I spent the morning and early afternoon at basically a professional development day. Hence, why Kat, Amara, and Nolan are spending their day at a professional development day.
Also, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well that header image represents Kat in a suit. It’s not perfect, but considering it’s a free stock photo, it’s fantastic.
Copyright J.B. Norman
“I hate this,” Kat groans, tugging at the tie around her neck. “How do men willing wear these things? And why did you make me wear one?”
“Because you’d never be caught dead in a proper dress, Katherine,” Amara answers. “One must needs look, well, professional at a meeting of the members of one’s profession.”
In addition to the Guild Authority’s annual springtime gala, the twice-annual professional development days are the most prominent meeting of the city’s adventurers. Up until now, Kat had managed to
In a way, it was professional development. She was developing her stealth and tactical retreat skills…
Maybe it’s the influence of her relentlessly by-the-book guild Captain, but Amara has been quite insistent on ensuring that she drags Kat along with her since she’s been a member of the Lyte Brigade and has started attending the Guild Authority’s professional development days — and making sure that Kat has, in her words, ‘a fetching new professional outfit.’
“You’re not wearing one of these things,” Kat notes angrily, still tugging at her tie.
“It’s a pantsuit, Katherine,” Amara notes. “One doesn’t wear a tie with a pantsuit.”
“Why can’t I just wear a pantsuit, then?”
“Frankly, my dear,” Amara says, “you don’t have the hips for it.”
“No comment,” Nolan murmurs, coughing into his elbow as he stands on the other side of Amara. He smiles apologetically at Kat. “But I don’t like ties, either.”
“Nolan,” Amara says, stepping towards him. “That’s because you’ve got it all askew. Your knot is all wrong!”
She grabs his tie and fiddles with it.
Kat leans in close to Nolan. “Do yourself a favour. Eat carefully so she doesn’t try to scrub your face off with a napkin.”
“Very funny, Katherine,” Amara mutters. “Now, shall we be off?” She looks down at the pamphlet in her hand. “The first talk of the day is Better Adventuring Through Better Knot-Tying. We’re off to Auditorium 4-B.”
“Knot-tying?” Kat repeats.
“O
Kat shakes her head. “That sounds —”
“— Awesome!” Nolan exclaims.
Kat’s jaw drops at she stares at him.
“What?” he asks defensively. “I like knots…”
“Amara,” Kat says, turning back to the Elf. “You’re boyfriend’s a nerd.”
“He is not my boyfriend, Katherine!” Amara cries.
“I’m not her boyfriend,” Nolan mutters, coughing into his elbow again.
“Pherais’ sanctified sweatsocks,” Kat sighs. “One of you needs to man up and just ask the other one out.” She rolls her eyes. “The knot-tying seminar is going to be less painful that this.
As Kat storms off towards Auditorium 4-B, Amara and Nolan exchange an awkward look.
“I’m sure I don’t know what she’s talking about, Captain,” Amara says.
“Yeah,” Nolan says, coughing into his elbow again. “Me… asking you… out. On date. To a nice restaurant. Then a walk… on the beach. How ridiculous would that be, right? Certainly not the kind of thing I’ve though about… repeatedly. Or in excruciating detail.”
He coughs into his elbow again.
“But the knot-tying seminar. That should be good, right?”
Kat, Amara, and Nolan take their place in Auditorium 4-B.
“Now,” the presenter begins, “the history of knots is a long and boring one…”
My approach to Realmgard, as I’ve mentioned several times now, is that it’s basically the 1620s. Except when it’s not – mostly in terms of deliberate anachronisms that I think are funny.
Now, some sort of necktie — or at least neck-tie adjacent accessories — did exist at more or less the right period of real-life history. Pantsuits, however, are significantly more modern, but the mental image of Business Amara in a pantsuit is really funny to me.
But, mostly, this is mostly just a way to vent on my own hatred for wearing ties…
As always, follow me here:
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
