knightsoflegend | chapter five ♔ it'll be a day like this one when the sky falls down

the blues - switchfoot

WHO || The Knights
WHAT || Failboat returns from the disaster in LA as the Knighthood goes on lockdown
WHERE || The castle, London
WHEN || Directly after this, Fall 2017
HOW || Actionspam

Hasmed's announcement does not brook any rebuttal: all Knights are recalled to the Castle, where they must remain until the Section Heads and Jack Chessing have spoken about the events in Los Angeles that have left the Knighthood without their usual leader.

The entire Los Angeles area is now covered with a dark miasma that has interfered with any signals that might be sent out from phones, etc., leaving the whole world wondering what exactly is happening down there. Final images showed horrendous monsters, a panic of citizens, looting and violence from humans and Shadowkind alike.

Hasmed has warned of extra magical wards on the castle, and anyone arriving will immediately take notice of one very prominent one: above the entire roof of the excessively large building hovers a black and red sigil in the air, a pentagram in a circle surrounded by runes or words in an unknown language, stretching for miles.

[ This is the social log for post-LA lockdown. Failboat must complete the top log before being allowed to tag outside of it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She crit failed again, jfc.]

GO AWAY OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL SHOOT YOU IF YOU COME THROUGH THAT DOOR!

[It's a bluff, but it sure fucking sounds convincing (bluff nat 20 what the hell dice you're trying to actually kill me here)]

[With a nat 20 sense motive that really only a mother could pull off, she doubts that Ashley would go that far. Or at least...it probably wouldn't be a fatal shot. She lets go of the doorknob, but doesn't step away. Instead, she speaks up to be heard through the door.]

I wouldn't blame you if you did. I deserve it and much more. I know I've hurt you and I'm so sorry. There's no excusing any of it. I've been selfish and I know that. Please, let me in. [Diplomacy 37]

[It would have been a warning shot over her shoulder, at best.

Either way, her will save versus her mother's diplomacy is trash, but she sits on her bed, breathing hard for a moment as she tries to not look like a fucking mess. That's an impossibility, but she'd rather look pissed than like she's been crying.

But, finally, she gets up, unlocks the door, and opens it slightly, standing in the crack she's created. She doesn't seem to want to let her in, but at least the door...is open?]

There's nothing to talk about. You know damn well that whatever it is that happens next, you've implicated me in something that's clearly really bad if you have to make some big choice after they've put the entire place on lockdown.

i know it's too little, too late, but I don't want to decide anything without discussing it with you. I made this bed and I'm prepared to lie in it. I'll make sure everyone knows I kept you in the dark, if that's what you want. But I didn't want to do that without making sure you knew the whole story.

Yeah, well, now I know.

[She gestures with the gun in her hand down the hall behind her.]

You can go with your conscience clear now.

[She isn't going anywhere and she still hasn't really gotten to the actual point of why she wanted to talk in the first place.] Des has urged me to publically denounce them. To say they manipulated me with...dark powers. Or to take you and run before anyone makes an example of me.

I told him that I want to stay, to make sure that one extreme voice isn't amplified by the panic and distracts us from the real danger.

But I don't want to do any of it alone. Whatever it is that I do.

Edited 2017-10-06 18:25 (UTC)

Do whatever you want, Mom. It doesn't matter to me, anymore. You're going to do what you want in the end, anyway.

[Her fingers tighten on the door as she resists the urge to slam it.]

But I'm not going anywhere and I'm not getting involved. If you didn't want to do this alone, you should have thought of that a long time ago. You've got Des, apparently, so I hope that's good enough.

You don't mean that. [Or at least that's her intense wishful thinking.]

I know this is a lot. And I know you're angry with me, but... [Oh there's the shitty will save. Her voice cracks as the lump in her throat gives way to tears.]

After France, I didn't know how to explain. You stood by me when you had no reason to. I knew this would be too much. I never meant to hurt you by not telling you. I didnt know how to without it leading us here.

Not choosing them over literally everything else would have been a good start.

[In contrast, her will save was an 18 just on the die, so she's sturdy now, solid in the idea that she's in the right here.]

It is too much and no matter what you meant to do, it fucking hurts. I got why you didn't tell me about my father, even if you should have. I even tried to understand the whole France thing, but this? The entire castle is under lockdown and as far as I can tell it's because of you and this person you risked you're entire life for and that's scary. It's scary that you were so worried about losing him that you risked losing everyone else.

[Des isn't a knight, so it's not him that the knighthood can't trust.]

You love him so much? Fine. But he sounds like a pretty shitty friend if you had to lie to everyone else just to keep hanging out with him.

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps my judgment has been clouded and I saw what I wanted to see. [She isn't completely sold on the idea. She believes in Des, morally gray as he may be. But her priorities are shifting back to where they should have been from the start.]

But no matter what I've felt, he's not worth losing you. No one is worth that. I think... I think maybe I've been afraid to get too close since you arrived here. And that isn't fair, I know. And all it's done is cause me to push you away. I'm so sorry.

[It doesn't matter to her if Des isn't evil or whatever. She knows that not everything is what it seems all the time. She's seen it in action more times than she can count.

It's the fact that she's been put in this position too many times, of not being considered worth giving the truth to until it was too late. Her mother is the one keeping things from her but she's the one that's untrustworthy?

She's done with it.

Her sense motive was a six, so she doesn't even remotely know what to believe.]

Prove it. [She folds her arms over her chest.] You stay and you do whatever it takes to make it right, if that's even possible. Until then, I can't trust anything you say.

[For all she knows, they did mess with her head or something. Mind control and suggestion isn't exactly an impossibility from abnormals in this world. But after that was ruled out in France, Ashley isn't counting on it.]

[She wonders if there's anything she can really do to make any of it right. She knows very little about the whole Hell situation. They only told her enough for it to be a secret worth keeping. But she'll cling to any hope that she can regain her daughter's trust.]

I'll do everything I can. And hopefully that will be enough.

I guess we'll see.

[She's still raging, though, and she really wants to go hit something repeatedly but she also doesn't want to put holes in her wall.]

I'd like it if you'd get out of my doorway, now. I want to be alone.

Of course. [She knows that staying any longer and she'd undoubtedly ruin whatever ground she's gained.]

If you need me... for anything, I'll be close by.

[And with that, she steps back and turns to leave.]

chapter five ♔ it'll be a day like this one when the sky falls down

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