Eremia:
"Yes," she replied, shaking Gabriel's hand contentedly. She was at least pleased to see that Laelius had finally left the premises. Eremia wasn't quite sure what he had tried to imply by waving his barbed tail around - she had seen many an individual with a tail, and just about as many of them resorted to flirting as those in the average human population - but she made a mental note to be suspicious of strikingly handsome men with strange tails (which, given how quickly she had grown angry at Laelius, she hoped would not happen again). Especially any that suggested dating her; she already had one possible romantic interest to cope with. "And this is my friend, Taber," she gestured to her companion, who shook hands with Gabriel and nodded.
"So," continued Gabriel after this brief introduction. "I noticed that you called yourself the daughter of a lord before Laelius harassed you. Is that so?"
Eremia replied warily, remembering her previous experience. "Yes, the daughter of the 9th Lord Exedor. Of course, depending on your point of view, he is either a lord or a king, but, for the sake of simplicity, most of the people I know refer to him as a lord."
"Will he be the next lord, then?" noted Gabriel, gesturing towards Taber. "You two seem awfully close."
"It's not like that," explained Eremia hurriedly, blushing in embarrassment. She turned to Taber for some kind of encouragement, but the smirk that grew across his face quickly made her reconsider that idea. "We're just...just...friends...is all. And...I'm...of course....too young to marry."
"I can't help you there," replied Taber, seeing Eremia's constant glancing in his direction. With his typical stern expression, he said to Gabriel, "At best, I'd call it an awkward romance. At least one of us is not willing to admit it exists. I'm sure that she would be able to find a more politically advantageous union, but she has never been much for romance in general."
"Yes, that's very nice, please do continue to tell about every aspect of my personal life," she whispered into Taber's ear. He smirked again.
Gabriel was about to respond to his exchange, but the voice of Jothar, the owner of the massive castle and the lands surrounding it, rang out over the gathering. Eremia and Taber, who'd been too distracted by these recent events to eat the rest of their food, ignored it and stood up as he announced that they would finally be heading to the place the duo had intended to go to earlier - the garden.
Eremia breathed a sigh of relief. Which was quickly stifled when Laelius took the lead of the gathering and began to direct it through the garden. But at least she didn't have to carry on with her awkward discussion. Waving Gabriel goodbye, she grabbed Taber's hand and pulled him into the crowd assembling by the entrances to the garden. He didn't resist, but did manage to call back to him with, "Don't mind her, she's only a tad shy."
"What is wrong with you today?" whispered Eremia in a displeased tone to Taber as they began to walk among the neatly-arranged corridors of the garden, in tune and pace to everyone else ahead of and behind them. "What are you trying to make me look like?"
"I suppose it's your energetic and free spirit catching up to me," he replied casually as he ran a hand along the neatly-trimmed hedges, only to pull it back when he realized a few of them had thorns. Sighing at the small cuts that formed on his hand, which were now beginning to bleed, he looked at her and finished. "And yes, I did that on purpose."
"I suspected as much," replied Eremia angrily, as she stared down at the almost eerie perfection of cobblestone steps that composed the path through the meticulously arranged garden. "Nothing is an accident where you're concerned."
Suddenly, Taber clasped her hand with his non-bloody one. "Now, come on. It was simply one little statement. At most, he likely just thinks you're in denial." She glared at him, but that didn't desist him in the slightest. "Besides, I wanted to motivate you to leave. We still have a garden to visit."
"Are you sure?" she whispered in a concerned voice. "Remember what happened last time? If this Jothar person is as observant as he was then..."
"And do you have a better idea?" he laughed quietly, hoping to not catch anyone else's attention. They stood still to allow everyone else to walk ahead of them. Given the beauty of the garden, with its articulate marble statues and beautifully organized design. "You wanted to start a tour of your own, and this one is proceeding a tad too slowly. Especially with Laelius at the front. Besides, Jothar's got too many people to keep an eye on right now. What's the worst that could happen if two of them were to magically disappear?"
Eremia pondered this for a few seconds. "Alright," she said at last, smiling. "I can't help but admit you have a point. I'll lead first, if you wouldn't mind."
And, with that, holding hands, she turned onto the nearest branching path, and they vanished from everyone else's view.
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