕷𝖊𝖙 𝖒𝖊 𝖙𝖆𝖐𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉, 𝕴'𝖑𝖑 𝖒𝖆𝖐𝖊 𝖎𝖙 𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙
                                𝕴 𝖘𝖜𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖙𝖔 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖒𝖞 𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊"

Joel did tell her eventually. He told her everything. He told her who he really is and who she once was. What they were together. Their previous doom.

It was inevitable, he has a loud tongue. Joel can't seem to keep a secret for too long for the life of him. He cracks under pressure (especially around Lizzie) and he spills too much. He doesn't keep secrets, he states the brutal truth if he himself can take it. He most definitely can take his wife's old death.

So he broke the news to her-at first accidentally. He thought she was asleep as he spoke quietly; "I miss the old Lizzie. I love you but I do miss the old you sometimes. I miss the ocean queen." He was ill-informed about cats. Did you know cats have better hearing than most dogs?

Lizzie had awoken to this 'confession.' She was confused but kept listening in, if he had known she had woken up he would've stopped. Lizzie knew that blatantly simple fact.

"Does it mean I'm an unfaithful husband if I told the universe I've fallen for another woman? That I had fallen for you? Would my Lizzie be angry?" Joel lied in bed, not looking at the cat hybrid beside him who was sifting through his cryptic wording. It confused her more than anything. 'Joel had been married?'

"I hope she isn't, you wouldn't be... would you? Gosh-I'm just rambling on and on. I should sleep." Joel retorted as he perpetually shut his eyes, his vision darkened. Lizzie was like a deer in headlights, she didn't know whether to question him or to ignore it. Forget he had ever said anything.

She hadn't made her decision fast enough as she soon heard the soft snores coming from the brunette beside her. He was in his mortal form; not 11ft. They had come to the agreement when they first started dating (which was a few months ago, dear listener) that as long as he was visiting her, he wasn't to be in his god form. Lizzie reasoned that it was inconvenient. I would agree, 11ft in your house isn't ideal.

Instead he was 5'8.

Lizzie herself was only 5'5, a whole three inches shorter. The cat hybrid turned to face Joel, staring at the male peacefully sleeping. She wanted to poke him awake and ask; catch him off guard so he would have to answer honestly. But that wouldn't be necessary, Lizzie would come to find out as Joel just says stuff.

A few days later, they were working on the aquatic district together. While Joel was admiring the river he had terraformed into existence, Lizzie brought it up. "Did you ever have another spouse? You being immortal and all, you surely have had at least a previous girlfriend right?" The cat hybrid stood beside him, looking into the pristine water that rushed from the mountain.

She looked to the god, noticing how the male tensed up at the question. "Yeah... I did. She was also a ruler, much like me." Jupiter was being vague for a reason, he wasn't sure if he truly wanted Lizzie to know. Would it make her feel just like a replacement? She was so much more than that to him.

"Ooh... may I ask what her name was?" Lizzie smiled as he seemed to be fondly remembering her. Joel paused, looking down at their reflections in the river. Could she take it? He had asked me about it after as a 'hypothetical' even though I already had witnessed this all in real time. Not that he knows about this.

He doesn't know when I'm watching and when I'm not. Funnily enough, I always am. I can rewind time in my room if I missed something. It's like an on-demand television show. Except with shitty mic quality and a 'mind-read' option. A television show I can't stop streaming because it's so delicately odd.

"Her name was Lizzie." Joel whispered, crouching down to run his fingers through the water. Combing through it as if there was something there to be combed through. "Lizzie? What a coincidence then! I bet she was lovely." A coincidence indeed, one that I dictated. "No."

"No-?" Lizzie kneeled down beside him, her skirt covered her legs as she watched Joel retract his hand from the cold river water. "It wasn't a coincidence. My superior made it a point to drop me in the same timeline as her reincarnation." I quite enjoy being called his superior. Joel's too disdainful of other gods and goddess' to even utter those words about us to our faces.

Lizzie took a second to think about what he had just told her, what he had implied happened. "You- You've dated me before?" Joel promptly nodded slowly, looking down at the green grass and his sandals. "Not exactly you, I've just dated Lizzie before. We were married... until..." He couldn't really stop at this point, he wouldn't stop.

"Until?" Lizzie's voice was so oblivious and innocent. Unaware of what happened that caused her previous doom. Unaware of Xornoth, corruption, wars-the explosion. "Aeor's Resolution. She had died." Joel clenched his fists. He talked about it as if she knew what that was, she didn't.

It's been a good 5000 mortal years. Lands have shifted, people have moved, and memories have died out. It's been reduced to nothing more than a whisper in the waters of the deepest trenches. A simple cat hybrid such as Lizzie wouldn't be educated on this. The past that was so long ago.

"I'm sorry... she must've felt like the luckiest girl in the world while it lasted." Lizzie didn't question him much further, she didn't need to as Joel just kept on going. He explained Aeor's resolution (to the best of his ability), the reincarnations, the old empires, but most importantly... his past self.

"I was a mortal before I was granted this life. I was a prince, born into a nation of poverty. I lived in the mesa, everything was dry and dead. I dedicated my childhood to my young adult years to bringing water, grass, moss... any form of life to my home." Lizzie listened contently, not interrupting as he continued his story.

Not a story, just history. A story is usually something of fabrication, exaggerated out of proportion. But he was just repeating what he had experienced, recollection. Just a retelling of history. "When I was 17... I was told I was to marry another ruler. A woman whom I had never met. A goddess who had been alive for the last 7000 years, since before dates were recorded."

"That person happened to be Lizzie. I was reluctant, she was a stranger. But I got to know her, she was charming, kind, funny, cute-I love her." Lizzie smiled as he complimented his late wife. That was one of the reasons she fell for him, I imagine. He was cocky, rude, ignorant, you could say he was 'something else' but he was loyal. He was loyal to the very end.

"I fell in love. We had prepared for death. I hugged her at night as she sobbed thinking of my inevitable death. She was immortal, I wasn't. I lied there in bed every time, silently wishing there was a way she wouldn't ever have to lose me because I knew how much pain and anxiety it caused her." Ironic. The irony was whimsical.

It shows me how naive mortals are, even Jupiter. Of course Jupiter would wish for that. "My wish came true, obviously. She was the ocean spirit, the ocean drained and so did her I assume. You're her reincarnation." Joel turned to look at the cat hybrid. Lizzie was frozen, her tail riding up her leg as she was still in her initial shock.

"I apologize if it was too much all at once I just-" Lizzie hugged him. She wrapped her arms around the brunette, closing her eyes as she leaned in. "Don't apologize. I apologize on the behalf of your wife, for leaving you alone." Jupiter was silent, looking to the sky.

She hugged him like he had to Lizzie all those centuries ago.