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mar-im-o · 2 years

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“What are you doing?”

“Lore Lizzie. What does it look like?” Lizzie’s taken it upon herself to become familiar with her neighbors around the continent. The world they have is small, and many of their boarders shared, so it’s a fool’s game not to get aquatinted with the people who may very well declare war on your kingdom in a few moon’s time.

So she makes her rounds, the clever disguise of a young woman protecting her from the scrutiny of otherwise prejudiced eyes. She meets the princess of the sun and the bees she harbors by the shore. She meets the Goblin King and his underground city. She meets a sheriff with no name and a colorful recluse and a studious historian.

And she meets Joel.

She’s quite sure she’s met him before. He seems oddly familiar in the way he speaks and acts and dresses, but she’s found herself preferring to observe him from afar. More than anything, he seems... not fully there.

For one, the elytrian seems quite certain he’s a god of all things (which is ridiculous. What god walks with mortals?) and continuously insists he’s eleven feet tall (no matter the fact that he’s got but a foot on Lizzie who’s barely five foot herself). He also knew Lizzie’s name long before she offered it, and goes about interacting as if they’ve met before.

But strangest of all is his tendency to ramble on about the oddest of things. Like, for instance, when Lizzie found him standing ankles deep in a fountain, struggling to pin a faux beard to his cheeks.

“What are you doing?”

“Lore Lizzie. What does it look like?”

“Lore...?”

“Lore. Yunno--” he waves his hand around aimlessly, the beard slipping without the support. “Lore. Plot. For the viewers.”

“The...” She shakes her head. Maybe she should slip away while she has the chance.

“Can you help with this?” Joel asks instead, looking towards the feigned human and curse her kind heart she sighs and climbs into the fountain to help adhere the beard.

“You look ridiculous.”

“I look cool and awesome and sexy thank you very much.” He says it with a wink, and Lizzie about slaps him for it. “It’s for my character this season.”

A beat. “Summer...?”

Joel snorts. “Funny. This season of Empires.”

Lizzie pulls her hand away and the beard seems to stick. Joel gives a hoot as he tests it out, grinning at her. “Looks awesome! Tumblr’s gonna go bonkers over this one.”

And of all the horrid ideas Lizzie’s ever had, she decides to ask: “Tumbler...?”

That, out of everything, seems to make Joel stop and reconsider things. “Yunno. Like--like twitter but a bit bluer. Darker blue. The blog site.”

“Right....” And, well, he’s saying a lot of words she doesn’t quite understand, so she ignores them all and goes to climb out from the fountain. “You take care, your majesty.”

“Wait, wait, your--” Joel stops her with a hand on her wrist (she considers slapping him for it, but composes herself and simply tugs her arm away). “You said ‘your majesty’?”

“Right, do you prefer ‘your cool and awesome and sexiness’ instead?”

“No, I--Why are you talking like that?”

“It’s called respect.”

“Right, but--” He shakes his head, looking genuinely genuinely confused. “But we aren’t roleplaying right now. I’m not even saying lore! That means there’s no lore.”

Lizzie pulls herself full out of the fountain, trying to squeeze out the legs of her pants. “Right. Good day to you, your godness.”

“But that’s how it works,” Joel continues to say. “I say lore, you say lore, we say lore in the discord server. Then we do lore! We don’t just roleplay out of nowhere.”

“I’ll leave you to your fountain then.”

“Is this a joke? Did Jimmy set you up to this? Real funny, haha--”

The god-mocking king’s voice fades as Lizzie makes her way back towards her home, a chittering laugh on her tongue as she shakes her head. “What a weirdo.”

#where the joel in empires is cc!joel rping but everyone else is like. actually from the world #because i think it's funny that Joel says lore in canon #also throwback to when joel mentioned tumblr in this ep #that really got me #joel if you're reading this please don't be i hate the idea of being perceived #ANWYAYS REAL TAGS #empires smp #esmp #esmp s2 #smallishbeans #ldshadowlady #fic #empires s2 #happy birthday joel smallbeans

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