LIFE IN THE FAIRY KINGDOM
The Queen’s bedroom ceiling is made up of one huge landscape showing the rolling parklands and the lake feeding the Fountain of Youth, her favourite view. It’s like having a giant photo stuck to the ceiling but it is painted and intricately so. The Queen commissioned this herself shortly after her accession from her late mother’s favourite artist. Every monarch gets to choose what landscape they’d like on their bedroom’s ceiling. The rest of the Palace has hundreds of portraits, mainly of the royal ancestry, with smaller landscapes of the better looking regions in between. Art is a compulsory subject at school - not necessarily to draw or paint etc as it is recognized not everyone has the natural ability here and it is felt art should not be forced but where people don’t take part, they are expected to read about it, visit galleries, (on certain Open Days visit the Palace) and be able to tell the artists apart. It is felt a working knowledge like this prevents barbarism. Sadly it hasn’t prevented the sprites being a complete pain - they just’re a pain who know their art!
When Eileen was still resident at the Palace, her own suite was more simply decorated, reflecting her own wariness of fuss. She liked good quality furniture, simply decorated walls (though even she liked gold rimmed mirrors) and plain white ceilings. The result was pleasing so if Eileen was hoping to rebel against the gorgeous excess so common in Palaces around the universes and to prove a point to her cousin, she failed. Eileen won an award for The Most Tasteful Suite in a Historic Building Award for three years running. She herself thought the award judges were taking the proverbial out of her (though she wasn’t going to argue. Who’s going to moan they’ve got good taste?). Both Eileen and the Queen collected pieces of art, the former sticks to landscapes while the monarch also gathers sculptures (and occasionally turns someone into one!) and even some photography items, one thing from Earth she really likes.
The staff quarters are well appointed. The royals have been generous for centuries to “their people”. The critics (including L’Evallier) have wondered out loud if royal generosity has bought a lot of servant silence. The royals insist now Gwendolyn’s gone there isn’t any silence to buy. Staff work in rotas - three weeks on, one week off in any one month. Staff are assisted if they want to take holidays outside of the Palace grounds (these are huge, you could have many walking holidays) as the royals arrange easy transport to save staff using their lesser powers. This is the equivalent of someone working for the railways getting a free railway pass. Every department in the Palace has its manual as to how things are run, why they are run that way and what happened to the last folk who tried to challenge the system (the latter is never good though as Eileen told L’Evallier once, surely this is proof the royals are not guilty of bribery. Coersion and threats, yes; bribery, no. Unsurprisingly the elf is not impressed
When Eileen was still resident at the Palace, her own suite was more simply decorated, reflecting her own wariness of fuss. She liked good quality furniture, simply decorated walls (though even she liked gold rimmed mirrors) and plain white ceilings. The result was pleasing so if Eileen was hoping to rebel against the gorgeous excess so common in Palaces around the universes and to prove a point to her cousin, she failed. Eileen won an award for The Most Tasteful Suite in a Historic Building Award for three years running. She herself thought the award judges were taking the proverbial out of her (though she wasn’t going to argue. Who’s going to moan they’ve got good taste?). Both Eileen and the Queen collected pieces of art, the former sticks to landscapes while the monarch also gathers sculptures (and occasionally turns someone into one!) and even some photography items, one thing from Earth she really likes.
The staff quarters are well appointed. The royals have been generous for centuries to “their people”. The critics (including L’Evallier) have wondered out loud if royal generosity has bought a lot of servant silence. The royals insist now Gwendolyn’s gone there isn’t any silence to buy. Staff work in rotas - three weeks on, one week off in any one month. Staff are assisted if they want to take holidays outside of the Palace grounds (these are huge, you could have many walking holidays) as the royals arrange easy transport to save staff using their lesser powers. This is the equivalent of someone working for the railways getting a free railway pass. Every department in the Palace has its manual as to how things are run, why they are run that way and what happened to the last folk who tried to challenge the system (the latter is never good though as Eileen told L’Evallier once, surely this is proof the royals are not guilty of bribery. Coersion and threats, yes; bribery, no. Unsurprisingly the elf is not impressed
