LIFE IN THE FAIRY KINGDOM
The Queen thoroughly enjoys choosing what gowns and jewels to wear (unlike Eileen who wears practical separates especially when flying and for whom any nice bracelet will do, colour co-ordinating is generally wasted on this woman). The royal maids enjoy assisting their sovereign with this. Occasionally Roxannadrell will allow her closest maids to try on a piece or two of royal jewellery (though it has to be put back immediately). These times are the nearest things the Queen gets to girlish confidences. Best of all from the monarch’s viewpoint there is no Council involvement at all. The main State Crown was worn for her coronation of course and is used for the start of each political year opening, just like our State Opening of Parliament. The Queen does not wear fur of any description but has more silk than Eileen considers decent for any woman to own.
Each of the fairy royal monarchs have added to the Palace collections of fine pictures, jewellery, precious objects and those vases and other porcelain items that did not start life that way (turning folk into statuary is a royal speciality). Only the current Queen has taken much of an interest in the Palace grounds. The gardeners have welcomed their boss’s interest in flowers (while disapproving of her having her own patch) as they share her view plants are Nature’s jewels. Eileen has no time for sentimental tosh like that - plants are useful, some of them are pretty and that’s as far as she’ll go. The Queen has been known to select her jewels of the day by matching with her favoured flower of the moment.
The Queen and her ancestors have also believed you can’t have too much gold in a Palace. As well as solid gold objects, gold is the preferred frame for portraits, gold features in a lot of the carpets either as decoration or as the main colour and of course Her Majesty has some truly magnficient gold tureens. Silver plays a prominent part too with the silver staircase being considered the finest of its type in any universe. The Queen will not have cutlery in anything other than solid silver. Where gold is not used as decoration, silver is. And the Queen will often wear gold or silver themed outfits with matching jewellery. One way in which the realm has behaved honourably in its time is that it doesn’t steal precious metals from other worlds (though it will pinch ideas it thinks it can use). Gold and silver are mined throughout the realm. Naturally the dwarves ensure they get a very good price for it!
The Lord Chamberlain and Head Housekeeper are jointly in charge of caring for the Queen’s objects d’art and jewellery, in terms of cataloguing them and cleaning them. They use their own powers to clean these pieces saving manual cleaning for the less important works (and which is a useful task to assign as a punishment where necessary). Both take a huge pride in their work and the Queen’s most valuable pieces are probably the best cared for and cleaned items in any universe. Both deputize for the other where necessary. Both have run the Palace for centuries. The Queen couldn’t run her Palace without them. She allows herself the luxury of creating new jewellery items twice a year partly to help her two officers so they don’t have too much at a time to add to their workload and because she needs time to be creative and finds it darned hard to find that time.
Each of the fairy royal monarchs have added to the Palace collections of fine pictures, jewellery, precious objects and those vases and other porcelain items that did not start life that way (turning folk into statuary is a royal speciality). Only the current Queen has taken much of an interest in the Palace grounds. The gardeners have welcomed their boss’s interest in flowers (while disapproving of her having her own patch) as they share her view plants are Nature’s jewels. Eileen has no time for sentimental tosh like that - plants are useful, some of them are pretty and that’s as far as she’ll go. The Queen has been known to select her jewels of the day by matching with her favoured flower of the moment.
The Queen and her ancestors have also believed you can’t have too much gold in a Palace. As well as solid gold objects, gold is the preferred frame for portraits, gold features in a lot of the carpets either as decoration or as the main colour and of course Her Majesty has some truly magnficient gold tureens. Silver plays a prominent part too with the silver staircase being considered the finest of its type in any universe. The Queen will not have cutlery in anything other than solid silver. Where gold is not used as decoration, silver is. And the Queen will often wear gold or silver themed outfits with matching jewellery. One way in which the realm has behaved honourably in its time is that it doesn’t steal precious metals from other worlds (though it will pinch ideas it thinks it can use). Gold and silver are mined throughout the realm. Naturally the dwarves ensure they get a very good price for it!
The Lord Chamberlain and Head Housekeeper are jointly in charge of caring for the Queen’s objects d’art and jewellery, in terms of cataloguing them and cleaning them. They use their own powers to clean these pieces saving manual cleaning for the less important works (and which is a useful task to assign as a punishment where necessary). Both take a huge pride in their work and the Queen’s most valuable pieces are probably the best cared for and cleaned items in any universe. Both deputize for the other where necessary. Both have run the Palace for centuries. The Queen couldn’t run her Palace without them. She allows herself the luxury of creating new jewellery items twice a year partly to help her two officers so they don’t have too much at a time to add to their workload and because she needs time to be creative and finds it darned hard to find that time.
