[Heart Game] From the ashes we can build

[castaside]

WHO: Macaque, Red Son, Wukong, Korone, Donnie, Cole, Wash
WHAT: Soul fixin'
WHEN: March 9
WHERE: Red Son's house, Blossomcrown
WARNINGS: will be marked

Comments

Level S - West Door

[castaside]

As you enter the room, you find yourself outside. The sun shines in the sky despite it being definitively night, with a full moon and numerous twinkling stars prominent. There appears to be the ruins of a structure a short distance away, and when you approach you’ll see that it’s on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, with the ruins standing on a prominent outcropping that extends for a dozen meters. The still water reflects the sky and the impossibly gathered celestial bodies, making for a breathtaking scene. The stars and sun and moon and their reflections seem to surround you. Your shadows are long, and always behind you.

The ruins are mostly only scattered rubble, with the exception of a single standing wall a few meters high, which stands facing the cliff’s edge. There is a round window made of painted mirror glass which shows every member of the Brotherhood, with one exception. Macaque’s panel has been replaced with a void.

Opposite the window is a small table with some items on it and a single chair. There is a tree standing in the middle of the space where the building once was.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Considering all the other items have been providing comfort, that handful is Very Telling there, monkey man, but he's not gonna call him out just yet.]

Also ready.

[He'll walk inside and whistle. Been a while since he saw a moon in a sun filled sky, but the stars are different. He takes in everything.]

So what is this place?

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

[When your comfort item is also your absolute favorite food and you operate 30% through your stomach...your actions tend to be more telling.]

This would be the world of symbolism. It's kind of Macaque's thing. Along with shadows.

[Casually sucking on another candy, he walks to the table to look over the items.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

On the table are several items, lined up as if intentionally:

> A jar of dry sand
> Strands of what appears to be woven shadow on top of a paper with writing on it
> A red candle, halfway melted, sitting in a pool of dried wax

There is also a chair which is pulled out as if inviting you to sit down.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

Most hearts are symbolism, but sometimes they can be specific places.

[He moves over to look at the chair. See what one would see while sitting in it.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

Most isn't Macaque. And this is entirely Macaque.

[Leaning on the table, he pins the paper under one finger and brings it closer to himself to read it quietly.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

If you were to sit in the chair, you would be looking up at the painted glass window. The light from the various celestial bodies streams in through the mirror glass and paints rainbows on the ground. It would be a very peaceful and lovely scene, but for the void in the window which blocks some of the light and leaves an odd coloration.

Wukong picks up the paper, and there is no memory attached. It says Don't Forget on it over and over, the ink an impossible sort of dark that can only be shadows. You feel a sinking desperation that goes along with the note. Clinging to whatever it is that Macaque wanted to remember, although you don't have a memory that goes with it so you'll have to guess based on vibes.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

Hearts are always about the individuals. [He shrugs.] You know him better and my expertise isn't in here. [Blue cracks.]

[He'll look at that coloration. Hm. Then pick up the jaw of sand.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The jar contains a reddish-yellow sand, as if it's from a dead desert. Even before the memory hits, you feel its lifelessness.

You are Macaque, and you are clinging to hope.

You are at Camel Ridge, with what remains of your brothers. They insist that Wukong has betrayed you, that he is now an Agent of Heaven, and thus your enemy.

You won't believe it. Even though you fell out so many years ago, you won't believe the worst of Wukong. You can't. You lean against the wall as your stomach churns and you listen with growing frustration at how little faith your brothers have in Wukong.

You try to explain that there might be another explanation. There has to be.

Your brothers don't believe it. Peng asks if there's anything Wukong could to do break his hold over you.

Teeth gritted, you say nothing. Because that is your answer, apparently.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Wash holds out the jar to Wukong.] Touch that.

[He knows the two have a fucked up history, but sometimes. Sometimes you just gotta feel the faith.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

Well I'm the closest to that here, and he'd come up with a way to make this in one of his shadow plays if he could. Just saying.

[Thoroughly perplexed by his reading, Wukong absently touches the jar with his tail, eyes going a little distant as the memory plays out. At least one person thought twice about what was going on. The person who knew him the best out of all of them. But really it just brings up more questions that he'll probably never ask. Like what pushed him to their major fallout. Because he already let the rest of that go a long time ago.

He sets the jar aside and reaches for the candle, just touching it in case picking it up counts as breaking it due to the melted wax.]

That's pretty much how I would have expected that to play out.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Shadows plays? That certainly sounds cool.]

[He shrugged.] Sometimes its good to know it happened for sure. Its always hard to tell where people's head is at.

What are those memories like?

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

Eh, I let it go more than once. Besides, this is the Journey to Macaque. Anyway, this memory's one of his last fights with MK. [He's going to need to talk to MK about that whole turning to stone thing.]

Which doesn't really help with this room I'm pretty sure. You can touch it if you're curious, but there's still that. [He gestures to the twisted shadows that had been on the papers.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

Something caws from nearby. Very nearby.

If you look up to the tree in the middle of the ruins, there is a magpie standing there, watching you.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Oh right, the tree.]

[Well, he'll stand up to go check out the tree.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The tree is partially rotting. You feel a sense of helpless inertia and loneliness when you approach the tree.

The magpie does not give off that feeling. You feel looked after and cared for, even loved.

It drops something glittery from its beak, which lands at your feet.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Huh.]

Hello, bird. [He will look down at the glittery thing.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The bird has dropped a golden grenade. A GRENADE?! Only in a heart game.

The grenade has no pin or anything that indicates how it's supposed to be detonated. There is a little golden monkey on the side of it.

You feel like this is important. You want to hang onto it.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

.....

Well, I've never refused having a grenade. [SEEMS LEGIT. He'll put it CAREFULLY into his bag.]

[Holds out a hand to the magpie.] You just hanging up there?

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[He raises an eyebrow at that.] Having people believe in you isn't something that people need to 'let go' generally.

There are the memories we got. [He hears the ding on his phone and checks.] And others. The shadow portals will help us move memories around.

[He looks at Wukong. He gestures around the room.] What emotions would you put to this room? What part of 'Macaque' is this place?

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

No, but being called a traitor after being left alone under a mountain for centuries is.

[He shrugs and touches the twisted shadows to see if they give anything.]

First impressions, it's the make-up of what used to be. The warmth of our brotherhood, how it spanned, and how it all fell apart in the end.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

...yeah, honestly, sucks how that happens.

I hope you were less explode-y about it then I was.

[South may not have called him a traitor to his face, but she sure as hell didn't trust him. No one really did.]

[He hums and looks at the single chair.] He was lonely?

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

I wasn't explode-y about it at all. I had my freedom- [Mostly.] -and one thing to do before I could get home. I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever, before or after we came to blows. Holding grudges usually isn't my thing.

[Best thing about being abandoned honestly. You could go basically forever without being confronted by what your family thinks of you.]

Lonely? Maybe. Mostly it'd be loss. Everything about a lot of this puts me at the center, soooo.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Oh boy, you are definitely a mess, aren't you, monkey man.]

You don't necessarily need to hold grudges. Honestly, it is better, the grudge part only really worked out for one part of my abandonment, made all the rest worst. Though the one right thing was pretty important. [He shrugged, looking around.]

One chair, looking at the window. Its a kind of distance. There can be fondness, warmth, bright, but it has a feeling of...separation.

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

You are Macaque, and you are irritated.

MK just accused you of something -- what, you can't even say -- and took off despite that he was turning to stone at the time. How did it even start? He demanded to know whether you were really over Wukong, which-- caught you off guard. Technically yes, but only because Donnie snipped some connections in your brain...

And here you'd just apologized for being distant before. But whatever is going on with MK, it was it difficult not to give into the irritation that you're feeling. The void where feelings should be is probably not helping, but there was a momentum to the conversation and it seemed to be dragging you along like a riptide.

Maybe it was that you were irritated that he hadn't told anyone that he was turning to stone. That you asked him to trust people to care about him. Irony of ironies.

Still, still, you're not going to let him turn to stone. You may be on each other's last nerve -- or, more accurately, bumping up against the void in your feelings, but you still care about him. You're not going to let him turn to stone.

So you grab the antidote through a portal, and open a second one onto MK's nimbus. Thrusting the potion through it in a tight fist.

"Take it," you insist. He does, and then he tells you to leave him alone, more or less.

So you do. And then you scrub at your face, wondering what the hell just happened.