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"Okay," she says. "Let's try this again."
He's sitting on a dock, feet dipped into the water, and she has her arms crossed on the wood, looking over at him. He leans back onto his hands, and she combs her hair out of her face.
They've been here before.
She isn't the sky, this time. No, she had been the sky because he is the sky, and he'd been remembering her through himself. He knows who she was, now.
She reveals herself as the ocean. She is waves and whirlpools and droplets of water and seafoam - and he can see her clearer now.
Not clearly enough.
Her face is still obscured, and she is see-through, and he doesn't know what colour her hands were or her eyes were or her lips were, but he will love her anyway. He will always love her anyway.
"What is my name, Joel?" she asks him, because they're doing this again.
He says her name, and places it gently into the water, because it's hers, and she needs to keep it. It sinks under the water, and she frowns.
"Don't do that. We're trying to make you remember it. I already know."
He fixes her with a look that must be so dumbfounded. "But it's yours," he says. It's not a very good argument.
She frowns deeper, which looks more like the water that makes up her face dripping onto the wood of the dock and leaving her with a dent that looks sort of like a frown if you squint, and is really quite horrifying. But anyway, she's frowning, and she's a little bit disappointed, and she sighs in a way that is very, very familiar. "I know. Give the answers here next time, then," she says, and unfolds an arm to offer him a hand.
"What do I look like?" she asks.
He whispers his answer into the wind, then offers it to her, placing it right into her awaiting hand. She takes a moment to hear it, then her entire body pops into water droplets, and she's gone and she's-
There is no water beneath his feet and he can see right down to the bottom of the ocean. The sky is red, and it paints a terrifying picture in his head, and he cries, because she is the ocean and she isn't here anymore. She isn't here, and she might be-
She laughs wildly, water from the ocean that he's sitting on the edge of pulling up, up, and turning back into her. Her laughter dies down, then gains in volume again, then dies down again.
"I meant, like, what do I look like, feature wise, but-" she giggles again, then pulls herself all the way up so that they're face to face and presses a kiss to the edge of his lip. He doesn't actually remember what he said. "-I think saying that I'm beautiful is very sweet of you." Oh. Well, she's right, that was really sweet of him.
"Let's try something else," Joel decides. He really does want to get something right.
"Okay," she agrees. "Let's try this again."
She shouldn't have said that.
He's sitting on a dock, feet dipped into the water, and she has her arms crossed on the wood, looking over at him. He leans back onto his hands, and she combs her hair out of her face.
The sky has changed in the moment he blinks, and he doesn't know how.
"What's my name, Joel?" she asks him, because they're doing this again.
He says her name, and she hums with appreciation.
"Very good!" She's so proud of him, but he's watching the words float on air, dipping lower and lower, until they hit the water and dissolve. She sees it too, and sighs, a motion that makes ripples in the entire ocean. "You forgot it again," she tells him.
"I'm sorry," he says.
She rests her head on a watery fist. "It's okay, I guess. I forgot too. Neither of us are really going to remember, I don't think." Her voice isn't sharp or mean or anything he thought it would be. It's bored acceptance. She sounds like she doesn't care anymore.
But he does. He cares. He wants to remember her. He wants to remember-
There are voices, or just the one, and they say her name and ask him if he loves her, and he does, so he says it. He tells them all, because he does. And they ask her if she loves him and her teeth are sharp and he's looking up but she says she does for them all, and there's cheering and he reaches his hand up in a question, and she leans down and lets him pull her closer with a hand at the base of her skull and he presses his lips against hers and she's the ocean and the sea and when he opens his eyes, she's beautiful because she's-
He leans over to press a kiss to her cheek because there was a scene under his eyelids and he misses that. She tastes like sea salt and giggles in a way he knows but doesn't remember. There's a ring of silver around his finger. There's a ring of gold around hers.
"Another question," he requests.
"Alright," she complies. "I had a brother. What did we call each other?"
Oh. That one's easy. "You guys were the seablings. It was cute."
"That was fast," she says. "Think you can take another?"
"I hope so," he laughs. "Let's try."
"What was his name? My brother."
Hm. This one is a little more difficult, because it's on the tip of his tongue, but the sky is pushing at him, whispering that he shouldn't say it, lest this is the thing he remembers. He's not sure why that would be a bad thing. He says it anyway.
She cheers, but the wind drops it into the ocean anyway, and whatever he'd known is lost.
"That's okay!" she tells him, still sounding excited. "I'm just glad you knew in the first place!"
"Maybe we can go back to your name, if I'm doing well." He's almost hesitant about it, but she nods.
"Okay," she says. "Let's try this again."
He's sitting on a dock, feet dipped into the water, and she has her arms crossed on the wood, looking over at him. He leans back onto his hands, and she combs her hair out of her face.
The sky has changed in the moment he blinks, and he doesn't know how. Or maybe he does? The clouds have changed position. They couldn't have moved to where they are in the time his eyes were closed. He thinks he might be a little confused.
"What's my name, Joel?" she asks him, because they're doing this again.
He says it again. It drops, again. The ripples from the disturbance shimmer over her body, and she sighs. "It's okay," she tells him. "Let's try a different one."
Something is different in her voice. Joel can hear it, but he doesn't get it. A name falls out of his mouth again, and it drops to the ocean, and he's almost scared.
"Who do I sound like?" she asks.
It's an innocent question, but the waves are lapping at his ankles, and there weren't any waves a moment ago.
"I don't know," he tells her, except he does, because he can hear it, and she's changing shape, but so is the ocean as a whole, so maybe her changing into a form more familiar on his eyes isn't about the person she sounds like but instead about the impatience.
"Okay," she says. "Let's try this again."
He's sitting on a dock. He pulls his feet out of the water as she uncrosses her arms from the wood and looks over at him. He doesn't lean back, and she doesn't comb her hair out of her face.
"Who do I sound like?" she says at the same time as saying "What's my name?"
Her name falls from his mouth. Sends ripples through the water. The waves crash against the dock. They don't hit him.
"Okay. Let's try this again."
The world stutters. The clouds shift back by a couple inches. He's sitting on a dock. He pulls his feet out of the water. She uncrosses her arms. She doesn't look at him. He leans forward. She grabs his arm.
"Who do I sound like?" "What's my name?"
He says it again, and then again, and then three times more. They drop into the ocean, heavier each time, and when the waves rear back at him, he's sprayed by what didn't hit the wood.
"Let's try this again."
The world stutters. The clouds shift. He's sitting. He curls in on himself. She doesn't look at him. She grabs his arm.
"Again."
The world stutters.
"Again."
The clouds shift.
"Again."
The water ripples.
"Okay," she says. "Let's try this again."
He's sitting on a dock, feet hanging over the edge of the wood, and she has her arms crossed, looking over at him. He leans back onto his hands, and she combs her hair out of her face. Nothing has changed. She doesn't press him, and the waves don't roar.
The waves don't exist at all. There's nothing beneath his feet, and she's the only water in sight.
"What's my name?"
He says her name, and she smiles. It doesn't fall into the water. The water is gone. Her name exists with him still. It won't go away.
"Who do I sound like?"
He opens his mouth. Closes it. "I don't know."
She makes a noise like metal shrieking against rock, and he presses his hands against his ears. Whatever she's doing, she stops it for a second, and he hears the roaring.
"Again," she says. He looks up and stares down the tsunami that is rushing towards him.
It hits, and he sucks in a breath at the impact, swallowing water instead of air, and choking.
She asks him one more time. “What’s my name?” “Who do I sound like?”
He chokes over the name, tries one more time to say it, tries to shout over the water in his lungs, and right before he can manage it-
He shoots up in bed, yelling “Lizzie!” to an empty room. He breathes heavily, shoulders heaving with the effort. His chest still hurts from drowning in a dream, and he tries to let out all his tension in one big breath.
Lizzie. She’s the mayor of Animalia - a cat, as much as she tries to lie about it.
Lizzie. It’s also the name of the woman of his dreams.
There’s something his subconscious is trying to tell him, because the answer to both questions is the same. What’s my name? Who do I sound like? Both times, it’s Lizzie. He doesn’t- He doesn’t know what this is supposed to mean.
He rubs his forehead with the back of his hand, furrowing his brows when it comes back sweaty. That nightmare hit him hard, apparently.
He breathes out all the air he can. One more time. His nerves aren’t calmed, but his heart isn’t beating as fast anymore. A shuddered breath in, and he lies back down.
He can worry about it again tomorrow. Right now, it’s far too late at night, and he should be sleeping. Again.
He rolls over and tries to get comfortable. “Okay,” he tells himself. “Let’s try this again.”