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.

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[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.