[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

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

[castaside]

The magpie flies down to land on your outstretched hand. It can't smile with its beak but its eyes are dancing and intelligent.

You feel even more loved when it lands on you. It's almost overwhelming.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

[He breathes in sharply.]

Oh. Oh, you're an intense feeling, aren't you.

[HE IS LUCKILY]

[A very loving guy, but holy shit.]

[He looks at the tree.] You....do you love this tree? [He puts a hand on the tree.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The magpie looks at the tree, and caws softly. This tree is dying. That makes it sad, but the tree is not the only thing that it loves, luckily.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

What else do you love? [He will give the bird little head scritches.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The magpie leans into the head scratches.

It glances at Wukong, and caws again. Him, and.

It loves without boundaries. It loves without fear. It loves and loves without end.

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

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

[You don't kill and seal your whole found family and have no one you care about trust you, and come out well-rounded.]

Haven't seen the good come from a grudge yet. I'm always down to throw down when there's a problem, but I'm also just as happy to live and let live when there's no trouble anymore.

Well yeah. That window is our family. The sun and moon is the two of us, we're casting this beautiful glow...that's all good feeling. But his image is the void and there's one chair facing all of that. And we've got ruins and a rotting tree on top of that.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

I stopped all the stuff that made Epsilon a thing. It takes a lot of spite to see something like that through when you're on your own for most of it.

The live and let live is a lot easier when you know people aren't getting fucked with anymore by the people who fucked with you.

True.

We also have a magpie just full of love.

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

Oh the people that fucked my life are almost all still around. The people I care about most are all the ones who are gone. [Yes he is saying that with the air of a person talking about his neighbors moving away.]

A loving magpie, huh?

[He finally straightens and walks over to take a closer look.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The magpie is busy peeling a mango with its beak and claws, but when it sees Wukong it pauses and hops over to say hello.

You get an intense feeling of love from the magpie, which gets stronger as it approaches. An almost overwhelming feeling of love.

Re: Level S - West Door

[schrodingerscockroach]

...I'm just gonna say you are saying that to someone who did lose all his loved ones and that's why I went so hard to take down the operation that got them. [He does not buy that tone.]

Then I made new friends and the one who managed to not die decided to explode my car because she thought my new friends murdered me and that's how I found out about her.

Have you looked into therapy at all? It does help a bit.

[Yeah.]

[He points to the magpie that now has a bunch of plums and mangoes. He's eating a mango himself.]

Re: Level S - West Door

[retirementsnotsopeachy]

Yeah, well going against that operation led to me being abandoned under a mountain for over five hundred years, being set on a path that made my family turn against me so I had to kill almost all of them, including Macaque by accident, seal away the final one...and have my home razed twice, once while I was on the dictated path. So you're not saying anything surprising. I'm sorry it happened to you though. I just had to let it go.

[He shrugs.] Therapy means verbal communication, which is not my thing. Ask anyone ever.

[As the magpie draws near, he lays his tail on the ground for it to hop up, so he can get a good luck.]

You get the nonverbal part of it perfectly.

Re: Level S - West Door

[castaside]

The magpie hops up onto his tail and caws happily. When it touches you, the love flows through you as if it were your own. It's not a diffuse feeling of love, it's for you specifically.

And others, but right now it's focused on you.