LIFE IN THE FAIRY KINGDOM
The nicer varieties of birds are encouraged into the royal gardens. What the Queen wants are the beautiful singers (lovely ideally in voice and looks but a sparrow won’t be turned away). What she doesn’t want are birds that rip other birds apart for their food so no magnificent falcons or sparrowhawks here. They - and their magical equivalent in terms of birds of prey - stick to the wilds not daring to do anything else. Being blasted out of the sky by a gun on Earth is one thing, the bird does have a chance of getting away, but in the Kingdom no spell cast specifically at a target misses and the birds are in no position to cast spells back to defend themselves. That privilege belongs to the humanoid type of magical being only. The Witch’s dragon uses its natural cunning to help it and those spells it picked up whilst it lived with her. But this is odd and dangerous… Nobody wants wildlife being too clever. Nobody wants to consider where that might lead.
There is a Rough Guide to Magical Creatures book (every household must have at least one copy) and a fairyvision programme based on the volume is broadcast frequently (everybody is expected to watch). Updates are added as and when new species are discovered though it has been noted with some dismay this only happens when some unfortunate dwarf somewhere ends up being dinner for a creature the realm has not heard of before, witnessed by his colleagues. There is a reason only the dwarves work in the deeps. The other species aren’t stupid. The dwarves insist they’re not but given the inherent risks just associated with mining, the other species beg to differ. Mind, the dwarves do come up with some excellent descriptions of the new creatures - accurate, explicit and known to make the fainthearted sick.
The Queen drops in on the villages when they re-enact the fairy tales. She also reads every and any version of the fairy tales produced by any world (and does not approve of them all, where she can discreetly destroy “bad” versions she will). The villages make their monarch welcome though nobody really relaxes until after they know she’s enjoyed the show. Kingdom publishers bring out the fairy tales regularly with new pictures, often with notes as to where they have been performed successfully and they supply the schools, by law, with at least five copies of each new version. L’Evallier collects books, Melanbury reads them. Eileen loves Earth produced detective stories and thrillers (this is considered as prime facie evidence living on Earth has corrupted her, according to the Queen).
Village Halls throughout the realm tend to be similar in size and all have a big stage with cramped dressing rooms at the back. However the style in which they are decorated does vary. Each village takes pride in doing up their hall once a year in a different style to the year before. The emphasis is on colour with giving a feeling of welcome to the place. Squabbles have been known to occur between villages over who pinched whose ideas for the latest decorating bout. All decorating is done in the early spring and all able bodied magical beings of whatever age are expected to take part in this work (without magic, it is felt manually redecorating is far more artistic than waving a wand about).
There is a Rough Guide to Magical Creatures book (every household must have at least one copy) and a fairyvision programme based on the volume is broadcast frequently (everybody is expected to watch). Updates are added as and when new species are discovered though it has been noted with some dismay this only happens when some unfortunate dwarf somewhere ends up being dinner for a creature the realm has not heard of before, witnessed by his colleagues. There is a reason only the dwarves work in the deeps. The other species aren’t stupid. The dwarves insist they’re not but given the inherent risks just associated with mining, the other species beg to differ. Mind, the dwarves do come up with some excellent descriptions of the new creatures - accurate, explicit and known to make the fainthearted sick.
The Queen drops in on the villages when they re-enact the fairy tales. She also reads every and any version of the fairy tales produced by any world (and does not approve of them all, where she can discreetly destroy “bad” versions she will). The villages make their monarch welcome though nobody really relaxes until after they know she’s enjoyed the show. Kingdom publishers bring out the fairy tales regularly with new pictures, often with notes as to where they have been performed successfully and they supply the schools, by law, with at least five copies of each new version. L’Evallier collects books, Melanbury reads them. Eileen loves Earth produced detective stories and thrillers (this is considered as prime facie evidence living on Earth has corrupted her, according to the Queen).
Village Halls throughout the realm tend to be similar in size and all have a big stage with cramped dressing rooms at the back. However the style in which they are decorated does vary. Each village takes pride in doing up their hall once a year in a different style to the year before. The emphasis is on colour with giving a feeling of welcome to the place. Squabbles have been known to occur between villages over who pinched whose ideas for the latest decorating bout. All decorating is done in the early spring and all able bodied magical beings of whatever age are expected to take part in this work (without magic, it is felt manually redecorating is far more artistic than waving a wand about).
