I previously made an off-hand comment in one of my previous scenes about Sally biting people. And, well, I kinda leaned into it.
“I have had a lovely evening, Miss Egeria,” Tancred says. “Though I do apologise that things haven’t quite exactly gone as we perhaps expected.”
“Yeah,” Egeria agrees. “I ain’t never been on a date in the big city before. And I don’t suppose if were so bad to have a third wheel.”
Sally Lyte stares up at Tancred and Egeria.
Tancred and Egeria found their first date unexpectedly complicated by the presence of one Sally Lyte. With the majority of the Lyte-Mendez clan under the weather and the rest of the Lyte Brigade otherwise occupied, it fell to Tancred to look after Sally.
When Tancred had tried to explain, as diplomatically as possible, that he had a date with Egeria, Sally had said “Where are we going?” and insisted on being brought along.
Honestly, Egeria’s deft handling of the situation and ability to cope with Sally’s inescapable presence has proven, in Tancred’s opinion, rather quite fetching.
“Are you going to kiss her now?” Sally asks. “Gross.”
“Well,” Tancred says with a nervous chuckle. “I would never presume to do such a thing —”
“Aw, c’mere you,” Egeria says, gently placing her hands on Tancred’s shoulders and pulling him in for a kiss.
“Gross,” Sally repeats, covering Count Bunnyescu’s innocent eyes.
“Well,” Tancred says once Egeria relinquishes him. He blushes and straightens out his cravat. “That was certainly memorable.”
Egeria smirks happily.
“Now, don’t you do go thinkin’ I’m unladylike, or nothin’,” she says.
“I would never,” Tancred assures her.
“A true lady sees her opportunity an’ then she takes it,” Egeria continues. “And, ‘sides, y’all didn’t seem particularly adverse to the idea.”
“That I was not,” Tancred mutters.
“I’m bored,” Sally interjects. “Can we get ice cream?”
“Yeah, Sir Tancred,” Egeria says, batting her eyelashes. “Can we get ice cream?”
“Yes,” Tancred says. “I suppose we could get ice cream. I must admit, Miss Sally, you have conducted yourself quite admirably in these rather strange circumstances.”
“Please don’t kiss again,” Sally says.
Egeria loops her arm through Tancred’s while Sally reaches up to take his other hand and the three set off for the ice cream parlour.
“So, Sir Tancred,” Egeria ventures. “Where we goin’ on our next date?”
“S-second date?” Tancred repeats incredulously.
“What, Egeria asks, feigning indignation. “Y’all don’t wanna go on a second date?”
“Nothing would please me more,” Tancred insists. “I just happen to be a little taken aback that you’d agree to second date so quickly.”
“Well, y’all done a great job winnin’ me over, Sir Tancred,” Egeria explains.
“We don’t want to have to watch you kiss again, but Count Bunnyescu thinks you two are cute couple,” Sally notes. “Mostly, I just think kissing is gross.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Sally,” Tancred says. “It means quite a great deal to have the esteemed Count Bunnyescu’s blessing. And — are you biting me?”
“You let your guard down,” Sally answers into Tancred’s arm.
“Aw, shucks, Sir Tancred,” Egeria says playfully. “I think somebody likes ya.”
Sally nods.
“He’s the funnest one to bite.”
Tancred von Ivanhoe-Hauteburg: goodest sport in Realmgard.
I’m involved in yet another book giveaway:
The sign-up and the full rules are here.
Irrespective of whether you’re going to sign-up for the giveaway, you can follow me here:
And sign up for the Realmgard 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
