Author's Note: I have taken etiquette lessons before. But it would be a blatant lie to say it made me a more sophisticated person. I still enjoy putting my elbows on the table, and it makes me feel great!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Devil May Cry. I only own my OC Eris. I cannot say any resemblance to real life is purely fictitious... because it is based off my own experience!


Elbows, Dante

The night was terrible. All through the hours of darkness, all Dante could think about was how to avoid the little imp before she manages to find him and toss him back in "Wonderland". The fact that everytime he somehow nodded off and then had a weird nightmare about singing bananas didn't help.

Just as he thought he was finally free as the sun began to rise, a familiar voice screamed right next to his ear, "GOOD MORNING!"

Dante jumped out of the couch, ducked behind a lamp and stared at Eris, who seemingly appeared from thin air. The trickster grinned at him in a sadistic way.

"Today's another new day for your punishment, Dante," Eris announced, without breaking the sadistic grin on her face.

"Gimme a break," Dante complained, "I didn't even get to sleep last night."

"Not my problem," Eris replied with indifference, "I never kept you up all night, did I? I didn't even ask the crickets to chirp all through the night to keep you awake so that you can't get any shut-eye and so you're less alert and so I can scare you in the morning."

Dante glared at her and seethed, "Those. Freakin'. Crickets. MADE A HELL OF A NOISE!"

"Like I said, I never asked them to. They volunteered," Eris suddenly glanced out the window and then said, "But enough about the crickets. Today is Etiquette and Manners Day!" She finished her sentence with a loud clap of thunder, and both of them were transported to "Wonderland".

Dante looked around, and noticed something different.

"... where are all the rainbows and cutesy things you piled around Wonderland?"

Eris replied drily, "Etiquette is supposed to be formal, stiff and boring. I can't upset the mood with over-the-top cuteness. And anyway, Alice called earlier and threatened to eat all my cakes unless I changed the name of this place. So it's not Wonderland anymore."

"Fine, whatever-"

"It's Time-to-torture-Dante-land."

"What the hell?"

"Yes, what the hell indeed," Eris gave him a smug grin and then struck him on the head with a wooden ruler, "Where are your manners, boy?"

"What was that for?" Dante ducked at the second strike, and watched a few strands of hair fall to the ground. He tried to attack Eris, and realized that Rebellion was missing. So were Ebony and Ivory.

Eris noticed him looking for his weapons, and she called out in a pseudo-cheerful voice, "Don't bother looking for your weapons, Dante~ can't have you hacking this place into pieces. Besides, etiquette demands that weapons remain outside a room at all times."

"This is a room?" Dante gestured around, bewildered. Before he could continue adding that rooms don't have skies, the scenery transformed into an extremely grand-looking ballroom. Dante looked down and saw eight different cutlery utensils on the table.

Eris picked up one of the spoons and asked, "What do you call this?"

"I don't know, a spork?"

The ruler cracked as Eris twitched an eye, "You don't mention that foul word in front of me... ever!"

"What, spork?"

Eris teleported in a shower of gray dust-like powder, and reappeared on the other side. Expecting an attack from overhead, Dante ducked in time for Eris to hit him with a giant spoon.

"It is NOT a sp-" Eris caught herself in time, and then she made some of sort of gesture, as if she was asking for forgiveness. Then she declared, "This... is... a runcible spoon!"

Dante eyed the spork and snickered, "Does that word even exist?"

"Of course it does, don't be an idiot," Eris replied with a deadpan expression. She pointed at the spork and said, "This runcible spoon can pick up anything, from solid to liquid!"

"What about gas?" Dante asked with a smirk as he picked up a glass of orange juice.

"Why would you want to pick up gas? That is so unsophisticated of you! And anyway, you don't need more gas. You have enough inside you, don't you?"

Dante spluttered over his drink and tossed the glass at Eris. The trickster caught it, finished the remaining drink and continued as if nothing had happened, "Anyway, it is important in etiquette that you know the names of every utensil on the table. For example, this delightful tool known as a rattail spoon-"

"What the hell does it do? Cut damn rattails?"

"The British don't use it to cut damn rattails, Dante," Eris responded quickly, "They use it to cut bloody rattails."

Dante threw down the rattail spoon, "What's the difference?"

Eris said, "The British don't say 'damn', they say 'bloody'."

Dante picked up a normal-looking spoon and asked, "Then what's this one called? Hairtail fish spoon?"

Eris took the spoon and scrutinized it before laughing, "Oh, no. This is beat-the-stuffing-out-of-Dante spoon!" and she magically enlarged the spoon. Dante ducked, expecting yet another attack from the trickster, but she merely used it to mark an X on the ground.

Intrigued, Dante peered over the pile of food on the table over at where Eris was marking the X, and asked, "Whatcha doing?"

"X marks the spot, Dante," Eris told him, "and now you'll see why."

From where she stood, she swung the spoon around, catching Dante inside the spoon and then throwing him into the air. Eris cheered and watched him break through the ceiling. Then she pulled a gigantic frying pan over the X on the ground, piled wood and etiquette guide books around it, and lit a fire.

As she whipped out a cookbook from nowhere, Dante came back down from his trip to zero-G. He landed in the frying pan, and gave Eris a flabbergasted look. The trickster eyed him and said, "Wow, I didn't know you'd burn up so badly on re-entry. So I don't need the frying pan after all."

Then she poked Dante and then licked her finger, "Needs some pepper, though."

"I've had it with your pranks you demon," Dante growled and picked up one of the burning pieces of wood. He threw it at Eris, and then quickly picked up another and threw it at her as well.

Eris caught both pieces of wood, and as a third came forward, she threw both pieces into the air, and started juggling the pieces of wood.

"This is fun, Dante, I could go on all day," she drawled in sarcasm, and then yawned, "but you don't have all day to spare, do you? So many etiquette lessons to cover, so little time."

By this time, Dante was out of the frying pan, and into the fire. He began chucking burning pieces of wood like a maniac, but still the wood continued to reappear.

Finally, he decided to get out of the fire before it did any serious harm, and he sat back on the chair he was on. Amazingly, the food on the table had moved into the frying pan earlier.

"Look, demon, I don't know why you're doing this to me, and if this is about my father, give me a break! If he owed you anything, go get it from him!"

"Oh, he did owe me a lifetime of freedom. But I can't find him anywhere, so you'll take all the blame!"

"What did I ever do to you?"

"You were born."

At this, Dante put his head down on the table and started shaking. Eris merely stared at him, and then she grew a conscience and asked in a concerned voice, "Hey... you okay?"

Dante looked up and started laughing, "Am I okay? Am I okay? You tortured me, you pranked me, you kept me awake through the entire night, you put olives on my pizza, you tried to have me for lunch-"

"Breakfast, Dante."

"-you tried to have me for breakfast, and now you're asking me if I'm okay? Read my lips, I AM NOT OKAY!"

"Whoa, chill out," Eris held up both hands in an effort to calm down the now berserk Dante.

"Oh, I'll chill out alright..." Dante replied acidly, and grabbed the trickster before she could teleport. He ran over to a giant icebox that wasn't there before, opened the door, threw the trickster in, and slammed the door in her face.

He yelled at the icebox, "How d'ya like that, popsicle girl? Are you okay? Oh, I forgot, you can't be okay, because you're in an icebox and I... and I..." he looked around, and realized that he was in an icebox.

Eris "poofed" and appeared right next to him, wearing a white fur coat, and asked in a poisonously sweet voice, "And you what?"

Dante took a step backward, tripped over a small mound of ice and fell into an ice chair. He tried to get up, and found that an ice table had materialized in front of him.

"You've been a bad boy, Dante, it's time you had some time-out until you learn some manners," Eris said, and then waved.

Dante stared at her and then put his head down on the table again. And this time he wasn't laughing.

Eris continued to grin at him, and then she teleported out. As she did, she called out, "Mind your elbows, Dante. Off the table."


To be continued...