Joel lumbered through the dense forest, occasionally ducking his iron-helmeted head to prevent branches from smacking into his tall frame. As he continued forwards, the trees thinned out until he was standing at the edge of a beach. Dunes of fine, dry sand loomed before him, held together by the roots of hardy shrubs. Beyond that was dark, wet sand, and finally the ocean, vast and ever-changing. The sky was aglow with the colors of the waning day, distant clouds painted with bright yellow and burning orange. 

He was glad to have found a shoreline to guide him - he'd lost his way in the depths of the forest more than once, and he had been away from home for far too long. When he took the first step onto the loose, dry sand, his clay foot sank ankle-deep into the dune. Joel used his geokinesis to reinforce the next patch of sand and cautiously stepped onto it with his other foot, glad to find that it held his weight. Sand was not quite earth, but it was close enough that he could exert limited control over it all the same. When he neared the top of the gently sloped dune, he caught sight of a figure in the water. Joel couldn't make out many details from this distance, but she appeared to be a beautiful woman with dark red hair and eerily pale, translucent skin. She wore a frayed white dress that looked as though it had once been expensive - hardly the sort of thing that one would wear when going for a swim. Cautiously, Joel raised a large clay arm in greeting as he approached. He made the hand sign for "hello" before realizing that she probably wouldn't understand it - instead, he drew the word in the sand.