Alexander Belanger's Demesne

Claimed by Alexander Belanger on the grounds of the Blue Heron Institute, which allowed him to claim the office of head master. The demesne itself are Alexander's apartments in the Blue Heron Institute, when someone is in it the space is much bigger.<ref>The bones of this place had once been an old stone church, picked up once and placed down again, stone by stone.  Alexander was almost always present, so he lived in the adjunct living quarters, where the priest and his family had lived.  Rooms had been rearranged, and many had a small stone room of their own, while Alexander had a proper area with multiple rooms and the office where the hazy conversation was currently taking place.  He had marked out his space as a demesnes, and once it was his in entirety, expanded it further.  Once someone was inside, it was larger than the old church itself.

She passed into what had been the church itself, now a multi-purpose area that doubled as classroom, meeting area, entryway, and, arguably, the Heron Institute itself.  Everything else was adjacent, supporting.  Pews had been removed, replaced with scattered clusters of chairs, there were no walls separating areas, and bookshelves had been set up wherever they didn’t block the light from the tall windows.  The place had been picked up and set back down stone by stone, but the windows were exempt from that, and the old stained glass work had been replaced by a dusky, blue-tinted glass, alchemically altered to make it so one could look out, but outsiders couldn’t look in.  Within the apse, the farthest point from the front door on the raised stage, a vast and complicated circle sat partially erased.  It had been there for months like that, possibly because Alexander liked the aesthetic, but she would be tasked with wiping it clean and ensuring it was both spotless and dry before the summer classes started, and if there wasn’t someone subordinate to her present, she would be painstakingly cleaning it up to ten times a day. - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref> He has had the Demesne for close to four years, this helped him secure the headmastership of the institute.<ref>“On August ninth, two thousand and sixteen, you received permission to set up a demesnes on school grounds,” Verona said.  “Claiming a place of power for yourself.  At the start of the ensuing term, you found your way to the role of headmaster and chief instructor.”

“Helped,” Lucy added, “by the fact that you made promises and deals, tying your demesnes to the school.  You stated your intent to use your place of power and the associated building to serve, educate the young practitioners of western Ontario.  You were not specific about dues-paying members.”
[...]
“You got greedy, Alexander,” Charles said.  “You cast your net wide, attached your place of power to the school, so you could have power over the school and the people in it, and implied the school, in abstract, would be more charity than anything else.”
[...]
“Technically,” Lucy added, “I don’t know that any of your students have to pay dues, I mean, if you want to keep your office and place of power.”

“Did you swear it?” Charles asked.

“No,” Alexander said.  “But it would weaken my place of power and my hold on the school, true.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.2</ref><ref>AceOfSword: True, presumably because the votes would have been the teacher's votes rather than the students.

Wildbow: Regardless of who it is, the vote's rigged, because Alexander has a demesne on campus. - Discussion on Reddit</ref>

It is meant to be a welcoming place,<ref>Stolen Away 2.z</ref> that makes it easier for others to break in.<ref>“It’s a place he’s invited people, so it’s a place that accepts our intrusion more easily.  More so because he thought we’d come here.  I think he thought it was more important that he hurry after the silver bullets that he might use to shoot me, metaphorical, than securely lock the doors and windows behind him.  He was in a fury, that night.”

- Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.a</ref>

The office itself has three floors, the ground floor is a mixture of study and living room with leather chairs lined with book shelves.<ref>There were three sections and he couldn’t remember there being three floors when he’d viewed the area from outside.  At the ground level was the study, which almost flowed out to be something of a living room, filled with leather-covered chairs and seats.  Bookshelves lined the wall.

No television though, but there was a desk with a computer.- Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.a</ref> The second floor is a living area with a bed and somewhere to prepare food and drink.<ref>Through a door and up to the second level, up half a flight of stairs, there was an area more for living, though the ‘study’ bled out into it.  A counter and an arrangement for food and drink, a bed at the back, behind a half-wall, and couches.  A laptop and scattered papers about students and classes covered the table and some parts of the couch.- Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.a</ref> The third level contains his workshop with a recreation of Sargents Hall on an eye-shaped table, it also contained assorted cards, books, notebooks and filing cabinets.<ref>It was a workshop, and everything here felt like it was in motion, even when it was still.  A large eye-shaped table dominated the center of the room, and in the center of that table was a recreation of Sargent Hall, complete with mini-figures representing the occupants.  The recreation was surrounded in triangular pieces of black metal with dovetail teeth along the edges, and by black and white pictures of Sargent Hall, taken from elsewhere.

There were cards laid out, and chalk drawn between cards.  There were books, narrow notebooks, from waist height down, and there were filing cabinets inset into the wall, a bit further back than the short bookshelves, so the tops of the bookshelves could be counters.  A ladder on wheels allowed traversal up to the cabinets.- Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.a</ref>

After his death his office ceased being a demesne.<ref>Raymond: It’s not a demesne anymore?

Nicolette: No.

Durocher: That confirms it.  Dead or forsworn.

- Excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.4</ref>

References

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