Early morning in the restaurant. Yawning waiters opening up. Collunda and Miriam are the first on the scene.

"Whose baby is that?" Collunda glares at the babe in Nurse Whimper's arms. There is no way Miriam was pregnant the last time she saw her.

"Long story," says Miriam. "He's called Engadine. He's a Prince. Whose baby is that?"

"Mine. She's Viridia. Also a long story." Collunda grins and they settle down to spicy tea and snacks. The restaurant is warm and comfortable and they have a lot to catch up on.

"Here." Collunda hands over her baby to Nurse Whimper who takes both the babies outside for a dose of sunshine and fresh air under the protection of the Royal Guard.

"We must have a Naming Nuncheon for the babies. You, Headwaiter, see to it! We shall require the entire restaurant. And cake." Miriam turns back to Collunda. "I hope George will approve. I told him about the dragon and he wasn't happy."

"Where is George?" says Collunda.

"Supervising building work. He's magnificent." Collunda blinks and sips tea. The George she knows is stout and loud. "Truly!" says Miriam. "He and Berren have put together a plan to drain the marshes into a moat and within the moat will be a curtain wall. Daddy agrees. I'm going to have a Barbican for my birthday!"

They toast each other in cinnamon tea. Their prawns and dipping sauce arrive.

"Oh! These are delicious! I must send the palace cook up here for lessons."

"Mmm, quite nice," says Collunda who has eaten, we must remember, at faery banquets where food designed to please your individual palate spills never-ending out of grails and magic cauldrons. Up in the ceiling above them, Arialda growls. Collunda rolls her eyes. "It's lovely. It's fine for mortal food, alright?" Arialda humphs and tries to go back to sleep. She is on edge. Tonight is the launch of the Fusion Feast where East meets West and provincial notions of flavour will be challenged.

#

Miriam widens her eyes and shakes her head at Collunda. She is a little on edge about the restaurant; George's usual response to any mention of the dragon is to call for his armour. Miriam is hoping the restaurant will change his mind. She is planning to bring him here on a special occasion when he will be too polite to demand the chef's head on a platter. The dipping sauce will help.

"Mmm, this is scrummy!"

"Sorry about your mother."

"Mmm," Miriam stuffs more prawns in her mouth. "It was a bit upsetting."

"When you're Queen will I have to call you Your Majesty?" Miriam snorts.

"Not when it's just family. I'm going to build a kingdom where mortals and fairies can rule together. You and me, Collunda. We'll be invincible." Collunda watches her friend. This is something Avalon will definitely want to have a chat about. "We can marry the children when they grow up. She can be Princess Viridia and he'll be Prince Engadine."

"Does that mean she'd be Queen of Tara one day?"

Miriam calculates,

"Only if I have no children and I formally adopt Engadine. Let's wait and see."

You see? Right there and then, my mother could have assured my future and what does she do? She grunts and eats bruschetta!

The girls eat in silence for a while until Collunda's curiosity gets the better of her.

"So, come on! Whose baby is it?"

"My sister Aurelia's. She's dumped him on me."

#

We will tell the tale in the traditional manner although Miriam may interject. She will be Queen one day, after all.

Once upon a time there were Three Kingdoms: Bannix, Frentia and Tara. Sitting in the mountains between them was the tiny province of Horst known for its pine forests, wolves and silent, sturdy populace proud of their links to Taran Royalty down on the plain. Tara married her princesses to Bannix whenever she could and otherwise to Frentia. Horst she held with Yule Cards, cousins and Cavalry.

Here we are in Bannix, that cold icy country, at the celebration of the birth of Prince Engadine to King Julian of Bannix and his lovely Queen, Aurelia, youngest of the two Taran princesses. Here is a painting of them all on a balcony with Aurelia's older sister, Miriam. Engadine is the one in the bassinet. The two boys standing next to their Aunt Miriam are Engadine's older brothers: Claudimax, heir to the throne and Rodonos, next in line. Aurelia is arm in arm with Miriam who is here as proxy for their father, King Philip. Standing on balconies is a notoriously dangerous pastime in Bannix, but everyone is smiling in this painting. Soon after, Princess Miriam heads home to Tara and watches from afar as the situation in Bannix deteriorates. Julian is a Youngest Son and only distantly related to the previous king, Thomas the Terrible Tyrant and Tormentor. Julian's rivals are many and their morals non-existent. Realising that life in Bannix is going to be Turbulent, Tumultuous and quite possibly Truncated, Aurelia sends her beloved youngest son, Engadine, to be raised at Tara, by his doting Uncle and Aunt, George and Miriam, under the genial gaze of his grandfather Philip. Quickly, quickly, the baby in the basket passes hand to hand along a river of loyalty until he washes up on Tara's shores and into the arms of his Aunty Miriam. Who takes one sniff and passes the bundle into the arms of Nurse Whimper, one in a long line of Whimpers to have the care and tending of Taran Princes and Princesses. Nurse Whimper, Whimmie to us because we're her friends and charges, cleans up the little prince and takes him up onto the battlements to look towards Bannix.

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"Tis like a sunset, my lover," she murmurs to the babe, "all very well an' pretty, but time to make a hot water bottle all the same." And so she does.

#

"You see?" says Miriam. "Aurelia and Julian have a perfectly good palace and they dump their children on me."

Fortunately, Miriam has spymaster Berren, to support her through trying times.

"Fostering this child is a bold move, Highness, we must be prepared in case of unpleasantness and contention."

"Bold, Spymaster? How so?"

"Well Highness, in the event of a vacuum of power in Bannix, it will be Tara holding the prize."

"But he has two older brothers. I don't think he's going to be much use."

"Of course not, Highness."

Berren bows himself out of the throne room, shuffling backwards. He foresees that he will not enjoy the transition of power. King Philip is easily controlled with promises of food or hunting, Queen Miriam will be less easy to manipulate. Collunda has taken to lying in wait for Berren when she visits the Palace. He will be strolling along a corridor taking a tonic to one of the servants or plans to a meeting of engineers when her voice will hiss in his ear,

"Busy, Berren?"

He usually drops everything he is carrying.

"Get away from me!"

Mushrooms sprout out of the walls.

"Why don't you use magic, Berren? What game are you playing?"

"No game, sister, none. I just like to watch humans. Just to watch. And besides, I could ask you the same." Collunda laughs aloud,

"I was invited, Berren, invited! I have a right to be here." Mushrooms sprouting from the ceiling liquify and drip on his head. "You look after my friend, Berren. Leave her be."

#

Back in the restaurant Collunda raises her eyebrows.

"Do you think Bannix will make trouble?"

"They wouldn't dare!" Miriam's eyes snap, Collunda grins.

"Then shall I tell you about what I've been doing?"

"Yes!"

"Once upon a time..."

We know this story, so we'll jump to the end.

"...I'm just a bit worried. She'll be taller than me, which is good. She should be showing more signs of magic, though. Really, I should put her under a gooseberry bush with all the other babes, but I can't do it. I don't think she'll survive."

"Sounds dangerous to me. I think children should stay with their parents. It's much better for them. Engadine would be much better off with Aurelia."

When it comes to Engadine, everything Miriam says is completely, one hundred percent wrong.

#

Probably by now you're wondering if you could ever visit Side. It's easy. Here's one way: Go far away to the sea all by yourself. Alone, alone, alone. Be alone. Be alone with yourself in the world. Be alone until you know, deep inside, in your gut, viscerally and completely, that everything is talking to you. Everything is arranging itself for you, with you in mind. The waves are choosing to creep around your ankles just so. The headland is putting on its enigmatic face, reveling a little in how creepy it is looking, just for you. The clouds really are making faces at you. The trees are watching you. The stone fish, all over spikes, died at an exact moment, months ago, just so the sea could wash its spiny corpse up into the surf at the exact moment your foot comes down and oh dear that's going to need a bit more than a bandaid, isn't it?

Well, that's Side. The top layer, anyway.

Side is lovely for a holiday.

Step forward. One bare foot. The sand gives a little. Sun in your eyes, wind in your hair, surf coming and going in your ears. That's enough activity, surely?

Not in Side it's not.

Your foot just landed on a beach. There's a beach deva who loves to be touched, washed, changed, rolled over, dug up, played on and battered by storms. There's the breath you take in when you step on your injured foot but that breath isn't yours. That's Breath. Sliding a part of herself in and out of your lungs, just like Sea sliding parts of herself up and down the sand.

And then there's the sand. All one thing that might lift itself up to play with Breath and shred off your skin in a sudden whirlwind. But you know that under a microscope in your world it looks like the things you find in jars in retro-Victorian lolly shops. Polished lumps of edible. Not in Side – zoom in to the beach and all you see is faces. Tiny, sand-coloured faces. They aren't suffering. This isn't Hell. They have their tiny, sand-coloured homes and kitchens and schools and offices. They work in shifts to float up to the surface of their world and be your beach.

Everything here is built of faeries and you're walking on thousands of upturned faces – hobbling in your case of course, bleeding on them from the wounds in your foot and smashing their delicate eyes and noses with your weight, you monster. Deeper yet and you see past Breath and you're swimming in a soup of them, breathing them in and out and you can see which ones are gases and pollen and which ones are viruses and bacteria hungrily hunting towards the scent of blood so they can infect your foot.

If you dig down deep, deep, deep you'll find the place that Whimmie and Ritchie have found. Down below the viruses and the atoms is the root of the world, the Great Big Bang. It looks like a tiny thing as you approach, a mote of light in the darkness of Nothing. Closer, closer and it resolves into limbs entwined and panting and heaving and...it's Titania and Oberon!

"Oh YES!!" and they roll away from each other breathless and laughing and a brief moment of time slips, slops and they roll back into each other's arms to do it all again. Lovers know this secret: it is our duty to enjoy pleasure, especially of the flesh, because it feeds the frenzy that underlies everything. Pleasure keeps the stars burning, the planets spinning, the Big Bang banging. If we all stop enjoying life, the universe will shrivel up, shrink and die.