To recap for those of you who may have forgotten, I’ll be reposting one of my previous Realmgard Short Scenes every Tuesday, and a new one every Friday on my Patreon, exclusive to my followers — including free followers, so please consider joining up for those, even on the free tier.
You can find the first one here.
© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
“Gah! Bears!” Matilda Lyte exclaims as she is suddenly shaken awake. “Wolves! Bear-wolves!”
She bolts uptight, her long, dark hair falling inelegantly across her face. Her heart hammers in her chest until she is comfortably assured that she is not, in fact, being assailed by bear-wolves.
“Oh,” Matilda says when she sees the familiar figure of her little sister standing before her. “It’s only you, Sally.”
Sally beholds Matilda with large, pleading eyes, clutching her beloved stuffed rabbit Count Bunnyescu — the thing was once a bright blue, but has long since faded to a dingy, threadbare grey.
The youngest of the Lyte siblings, Sally is a decidedly nomadic sleeper. Though she starts every night in her own room, she will invariably wake up in the middle of the night and trek over to someone else’s. In a family with seven siblings, there are plenty of others for her to choose from.
And yet, more often than not, she will make her way to Matilda’s room, showing up unannounced in the middle of the night and looming over her bedside in the gloom like some sort of tiny ghost haunting Matilda’s nights. Like other small wildlife, she seems to have an instinct for seeking out whomever she will most bother by her presence.
Sally opens her mouth to speak.
“No,” Matilda says bluntly, pre-empting Sally’s question.
Sally doesn’t take the hint, or simply elects to ignore it entirely. “I can’t sleep, Matilda,” she says. “Can I—”
“No.”
“Count Bunnyescu can’t sleep, either,” Sally notes.
“Go bother Nolan,” Matilda says, rolling back over. “Or Addy. Or Mom and Dad.” She pulls her blanket up over her head in an attempt to disappear.
Sally shakes her head. “Mom and Dad say I’m too big to sleep in their bed,” she answers. “Nolan snores. And Addy drools. Please, Matilda?”
Matilda sighs. “Fine.”
“Yay!” Sally says, burrowing under Matilda’s blanket and nestling close to her sister.
“Go to sleep, Sally,” Matilda commands.
“You smell nice,” Sally tells her sister.
“Ugh,” Matilda groans. “Sally, don’t make this weird. Now, go to sleep.”
“Okay,” Sally says. “Good night, Matilda.”
“Good night,” Matilda says tersely.
Sally clears her throat at her sister.
“And goodnight, Count Bunnyescu.”
“Count Bunnyescu says goodnight,” Sally says.
The next morning, as the dawn’s first light begins to stream into her room, Matilda finds herself waking up with a foot in her face.
Somehow, someway, Sally has managed to get herself sprawled across the bed, orienting herself on a diagonal with her head towards the foot of the bed and her foot almost stuffed into Matilda’s mouth. Despite her improbable, absolutely ridiculous sleep position, Sally remains comfortably asleep, as ever holding Count Bunnyescu close.
Matilda tries to pry Sally’s foot away from her face, only for Sally to promptly roll back into her original position, thereby kicking Matilda right in the face.
“Ow!”
“Good morning, Matilda,” Sally says with a yawn as she sits up at the foot of the bed, managing to kick Matilda in the face once again. “Did you sleep well? Me and Count Bunnyescu did.”
Matilda regards her sister through narrowed eyes. “So help me, Sally,” she sternly tells her little sister. “Tonight, you are sleeping in Nolan’s room.”
Now, as much as Realmgard is filtered through my experiences as an older sibling, Sally’s sleep habits are actually largely based on how I was as a kid…
The full list of my October 2021 Realmgard Short Scenes, where this scene was originally posted, is here.
The master list of all my Short Scenes is here.
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