flight ♔ pride can stand a thousand trials

[dragonsclaw]

I'm Kissing You - Des'ree

WHO || Failboat [closed]
WHAT || The Knights return in the wake of the Keijen Blade concert, much worse for the wear
WHERE ||On a plane
WHEN || Directly after the concert
HOW || Actionspam or prose

The mood is darker than it's ever been as the Knights' plane takes off from the blackening skies above Los Angeles, which continue to spread out after them.  They expected a trap, they expected the worst, but what actually happened dwarfed even those dire expectations.

Painful revelations about their teammates themselves, followed by the separation of Vi from the team, and then being forced to watch Blade enact a dark ritual in the concert-hall-turned-dark-temple that culminated in the sacrifice of hundreds, including the deaths of those who had been on the mission back-up team were only the beginning.  Realizing at the last moment that Crombe still had no understanding of what Blade was truly doing, the team made a last minute bid to change his mind and get him to stop the ritual, but it was far too late, and as things escalated quickly, the Nightmare God Malaak'a was freed from his prison, the seal broken with the final step - Nadia's death.  The god himself appeared before them, and Blade stood triumphantly behind him - only to use the dagger soaked in Nadia's blood to plunge into his father, and usurp his power for his own, ascending to some sort of deity-like powers himself.  

This scene lies further and further behind them now, the images forever etched in their minds, and the silent forms of two of their teammates - one mysteriously incapacitated, the other dead, act as haunting reminders on their journey back towards the castle of what has befallen and what may be to come.

Comments

& dean & rose

[slay]

[ it's hours before she approaches them.

she's busy processing up until that point. there are too many thoughts, too much hurt, to put to words or place. she's alone now. really and truly alone. it's not just rafael. des and vi are gone now too. her best friends, taken from her in one fell swoop: worse, one was by choice.

she's cycled through every conversation. every vulnerable moment. tried a hundred ways to think about how she could have prevented this and gotten nowhere. it doesn't matter, in the end. she didn't prevent it. if she could have, she'd failed, and now she had to figure out what she was going to do about cleaning up the mess.

by this point in the flight, those who could sleep have slept. most can't, of course. the atmosphere is thick with silent tears and the smell of salt and stale discomfort mingled with grief when she settles into the seat across from rose and dean, finally inviting herself to their company. ]

I'm sorry.

[ she decides to start there. it's for dean, of course. ]

It shouldn't have taken friends turning on us for me to find perspective. But I get it now. We unite against this, or they win. I'm done ... measuring, competing, whatever it's been. I'm ready to put the cards on the table and talk about what we're going to do about this.

[littledhampir]

[Given all that had transpired this evening, it wasn't really a surprise that Rose was among the many for whom sleep hadn't been an option and the darkness of Rose's mood meant that there really weren't many people she would have welcomed joining them.

After today? Buffy made that list.

Straightening, her dark gaze shifts between her two companions, Rose regarding Buffy with something rarely offered to anyone she knows.

Respect.]

There's a lot we should probably discuss... [Glancing over her shoulder to the pair in the back of the plane.] When we can.

[likedillinger]

We'd been working on cracking this open for God knows how long now. If they think spilling the beans themselves is gonna change things, they've got another thing coming. [ he seems much less worried about them potentially eavesdropping on that part at least ] But you're right. We weren't trying to freeze anybody out. We just never knew how far this thing had gone. Seemed safer to play it to our chests.

[slay]

Likewise. When Michael told me to watch out for them, I thought I was supposed to be protecting them. Not ... [ she looks over her shoulder, frowning. the sentence finishes itself: not protecting the rest of them from des and elena. ] I just don't get it. Why? [ to dean; ] What was that you said about not being able to touch her?

[littledhampir]

Can't save people from themselves. [Forever the saltiest.

For as much as it might be easier to blame Hell for all of this? Elena at least had always made her own choices and Des? Rose had never known the man before the agenda.]

Why not? Because they could. Because they wanted power. Because why work for something when you can just stab everyone in the back and look out for number one. [On this, she gives no fucks if they hear.

Buffy's question does see her visibly stiffen, however.]

[likedillinger]

[ dean stiffens too, but apparently decides to share anyway. clearly not easy for him. ] Lucifer's got something over my head, and because of it, I can't touch anyone in his family.

Those were his words.

Now I get why. And she confirmed it.

[slay]

Okay, but why would the Devil himself be invested enough in keeping your mitts off Elena Gilbert that he'd marry her just to keep her safe? What does he need that she has?

[littledhampir]

I kinda figured the marriage came first, then the protecting.

[If she gave a fuck about offending Elena, she'd be sorry about this thought process but Rose is pretty sure if it were about wanting something? The Devil could do better than a Changeling who works for the Knights.]

[likedillinger]

The Devil doesn't take kindly to people fucking with his property.

[slay]

Thanks for that mildly disturbing analogy out of the Victorian era. [ women? property? yikes, dean. ]

[littledhampir]

He's not saying that because it's what he thinks.

[Which... really only leaves one horrible conclusion to draw.]

[likedillinger]

What she said.

[slay]

Mmm. Convincing. [ she arches her eyebrows in that way that says 'not so much.' ] I'm just saying. It's not like she met him in a bar.

[littledhampir]

[With a terrible Will Save, Rose looks caught between offended and pissed off, her arms folding across her chest as the warmth that had blossomed earlier, quickly fades.]

And?