Chapter Text
If anyone told Joel running away to find somewhere new to lay low would take… well, however long it’s been, he would’ve laughed in their face. He’s probably circled around the same forest two times before making it here, to the beautiful mesa, looking as fine as he had left it.
Of course it looks fine. His thoughts hummed around in his brain. I’m the strongest ruler, so clearly the Mezalean Kingdom shares my strength!
He sneezed. It caught him off-guard too quickly, for him just to rub a finger over the top of his nose, irritated. Was he sick? He never got sick from being in the mesa before, or maybe he can’t remember?
No, no. He’s too much of a strong and mighty ruler to forget little things like getting sick. He’s just never had to worry about it before, because usually his citizens gave him helpful advice whenever he did get sick. Sometimes they taught him how to make soup, or the children taught him fun tricks to keep from getting a snotty nose.
Now he was standing like a fool in his land, smiling to himself. He can agree he’s not always some rough-tough badass, sometimes, but when was he this soft?
While his brain tried to rack up any decent answer, instead his eyes led him to a large sign dedicated to saying: TUMBLE TOWN. It was easy to assume that’s where he happened to be, even if the blue walls were questionable. But maybe these “Tumble Towners” did things a little differently than how he’d do them. Joel can roll with a little experimenting, so why not!
While wandering through his mesa, even though it definitely looked way different than he last saw it, the little spot lined with a square of yellow wool caught his eye fast. One, it’s one of the brightest things in the dead, dreadful mesa. Two, his attention span runs on batteries he’s long lost.
“God Joel’s plot?” he read aloud, blinking at the sign when he came over. He’s unsure why it’s been isolated into this small area, away from the actual town. He looked where the walls were again, assuming they must act as a border or maybe defense to keep the town untouched, brilliant idea, and looked at the sign again.
He may be more king than god, never really thought of comparing himself to a deity either, but who else was this plot going to be for? Unless the mesa was ruled by another Joel, some town-dweller who stole his name, or wanted to even ruin his image somehow, then it had to be for him.
Joel scanned the area with his eyes, making sure the coast was clear, mostly to have a little fun with this, before rechecking his pack of rockets and securing his satchel. With a little pat to the bag, positive he didn’t lose anything in it, he set off to gather materials to bring a bit of a Mezalean touch to this colorless town.
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Looking at his masterpiece, Joel wondered how long it’s been since his mesa had some color in it. Not that he didn’t like the town’s buildings, he’s not rude like that, but he wished the mesa did something about it. It used to taunt him if he placed a block somewhere it didn’t like, and he never– okay, that’s a lie. He tried not to question their judgements, because usually they made sense!
So maybe this time, the mesa didn’t want so much color? Joel looked at his palace again, a smaller recreation of how he’s done the original one way back then, weeks ago or something like that. He hadn’t bothered with the interior this time, figuring the mesa might not want him to take so long to finish it. Maybe he didn’t understand the mesa as well as he thought he did.
“Oh, gosh.”
His mind might be in jumbles, but that sigh is something the great, strong king can’t forget! He turned on his heel, but felt confused when no one was there. Surely he didn’t just imagine that, did he?
“You look so… different, Joel.”
Okay, no, he can’t be imagining that. He was pretty sure he hadn't lost his mind yet, so maybe they were invisible or something? Or was this the mesa’s way of welcoming him home? How cruel, but he can appreciate a little poke of fun!
Then he felt a kick and looked down.
“Quit pretending you can’t see me!”
Another kick, gentle as the first.
On instinct, as if he were speaking to a child or maybe toddler, the king went down on one knee, hands resting on top. He never met someone this small before, maybe other than Shrub, but even she wasn’t this hard to see.
Now that he’s sure he’s at eye-level with this guy, Joel studied him for a minute. It felt like it’s been so long since they’ve seen each other, but he knew for a fact the Codfather– or Codboy, or whatever his sulking friend wanted to rename himself as– didn’t wear such ridiculous things like boots and a badge.
“You look ridiculous, Codfather,” he blurted out, nothing in his mind telling him to bite his tongue. And while he could’ve taken the other’s silence as an excuse to also shut up, Joel snatched up the hat, still wondering how it can be so small. “Why are you wearing all this stuff? Is this an ocean thing? Why aren’t you-”
The huff of annoyance isn’t new to Joel, so he didn’t think much, watching the small Codfather(?) kick his knee again. “Give it back!”
“When you left the ocean, I didn’t think you’d leave all of you behind,” Joel told him, continuing on like this was any normal day among the empires. And for him, it did feel normal enough, even while he was sitting there examining a really tiny hat between his fingers.
“Do you even know who I am?” the guy scoffed, doing the thing Joel’s seen children do when they don’t get their way; the arm-cross and pout.
Joel didn’t miss a beat. “Jimmy the Codfather, duh.” He did grow bored of the hat and plopped it on his friend’s head, careful to be gentle enough in case one wrong move could fling the guy. It’s taken too long before his brain caught up and he closed his eyes, patting his satchel. “Is this because I saw your face? I really didn’t mean to, I’m sorry-”
Jimmy, this Jimmy, who looked way too much like the Codfather, mumbled who-knows-what as he assumedly fixed his hat to its proper spot on his head. Joel wasn’t even good at keeping his crown from falling, so he can’t be too surprised he messed up how to put a hat on right.
“So you’re not God Joel then. That’s obvious.”
Eyes back open, blinking once or twice, Joel stared at him. Did he not meet Jimmy’s standards of a god? He was a king, a great and strong one too! Was it because he didn’t have his palace anymore, the original Mezalean Kingdom? Did that differ him from whatever Jimmy thinks a god is?
“I think we got off on a misunderstanding, King Joel.” The way his title falls out sounded so familiar yet so weird, but Joel chose to keep his mouth shut about it. For now. Jimmy tipped his hat forward, which Joel assumed was the same as bowing upon meeting someone, a little formality, so he did the same thing with his crown seconds after. “I’m Jimmy, Sheriff of Tumble Town. Not whatever the Codfather is.”
“You- You called me King,” Joel pointed out, and of course he got the raised eyebrow of ‘yeah, I know that, genius’, so he continued. “You know who I am, but you don’t know the Codfather? You two look so- so, literally the same!”
Jimmy waved it off, fixing his hat again, poking Joel’s urge to just take it away so he didn’t have to keep fixing it. It seemed too formal, too formal for a sheriff, however those work. Too formal for the Codfather.
“Pix is the one who keeps up on historical things. He told me about Mezalea in a book he found-”
Joel’s face lit up. He may have left, so have the other rulers, but there were remains! How come he’s never thought of that?
“What book?!” he asked, as if his life depends on it. And technically speaking, it did, it really did! If the mesa’s still here, and he himself didn’t feel any different, even if a colorless town has taken over his mesa, then the other rulers should be finding their ways back home! They’ll all be together again, like nothing’s even happened! Oh, what a genius he is.
“A book of prophecies, I think?”
That rang familiar to his ears, but he can’t be too sure. He remembered Lizzie fussing over filling prophecies she can’t avoid, something about being trapped in the claws of destiny, and he’s certain Scott mentioned things like that.
But a book of prophecies was something Joel’s never heard about. Maybe this was like-
A sneeze made his face scrunch, and it felt like his nostrils just despised him.
Joel hissed at his own interruption, dreadful way to meet a ruler, tipping his chin up and holding his nose with one finger. Whoever made sicknesses better feel great right now, they suck. He was doing fine before, with only one measly sneeze sneaking through, so why’d it come back?
“Gosh, are you feeling well?”
It was Joel’s turn to offer a clear glare of, ‘what do you think?’, which lasted a good ten seconds before he managed to avoid another sneeze. How he did that, he had no fucking clue.
“I don’t really know how these work, but I think we can bring you a healing potion for this kind of thing?” Jimmy offered, and it’s starting to already sound like he’s never heard of being sick before. Did sheriffs have some kind of immunity to getting sick that kings didn’t?
If Joel put any real thought into it, he’d guess that silly hat has something to do with it. Damn that hat. Let it get sick for a change.
“I’m a strong king!” he assured someone out there, or maybe he’s trying to tell the mesa to hurry up and make him pretend he’s fine.
He wasn’t paying attention until now, realizing the sheriff’s been typing away at his communicator, which has its own stupid hat on top, but impossibly smaller. Nevermind being sick, or whatever two sneezes meant. Joel, unable to see from where he was, shuffled on his knees and tried to look over Jimmy’s shoulder.
And immediately gave up on squinting for two seconds to blatantly ask. “What are you doing?”
Jimmy pocketed the device, rude, to meet Joel’s questioning-and-confused-and-sick-of-sneezing eyes. It still didn’t feel right being able to see his face like this, without his head or a way to hide it, but this wasn’t the Codfather. He had to remember that. “We’re gonna go to the Evermoore. Shelby has potions, she’s great at those by the way, and she says she might have something for being sick.”
“Gnomes do potions?” are the first words out of Joel’s mouth. Guess being sick had its perks, like amazing memory- Oh wait, no, that’s just his overall awesomeness and kingliness.
Jimmy shook his head and started moving, and it felt like watching an ant scurry away with a crumb of bread, but Joel kept up just fine. “We’ll have to ask Pix later about the Codfather and whoever else you remember. I think he’d enjoy talking to someone right from history.”