Conversation Space IV.

[powersthatbe]

The small room is painted a dark beige, with stained wood paneling on the lower half, and lush burgundy carpeting. The ceiling, however, is cracked and bowed, sagging alarmingly, occasionally shedding chips of plaster. Wrought-iron lamp-posts in the corners suspend pale, wan globes of light, and between them along the walls run rows of painted sunflowers, all turned towards the center of the room as if listening attentively. A jutting spire of granite rises from the floor on a diagonal, its flattened top sporting a cracked wineglass from which the wine (a white) slowly spatters teardrops across the plinth. And there is no chair, but a therapist’s couch, blue with gold trim, and ornate scrollwork on the legs, beside which the fluted horn of a phonograph player pipes music into the room, quiet enough to just be background ambience.

Comments

[willyousee]

Alcuin considers the space warily, but with far more calm than he had expected. So. It is his turn, is it? Sobeit.

Stepping silently forward, he brushes his fingertips over the glass and murmurs the Mending cantrip. No need to waste wine. There. The ceiling cannot be fixed so easily, but so long as it does not decide to drop plaster in his glass, it can be mostly ignored.

Sixteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
Tower. Moon. Sun. Judgement.
Interesting.

He brushes any spare plaster from the plush sofa and settles himself á la Helene upon it, fixed glass in hand, to wait. He can be patient, and his hostess would not have brought him here if she did not wish something.

[iseethe]

She is dressed in flowing whisps of silver silk and grey gauze. Slim as a boy, almost androgynous in figure, her greyed skin (like a black-and-white photograph) is only a shade or two lighter than her silvery mask, the same as the one she wore to the Solstice Masquerade. That may be black hair behind her mask or then again, it might be shadow.

"My Horned Lady," she says, her alto voice sounding different than last he heard. "Alcuin nò Delaunay. We meet again."

[willyousee]

Alcuin stands with a fluid motion, setting the glass aside, and bows. "LUNE. Will you grant me another dance? Or perhaps a few answers which might assist me in aiding you?"

[iseethe]

She curtsies to him, then holds out a hand. It is a little cool and her flesh feels almost like silk.

[willyousee]

He smiles, a little wry about the eyes. "I am honored." He takes her hand and raises it to his lips, keeping his eyes upon hers as he kisses it. "Or perhaps you would prefer a female partner, at least in form, as you once did." He draws himself gently in to her, rather than the other way around, and settles himself into the following role. He trusts her to understand the nuance. "I shall ask you to pick the dance, and I am sure that whatever it is, it shall suit me as well as anything, or I shall learn something new."

[iseethe]

She laughs. "Shall I cause you to sneeze?" she asks. "I might be able to arrange that."

The dance she picks is one of the ones he might recognize from Malik's time in the gardens. She leads him deftly through it.

[willyousee]

He smiles, true amusement in it. "I have no doubt of it." The dance requires a little more of his concentration than he likes, but she makes it strangely easy to follow along - a nuance he is also aware of. "My apologies, my lady, for being so dense a student. It seems I have often missed any clues or instructions you might have let fall."

[iseethe]

"Ah," she says, dipping him, "but ambiguity is my metier. Perhaps I laid no clues at all. Or perhaps I laid a thousand, each more obscure than the last."

[willyousee]

He slips his calf about hers, gliding it up as Malik had. "If so, you can hardly expect to win your game, my lady. Your pieces will be lost - even those of us who wish you well. Masks and mist and fear are all very well, want them above all. Even among your Chosen."

[iseethe]

"Do you wish me well?" she asks, pulling him right to continue the dance.

[willyousee]

He smiles, a touch of weariness to his expression. "Do you wish candor? Odd, when you are not likely to return the same."

[iseethe]

"I wish your reply, candid or not," she says.

[willyousee]

"I cannot sense the path, and have been too oft betrayed to trust blindly, even to a guide who claims to know the way," he says softly. "Do I wish you well? Say that I do not wish you ill, and I believe you a better choice than many of your Cousins, my lady. I agreed to work with you and have not sought to change that. I merely wish the task were clearer. As it is, I go where my conscience tells me, and can but hope that it aligns somewhat."

[iseethe]

"It does, betimes," she says, before spinning him. "I am constrained by the archetype I embody. Clarity is not a thing I am inclined to. If you wish for it, better you should have been taken by Sol. But I am glad you were not."

[willyousee]

There could be many reasons for that, but Alcuin still finds his cheeks warming at the faint praise. "Give me a riddle, then, if you must obfuscate. Or grant me a misty vision. You are mistress of the long and winding game - you cannot tell me that you do not know your way around the rules as well as within their strictures," despite his light and teasing tone, he is in earnest. "The Mage holds one both brilliant and strategically gifted who sees himself as expendable. If you wish me to compete..."

He stops the dance as abruptly as it began, taking her hands and falling to one knee before her to press them to his bowed forehead. "I do not know how to help you or if, indeed, that is what you wish at all! It seems to me more likely that you might play not for yourself, but for another, in a roundabout fashion only you can see. Help me to understand what you need. Please, my lady. It is so dark where I stand. Lend me but the faintest moonglow or whisper of wind."

1/2

[iseethe]

Alcuin and Anafiel Delaunay, at the chessboard.

Alcuin and Leonardo, cards arrayed in front of them.

Alcuin and Thorne, moving their counters around a board game.

The Hall of Games.

Or a least, it appears that way. But the people inside aren't d'Angeline nobles, but figures odder still. The white wolf. The blue Program. The carefree woman with the pompadour, who sometimes blurs and breaks apart into her twin. Monarchs dressed in eastern silks. A pair of matched automatons, one dangling in midair, the other coming down from midflight and unfolding itself into another sort of automaton, horseface and uncanny, the moment it touches the ground. One seven foot tall, shrouded in shadow. Another, horned and faceless. A misty figure that betimes resolves herself into a pink bunnerfly. An invisible man, shrouded in bandages. An eight-armed woman. A hollow-cheeked man in mourning black. An angel carrying a horn. A blindfolded woman enveloped in voluminous fabric. Masqued figures, silk and porcelain, sitting together.

The vision lasts only long enough for Alcuin to count the figures, before fading away.

2/2

[iseethe]

After, she is stroking his hair.

"Why does anyone play any game?" she asks, soft and distant. "Some to win. Some to prevent another from winning. Some purely for the love of playing."

[willyousee]

Alcuin immediately marks a mental touchstone so that he can come back to this moment and replay the vision as often and as slowly as he needs to ascertain all the details. Moon may not have meant to reveal much, but to one with his training, there is more to even such a brief scene than is immediately obvious. Body language, expressions, which games are being played, who is winning... alliances, rivalries, who plays aggressively, who has a more calculating strategy. Who plays to win, who plays to enjoy the game, who plays to annoy the others. the patterns are in the details for those who can see them. Not to mention that he now has full portraits of all the Arcanum.

But even more interesting... she placed them in Hall of Games. A room in the palace he has seen in passing only a handful of times. And she knows how to soothe him.

He can feel the physical tension draining from his shoulders as he irresistably leans into her touch while his nerves jangle with the dissonance of alarm. She knows precisely what she is doing to him, and she knows far more about his background than he would like.

"Do you ever feel lonely, separated out from your kin with no one who truly understands you?" he asks softly, looking up through his lashes.

[iseethe]

"Don't you?" she murmurs.

[willyousee]

"I think you already know the answer to that." Stirring, he gets to his feet, regarding her with soft empathy in his face. On impulse he very gently cups her face, thumb stroking the porcelain cheek. "I want to understand you better. No one deserves to be alone. You can do nearly anything you desire. Why not create an illusion of the perfect world? Then here, at least, you would not need to trouble yourself with the others' ideas. Spin your mists, your imagination. Work your skills and screen this place from watchful eyes. Secret us away. Confuse them. Make them worry. You know I cannot leave you - and nor do I wish to. Of all your Chosen, who can say the same?"

[iseethe]

She laughs, rich and throaty. "Messire Delaunay," she says, pleased as much as she is amused, "are you trying to seduce me?"

[willyousee]

He smiles and shakes his head. "Not especially. Though it does occur to me that perhaps there is not much time or means for pleasure for your people, if that is something which you desire. I did not think you would be interested in mortal charms. But please. My lady. My name is Alcuin. No more than that is needed - particularly between us."

[iseethe]

"Alcuin," she repeats, bringing her own hand up to cup his cheek in turn. "You do not wish to leave me?"

[willyousee]

He allows his eyes to close in a slow blink. "You tell me, my lady," he says, hushed, with a small smile playing about his lips.

Where would he go? Back into the abyss of death with all his time here forgotton and erased? He does not belong with the other Arcana, of they would have Chosen him. He does not trust her per se, but then she would be disappointed if he did. He gave up the dream of returning to Terre d'Ange long ago, and while there are other Arcana he likes, 'twas not they who saw his potential - whatever that may be. No. For all his frustration, he is content enough. And here, now, he would certainly rather stay and know more of her.

[iseethe]

"Ah," she says. "It's liminal space you do not want to leave." Her silken thumb strokes along the line of his cheek. "You and your fellow spirits of the dead."