June 2025 Realmgard Short Scenes: Day 21
The Complete Steel-Grey Saoirse
So, to recap, Krimson Katja is Amara's favourite pulp heroine, although Amara is less than enthused by her, ahem, fashion sense, and therefore set out to write her own pulp heroine, going out of her way to make it clear that said pulp heroine, Steel-Grey Saoirse, is wearing armour that actually makes sense.
“I’ll have you know, Katherine,” Amara says, sipping her tea. “That, as of today, I am three-quarters of the way through my self-imposed challenge to write one scene every day for the month.”
She proudly puts her hand on the stack of parchments beside her.
“Steel-Grey Saoirse has been having quite the busy month.”
“Let’s see,” Kat mutters as she starts curiously leafing through Amara’s pages. “She’s fighting an Evil Brain… and, a Nefarious Brain… and an, oh, Diabolical Brain.”
“I will admit a certain influence from the Krimson Katja stories,” Amara admits — the red-haired literary barbarian is famous for her numerous confrontations with sentient disembodied brains with bad intentions.
She shrugs.
“Besides, at this point, the stories don’t need to be good. The important thing is to get in some good, consistent writing practice.”
Kat keeps leafing through Amara’s stories.
“She’s rescuing a goose. She’s visiting some ancient ruins. She’s giving her dad a Father’s Day present — wait, they have Father’s Day in your world?She’s at the beach.”
Kat reads through the story.
“So, uh, this Carolina the Quick character,” she notes, looking up at Amara. “Is she… me?”
Amara does that thing where she wiggles her nose when faced with a situation she’d rather escape from.
“Well, let’s see,” Kat says. “You call her a dauntless Valkyrie. That sounds familiar. Her dad’s a pirate. She’s Steel Grey Suh…”
As always, Kat stumbles over the name.
“Sure-sha,” Amara says.
“Sure-sha’s…” Kat coninues. “… best friend. And she breaks a beach chair over somebody for making fun of her eyebrows.”
“Yes, well,” Amara answers. “I suppose, if you squint, there’s a certain influence from the experiences of my own life.”
Amara sips her tea again.
“You should be flattered, Katherine,” she insists. “Carolina the Quick is a brave, powerful warrior princess. Isn’t it touching that this is how your best friend in the whole world sees you?”
“I guess,” Kat says.
“You’re welcome, Katherine.”
Kat keeps reading and soon looks up at Amara with a smirk.
“And, uh, who’s this Nodens the Light-Strider guy, huh?” she asks.
“A purely original character who is solely the product of my imagination and in no way inspired to any real individual, living or dead!” Amara insists, trying to snatch away the page. “Give it back, Katherine!”
“I don’t know. His sister is a sorceress and they’re friends with a knight, a Goblin, and an Amazon.”
“Wow,” Kat mutters as she keeps reading, twisting to keep the page out of Amara’s grasp. “She’s got it bad for the guy. And, uh, Amara? Did you realise there are a couple lines on the page where you slipped up just straight-up wrote his name as Nolan.”
“I most certainly did not!” Amara cries, still vainly trying to snatch away the page. “Wait, really?”
Kat grins.
Amara finally manages to wrestle the story away from Kat and tucks it protectively away into her pocket.
“That one is not finished,” she mutters, pointedly sipping her tea in Kat’s direction.
Writers tend to write about writing, like, a lot. And most writers have at least one character who is also a writer, usually as a means to talk about how difficult and important it is to be writer.
Amara isn't really that. If anything, she's a serving as a way for me to make some self-aware jokes.
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