Ballanche Castle and Grounds
The castle is located about 45 minutes by automobile from the center of the free commercial city of Bastogne in the Trun Union. Its architecture resembles eighteenth century English with a hall large enough to accommodate a ball surrounded by four towers and lots of smaller rooms. When Ballanche first arrived here, he had only a small sum of money that he had borrowed, and there was only the main building and a few surrounding facilities. Then he found a patron in Amaterasu and proceeded to make a name for himself throughout the galaxy.
His land and facilities are supervised by a staff of five people and since his death they have been preserved in perpetuity under the auspices of the Trun Union. The fatimas who are still alive (over half) visit their birthplace frequently. All of the data Ballanche collected is now under the supervision of his protege Prisen Corks. In JC 3100, full meight Meeth B. Silver, the little girl Dougulus Kaien took under his wing, will return to the castle. Like Lachesis, the B in Meeth’s name stands for Ballanche, and even though neither goes by it, they are his true heirs.
The demise of Dr. Ballanche does not mean that the castle will disappear from future episodes of the Five Star Stories. Arart EX flying the Wunderschätze over the grounds was not there just for the purpose of testing the craft. The castle is also a home-away-from-home of sorts for the Mirage Corps.
To learn more about the grounds surrounding the castle, click on the image titled "Grounds" below. More can be learned about Ballanche Castle in Chatty Wood’s interview.
Castle
Grounds
Parlor Maid (Fatima Odette)
She is wearing the afternoon uniform, which is very similar to the Victorian style. The morning uniform consists of the white parlor hat and white blouse, with a brightly colored skirt, flesh colored stockings, black shoes and an apron. In the afternoon, a dark colored dress with frills is worn with black stockings and cuffed boots. Unlike 19th century England there was no ranking among the parlor, house and nurse maids. All were referred to as housemaids. Whenever fatimas were employed as maids, human maids were not employed, or the fatimas worked as chambermaids in Dr. Ballanche’s quarters. In either case, humans and fatimas do not work together or even see one another.
Toki and Ssizz
While his fatimas were growing, Ballanche would take them out of their incubators several times and on those occasions no doubt dressed them in hand-me-downs from their big sisters. Their outfits, which are cut like fatima suits, were sewn by Duchess Sarie Parker.
Special thanks to John Wisnom and hitori for translation and editing.