knightsoflegend | prologue ♔ chances are more than expectations

prologue ♔ chances are more than expectations

WHO || Wynn and any characters newly joining the Knights
WHAT || Initial recruitment meetings with Wynn
WHERE || Knights Headquarters outside London, England
WHEN || Anytime before the 1st of each month
HOW || Prose OR Actionspam (I'll follow your lead!) Please make a new thread for your character's arrival below.

♬ [When you see this note in a post or NPC tag, click for musical accompaniment!]

The paths to the Knighthood are as unique as the individuals who comprise its widespread organization. But all of their tales have one aspect in common: their first trip to the castle that serves as the primary headquarters for their operations occurs blindfolded, generally with the member who had recommended them for service as their escort.

Only when the car had pulled up to the front steps of the opulent building are they unmasked and allowed to follow inside.

Within the wide front hall is what looks like a receptionist desk to the left, manned by any one of a number of usually young Knights, who make the newly arrived sign into an ancient looking tome with hundreds of yellowed pages, along with today's date, usually accompanied by a look of curiosity from whoever's working the desk. Either way, they ask no questions.

They are then directed down the main ground floor hallway, which seems to stretch on for a great distance, passing tapestries of a mostly medieval flavor, suits of armor and weaponry lining the walls, and archways that open into opulent ballrooms, extra wings with numerous doors, poshly decorated parlors and more.

It's in front of an incredibly large painting that they come to a stop, drawing some kind of keycard out of their wallet or pockets and using it to open a small glass case containing a fire extinguisher to the right of the artwork. They pull the extinguisher upwards like a lever, making it clear it's just for show, and a loud mechanism creaks behind the wall, as the entire mural swings aside slowly to unveil a torch lit hallway. Escorts leave their charges to go on from here alone, usually with a nod or word of encouragement.

There's something solemn about the long stone corridor, made only more so by the fact that almost every inch of the walls on either side is covered in paintings, tapestries, rugs, artifacts, carvings, etc. that depict various images from the Knights' history, of those in armor battling against all manner of twisted and dangerous creatures. There's another constantly reoccurring image as well - of a gigantic silver dragon battling against armies of dark elves, or just one dark elf in particular, who is often depicted with a certain circular symbol somewhere on his wicked looking armor.

More prominent than this collection of madly arranged images is the incredibly large lettering inscribed over the large doors at the end of the hallway.

Thou Shalt Defend the Knighthood.
Thou Shalt respect all Weaknesses, and Shalt constitute thyself the Defender of them.
Thou Shalt not recoil before thine Enemy.
Thou Shalt make War against Injustice, without Cessation and without Mercy.
Thou Shalt never lie, and shall remain Faithful to thy pledged Word.
Thou Shalt be Generous, and listen to and Respect All.
Thou Shalt be Everywhere and Always the Champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

The room that stretches out beyond those doors, however, is enough to wrench the eyes off the inscription. It houses an incredibly large, thick, wooden table constructed in the round, surrounded by at least twenty five chairs. Rising from the center from the table is a massive statue that appears to be made of glass or crystal, depicting a dragon in flight. Suspended in the middle of the statue is a proud looking sword, that looks as if it's merely hovering there because of the statue's transparent nature. The statue rises up towards the vaulted ceilings as if it means to break free and soar out of the room, creating a very otherworldly aspect to the setting.

It may take a moment for those who enter to realize they are not fully alone, as Wynn waits on the exact opposite side of the table, facing a pair of incredibly tall sealed doors, that appear to be gilded in gold leaf. His hands are locked behind him, laced white cuffs falling over them, one ring visible on his left hand. His height is intimidating, at a full six foot seven, and his posture rigid and impeccable. He wears an old-fashioned tailored coat worked with silver and dark blues, over a silver and white doublet, framed with gleaming buttons that have tiny dragons worked onto them in brushed silver. He says nothing - doesn't even so much as turn, as if he doesn't even register that anyone has arrived.

Once inside, the doors fall shut with a ponderous thud, of what seems to be their own accord.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She kept her chin raised, defiant, and bit down on the part of herself that wanted to back down and dissemble. Her face flushed hot and red. "The Code doesn't bind," Scout got out. "Or it didn't bind him."

Him being the Traitor, of course. There was very little hatred in Scout. Hatred and bloody-minded determination were very different animals; one was familiar to her and easily kept checked, pulled back and stabled when she didn't need it. The other was small, planted with shock and pain in a bed of loss, wrapped up around the half-faded memory of someone she'd trusted.

With the quickness of long practice, Scout interrupted her own cycle of emotion. It was still there through a veil of the Force's calm. It was always there. But she could usually not let it affect her much. Clearly, pushing it away for the month or so she'd been on this planet had been a bad idea.

"Look," Scout said with a sigh. "If I'm nasty-minded and suspicious, it's because I have reason. I'm sorry if it's insulting." She didn't like apologizing for her own paranoia. Hadn't it kept her alive this long? "You seem like decent people. It's just some of the things that led up to this, they don't lead to anything good on the worlds I'm from."

The Knight who'd brought her here had had a lot of trouble getting her to be blindfolded.

If he was curious about who she was referring to with her venomous use of the pronoun, he didn't vocalize it. Still watching her with that heavily weighted gaze, he stepped closer to the table, trailing the tips of his fingers over the wood.

"I took no offense," Wynn stated simply, and there was nothing that suggested his words were only platitude. "You have good reason to not take things at face value, in a world unknown to you. However."

His eyes scraped upwards, lighting on the sword in the center of the statue. "We all must choose to place our faith somewhere, lest we never step forward."

Even across this distance Scout fought herself to hold his gaze, her eyes watering a little as she kept from blinking. For most of her life she'd deferred to the Masters who would sometimes have that look as they addressed her. It was ingrained. She'd learned to stand up for herself when they were wrong about something, to make her case without studying the floor, but it was still a relief when he looked away at the statue.

After a moment, she said, "I know. I can't live in the past." It was one of the tenants, actually. "If my only priority was staying alive, I'd stop being - what I am. And I haven't stopped." 'Jedi' was a greater part of her identity than human. It was no more negotiable than that was.

Scout came closer, up to her side of the table. She tasted the familiar-strange way the man felt in the Force, and wished she was one of those Jedi who could tell when someone was bending the truth or hiding something. Not that that had saved them... "Tell me. This is really the only star system your people can travel in? No contact with other planets?"

Her face tightened in anxiety as she took, figuratively, a big step - she reached up without looking and took a persistently wayward lock of her own short hair. Quickly, mostly one-handedly, she put it into a narrow braid. Though she didn't tie it off, it didn't immediately unravel, as if she usually kept it like that. "This doesn't have any great significance here?"

He drew his gaze back down to her, side stepping so that he could examine the braid from across the table. Something that she'd asked seemed to give him pause, at least.

"No more than what significance you give it," he admitted, at last, before returning to her previous question. "I take it that in the world you hail from, star travel is common, then."

She flushed red again, but just nodded. "Good." There was always a part of Scout who wondered if she should even have the braid at all, with her second Master dead and burned.

But he was still with her. Even if she couldn't see him or hear his voice. He'd promised. Scout tightened and corrected the braid, and by the time her hands had lowered back down her eyes were clear and she was in a somewhat better mood.

"Worlds," she said, correcting him. "It was - the Order had a private launch bay, but I once had to go out undercover and take a commercial starship flight..." Despite how much of a hassle it had been at the time, and despite knowing how it had ended, she had to smile a little, remembering. "We're expected to be composed in public, but I think three hours in a line just to get to security would test anyone."

"I knew you've been to your moon, with the apollo project, but you're not going back there often, are you? So I guess you haven't invented spaceport security yet." That would be one positive about being stuck on one world...

"A fairly recent venture, comparatively, the moon landing," Wynn remarked, betraying a bit of his own perspective on chronology. "What I find interesting is that until fairly recently, those who traveled through the Veil to this world all had come from the same place - the same planet, you might say. It is only recently that we have begun to see... those such as yourself." The idea obviously tugged at him in a slightly frustrating manner. "You're the second - or perhaps third I should say - to speak to me of experience with travel through the stars now."

She raised her eyebrows. Scout had had only a quick briefing on the Veil situation, but she's never been accused of being slow to catch on.

"All right. So 'aliens' are new. How recent is recent? And who are those others?" She'd have to be careful until she'd sounded them out.

"Within the past several months," he clarified. "Sir Richard Riddick and Sir Martha Jones have both expressed similar sentiments, although Sir Jones hails originally from a London that seems to parallel the city we live near to here."

Not names she knew. Scout decided to be relieved, and then sharply reminded herself that she didn't know every name ever. "So something's changed with this Veil, and now you have to try to figure out what that means and what it will mean." She said it rather quietly.

"Precisely," he said, with a nod. "However, we wish to protect those of you whose circumstances... vary from the norm from undue attention. There are those in this world who would go to extremes in order to unlock the secrets that your arrival may explain. It is... safer, perhaps, to keep that information protected, for the time being."

The smile that came to her lips was at least a little cynical. Scout knew an official change of topic when she heard one. "Well said. I don't think anyone likes being locked up in a hospital."

At some point she'd leaned a little out over the table, bracing her hands on the edge. Now Scout straightened and habitually stretched one arm by pulling the elbow against her chest with her other hand, then did the same with her other arm.

"So what do you think I can do to help? I'm sure you know how I did back there." Having her lightsaber broken, bleeding everywhere, getting distracted enough trying first aid on the bystanders that local lawfolk had been able to catch and subdue her... Honestly, Scout mostly saw the negatives there and didn't think she'd done very well.

"Well, I imagine that is up to you as well," he said simply, gazing at her solidly across the length of the table. "But I would like to extend to you an offer. To have a place here, where you might help others who have arrived here, with no manner of protecting themselves - or to protect this world from the outside dangers that might threaten it."

A place. Scout pressed her lips together. What a joke that was... and one only she could 'get', since she was almost completely certain that he meant it in all sincerity.

And she couldn't curl around the past to the neglect of the present. That was folly. That was unJedi.

"And I'd still be a-" no, she couldn't say it- "what I am. Part of my Order." Her tone was somewhere between a question and an almost argumentative statement.

"We do not ask that anyone forsake their identity in order to become a Knight here," he pointed out. "It would run counter to our very aims: protecting the right of all to embrace their cultures and heritage."

Whie, Scout suddenly realized, would have jumped to sign up by this point. She hung on a little longer. "And if I agreed now but decided tomorrow, or in ten years or whatever, that I could do it better with some other group, or on my own, would you let me go?"

"More than that -- we would encourage it. Every member of this organization should be here because they believe it is the best place for them to be, to grow, and to make a difference. If you come to feel it is not, I would not wish to impede your journey."

Scout searched his face and stance and sense as if hoping to find clues written on any of them, and then closed her eyes for a moment to ask the Force for guidance.

Nothing.

It didn't surprise her. She asked it often, these days, but that wasn't how the Force worked, at least not for her. She made her own decisions, and only very rarely would it encourage one choice or another. Just often enough that she still asked.

She wanted this to be right. For once, let something be right...

"All right," she said at last. "As long as I don't have to - apprentice under Fred."

The Knight who'd brought her here had had a lot of trouble getting her to be blindfolded.

Unfortunately for Scout, Wynn's expression and posture were just as unreadable as his Force signature. There was something about him that seemed to be so much more than what he presented, but the mask he wore was so flawlessly constructed that guessing at what lay beneath was an exercise in true futility.

Still, he looked as if a flicker of amusement passed across his expression at that.

"We might find someone more suitable. Particularly if you have some special talents you might be interested in exploring."

Scout suspected that cracking or peering past that durasteel self-control would probably be more trouble than it was worth. This didn't stop her from wishing she could.

He'd have known what she did back there before the hospital and Sir Fred. This was, she decided, more her telling him what she wanted to be known for her skills in.

"I'm good at the Art of Movement and Broken Gate style. -I mean, I can... cross difficult terrain, and I'm skilled in a martial art that lets me subdue people without hurting them. At least not permanently." Scout was confident of those, more than any of her others. Still, she winced slightly with memory, and had to leave a caveat. "It's best at close range and against someone unarmored."

She bit her lip, hesitating, then said, "I - People called me Scout. I prepare, I think ahead when I can, and I can read a situation fast." She didn't elaborate - it was too tied up in her one best Force talent, which she couldn't just tell anyone about - just rushed on.

"And... I have medic training. A lot, I think... But I'm not a healer." Jedi healers had always been so rare. If she'd shown any skill in it beyond helping herself, Scout guessed, her life would have been very different. "It's easier with humans and near humans, but..."

"Certainly a range of specialties," he remarked, though it sounded more like a matter of course than something to be meant as a compliment. His internal deliberation appears to happen swiftly and decisively.

"I think Sir Solace may be a good match. Certainly better suited than Sir Fredrick."

"What?" She hadn't heard properly, past the roaring in her ears, but she knew what he'd said. The blood drained out of her face, letting freckles stand stark in her skin, to beat frantic wings of hope in her ribcage. If they'd been standing close, she would have grabbed him by his pretty coat entirely without thinking, and damn the consequences. She reached wildly about with her meager Force talent. "Solace? I thought- no, I felt it when she-"

The past caught up with her all at once. Scout's wide shocked eyes flooded and closed, and sagging in place she finished her sentence in a much smaller voice. "-Died. She's... a different Solace. Of course." Of course.

It was hard not to feel crushed. Wounded. Hard not to feel angry at him, though she knew it most likely hadn't been intentional. Harder not to feel angry at herself. Later. She could feel and forgive later.

Now, Scout wiped her slimy nose on her sleeve in a brisk gesture as the blood crept shamed back into her skin. She studied her roughened hands in front of her, for the first time not able to even look at Wynn. "It won't happen again," she said, as much to herself.

A flash of sympathy rose in his expression, and he lowered his gaze as if to give her a moment to collect herself privately.

"He is, yes." He let that linger for a long moment, so as not to push the subject along too callously, before saying: "So you remember much, then, of your own world."

She sniffed to clear her nose and it was an ugly sound, but Scout curled her tongue for a few breaths of silent meditation, just for a moment, to take her to a weary semblance of proper Jedi calm.

Scout was not ashamed of tears. They meant some emotional investment, but they were trivial compared to outbursts.

"Worlds," she said, since even feeling small and humiliated didn't stop her from wanting to correct people. "I heard about the forgetting. I lost some things - most of the last two years isn't very clear, and there are some other things, but I remember."

She was more subdued now, but still Scout never really stopped thinking. "Is that strange? Do aliens crossing the Veil tend to remember more?" By which she just meant people from entirely different planets.

He regarded her once more with a curious eye. "Aliens are a rather new phenomena," he confessed, and the tone he took with the word made it quite clear the the concept still felt a bit unnatural to him. "We don't have enough evidence to support that claim yet."

He was pre-Contact. She'd gathered that before, after all these people were confined to their own star system, but that tone of voice helped it to sink in. For some reason, that made Scout feel slightly better - in general, and about him.

"Sample size of three now, right? Or three you know," she added almost to herself. "There could be more who forgot or haven't said, or never came here."

prologue ♔ chances are more than expectations

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