So, five sweeping towers were a distinctive feature of this royal season's abode. The living sculptures that hung along the delicately patterned ice brickwork were too beautiful to be called gargoyles. Of course there were hollows and overhangs for those beloved creatures of the Queen, the white as snow polar bats and their far larger cousins the polar batters.
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Here and there wide bridges weaved themselves between the towers over the palace gardens in the palm. The Queen even when she had been more twisted than a funhouse mirror adored sledding and sleighs so naturally her palace castle had routes throughout to play with, indeed having no need to keep her abode warm, grand wide passages meant that if she desired she could ride her sleigh everywhere within and without the grounds. Naturally many of these routes ended abruptly in the sky, for she loved flying and spreading snow only slightly less than sleighing and sledding.
Finally finished, an illustration for The little Drummer Bird by Snowyteller, an Advent/Christmas story which we are crowdfunding to make a picture book!
This is the fourth illustration I've finished and will be part of a set of Christmas cards we're sending to backers for this Christmas; the rest of the rewards will come with the book itself for Christmas of 2026.























