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Most people have a variant of themselves across different lives.
Jimmy is the Canary, the herald angel of Lady Death. As the Canary, he remembers all of his past lives.
Jimmy’s friends stay pretty consistent throughout the different lives he’d lived through. They always keep the same qualities and personalities.
In Jimmy’s experience, there has only been one time when a person deviated far from his variants in other lives.
That person was Joel.
Joel has been many things to Jimmy in his different lives. In one he was a good friend and a brother-in-law. In another he had been an ally and a close friend. In most, he was just another person, neither friends nor enemies.
It was only in this life that they had been enemies. Jimmy honestly wanted an alliance with the god, but Joel had laughed at him, attacked him and called him a toy.
Jimmy never knew why this Joel antagonised him so much, seemingly for no reason.
Never would Jimmy have predicted that he would stumble on the answer by accident.
Jimmy watched as Joel entered a secret door on the side of a cliff. He was just passing by Stratos, but now curiosity overtook him and he hid in some nearby bushes.
As Joel left, the sky god left the hidden door wide open. Weird, it wasn’t like Joel to just leave things like that , thought Jimmy, well it doesn’t matter, let’s see what’s he’s hiding.
Jimmy carefully tiptoed into the room in the cliff. It was dimly lit by candlelight from candles surrounding the centre of the room. Each candle seemed to have a portrait of a person behind it.
As Jimmy was about to leave the room, he took in who portraits depicted. His jaw drops in shock, because those items shouldn’t- couldn’t - be here.
After all, they’re from a previous life.
Jimmy’s attention is drawn to one of the portraits. The person it was depicting was him . Not him, the Sheriff, but him, the Codfather .
Next to that, it was a portrait of Lizzie. Not the mayor of Animalia, but his sister, his seabling from another life.
He looked at each portrait closely. They were all from a past life- a past life that ended in a tragedy. The only life that he ended early after losing almost everything, before Lady Death called for him.
Thousands- millions of questions rushed through Jimmy’s head. Why did Joel have this? How did Joel have this?
Jimmy turned and reached out for the portrait of the Ocean Queen, wanting to take a closer inspection-
“Step back!” a voice shouted behind him.
“What on Earth,” Joel said through gritted teeth with rage barely concealed, “are you doing in here?”
Jimmy stumbled back. He had never seen any version of Joel this angry before, and he has seen with many, many Joels.
“This is a private space! Is the Sheriff now above other’s privacy?” Joel continued furiously, “This is honestly a new low.”
“I- I don’t-“ Jimmy stammered. He was at a loss of what to say, partly at the shock of everything, and partly out of fear of the god.
“You have no business here!” Joel yelled, “ Leave! ”
As Jimmy regained his composure, he managed to say, “How- how do you- ? You shouldn’t remember- any of this! ”
“I don’t know what you mean, but you are not touching my wife’s portrait! Stay away! ”
His wife? Just then, Jimmy noticed a ring on the god’s left ring finger. It was made of prismarine and embedded with gold- the same one the king of Mezalea used to wear.
Realisation dawned on him. How has he never noticed?
“You- you used to be human, right? You’re the king of Mezalea!” Jimmy was overwhelmed, he has never lived two lives in the same world, but things made so, so much more sense now. “That’s why you hate me so much. Because I caused the Rapture.”
“I’m not! The king of Mezalea is dead. I mean, I used to be him, but I’m not… not anymore.” Joel’s anger faded and his voice softened slightly. “I don’t… hate you. I don’t blame you for the Rapture.”
Under his breath, Joel muttered, “So you remember, huh… this changes a lot.”
“Then, why did you attack me and tease me, if you don’t hate me?” Jimmy questioned.
Joel looked down at his feet. “I guess I was mad at you. After the trip to Virgil when we found that Lizzie and Scott were gone, you just left, without saying anything. I didn’t know what happened to you and the next time I went to Virgil I also saw your candle. I was angry you left me, I suppose.”
Jimmy suddenly felt very, very guilty. “I’m so sorry Joel, I should’ve thought-“
“No.” Joel looked up at Jimmy. “It wasn’t your fault. I’d thought about it too, many times. I shouldn’t have blamed you.”
Jimmy slowly looked around at all of the portraits around the room.
“Did you paint all of this?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“You miss them, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do”