Work Text:
It was a few hours after noon, and Joel was focused intently on the marble statue towering over him. It was incomplete, an echo of an idea yet to be recognized fully, but he was persistent. He'd been chipping away at it over the course of days, attaching large chunks together in the vague image of limbs and cloth, and it was only today that he'd finally decided to start on the finer details. Normally, he would've refined it far more before becoming absorbed in the lesser details that no one would notice, but this project was different.
This marble statue was of the woman of his dreams—literally. She existed only in his dreams, and even those dreams were few and far between, but they were more vivid than any dream he'd ever had before or since. Clear as day, he could see the ends of her dress billowing in the air; the air around them was humid, and the scales on her arms glittered like ocean-deep sunshine. Pink hair like cotton candy, sharp teeth and sharper wits, and a laugh that made his heart race just from thinking about it—he needed to capture it all.
So, over the course of that day, he'd carved out the gentle shape of her face and at least started on defining her hair. Elegant fins and fine pearls, the soft bridge of a nose and the suggestion of scales, and before he knew it, he'd been working on her all day. His head felt vaguely fuzzy and light from his complete lack of self-care that day, and even with the attention and time he'd put into this bit of work, he still felt unsatisfied. She wasn't anywhere near being done, but Joel didn't know if he'd be able to move on to other parts if he couldn't even get this part to look right.
He let out a frustrated huff and took a seat on the floor, looking up at her from the ground. The statue wasn't anywhere near the same, but it was closer to anything he'd ever seen from her before. Still, he wondered what she'd think of it if she was real. He'd never even heard her voice, but he'd heard her laugh, so if he really thought about it, he could almost hear her saying—
"Wow. Marble was an awful choice to put in an entirely wooden area."
Joel startled at the voice, and then as the words processed, he scowled and said, "What's that supposed to mean? Marble can go everywhere!"
"Terracotta would've been way better," said... Lizzie...? If that's what her name was.
Grian had a habit of inviting everyone he seemed to know over to the Hermit's lands, oftentimes with only vague warnings to every other Hermit, and he did briefly recall being told that Grian's cousin and his cousin's best friend were going to visit. And, assuming Lizzie wasn't somehow hiding massive bird wings and patches of feathers, he figured that this couldn't be Grian's avian cousin. Still, at this moment, Joel couldn't care less.
"No, it wouldn't have," Joel argued in return. "Yeah, it doesn't match the wood, but it's not supposed to. She's supposed to outshine the rest of this blummin' place, not be overshadowed by it."
"'She'?" Lizzie asked, and with her back turned to Joel, all he could really see was her waterfall of pink hair sway with her head movements.
"Yeah, 'she', I didn't think I was that bad at sculpting," Joel muttered.
For a moment, there was silence, and Joel began to feel embarrassment at how quickly he'd come to the defense of some random woman he'd dreamt of a few times. Then, he realized that Lizzie was still examining his work, and he felt apprehensive. Another moment passed, this one feeling tense only for him, and then Lizzie spoke.
"Huh."
"What do you mean 'huh'?" Joel hissed.
She turned to face him, and he was met with a face that may as well have been lovingly carved from marble, too. Her eyes held a sharpness, and he desperately wanted to know what she was thinking.
"I wasn't expecting you to be so thoughtful when you're also wearing socks and sandals," Lizzie bluntly commented.
He no longer wanted to know what she was thinking.
"No, no, I was just lazy! I wasn't expecting to talk to anyone today! It was just supposed to be about the blummin' statue!" Joel tried to explain.
"You weren't going to talk to anyone today? Wow..."
"That is not what I meant, and—woah, do you talk to someone every single day?"
"...You are making it a lot worse for yourself..."
Joel let out an irritated groan, gesturing randomly as he tried to form a sentence until he finally said, "No wonder you know Grian. You act just like him."
At that, Lizzie gasped and yelled, "You take that back!"
"Are you gonna start appearing right around corners like him, too?" Joel continued.
"I would never! Besides, at least I smell like cherry blossoms and not waterlogged boots."
Joel snorted, and Lizzie cracked a grin.
He added, "I'm glad he's finally moving on from that, but you don't know how bad it was. I'm all for cleaning up pollution, but at that point, he was just dragging it all back onto land. What an eyesore."
Lizzie let out a very similar snort, and then with another hint of a grin, she said, "You could say that he wasn't very... so-fish-ticated."
And then she laughed, and even if Joel rolled his eyes and lightheartedly groaned, his heart skipped a beat.
Only when her fit of laughter had settled down did she turn to look at the statue again, and rather than petty criticisms, she pointed out the gentle shape of the statue's face. Joel perked up at that, and by her second question, he was intently focused. Typically, he wasn't one to openly share all the details of his works, but with Lizzie, he couldn't stop himself from talking. He pointed out the texture of the statue's scales, and then he rambled about his plans for the rest of the statue. Lizzie listened closely, and as he slowed down, she began to talk of her own works and the experience she had with marble statues.
The conversation shifted from their current works to their recent works to their inspirations, and before he knew it, he was rambling about the goddess from his dreams. He'd told others about her before, sure, but he'd never gone into so much detail, being afraid to be teased—even if lightheartedly—for being so attached with a figure from his dreams. Even further, he found himself encouraged to talk more and more as he realized Lizzie wasn't going to make fun of him.
Instead, he reminisced on days spent in a temple above the ocean and glittering scales like ocean-deep sunshine, and as he spoke, all Lizzie could think about was dreams of dry, vibrant mesas and a man with the very same, green-streaked hair as Joel.