The Palace of Serenity |
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official residence |
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🏰 |
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location |
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notable residents |
PrincessAlice |
The Palace of Serenity is the official residence of the PrincessOfCentralia, and thus the home of PrincessAlice, when she's not off studying at the boarding school in Havensborough. It is a large, elaborate palace located at the center of downtown QueenCity, where it is the central landmark of the SerenityCircle.
Overview
The Palace of Serenity was built for PrincessMeredith many centuries ago when she established Queen City as the capital of Centralia. It has served as the official residence of Centralia's reigning monarch ever since.
As Princess Meredith has a propensity for flying, the palace was originally built with large trapdoors in the floors to allow Meredith to float between stories without using the stairs. Other members of Meredith's household learned very quickly to pay attention to where they were walking, as Meredith had a habit of leaving the trapdoors open. Many of the trapdoors were removed when PrincessJeanette had modern elevators installed in the palace, though a few remain in place today, kept closed and covered by rugs or carpeting.
The upper portion of the palace, where the princess resides, is enchanted with a special form of empathetic magic, which allows the building's rooms and layout to reconfigure based on the princess's mood. As Princess Alice is known for her rapid and intense mood swings, this part of the palace changes quite often, and servants and other staff avoid the area as much as possible.
Public safety
Security and law enforcement operations within the palace and its grounds are the responsibility of the CentraliaHonorGuard, a division of the CentraliaGuardForces.
The Palace of Serenity Fire and Rescue Brigade is the palace's dedicated fire department. Despite having the smallest service area of any fire brigade in Centralia, the palace's fire brigade is one of the busiest, with firefighters including DuchessEmma constantly "cleaning up after" the Princess.
Rooms and Facilities
Princess Alice's primary bedroom: Located on an upper floor. Features a two-story ceiling with full height windows, a large four-poster bed, a vanity with a large mirror, a sofa, and a small nightstand with a telephone. Connected directly to Princess Alice's primary bathroom.
Princess Alice's primary bathroom: A small bathroom with no windows, connected directly to Alice's primary bedroom. Walls are pink, and plumbing fixtures are white porcelain trimmed with gold. Features a clawfoot bathtub with a shower and a sink with a vanity. Did not originally contain a toilet, as Asterians do not need them, but a toilet was installed for use by PrincessLexi when she stays in Princess Alice's bedroom. Princess Alice once filled the entire bathtub with plushies and attempted to hide there from TheHandler.
Princess Lexi's study: Walls are lined with shelves full of books, most of them about typography and graphic design. Has a fireplace in which Princess Alice once attempted to start a fire with an inferior magic wand purchased at DollarDepot. (She only managed to produce smoke, and ultimately had to open the window, despite the cold weather, to ventilate the room.)
Princess Meredith's bathroom: Similar to Princess Alice's bathroom, but contains Meredith's "special" shower, controlled by a complex system of six knobs which must be manipulated in a very specific sequence to get running water.
Princess Alice's alternate bedroom: Located on the ground floor, away from the empathetically-enchanted portion of the palace. Has a large glass door that opens directly onto the Princess's private garden. Attached is a bathroom decorated in earth tones, featuring tan and dark brown tiles in a checkered pattern in the shower. A small table features an LED clock radio for the Princess to listen to music as she showers.
The Boring Stuff Annex: A later addition to the building, housing the office and living quarters of the Minister of Information Systems. Looks more like something you'd find in an office building than a palace, fluorescent lighting and all. Filled with 1990s-vintage computer equipment, most produced by AlicornSystems. The Princess has offered TzeTze a larger office, but he prefers working in the confined space. Notable is the supply closet full of random computer systems and peripherals, most of which are obsolete and useless...yet the Princess won't let Tze throw them away.
HavenTheUnbreakable's suite: When the Princess saw that Haven's first instinct was to try sleeping on a bale of hay in the royal stables (despite not being even slightly equinemorphic), she immediately assigned them one of the finest guest rooms in the castle for their indefinite use. Its most notable feature is a big, soft bed with ℵ1-thread count sheets. While Haven may not be around much to appreciate it, there are about twenty cats who live sumptuously in their quarters.
The Dungeon: Ostensibly a holding place for prisoners, but in practice, a minor way to inconvenience people who annoy the Princess.
Miscellaneous
The Palace of Serenity has a dedicated fire department, the Palace of Serenity Fire and Rescue Service. Firefighters usually serve only a couple years at the Palace of Serenity before moving on to other departments, as cleaning up after the Princess's latest "experiments" can tire out even the most resilient of first responders.