The fairy princess in the glass palace

Scrawl August 18th, 2008

Inexplicably, a fairly vast volume of documents has accumlated in my rarely used Google Docs account. Most of these are half-completed explorations of semi-conceived characters, worlds or universes which have flittered Chulabug-like across my imagination. A few of these aren’t too bad. Considering they’re currently doing nothing more than collecting cyber-dust for the time being, I struck upon the crazy idea of publishing them on my blog - another project that’s found itself equally coated in digital detritus of the particular sense.

Here’s the first of ‘em, the opening paragraphs of a children’s tale about a princess who lives in a giant glass palace in the centre of the earth. The princess is, in fact, Smidley Smith, a time fairy who rebels against her royal upbringing to fight a war against…some enemy or other. Clearly, I hadn’t got that far.

My memory suggests that the story of Smidey Smith would not be found in the most colourful section of the library. I have no idea how it ended up like this, but I quite like it and defintely want to continue it at some point; I like the chulabugs and I’m sure there’s plenty more extraordinary creatures to be found in our princess’ subterranean world.

And if you’re interested, the source of the time fairies’ ability to read and aggressively combat hostile anomalies in the chronowave is all because of the remarkable powers of a young human boy imprisoned by a once-trusted friend inside a magical crystal. But that’s another story….

The fairy princess in the glass palace

This is a story about a fairy princess who lives in a giant glass palace in a vast cave near the centre of the Earth. Although we may think it a bit strange and slightly awful living inside a glass palace - what with no curtains to stop nosey neighbours spying, or carpets to keep your feet warm while you walk around in your pyjamas - the princess would have thought us just as unfortunate if she was told we lived inside a brick house. The truth is, the princess’ palace was really rather comfortable and very remarkable in many ways.

The palace was one of the tallest buildings in the fairy city and its spires (of which there were many) spread outwards in all directions making the palace look like a large, crystal hedgehog from a distance. If you were to move closer, however, you would see that every wall was made from a number of hexagons connected like a jigsaw puzzle and that it was quite impossible to see inside - you could stare until your eyes watered and you would only see yourself, reflected a million, billion times.

Near the center of the Earth, where the fairies live surrounded on all sides by thick, black rock, there is no sun or moon which means there is no natural light and no warmth or wind. Although fairies have much better eyesight than us, the centre of the Earth is so dark, even they would not be able to see their own noses if it was not for the incredible, luminescent Chulabugs. Millions of Chulabugs swarm around the city, lighting up almost every area with their bodies that glow as if on fire. Despite being one of the most beautiful and magical types of animal in the world, Chulabugs are also one of the most tragic. They live for only one day and, during this time, they expend so much energy lighting their bodies that, by the time they have attracted a mate and given birth to their babies, the Chulabugs light goes out and they die. Every day this happens, with new-born Chulabugs swarming from their nests in the morning full of energy and casting a vibrant glow like daytime all over the city. At night, the now-old Chulabugs retreat back to their nests on the distant walls of the cave - appearing like twinkling and fading stars to the fairies below.