seasonsrpg | [Open] The Ennui of the Ages

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[Open] The Ennui of the Ages

WHO: Max Davis and YOU
WHAT: A depressed god lays in the grass
WHEN: Late May - June [Post Event]
WHERE: Blossomcrown
WARNINGS: Discussions of self-worth issues, mentions of torture and physical injury, depression, and emotion sharing.

The ritual Max falls into during the end of the month of May and into June is a simple one. He leaves the house and heads far away. All the way to Blossomcrown and it's park. He brings with him a picnic blanket and a boombox. He lays out the blanket then sets the boombox within arms reach of the center. He lays down, on his back, and looks up into the sky.

He clicks the boombox on radio mode and music plays. No radio station that plays in Ellipsa normally. He finds a frequency not being used and syncs himself to it. The music that plays usually is strange haunting song. Though it will change as time goes on and as people approach. Outside the space of the blanket, it seems normal. He lays there, staring into the sky, and listens to the music that plays. Step foot on the blanket and things change. Max can't help but share whatever he is feeling within the confines of the blanket he laid out. The intense feelings of pain, fear, suffering, loss, hopelessness, regrets, and so many more race and flood the area that the blanket outlines.

The collective emotions of those who went into the Doctor's dream as well as his own from the three paths he walked. It's heavy if one stands in it. Laying down on the blanket like Max does is a reprieve. Like the emotions are heat raising up and staying low to the ground helps to lesson their impact. They're still there but not a swirling heavy vortex that might threaten to consume someone.

Approach. Watch. Listen. Stay off the blanket or step onto it. He won't shy away from talking to anyone. The volume of the music softens when people draw near so hearing the words of one another is even easier.

Max lays there. Day after day. Just staring up into the Blossomcrown sky. Until the sun starts to set. Then he will turn off the music, pack up his boombox and blanket, and make the journey home again. Only to be back the following day. Plenty of opportunities to observe the sad fae god and his repetitious ritual.

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Blossomcrown's park is a beautiful area; to Ko, its no wonder that Max is there day in and day out. He's taken to reading in said park, seated a little ways away from Max purely by chance. Day in and day out, Ko is there as well. In little pockets of his time there, he'll wonder what the guy's story is.

The music is nice, especially that drone-like lullaby song; he understands that, too. The near-drone of it is nice to zone out to. Ko reads, journals. He doesn't spend nearly the same amount of time in the park that Max does, but by the third afternoon he has to say something.

He walks a little closer when he hears that one again.

"Excuse me ... What's this song called? It's quite beautiful."

Max's mismatched eyes, vibrant emerald green and steely blue, shift to look at Ko as he approaches him. He blinks once before he answer.

"The Lullaby of the False Hydra is the title. It is beautiful. Hauntingly so. It suits my mood."

Ko notices they both have heterochromia; how odd.

"I see. Thank you. I hope it's not a bad mood ..."

He steps on the blanket as he shifts his stance, and the flood of emotions nearly pulls him down to his knees, amplified by his Handead nature.

"I ... what is this?" He asks, incredulous and unsettled, his heterochrome turning red.

"The blanket is the outline!" he cries out, unable to move to help poor Ko. Anguish, regret, feelings of inevitable abandonment, love lost, and the more flow through that tidal wave of emotions.

"Step back or lie down! Don't let it take you with it!"

Rinku doesn't work in Blossomcrown anymore -- if Max went to Shining Karaoke recently, he'll have heard that she got a job as a theatre choreographer and sound tech. But she still goes to Blossomcrown Central Park for a number of reasons, one of which being that her magical giant flying dog needs somewhere to run around in. So it goes that a stick soars through the air nearby, and then Mop flies after it.

The dog grabs the stick with pride, but as soon as it touches down and one of its massive paws touches the corner of the blanket, it huddles into itself and whimpers. Rinku runs after, worry on her face behind its freshly reopened and re-healed scars.

"Mop-chan, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

She checks on the dog first, of course, which makes a baleful noise and steps back. Once it does, it tilts its head and sits up, calm and confused. Rinku pets it and gives it a treat before she looks over at Max.

"Oh, hi! What's going on?"

She steps onto the blanket herself... and stops, hand going to her heart just like it did in the Path of Turmoil.

"Feelings?"

The dog whimpering hurts. He wishes he could pull the boundaries of his emotions back but he can't. Then Rinku steps on it and he looks to her, the music going whisper quiet.

"Sorry. If you stay off the blanket, you won't feel anything. ...I need to let it out somehow and this is the only way I can think of without worse happening," Max admits with exhaustion clear in his voice.

"Sorry about your dog too."

Mop tilts its head and sniffs at the blanket. It grumbles and sits pointedly outside it, making a worried noise. Blanket is Bad. Rinku reaches to pet the giant dog and reassure it before turning back to Max.

"It's okay." She frowns, eyes wide with worry. "You mean... this is everything you're feeling? Everything you went through in there?"

"Not just me," Max clarifies. He snaps and a bone appears by Mop. A peace offering.

"I took in everything everyone was feeling. Part of what I am. I overloaded it on it. Overdosed. And now, I'm detoxing so there's room inside for...anything else."

Given how big Flower Fairy dogs are, a bone big enough for Mop is an interesting sight, and the dog snuffles at it and happily starts chewing. Still suspicious of that sad blanket, though.

Rinku sits down beside Max. Her subconscious ability is probably tanking some of the feeling, but she is still visibly sad. She nods.

"All of us? So that's why... It hurt so much in there. In all kinds of ways. Feeling it all at once would be pretty scary too."

"It is scary. And painful. ...If you lie down, you can get under it. It's like heat. It rises," Max explains softly.

"It's just something I have to deal with. Being what I am."

Rinku blinks. She flops onto the blanket to try and see what he means. After a bit, she reaches out to hold Max's hand.

"You're a whole lot of things," she muses. "Is it all of them at once?"

Being out in nature helps the most when she's conflicted - it might not be Hyrule, but one of the fellow workers at the Research Center recommended Blossomcrown's park to go to. So the wandering princess ends up there to at least try and clear her head.

It's been difficult to not focus on the visions she saw during the event, but Zelda's pointed ears pick up the sound of a song. Curious as always, she wanders the crest of a hill and finds a man, a boombox, and a not quite picnic spread.

"...sir? Are you alright...?" she asks, gentle.

"Depends entirely on your definition of alright," Max admits as he looks at Zelda. He slow blinks at her as the song changes. Now it plays the sounds of an ocarina playing a slow melody. She likely won't recognize it as the Song of Healing.

"Though I doubt most who went into that hellscape nightmare came out feeling alright."

Her ears wriggle at the change of the music, something with an ocarina - it sounds nice, though she has no idea where it's from. It makes her smile softly before her face falls at the mention of the nightmares.

"I'm...afraid you are probably correct in that," she answers. "I'm not sure if it even helped matters, given the circumstances with the people involved. Other than just putting people through suffering."

"It helped in that we woke that fucker up. And we got some info out of it," Max says though the tone shows he knows it was not worth the pain. Not worth all the anguish.

"Hopefully...most everyone who came out of it found a new resolve inside them. A new source of strength. ...But I know others didn't. I didn't."

"Then it did work? That's...good. I must admit that I did not look into it after the fact but it appeared to be handled."

She nods a little, feeling the weary from it all herself.

"Did...did you wish to speak about it, sir?"

"It works," Max confirms. "...You were in the dream. You were there to see the pain. The regret. ...I felt it all. I drank in all of them. It is what I am. And now I'm...full of all of that pain and suffering and I can't just release it all. The effects could be a fucking disaster. So I have to lie here, slowly leaking all these emotions."

"I'm...not sure I understand," she admits, shifting to at least sit with him as he speaks. "Why cannot you share some of that to release it safely? To at least speak of it to help yourself?"

"It doesn't...quite work like that," Max said softly. "It isn't just talking about it. The feelings are energy. I devour it. It's inside me now. And I have to burn it off. Feeling it all again as it leaks out of me. Like draining a lake with a bucket."

"O-oh, oh dear..." She considers this, tilting her head and pondering it. "Would...healing magic help at least aid the physical pain...?"

"I wouldn't risk it. ...I've been through a lot of physical pain. That's the easy part. I mean, when you get flayed while alive and have pieces of you torn out and eaten? I can handle the physical pain. It's the emotional pain. The torment. The guilt, regret, and self loathing. That's what hurts the most. Always does."

"W-what--t-that's horrible! D-did that happen here...?!"

Sorry, she's distracted now by the fact that you were FLAYED ALIVE for the moment.

"No. In my world. Not here," Max says, feeling guilty at the level of pure worry in her voice. Hard to know when to edit when you're like a raw nerve.

"It was...hard to remember how long ago."

"I-I'm...I'm sorry to hear that that happened to you..."

"Thank you. That's what happens when you go make an enemy of a god-like entity with no empathy or kindness. My world is not a good place."

"So...you are like Miss Evangeline who are better off in this world, correct?"

Katsuki's been feeling it too. Even though he wasn't one of the ones who went into that hellish mindscape, he still was feeling the deep sadness from being there to witness it. Sitting there uselessly as the two people he loved the most suffered right in front of him.

If he were honest? It's hard being home, right now. It's hard being around Izuku with his broken arms and Shoto with his burns that leave him raw. He can feel how upset those two were as well and it's all in all a very... stifling environment. Sometimes. Which is why he's out and about somewhere different from his home. Somewhere bright and fresh and calming.

Walking around with a parasol, the vampire wanders towards the park towards a melody that calls out to him. Drawing him near the picnic blanket spread out with his older brother sprawled on top. The younger vampire approaches quietly and stops just a foot or so away. Calling out after a quiet couple of seconds where he decides what he wants to say.

"...Niisan?"

He hasn't called Max this before, but he feels like they're close enough now that Max has finally earned it. And that the situation just kind of calls for it.

Edited 2026-06-02 05:34 (UTC)

The one blessing of Max's current overload of emotions is he can't pick up on Katsuki's as he approaches. The nightmare that was the Doctor's dreamscape had hurt those inside and out. The helplessness of those outside, watching the people around them and their loved ones be injured, distressed, or even die. He hears the word and knows the weight of it. It's an acknowledgement of family, of connection. He looks over at his brother and wishes he could smile at the blond.

"Hey Katsuki-kun," he greets his brother and raises a hand. He snaps his fingers and a chair appears beside the blanket but not on it. Just a black and red lawn hair. With skulls on the base for the parts that let the chair grip the grass so it doesn't slide. Then his hand falls back down limp beside him.

"Be careful of the blanket. Stepping on it is a doozy right now."

Katsuki takes a step back when the lawnchair appears, and his expression softens seeing the skulls. Even when he's clearly hurting, Max takes the time to personalize something he really didn't need to... it's very sweet, and he takes a grateful seat. Letting himself ooze back into it.

"The blanket?"

He looks at it curiously, but doesn't let his curiosity win and stays away.

"Is it some magic thing?"

"It's the best I can do to...limit the release. Yes, it is a magic thing," Max says softly. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to center himself.

The song changes.

"The Paths were worse than I estimated. They were, all of them, awful. Meant to cause pain and suffering. Meant to overwhelm people. And I can still feel all of it. From everyone. Every hurt. Every regret and desperate with for change and regret and feelings of self worthlessness," he trails off as he moves am arm to cover his eyes. The tears still fall and he takes more deep calming breathes. The music gets louder.

Max's face is darkened by a shadow, as is only appropriate. Macaque it outside the bounds of the blanket for now.

"You look like you could use a lap to rest your head in and a hand to stroke your hair for a while," Macaque says with a soft lilt to his voice. He's open to being told that Max wants to be alone.

Max's eyes shift to see the monkey. He wishes he could smile at him. Gods he wishes he could smile right now.

"This blanket is a whirlwind of terrible emotions. That does sound really good right now though. I don't know if I can get it to avoid you if you're sitting down. ...You could lay next to me and pet my hair that way? If you lay flat, you should be able to avoid it."

"Thanks for the warning, but I'll take some terrible emotions if I can help you a little."

Macaque steps onto the blanket, breathing deeply, making sure to apply all his ancient focus. He expects a lot, and it is, but he's not changing his mind.

He does lay down, though, stretching out on his stomach with his tail swishing over to hook one of Max's legs. He doesn't want to make Max feel worse by just gutting out all the feelings. He lays his cheek on one folded arm, facing Max, and the other hand reaches over to brush through Max's dark hair.

"You're out here trying to cope with all that stuff? Keep it away from your fiance?"

Ancient focus helps. Also all those heart games and the jar incident probably helps Macaque when he buffers himself against the swirling vortex of painful negative emotions. Laying down does help. It's much less intense once he's on his stomach. Max's can turn his head to look at Macaque, the hand brushing through his hair is nice, as is the tail hooked around his leg.

"I have to let it out slowly. And I can't do it at home. I can't...Esme can't feel this. I don't think he could take it. I'm so full of it all. Burning it off quickly...I'd probably cause an explosion if I tried that. So I do this. Let it out slowly each day here in the park. So I don't blow up and no one gets caught in the maelstrom of horrific torment that I'd unleash."

"I get it. You always protect him at all costs." It's endearing as hell.

Macaque keeps stroking Max's hair, slow and soft.

"Want me to go with you out to the very edge of the segments? Blow some empty ground up and get it over with?" It's not like that would hurt anyone. "You don't deserve suffering like this."

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[Open] The Ennui of the Ages

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