Building Gossamer, Part 6 – The Blooming Quarter

Link to a more detailed image.

Here’s the progress so far on the city as a whole – now 75% complete, plus a few details:

The Blooming Quarter is ruled by Queen Titania, locked in an endless springtime. Colours acquire a pastel quality here – something in the softness of the light, perhaps. The weather vaccilates between the amber glow of spring sunshine and refreshing rains to keep the greenery of the Queen’s gardens forever lush. Ugliness is illegal in the Blooming Quarter, and punishable with strict fines, deportation, or death for the most serious aesthetic offenses, for though her Vernal Majesty is usually tranquil and full of grace, her temper is swift and terrible in sight of any blemish on her perfect realm, as sudden and as destructive as a spring storm; some say that despite the pleasantness of her usual demeanour, she is just as mad as her sister, Mab, but merely hides her temperament better beneath a mask of sweetness and calm.

Braidwell

The streets of Braidwell are shadowed with the looping tresses and endless curls that spill from the Plaited Tower, wherein dwells the changeling princess Persinette, favoured of Titania. Now as ageless as the other Fair Folk, Persinette was cursed by Queen Mab, one of her many vicious pranks against her sister; the poor girl’s hair began growing at an extraordinary rate, all but immobilizing her. Though no cure has been found for the curse, Titania adapted, granting her adopted daughter a home in the Plaited Tower, where vast numbers of pixies endlessly tend to her hair, combing it through the tower’s windows and out into the streets. Here, an entire district has sprung up dedicated to harvesting Persinette’s locks, transforming them into everything from wigs to rope to bowstrings to pillow-stuffing. Much of Persinette’s hair is ultimately cut in the enormous industrial salon known as the Shed, a huge factory into which her tresses are forever fed.

Dewgarden

The orchards of Dewgarden produce some of the chief exports of the Blooming Quarter – an array of enchanted fruits and vegetables, imbued with the magic of Queen Titania to ensorcel those who eat them with a variety of effects, beneficent and otherwise. Take, for example, the toothsome Speechpeach, varieties of which grant the eater knowledge of foreign tongues spoken by those whose blood was used to carefully water it, or the hearty Mule-Cabbage, which transforms the eater into a beast of burden. Within Dewgarden can also be found the Royal Menagerie, where fabulous beasts from far and wide are kept for the amusement of the Fair Folk, and the Hothouse, a gift from Oberon as a token of the friendship of Mag Mell, where certain plants found only in warmer climes can be grown.

Gumdrop Village

Perhaps the strangest district in the Blooming Quarter if not all of Gossamer, Gumdrop Village is a neighbourhood crafted entirely from candy, from the gingerbread houses with icing mortar, to the chocolate bridges spanning the canals to the pink park of the Candyfloss Forest to the quivering sublimity of the Jelly Guardian, the gigantic, child-like protector of the Village. Gumdrop Village was originally created as a retreat for Queen Titania, a kind of toy-town and place of leisure dedicated entirely to luxury and enjoyment, where her Vernal Majesty might linger with a few select maidens or youths, strolling the toffee-cobbled streets, lingering to dip a jeweled chalice into a fountain spewing honey or chocolate or cream. Peopled by living candies known as Sweetlings who rarely leave its confines, Gumdrop Village has grown since its creation, becoming not only a tourist destination but a source of considerable income for Tír na nÓg; such was the enchantment used to produce the Village that the candy used to create it forever renews itself no matter how much is eaten, resulting in a never-ending supply of confections to sate the sweet-tooths of Fair Folk throughout the four realms.

Piping

Swathed in perpetual steam, Piping is a gnomish enclave, a place of invention and refinement where Fair Folk come to eat finger sandwiches and partake of the most excellent tea, brewed in the vast Temple of Tea at thee district’s heart. Filled with cafes and teahouses such as the teetering Carafe, Piping is a marvel of engineering, more than a little mad in its crazed massings of chimneys and churning gears, but just as beautiful as the rest of the Blooming Quarter in its own peculiar way. Every building here is lacquered, gilded, or burnished; many resemble gigantic teapots themselves. Notable structures include the Fractured Palace, destroyed and rebuilt during the War of the Trees, home of the Dactyls, a legendary family of gnomes whose allegiance with Titania stretches back for centuries.

Puckville

Robin Goodfellow began his life as a humble servant of Queen Titania. Said to possess more than a drop of goblin blood, he was often shunned and mocked by his fellows at the Seelie Court. Now, however, Robin has had his revenge, for over the centuries he has slowly built himself a fortune, trading favours, acquiring properties, and growing his wealth. Now he is the richest creature in Gossamer outside of the Fairy Kings and Queens themselves, a fabulously wealthy entrepeneur. Puckville is named after him, for he built most of the district with his own funds, and still owns the majority of the buildings here, growing ever richer from the rents. The jewel of the neighbourhood is, of course, Robin’s Casino, Puck’s grand chance-house, where almost anything and everything can be wagered on games of fortune so strange and intricate only the Fair Folk and a handful of demonkind can fathom them fully. Also of note here is the Moth, an opera house and theatre, rival of the Grove in the Wilting Quarter; the two great theatres have often been known to put on duelling performances, and Puck himself has more than once graced the stage in disguise.

The Rosemaze

A defensive fortification as well as a private garden, the Rosemaze surrounds the Florid Citadel, Titania’s palace in Gossamer. Though her Vernal Majesty spends much of her time elsewhere in her realm, the Citadel is her home in the city and headquarters of the Petal Guard. The Rosemaze itself is a seemingly infinite labryinth of twisting paths; many such lead to strange an unexpected places, including to other corners of Faerie, to the Dreamlands, and even to the Feypark in the city of Hex. The entire place is maintained by the Greenskeepers, an army of labourers – mostly pixies and goblins living in the Weeds – who ensure its eternal splendour. The Queen herself can often be found pacing the branching endlessness of the Rosemaze, pondering affairs of state.

The Weeds

The beautous folk of Tír na nÓg dislike hard labour, the toil and sweat by which their exquisite realm is maintained, for such drudgery callouses the hands, wrenches the backbone, and inflicts all manner of other deformations. Yet, this toil must be done, one way or another. The solution, Queen Titania realized, was to import the labour required. Many goblins, pixies, trollbloods, and other creatures from the Unseelie Court covet lies free from the cruelty of Mab and Arawn. Such immigrants are not normally granted citizenship in Tír na nÓg, for many are too ugly, according to Seelie standards, to ever join the Vernal Realm. However, an exception is made for those willing to dwell in the Weeds, a permanent labour camp and shanty-town at the outskirts of the Blooming Quarter. Here, the Queen’s Petal Guard issue no fines for aesthetic deficiencies – provided the inhabitants show up to work on time and perform their manifold duties diligently. A rambling warren of crime and poverty, the Weeds is a black spot on the beauty of the Blooming Quarter, but a necessary one; consequently, it has been nicknamed the “Beauty Mark.” Hidden amidst the district, it is said, is the secret headquarters of the Pest, an underground goblin liberation movement dedicated to overthrowing the Fair Folk’s rule altogether and establishing an independent Goblin Commonwealth in Elfhame.