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. ]

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[Even hearing those words; Wynn had to be left behind, is enough to visibly wound her. Regret and despair flitting across her features, before she can push it down again.]

There was... No choice. [But it's clear she doesn't fully believe that. She could have stayed. Should have stayed. He would never have left her behind.]

It's about as bad as it can get and without Wynn... [She shakes her head, a flicker of anger there as well. What she wouldn't give to get in one or two good hits on Hasmed and Solace before she left.

If that was all he really knew, however, then there was a good chance he hadn't caught up on the latest. This conversation would have been a whole lot easier if she didn't have to be the one to tell him the big stuff.]

Hasmed and Solace have taken it upon themselves to take over the Knights. They think Wynn isn't any good and they believe my Team has been compromised. [A beat.] And they're not... entirely wrong...

[How the Hell - mind the choice of words - was she supposed to explain that after years of keeping it a secret.]

Do you believe in God? [Badly, apparently, if your name is Rose.] I don't mean, Gods like... what a lot of the Cleric around here are into. I mean, Heaven, Hell. The bible?

It's worse than it looks from the surface, isn't it?

[She's too concerned, and she's at the heart of this entire thing. It makes sense that there would be airs put on by the higher-ups.

He's not expecting where this conversation tilts, though.]

I do. Perhaps not everything down to the last detail, but I like to think a good deal of it is true. [With everything else that's fact on this side of the Veil, it makes it all seem much more likely, too.] Why?

[There was no point sugar coating it. Somebody left behind had to know exactly what they were dealing with and Rose doubted that Solace and Hasmed could be trusted to be on the level with everyone.

It was more than that though. More than just Blade, The Mind Master, the chaos that was the Knights now. Hell had somehow managed to get its claws into everyone she held dear. When he was away, maybe he was safe, but coming back to the Castle could change things, especially if she wasn't here to watch his back.]

Because it's going to make what I have to tell you a whole lot easier to swallow. [She lifts her hand, runs it over her mouth, trying to draw the words out but there was still as much danger in knowing too much as there was in knowing too little.]

Around about the time of Lila and Silar's wedding... I realized something was, off, about Elena. So I started kind of, keeping an eye on her I guess. [Rose lifting her shoulders in an infinitesimal shrug, half knowing there was something wrong in spying on a teammate, but feeling pretty vindicated given what they knew now.] She'd changed. Not in a normal, trying new things kind of way, it was like? Like she was a completely different person.

[Why she was drawing this part out Rose couldn't say. Maybe because it delayed the inevitable moment when she finally had to put it into words for the first time. It was bad enough knowing how screwed up this all was, but saying it out loud, made it worse somehow.]

Dean and I started to do a little digging and found out that Des's Husband - [Her fist clenches at her side, nails piercing skin in her attempt to keep her emotions in check.] The man you would have seen the night of Luthir and Vi's wedding? Is in fact the Archdevil, Azrael.

Yes, I remember him.

[His voice sounds sort of distant, like he's trying to put all of this information together into something that actually makes sense. It seems like so much, but he attempts to digest it as best he can.

Hearing about Elena doesn't exactly bring up the greatest memories, either.]

You're saying that he brought the literal Devil to that wedding? [He's taking this seriously, Rose, but it's a lot.] What does this have to do with Elena?

Not The Devil. A Devil. [This might be easier to explain if she'd ever done more than flip through 'The good Book'.] Think of the Bible as like, a Tabloid Magazine for Heaven.

[Bunch of stories, some rooted in a modicum of fact but it gets so twisted it's mostly slanderously inaccurate.]

Nine Archdevils, Nine layers of hell. [Trying to illustrate with her hands.] It's a whole... thing.

[Dean would be much better at explaining this but Rose imagined Dean might be happier if she weren't explaining this at all.]

Elena is involved in this because she's involved with the Archdevil you think of as The Devil. [A beat.] Lucifer. [Another.] She's the Queen of Hell.

[Sure that's one way to explain this gently.]

[He leans forward at some point in the midst of her talking, leaning his forearm against his thighs, head bowed slightly as if his head suddenly feels too heavy.]

That's more than just a...thing, Roza.

[Rose is a lot of things, but she isn't crazy, and she isn't a liar. However, it's difficult to just accept that without a word and move on.]

How long have you been dealing with this?

[There weren't many people that could hear something like that and not be sizing her up for a straightjacket. Fewer still, who would be less worried about the what, where, why, and more worried about her.

She tried to summon a half smile at his words, but it looks more like a grimace, her hands clasped together as she mirrors his pose.]

Forever, it feels like. [She shakes her head, trying to pinpoint when it started but she'd been dealing with Hell in one way or another since...] Right before Andres, I guess?

[Well that's...not the greatest timing, is it?

He sure picked a great time to pack up and leave. Then again, he'd thought he'd been doing what was best for both of them considering the circumstances.

He shakes his head in response, not to anything in particular, but just to express his unhappiness at this entire situation.]

Rose, I'm so sorry. [He doesn't even quite nowhere to start.] I can't even begin to know what any of this even means. How are we supposed to combat something like this?

[This seems like even more than dealing with the gods of this world. The divine and the fallen walking among them? How does he even...srsly.]

[If he hadn't left then she doubted they'd be able to sit here and have this conversation at all, and despite what Dean might think about it, it was one she needed to have.

His words see a grimace touch her lips, a flash of understanding like she knew where his head was spinning and she now had to alter its direction.]

You, don't. [She could tell him she wanted to mount an attack on Hell, right at the heart of it and he'd be the first to be by her side, but she would never allow that.]

Telling you this much? I'm not doing you any favors here. The less you know, the less you're involved in this stuff? The safer it is, not just for you but for me too.

[She would never accept something like this and while Dimitri was very good at putting on a controlled front? She wasn't stupid enough to think he'd be happily told to step aside. They weren't so different at their core.]

Elena can, steal faces and read thoughts. Des... inserted himself into the lives of everyone close to me. [She shook her head, a flash of anger there, as much for herself as it was for Des.] I won't have them using you to get to me.

[He looks both confused and frustrated, for good reason. After all, Rose is right; being told to sit on the sidelines isn't his favorite thing.]

You're telling me that you want me to do nothing?

[He understood very quickly why, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. After all, Elena already had used him, and that was apparently even before Rose had learned about all this.]

I'm telling you... [She at least looks apologetic in that moment, like she honestly wishes she could tell him anything other than this.]

That you have to do nothing. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't told you, but... You're back here and, I'm not going to be around to look out for you.

[He lets that sit in his head for a moment, weighing her words against the expression on her face, then finally gives her a single nod.]

If you think that's best, though I'm sure you realize how difficult it is for me to agree to that.

I do. I've spent the better part of the last couple of years, having to not do anything.

[It wasn't quite the same, but it was still having a problem that she couldn't fight with her fists.]

And I know you. [Still. Even after everything.] So I wouldn't ask it of you if it weren't absolutely necessary.

[His gaze is steady as he looks at her, weighing her words, the way she delivers them. She's dead serious and he's not going to question it.]

You know that if you do need anything, you can ask me.

[But he'll do as she wants. Nothing. Unless she changes her mind down the line.]

I'll be careful.

I know. [And she realised as she said those words, that it was true. For all that had changed, her death as it were, had shown her that some things were still the same. They weren't together, but he would still always be there for her.]

The thing is... I'm not going to be around to ask you. Not, here anyway.

[Well, that sounds like she's leaving.

Except they've basically been ordered not to for the time being. Temporarily likely, so maybe she's talking about sometime in the future and not...now.]

You make it sound as if I'll wake up tomorrow and you won't be here.

[She shouldn't even need to answer with the look she gives him now and while maybe she should or even could apologize for taking off just as soon as he's returned? She won't. She won't because she knows he will understand it.]

We leave tonight. This fight... it's too important to sit out and Solace and Hasmed? They're wrong. About... everything.

[He sighs, barely resisting the urge to rub at his temples.]

Roza...

[But it's not his place to reprimand, even gently. She's an adult, has been for awhile, and she's proven she doesn't need him to watch over her, or even watch her back.

She has other people who can do that for her, ones that may even be better than himself.]

Do what you think you need to do. Then come and see me when it's over. I will keep an eye on things here.

I don't know... [If I'll survive this.] ... if I'll even be allowed back.

[The part she didn't say, was a reality they both understood, had accepted that long before they joined the Knights. The latter, was at least so he could see that she had thought this through, and was willing to deal with the consequences.]

But they can't stop me from contacting you.

[A part of her still hoped that Wynn would return, that he'd restore order. That Hasmed and Solace would crawl back under the rocks they emerged from. A part of her still wanted to believe in fairytales, too...]

I won't ask you not to fight... but you won't be able to beat Blade or the Mindmaster. Not with brute force, not with magic, not with anything we currently have. The only way you'll survive if you meet them face to face, is if you run.

[A lesson he had once taught her in a very different time and a very different place.]

Nor can they keep you out of London. They would be fools to refuse you a place here, and if it comes to that when it's over then this will not be the place for me anymore, either.

[Not because she won't be here, but because if she isn't welcome, he won't feel as if he is, either.]

There are times when we can't run, even when the odds are stacked against us. This might be one of those times. But I will not run straight into the arms of death, either.

[His smile is sad and quiet.]

You will be alright, Roza. One way or another.

[That was clearly the last thing she had expected him to say, Rose’s surprise quickly morphing into something deeper as emotion made her throat constrict. She didn’t dare ask him if he really meant that, because Dimitri was not a man who spoke lightly of such matters. For him to have said it at all means that it’s something he knows with certainty.

Her gaze drops to her hands, Rose struggling to find words that sounded right in response, but in the end all she could do was offer him up a crumpled, half smile, nodding as she swallowed past the lump in her throat.]

This world… The knights… [Lifting her gaze.] … needs people like you. [That broken half smile returning.] So just, make sure you’re still around when this is over.

[This felt a little too much like goodbye, not just for now, but much longer than that. Perhaps it would be a less painful conversation to have if that weren’t a very real possibility.]

I know. [ Realizing as she said that, that she actually believed it. So much had happened these last few years but she'd made it this far. She was not about to let anything, be it a Nightmare God or Hell itself, stop her now. ] Despite how it sounds... I'm not about to let this be goodbye, okay.

It needs people like you too.

[For the record. But it sounds like she's just as determined to come out of this as he is.]

Good. Then we're agreed.

[He gives her a small smile, one that is full of bittersweet sadness, but still somehow hopeful.]

When I see you again, you'll have to tell me about your big adventure.

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

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