Hotel Scenes from the Velvet Paw of Asquith Novels

Chapter 3

From The Alchemists Of Vra, Chapter 6

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In which Oscar arrives at a hotel so spectacular that he narrowly avoids leaving evidence of his awe as a puddle in its foyer, before struggling to confirm his reservation at a desk only marginally less impressive.

Inside hotel d'Plempt, such concerns left him and he gawked at the sort of opulence that leaves interior designers snapping their pencils and wondering what to do for the rest of their lives.

The foyer was stunning.

Not just in a visual sense. Or even an architectural one. It was also stunning in a very literal sense, too. It was stunning in an agricultural, political and culinary sense also, but these weren't apparent from the foyer.

It was large and gilded in pink marble. From its ceiling an enormous chandelier hung, with several others in orbit. Their lit glass painted a soft white across a vast ceiling space, and made the pink marble shine in translucent rose. At the foyer's far end, two graceful arcs of staircase wound up to floors above, which overlooked the foyer to render it an atrium. Upon walls either side, huge throws of burgundy velvet cascaded from the ceiling like waterfalls, and hanging plants dripped beside them in a frame of deep, shiny green. Besides being stunning, the hotel was also busy. Animals scissored across its foyer like a poorly coordinated finale of musical spectacular. Some waited at an enormous curve of desk that wound halfway along a wall, while the opposite housed lifts which pinged softly when pausing to spill animals across the floor. Upon staircases and balconies, animals meandered, apparently used to such splendour in that they weren't passing out and falling from them.

Oscar, however, wasn't used to anything of the sort. As a Velvet Paw of Asquith, he was trained to blend into any environment—which in Plempt wasn't difficult considering it was blanketed in snow. But in a foyer as opulent as this, he had no idea how to, especially when he'd just thrown himself across its driveway.

"Can I help you at all?"

He turned to a cat in a smart uniform with the sort of smile that had probably booked a suite.

"Well, yes, rather," Oscar said. "I believe I have a room booked in the name of Dooven."

With a nod, she gestured that he follow her to the massive curve of desk. When she wandered some length behind it, Oscar followed on its other side until she stopped and rummaged through things upon it.

"Is that Dooven spelt with a G?" she asked.

Oscar blinked. "A what?"

"A G."

"Er, no," said Oscar. "I shouldn't think so. Dooven is spelt with a D, as in dangerous."

The cat looked down at the desk again. "Dooven," she repeated.

He nodded helpfully.

"And definitely not with a G?"

"How could Dooven be spelt with a G?" he asked.

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking."

"It is not spelt with a G, I can assure you."

The cat looked down at the desk again and did some more thinking, before saying, "Look, can I just ask again—for the sake of clarity—that the name Dooven is not spelt with a G?"

Oscar sighed. "Look. My name is Dooven. Oscar Teabag-Dooven." He spelt it out for her.

"So there's really no G in there at all," the cat said.