June 2025 Realmgard Short Scenes: July 1 Bonus
Celebrating Aurorean Victory Day
So, I did ultimately decide to do one more scene in my June writing exercise for Canada Day.
Any excuse to use that Simpsonsi gif, really.
To recap, Aurora was supposed to be Realmgard-Canada, but has sort of ended up as something like a 60-40 Canada:Finland ratio as I ended up using a lot of Finnish for the names of the local Aurorean gods and emulating the Kalevala for traditional Aurorean poetry.
To give this scene a bit more context, Howard R. Morton is meant to be a popular pulp author a la Robert E. Howard (hence, his name being Howard), Eleonora is Pela's mother and also a popular author. Amara, being a big fan of their work, has taken it upon herself to be something of an author herself.
And while the idea of a bunch of authors meeting up as a group makes sense, I'm not sure it's apparently happening at Darkstone Manor, beyond it being a way to include Kat in the scene.
“Do you know that day it is?” Lucia asks Roland.
“Umm,” the muscle-bound — and muscle-brained — alchemist says, thoughtfully touching his finger to his chin. “The first?”
“It’s Aurorean Victory Day,” Lucia explains. “And we want to do something nice for Apolline.”
“Oh,” Roland says with a grin. “I get it! Because she’s Aurorean.”
“Yeah, Roland,” Lucia mutters, slapping her hand over her face.
“Oh, let’s back her a cake!” Alda urges excitedly.
“Yeah! With a polar bear on it!” Roland agress.
He frowns and thoughtfully touches his chin again.
“Or maybe in it? They must eat polar bears up there, right?”
“Eww,” Lucia says.
“Roland, even if that was a good idea, where are we even going to get a polar bear?” Alda notes.
“Oh yeah.”
Roland shrugs.
“Well, that’s just do some kind of lemon cream, or something. She likes lemon, right?”
Victory Day celebrates the Kingdom of Aurora emerging triumphant over an attempted invasion by the Free City of Hornsburg. Famously, when asked by the enemy commander how he intended to respond to Hornsburg’s terms for Aurora’s surrender, the Aurorean King Ursus stated that his only response would come from his cannons. In the ensuing years, Victory Day has become the foremost Aurorean national holiday.
“Right,” Lucia says, huddling up with the others. “Somebody needs to keep Apolline distracted, while the rest of us — Oh.”
“Why are you keeping me distracted?” the Auroean sorceress asks, her head quizzically tilted.
“We wanted to back you a cake,” Alda admits. “You know, for Victory Day.”
“Oh,” Apolline says. “That is so sweet. I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear any of this, alright?”
“Let’s go shoe shopping!” Lucia blurts out suddenly.
“You hate shoe shopping, Lucia,” Apolline nods.
“Yeah, because why in the name of Capitolina’s blessed ballgown would you never need forty-seven pairs of shoes?” the Wilderling woman replies.
She catches herself and clears her throat.
“But, like, it’s your day and by the time you’ve bought forty-seven more pairs of shoes, these guys will definitely be done that cake,” Lucia says.
She grabs Apolline by the arm and steers her out of the room.
“Well,” Petra says, watching them go. “We’ve got a cake to make.”
She blinks at Roland and Alda.
“Now, do either of you know how to bake?”
“Of course we do!” Alda says. “Baking isn’t that different from alchemy.”
She collects an array of mixing bowls and snatches up a big, wooden mixing spoon.
“Can I—” Roland asks, reaching for the mixing bowl.
“No,” Alda tells her brother, lightly whacking his arm with the big, wooden spoon.
“But what if—”
“No, Roland.”
“Can you at least stop hitting—”
“No.”
Petra puts a large and stony but consoling hand on Roland’s shoulder.
“But we are going to put a polar on it, right?” he asks. “Like, with icing, or something?”
“I can take care of that,” Petra says, eager for an opportunity to test her artistic skills in a medium as rare as cake icing.
In keeping with the fact that Aurora is at least mostly Canada, that King Ursus responded to a demand for surrender by stating that his only answer would be coming from his cannons is based on Frontenac's response to much the same effect when given an hour to answer the British demands to surrender Quebec, which my Canadian readers may remember from a Heritage Minute:
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