© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
“Now, m’lady,” Captain Ratsumies says. “While you are presenting to the judges, I shall be just over here, silently and menacingly sharpening my axe.”
“That will hardly be necessary, Captain,” Tenebella assues the captain of her guard. “I’m confident that the judges will be quite won over by my masterful use of consummate V’s.”
Suddenly, the previous entrant into the Porthaven Founders’ Day Art Contest bursts out of the judges’ room and runs sobbing down the hall.
“Nevertheless, m’lady,” Captain Ratsumies says. “I shall sharpen my axe all the same. I am told the judges are particularly harsh on the entrants this year.”
The judges’ assistant sticks his head out of the door. “Would the next entrant please approach the judges?”
Tenebella proudly ventures forth into the judges’ room.
“I,” she declares, presenting her work with a flourish. “have drawn a dragon.”
The judges remain stone-faced and silent as the sound of Captain Ratsumies sharpening his axe drifts faintly into the room.
Tenebella herself remains stone-faced, refusing to show any weakness in the face of her adversaries.
“Cool!” the judge at the very left of the judge’s table exclaims, rising in excitement from her seat.
“Dunstana?” Tenebella mutters in surprise, blinking in surprise at the unexpected appearance of the little pirate.
“Hey, Tenebella!” Dunstana says, smiling broadly and waving back. “I guess I’m one of the judges now, because I found the invitation floating in the harbour last salvage Thursday! The food’s great, but I’m so bored! I have to look at Art all day!”
“Yes, well,” one of the other judges says. “Contestant number 221-B, why don’t you tell us about your–” Tenebella does not fail to note that he seems to be going out of his way to look down his nose at her. “– ahem, piece. It’s a frog, of some description, I take it.”
Tenebella chews on her lip in indignation but opens her mouth to answer. “It is a—”
“It’s a dragon, stupid!” Dunstana tells the other judge, throwing her arms up in frustration.
“Vis-a-vis the principle of the Death of the Author, I say it’s a frog,” the other judge declares smugly.
“I hate it here,” Dunstana groans.
“If I may,” Tenebella continues, “I would like to highlight my use of consummate V’s.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I do like dragons,” Dunstana notes.
“Now, why consummate V’s,” one of the other judges asks. “Why not delicately etch your, ahem, piece onto the rind of a lemon?”
“Because that’s stupid!” Dunstana says.
“Your opinion is noted,” one of the judges notes.
“I say Tenebella should win,” Dunstana declares. “And then we can all go home and not have to Art anymore.”
“Your opinion is noted,” one of the judges notes. “Besides, something as vulgar and plebeian as a dragon hardly deserves to win.”
“Are you sure about that?” Dunstana asks.
“Quite sure.”
“Are you sure you’re sure?” Dunstana asks again, aiming her cork gun.
“I would like to remind the, ahem, alleged judge that children are to be seen and not heard, except when speaking when spoken to.”
“Oh, for the love of… lovey things,” Dunstana mutters.
She pops off a few corks at the other judges, dives across the table, snatches up the trophy and dashes towards Tenebella.
“IOfficiallyDeclareTenebellaTheWinner!” she hastily tells the judges’ assistant and shoves the trophy into Tenebella’s arms.
“Congratulations, Tenebella!” Dunstana says. “Go, go, go!”
Sensing his lady in trouble, Captain Ratsumies leaps forward, brandishing his axe.
“Go, m’lady!” he calls. “I shall hold them back!”
Drawing a dragon with consummate V’s? Why does that sound familiar?
If you enjoyed this scene, want to see more, and don’t want to wait for my new scenes every Friday, please consider subscribing to the Emona Literary Services™ Patreon page.
My latest short scenes are available to both my paid and free subscribers.
If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:
Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
