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

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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

Ollie's ten years older than me. Was. [ she sounds so heartbroken correcting herself. ]

Dad didn't die until I was twelve though, Mom was when I was eighteen.

[Oh.... oh. It's the math of it all. The mathematical improbability of her existing because his parents died...

And he was nine. Why would anyone try to offer him up any sort of medical information about their deaths? Who would even -- should he look into her medical records? Should he open up that wound just because the alleged sister of the identity thief says that she could have existed?]

I'm sorry. [That also means, she's the last one.]

I know how it is to be the last one.

I should be used to it. [ why is she telling a literal stranger this? probably because he's a stranger. she needs to blurt this out to someone and this guy just called her out of the blue, so he's it. ]

Dad and Ollie were in an accident. Dad died, but we thought Ollie died too. Five years later he just showed up at the front door like nothing had happened, like we didn't have a funeral for him already.

[ now she has to plan another one. ]

[He almost drops the phone. He knows that it could be a scam. That she could be selling him what he wants to hear, but the thought of another version - of someone else sharing the same experiences as him. It's frightening and yet still something that catches his attention.]

An island. [He wonders if this is like those call-in psychics. You give them a little, something to let them know you're on the right path and they run with it. Except, she sounds too hollow in her words. Too filled with actual loss.

He shouldn't be thinking poorly of this girl. He doesn't even know her.

She could have been his sister in another life.]

Yeah, I -- I never really asked if there had been a funeral. I didn't have family to put that together and the idea of my board of directors doing it... I just didn't see them as the type. I think I was just labeled as missing and after a while that gets upgraded to presumed dead.

...you were on an island for five years?

[ thea knows, she knows that other universes exist. that the veil can do things to memories. but this is A Lot. this is a guy with her brother's name but no baby sister, a guy who may or may not have been on an island for five years.

is he the green arrow, too? ]

Two years. I had pirates attack my yacht. I washed ashore and was on that island alone until drug runners showed up.

[He frowns.] Was your brother alone for five years?

No, not alone. He found people or they found him, I don't know, he never told me, I heard everything second hand.

[ felicity had tried to keep her as in the know as she could, but there was a lot of time to make up for. ]

Someone trained him to be a vigilante.

[He takes a deep breath and leans back in the chair he's seated in. He exhales and lets out an amused sound.]

That explains a few things about him. [He smirks, which she can't see, but it's clear in his voice.] I needed to eat and I had an archery hobby before I crashed, but it was a hobby. Definitely not a survival skill. So I practiced.

A lot.

I took down a boar. It was pretty cool to the whole... no one that had been there to see it.

The drug runners sort of forced my hand. There was this woman... [His voice does get a bit fond, but Tess hasn't shown up in his life again, so it's just fondness.] She had been kidnapped. Her and her friend.

Forced to help this small subset of a cartel. Her friend was killed in front of us and I knew -- I knew that I had to do something. She was the first person I saved.

I had wasted so much of my life doing things just for myself. I had sworn that if I ever got off that island I was going to make that life worth something.

I don't think Oliver had the same selflessness.

[ ...she isn't bitter. she's totally bitter still! she was repeatedly kidnapped because of oliver. her mother was murdered, right in front of her, because of oliver. ollie had spent something like a year telling thea to stay far away from the hood, who killed people, and then stole her boyfriend to make roy his protégé.

he'd lied to her for years.

no, thea is definitely still bitter, losing him hasn't made her less bitter, it's only tempered it with grief. he'd never apologized, felicity had in his stead. ]

Are you the Green Arrow?

So, under normal circumstances I have this whole thing where I deny that whole claim. I even had a friend dress up as the Green Arrow at one point to prove I wasn't him.

He kissed my girlfriend. She's my ex-girlfriend now. The two are not related.

But, since your brother added a few headlines to my portfolio -- I'm assuming you knew about his Adventures in Criminal Sitting.

I have subscribed to that whole... 'it's dangerous for you to know, because then people will hurt you to get to me' angle. Except, that doesn't work. People find out. Then everyone is mad. It's a trust thing and then when there is danger -- they think they can handle it.

So, yes. Just --- don't tell anyone.

[ how the fuck

did an absolute stranger

sum up why lying doesn't work

WHEN HER OWN BROTHER COULDN'T MANAGE IT. ]

Wasn't gonna. [ she huffs out a sigh, dragging her hand through her hair, it needs a cut. god, she should shower, this is disgusting. ] Honestly I don't even know how I'm supposed to explain this conversation at all.

Yeah... I -- [He closes his mouth.]

This isn't how I thought this would go. I mean, if I'm honest, I assumed it was just someone trying to prove how good they were at identity theft. It would be a big score, stealing the identity of Oliver Queen.

But, he just was Oliver Queen -- which is weird. Really weird.

Probably weirder for you right now, because now you're talking to Oliver Queen -- who has this unsettling similarity to his life. Which under all other circumstances would make you think that I was trying to scam you.

Did you ever search online for him? I mean, he came through the Veil - I assume you did too.

Yeah, but I guess Ollie plus Starling City kicked google's ass because I found zero things. I googled myself too, but obviously that was a bust. Queen Consolidated doesn't exist.

[ thea is not the best at research okay. she should have just googled oliver jonas queen with no qualifier. briefly she wonders if they have the same middle name, but chooses not to ask. ]

I was in Bruges, I had to basically learn a whole language and get a job and find some place to live, my phone didn't even have service.

[ it was a tragic first few months, okay, her first failed google attempts were disheartening enough to make her stop. ]

Bruges? [His brow lifts. That's definitely a language barrier.]

I can imagine that was difficult -- especially since it's Queen Industries and Star City.

Consolidated? Huh. What did it consolidate? I mean Industries at least has manufacturing layered in there.

[ well, star city makes zero sense, schs' school mascot is a bird. ]

Money, probably. [ look. thea is well aware they were rich af. her awareness doesn't extend to what her father's company actually did on the regular. stuff. they consolidated stuff. ]

Anyway now I can google you and you're still shit outta luck with me.

Very good point. Do you mind if I just ask you questions, since Google won't help me?

[ thea shrugs, realizes he can't see it, and uses her words like a big girl. ]

Uh, sure. Not the interesting.

[He sets the phone down and puts her on speaker.] You're on speaker -- so if it gets a little echo-y, that's why. Uh -- and don't worry, I'm in my secret lair.

[a beat] Not really. I'm in my office. How long have you been in London? I mean, you arrived in Bruges -- and then... then where does the adventures of Thea Queen take her?

Uh, three years almost exactly. Three years this month, but I was in Bruges for a year-ish. I worked at a club there.

[ and went by mia, so even if she was notable enough to be mentioned anywhere on the internet (she wasn't), it wouldn't have been under thea queen anyway. ]

Three years? [The identity stuff had been going on longer than that -- which meant her brother, he refuses to actually call him by his name, arrived before her.]

Wait -- you were in Bruges for a year? Did your brother know?

No, not until London. [ she sounds unhappy, but not in the grieving kind of way, just. displeased with the way her life had gone. ]

[He frowns, trying not to hear the upset in her voice. It's difficult not to, though, because Oliver has heard that same tone in Lois when they ended things. Or rather, when she realized that she deserved better than him.]

What do you do? I mean, you're not involved in his identity theft slash vigilante methods - are you? Which, I will say he did the vigilante thing pretty good. He wasn't quite as good as me, which makes for an uneven Green Arrow impression on the world - because we have me over here in the states and then him over there in London... in a different outfit. It was like Vacation Arrow. [You know, as if he's a Ken Doll with a different look.]

Anyway... do you work at a club in London too?

I work at a research institute. But we have a bar so if I ever miss my roots I can make myself a drink and not pay for it.

[ and then she feels at home again. ]

The uh -- Carther... McCarthy - something like that, right? It's on one of my notes about one Felicity Smoak. Family business or just an easy gig to get?

That's the one. [ notably does not correct it. ] It was surprisingly easy to get but has like a textbook full of nondisclosure agreements.

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