Sitting in the same study as yesterday—though on the opposite side of the castle due to Henry's interference—Magna mourned his inability to prop his boots on the table. Sitting up straight was evidently one of the most important things a nobleman did, judging by how hard Noelle was drilling him on it.
He also mourned the disgusting 'food' on his plate, and the fact that despite being surrounded by books, he wasn't the slightest bit allowed to read them; this was strict training time.
The silver-haired young woman and Luck sat opposite the spitfire as he balanced a plate between his thumb and index finger, and a certain children's book he was desperate to read atop his head. They were in the midst of lessons one and two of his gentrifying regimen: Propriety in posture, and 'How to eat like a proper gentleman'.
Sitting up straight was easy enough for him, seeing as his nasty slouching habit was just to keep up his meticulously crafted tough guy image… although, that copy of Aliko did land on his foot a few too many times during the walking exercises. Squeaking in pain as a children's book hits your tootsies does nothing for one's reputation.
But like Hell Magna didn't know how to 'eat properly'— you just used a fork instead of your hands, right? He couldn't have been more wronger.
Yeah, he also needed to work on language, but that was a whole other lesson.
It turned out there were a crapton of different forks, and while he tried to intuit which one might be for salad—in this instance, the pile of wet lawn that sat on his plate—the fire mage only found his hand being slapped away from the choice he'd made.
"Ow! Dang it, Noelle! What was that for?" He said, nursing the hand that got lightly slapped by Noelle's newspaper.
"That was the meat fork, try the one with thinner tines, Insect."
Grumbling softly to himself while his stomach grumbled, Magna grabbed at the most minuscule piece of silverware, which his instructor promptly blasted from his hand with a water jet.
"Wha— again?!" He whined, appalled that he wasn't allowed to even pretend to eat.
"I suggested the fork with the narrowest tines, notthe smallest overall fork." Noelle corrected, pointing her finger towards the right dining utensil, "Knowing the difference between the eight pieces of fine silverware by heart is imperative in keeping up the image of nobility."
"Then why can't we just label them?! My head hurts." I've never eatin' with more'n one piece of silverware before— back at home it was spoon orfork!"
"The whole point of this exercise is so you might plainly know which piece of your dining set is to be used without looking."
"And why wouldn't labels help with that! And goddammed what is Luck here for?! He doesn't eat fancy— er, uh, I mean fancily!"
Noelle tsked, keeping her posture perfectly straight while she reminded the hot head, "He agreed to cook for our etiquette lessons, and he's being a great help about it."
"But this 'salad' is just a chunk of crap the little bastard ripped out of the ground outside thatwindow!" Magna shouted, one finger pointed at the divots in the lawn a few feet outside the study.
In one smooth and silent motion, Noelle brought a napkin to her mouth to extricate the scrap of lawn. Acting precisely as though she hadn't eaten a quarter pound of dirty grass, she told her student, "It'll do for our purposes, and stop swearing— you sound like the peasant you are!"
"What'd'ya mean it'll do? What's the point of eatin' fake food if I just need ta' remember dumb shi-" he coughed, "uh, 'stuff' about forks! Besides, I haven't eaten in like seven hours!"
"Hmph. Well, I've eaten like royalty." Mistress Silva replied as haughtily as she could.
"No! You've eaten a pile of dirt, raw fish, and snails!"
"Most of those are foods fit for a Queen."
"I watched you eat a poker chip!"
Finally snapping, Noelle raised her voice back, screaming at her student, "Yeah, while you were eating one!"
"So maybe I got so hungry I ate a poker chip— what's your excuse!?"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!! You even used the wrong fork for the poker chip!"
"How the Hell could any of them be right!?"
"Thicker tines! As if a dirty, boorish, peasantly insect would know!!"
"Well excuuuse me princess! I— eeep!" The book pile slid off Magna's head as he gesticulated in frustration and then landed square on his toes, dredging up a yelp from the depths of the man's soul.
It also caused him to spill wet dirt over Noelle's lap, thereby eliciting her response of chucking her—half eaten—plate of topsoil right at his face. The two grime coated knights bolted upright, and started categorically screaming at each other— partly about silverware and propriety, but mostly just loud, wordless shrieking.
While the tutoring session erupted into absolute mayhem, Luck clutched at his sides in glee. "Hahaha! This is fun!"
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Twenty eight seconds later, to put off the mental anguish of elucidating to someone poor and stupid the minutiae of tine thickness, Noelle ordered for Luck to bring out the Tea, chitchat, and biscuits course.
With the tray out, and replete with all necessary accoutrements for leaf-juice based relaxation—sans the confections—Magna and his teacher poured themselves a drink.
"Teatime isn't so much about the drinking as it is the polite company. Now, to prove yourself affable, give us a proper smile." Noelle commanded in her 'holier than thou' tone, having corrected her perfect posture from the emotional turmoil forty seconds ago.
Magna let a good-natured grin grow across his face until he looked like someone you wouldn't want to see in a dark alley, and as his teeth shone like those of sharks towards the woman sitting his opposite, it seriously creeped her out.
"Ehck! You have the smile of a murderer!" Noelle spat in thinly veiled revilement, "We need to work on that, you dirty peasant."
"What'cha talkin' 'bout?" Magna drawled, taking the insults in stride, "That's just my amazin' ol' smile!"
"—And you use far too many apostrophes when you speak."
"Y'all'd'v'— uhh… I mean, no I do not."
Noelle sighed. "When one can't say something nice or even correctly, a noble's response preferred option is silence."
Her suffering student opened his mouth primed with a crass insult to hurl, then thought better of it; clenching his fists without the options to slouch, scream or keel over in protest as the battle maniac finally arrived with their cookies.
"Ah, the biscuits, thank you, Luck."
Magna gave a polite nod of his head before biting into their delivered confection; it took only until the cookie touched his tongue for him to gag violently. Sounding like a goose with gravel trapped in its throat, he exprctorated violently.
"A nobleman doesn't spit his food out in front of company— no matter how vile: The correct method is to use a napkin when no eyes are on you." Noelle stated.
Magna ignored her instructions outright, scraping his tongue and spitting the remnants of the disgusting confection out of his mouth, "Good God, what's in these cookies?! They're awful!"
"Bugs!" Luck cheerfully replied from a few seats away.
Noelle's face went pale with horror, and she screamed at her assistant teacher, "Dammit, Luck! I ate those cookies too!"
"Just kidding!" The impish battle maniac said, giggling to the room, "They're filled with raisins!"
"God dammit!" The fire mage screamed as he smashed his opulent teacup into on the floor, before stomping the fine ceramic into a fine powder. "Goddamn raisins! Worse than bugs! Why is this happening to me!?"
"Well, you've gotten a lot better at that." Noelle commented while gazing upon the dust that remained of her sixth favorite teacup. "Now let's try again, but calmer."
"Aww, just a cup? I wanted to watch him smash a table again." Luck whined from his perch atop a splintered mound of cheap furniture, just as Magna had assumed the poise demanded of him.
The street punk shot his closest friend a glare that could peel the paint off a barn, but before any sound came from his mouth, Noelle said, "You will remain silent if you have nothing nice to say to Luck."
Her words of reprimand to Magna caused the irate man to slip back into his perfectly personable, smiling posture, but it gave Luck a more devilish idea.
"Hey, Magna." The manic mage said, egging on his 'friend' to face him. When the fireman turned, he was greeted by the words, "You're a stupid head."
"Keep smiling." Noelle demanded.
"Yankee!" Luck shouted; the street punk just grinned.
"You ate raisins!" He grit his teeth, but kept on smiling.
"You're cute when you're mad~" Now the fire mage was blushing too.
"Dummy dumb-dumb! You have a pea brain, and you even smell like an idiot!"
Magna'd already had it up to here, so the poor guy couldn't last: A blood vessel burst in his head after that onslaught, and he fell backwards off his lavish stool, but remained perfectly poised. A tiny, personable smile decorated the man's features while blood pooled onto the floor about his head.
Luck gazed over the ottoman cushion at his friend's motionless body. Wearing a killer grin as he regarded the other boy, he said to Noelle, "Oops. I think I killed him."
"And he was doing so well…" the noblewoman said, shaking her head at the unconscious street punk. She stuck a small gold star sticker onto his lapel, and looked back at her assistant. She needn't say anything, everything tacit was obvious to Luck, who just grinned as he said:
"Don't worry, I'll get the blood mop!"