Invitation: Justice [P]

THE VELVET ROOM[attr=class,punkihover1]

A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER

The first questions are always the easiest ones to answer.

"This is a place between dreams and reality, mind and matter." The old man's reply is both frank and cryptic at once; he was implying that his new guest currently occupied a space somewhere that was neither the waking world from where she originates, nor the abstract dimensions of her own subconsciousness. Attempting to process any of it was a natural response for her kind, but a feeble one all the same.

"Rest assured, my dear, you are in no danger inside this place," the balding stranger evades her questions with a toothy grin, his pinholes for pupils seemingly boring their way into the young woman's eyes as if attempting to cast a spell of suggestion on her. "You are safely asleep in your bed, drifting aimlessly in the Sea of Unconsciousness." Even his words implied a kind of hypnotic affect with how he spoke them. 

"My name is Igor, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance," he reveals his identity to the young woman with nothing short of protracted enthusiasm, gesturing to his companion with slender gloved fingers. "This here is my Assistant, Virgil. You have been summoned here because destiny has conspired to make it so." 

Avoiding his guest's final question entirely, Igor slowly drags his hand through the air above the surface of a circular coffee table poised right before his seated form, manifesting a blue silk cloth from nothingness as if the embroidered tapestry had poured into reality from a nonexistent hole. Another wave of his hand causes a deck of gilded cards to appear in the same spontaneous fashion; once completely unaccounted for, now suddenly there. 

"Do you believe in fortune telling?" Igor still hasn't blinked.

THE VELVET ROOM[attr=class,punkihover1]

A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER

Like a praying mantis backed into a corner, the visitor allows her temper to flare out from beneath the delicate and fragile mask she calls a face. Such annoyance stems from an inherent lack of control over one's immediate surroundings, a desire to master an aspect of the self that one perceives to be incompatible to the whole of the community. A tragedy, for certain, but one that must be overcome if completion is to be reached.

These barriers, these obstacles, all of them were greatly fascinating to Igor, who merely grinned like a child full of wonder and merriment as he peered unblinkingly at his feisty guest. Virgil, on the other hand, seemed less tolerant of the young woman's irritation, yet continued to maintain his eerie silence while his master continued entertaining his own penchant for intrigue.

A single snap of his fingers is all it takes for Igor to force the deck of cards into springing to life, each of the decorative pieces of stock swirling treacherously around the old man as if he had conjured a gust of wind. No wires, no strings, no smoke and mirrors; it was a display that truly contradicted all human reason. To Igor, however, this was a mere 'parlor trick'.

Another snap, and the cards suddenly fly back into a single rectangular shape, neat and perfect, as if they had never left the table whatsoever. Next, Igor twists his right hand in a subtle fashion, causing the top gold-leafed card to suddenly turn over for the young woman to see for herself: a juxtaposition between a sword and the scales, the motifs of truth and balance. 

"The Justice card certainly illustrates your desire to stay the course..." Igor announces in delight, then chuckles rather coyly. His toothy grin lessens, as if to demonstrate sincerity rather than impishness. "Your vigilance comes from a place of unfairness; your fierce reactions are an attempt to protect yourself from a perceived threat, one you feel has stacked the odds against you, and in such a way that causes you to question your sense of control." 

"The absence of restraints aside, you are not a prisoner here, miss," the man named Virgil finally speaks at last, revealing a distinctively English-sounding accent. "Your presence in the Velvet Room is a privilege that is not granted to just anyone. Only those with special potential are given access, and only because my master personally allows it." The corners of Virgil's mouth form a faint, barely visible smile reminiscent of a certain famous painting. "We are here to help you."

THE VELVET ROOM[attr=class,punkihover1]

A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER

Without even realizing it, her expressions of discomfort reveal all to the man holding the cards (for want of a better way to illustrate this point, as he was not actually holding anything in the true sense of the term). She operates herself like clockwork in a timepiece, meticulously planning every element of her waking moment in preparation for some, unforeseen disaster.

Whether she knew it or not, this was precisely why Igor had summoned her to the Velvet Room. He merely grins that Cheshire smile, fully confident that his decision was well-founded. Virgil breathes calmly through pinpoint nostrils, sensing his master's delight.

Igor twists his left hand over now, causing a second card to flip over from atop the neatly-stacked pile, face-up for his guest to purview at her discretion and directly parallel from the Justice card. Before her sits a mighty pillar of stone, a Tower that stretches high into Heaven, being delivered a destructive thunderbolt, as if to confirm the visitor's suggestions of impending disaster.

"Ah, The Tower..." Igor sighs, almost as if caught in a reverie. "It seems you are, indeed, correct! An impending catastrophe is on the horizon, one you cannot avoid, no matter how much you try to shelter yourself away from the howling winds or the thunderbolt's impact." While he may not have been specific with his words, or even descriptive, it could at least be verified with utmost certitude that Igor was telling the truth. A crisis was about to unfold.

But Igor, seemingly a prisoner of his own weird cadence, merely continues on without hesitation, avoiding the questions that his visitor deemed important rather than humoring her egoistic need to reach for answers truly well beyond her current level of understanding, "It is as my Assistant has mentioned: your presence in the Velvet Room is no accident. Only those who have formed a 'contract' may enter here, a binding agreement that links them inexorably to this very place." He glances around at the lounge bathed in blue, then returns his fixed stare back to the young woman. "You, my dear, are about to embark on a journey of utmost importance in the coming days, one that will entwine your fate with the lives of everyone you come to meet along the way." 

THE VELVET ROOM[attr=class,punkihover1]

A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER

Igor's guest merely continues displaying her belligerence with aplomb, yet this fails to perturb the long-nosed man or his unflinchingly serious secretary figure. In fact, their utter lack of variation to their current expressions seemed to imply that they had expected this kind of response from her, maybe even predicted it. 

"Please, do not worry yourself, my dear." Igor's tone of voice takes on a more compassionate note, yet his disturbingly effervescent smile betrays his otherwise sincere attempt at gentle reassurance. "The answers to your questions will all reveal themselves to you, in due time." He chuckles one last time, for good measure. Just as it would have been in an actual Tarot reading (this one didn't quite count; it was closer to a demonstration than a true examination of the soul), he could not reveal the full measure of her future just yet.

After all, she hasn't manifested it.

Igor brushes a finger behind one of his ears as if to scratch it, unknowingly bringing attention to the fact that they were pointed like an elf's at the same time, then folds his hands into one another while the rest of his hunched body shifts forward against the crushed blue velvet sofa. Virgil remains stiff as a board. Was his spine made entirely of metal, or was he just really good at hiding the fact that he was feeling pretty uncomfortable with having to sit up so straight for such a lengthy period of time? That was an answer he left his guest to decide for herself.

"Until we meet again..."

Darkness creeps into view once more, bleeding in from all sides of the periphery until Igor and Virgil slowly fade away from existence entirely; the deep rich textures and blue hues of the Velvet Room washed away by the dark void of nothingness. The soft piano that once filled the ears gradually becomes softer, quieter, until the only thing that remains is the sound of utter silence.

To wake up now is to accept the inevitability of being unable to recall any memory of this encounter, like oiled hands slipping against smooth stone. All that remains of it is an ephemeral fragment of subconscious awareness, a splinter buried deep inside the mind, wandering aimlessly adrift in the sea of unconsciousness. 

Transient, as a blue butterfly sitting in a beam of moonlight.