Rooms verse (roomsverse) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-03-28 09:54:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !hotel, *log, mad hatter, pinkie pie, shae o'malley, twilight sparkle |
Log: Welcome
Who: Newcomers and old guests
What: A welcoming place
Where: The hotel
When: Always
Warnings/Rating: TBD. Please place any required warnings in headers.
No matter the time, the place, or the universe, the hotel has drawn them here. And what a hotel! It lives as a picture of the grandeur of another era. Perhaps the one before this one? Perhaps the one before that? But one has the sense that the hotel is as ageless as the thousand worlds beyond its doors. There is no flat plaster here. There is the distinct sensation that, when one's back is turned, the walls are breathing. In many ways, it is a gaunt creature, past its prime. The wainscoting buckles like broken ribs. The paint peels and crackles, and the carpet underfoot is plush and thick with dust. It is as comfortable and worn in as a place no one has cared for can be, and edges of its lost glory seep in like water beneath a door. There a hint of gilding on the stair rail, here a splash of color in the wallpaper, protected from the sun by an armoire that has never been moved from its place. The hallways wind, leading on and on like a courteous, silent host. Something was great here, but who or what? The tongues that could tell that story have long since been stilled. It is welcoming enough to its hapless guests; they are made to feel at home in its fallen opulence. Past the lobby is a long row of short doors, each leading into a storeroom, one for every guest. Here they may find the relics of the life they left behind. But that is not all. Down at the end of the hall is an open doorway, an archway, wide and rimmed in polished oak. Music filters in, sweetly played by no one. If the guest steps through the door, following their ears and the glow of light, they will find an enormous ballroom. The floor is tiled in colorful tile, still bright despite its age, and the domed ceiling arcs overhead. There are windows there, arrayed around the dome, and through them they can see the coming night - or is it the growing morning, navy blue and lightening? The music is coming from behind a doorway that must lead into a second chamber, but try as they might, no guest can get in. It filters through the slats in the door and several boarded windows to fill the room with the strains of music. The music arcs deftly across time and place, the familiar and the unfamiliar, from the foxtrot to the classical, then to the strains of a shanty from a sea that has never existed on Earth. On one end of the room, a set of tables groan with food, as infinitely varied as the music playing behind closed doors. Whatever the delicacy one expects from home, with a little searching, it can be found there. Tarnished silver tureens steam with soup, and bowls of fruit overflow onto a satin tablecloth so thin that the table can, in spots, be seen through it. Fish and fowl, beast and insect, bread and sweet. The table is always full, and that which is taken reappears by the time the next person reaches for it. Drinks, too, expensive scotches and cheap moonshine, cocktails and wines from nonexistent vineyards, beer brewed in the belly of spaceships and in monasteries four hundred years ago. All around the room, lamps blaze with light, setting off the color in the marble floor. People have danced here before, and they dance here now - guests of the hotel in groups and pairs and all alone. Opposite the sumptuous buffet is a series of couches, chairs, and tables to rest at. The stuffing is coming out of the chairs - the tables are darkened by age. Some are tucked into deep crenelations in the elaborate molding on the walls, effectively shielding them from prying eyes. There is no banner, no sign to meet and greet, no name tag at the door. But the dance never ends, and the food never grows cold. The musicians never stop playing, on and on, into the night or the early morning. |