June 2025 Realmgard Short Scenes: Day 19
"Talk to me, goose."
Now, that bird in the painting is a swan, not a goose. Now, I know this because the painting is called The Threatened Swan, currently on display in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Still, it's one of my favourite paintings (housed in the Rijksmuseum alongside my other favourite painting, The Night Watch), swans and geese are closely related, and I mostly just wanted Dunstana to say "Talk to me, Goose."
Why, yes, I have had Top Gun on the brain lately…
“Talk to me, goose.”
Dunstana looks down hopefully at the bird tucked under her arm. The goose honks noncommittally.
“Come on!” Dunstana says. “You’re the one who got us into this mess! The least you could do is help a little!”
Dunstana had snatched the goose away from a group of pirates who’d wanted to just stick into the pot for lunch.
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
And now, Dunstana is dashing through the Dock District of Porthaven , driven by the need — the need to run the heck away as fast as possible as the pirates chase her to get their lunch back.
Dunstana and her new friend turn own an alley. Which, unfortunately, turns out to be a dead end. At the end of the alley as the group of pirate approaches, the goose wriggles out of Dunstana’s grasp and takes flight.
“Right. Good idea! Go get help!” Dunstana says as the goose flaps away. “Find Kat! I’ll buy us some time.”
“So, uh,” she asks the group of advancing pirates. “Wanna hear a joke?”
The pirates don’t answer in the affirmative, but Dunstana clears her throat and continues regardless.
“You know, one day, I’d like to own a pet elephant,” she offers. “But then I think, what if he stepped on me? I’d be really disappointed.”
She licks her lips and goes for the punchline.
“In fact,” she says, “I’d be crushed.”
‘Heh,” one the pirates chuckles. “Get her.”
“Seriously?” Dunstana cries. “That joke was great! My uncle told me that one.”
There’s the sound of a blow landing and one of the pirates goes crashing in the alley wall and bounces to the ground.
“What the?”
The pirates wheel towards the sound.
“Dunstana,” Kat sighs, standing at the mouth of the alley above the fallen pirate. The goose is observing the scene from its vantage point on top of her head. “Why is it that when a duck came out of nowhere and landed on my head—”
“Goose,” Dunstana mutters to her sister. “It’s a goose.”
“—I just knew this was somehow your fault?”
“I was helping!” Dunstana insists. “They were gonna boil him!”
“Boil?” Kat repeats. “That’s no way to cook goose! You’ve to get a nice slow roast going.”
The goose, still perched on Kat’s head, honks angrily and pecks at her.
“Geez,” Kat says, swatting away the goose’s bill. “I’m not going to eat you!”
She sighs again and lifts the goose from her head, setting it on the ground.
“Alright,” she tells the pirates. “We’ve got some things to settle. You chase my little sister. You clearly don’t know the best way to prepare goose. I end up with a goose on my head. I was right in the middle of eating a grilled…”
She glances down at the goose,
“… turnip.”
The goose stare sceptically up at her.
“So you can make it up to me by letting me punch you all in face and get on with my day.”
Ahem:
Though, admittedly, it's less of a highway and more of a cobblestone alley…
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