[Closed] Little Miss Manners

[regal-reptile.livejournal.com]

When; Backdated to around the 8th of September?
Rating; PG for Tayuya's language, as usual.
Characters; Draco [regal_reptile] and Tayuya [violentflutist]
Summary; Draco teaches Tayuya some manners.
Log;

The fountain gurgled, the birds sang, and the sun shined. A cloud gathered around a certain blond head that was not good at patience, even though it could pretend to be patient for a very long time. Tapping his foot irritably, Draco glowered down the flowers of the Opera House's garden. He had told the ninja where to find him ages ago, and he had been under the impression that these sort of people were capable of popping up wherever they wanted to. Aparently not.

It was one more thing to add to the list of things to correct in his new pupil. Ladies should never be late, nor should they be early.

Tayuya was running late, on account that she had remembered a saying a ninja in Otogakure had once told her, that ladies were 'fashionably late'. What fashion had to do with being on time she had no idea, but she figured she'd give it a try. Didn't have much to lose, after all. She found the Opera House easily enough after swiping the map Kimimaro had procured of the City, and bounded over the garden wall, landing gracefully on the grass and spotting the blond easily.

"Draco Malfoy." She said in greeting.

"Miss Tayuya," Draco replied easily, standing and lowering his head in the tiniest of bows. "I hope I find you well?" He flicked out his wand and drew a chair up closer to his own. He wasn't usually this formal around people he knew, but if he was to be teaching this... girl what it meant to be a woman, well, he'd just have to act like he knew what he was talking about.

He could tell just from her entrence that she had little to no sense of proprierity, but he had been expecting that. The first test would just be to see how she handled polite conversation, which was intresically senseless, automatic, and entirely full of lies.

Tayuya arched a brow at the show of magical skill. She'd heard of these skills, on those electronical devices, but she'd never viewed them for herself. She made sure to keep an eye on that... wooden stick.

"You do." She stepped forward and took the seat, halting only to arrange the flaps of tanned cloth in front and back of her uniform. Making herself comfortable, she crossed one leg over the other, as her male counterparts in the Sound Five did. She'd had little, well, not any significant female prescense in her life with Orochimaru, the only women she'd been around had been teachers in killing as a child, and the last thing on their mind had been teaching her manners.

Well, at least she'd crossed her legs and fixed her clothes, thought Draco assessingly. She wasn't bad looking, not as rough as he would have thought. Hopefully she was planning on doing something with her hair, though.

His mouth drawled on as his thoughts went elsewhere, the social auto-pilot quite effectively drilled into his head since he was born.

"I hope you don't mind us meeting out of doors, if you are concerned about the weather we could move things inside. I, however, believe that it would be good to catch a few breaths of fresh air."

"Outside's fine, yeah." Tayuya leaned back in the chair, one finger idly curling a strand or rough hair over and in on itself. "I spend most of my damn time outside anyway, rain or shine."

She didn't know much about polite speech, that was sure. She'd developed her rough mannerisms at an early age, when if you couldn't beat 'em, you joined 'em.

"Yes," corrected Draco, tapping his wand irritably on the arm of his chair. He was tempted to zap her with a shock every time she slaughtered a sentince like that, but had a bad feeling about how quickly and violently she would retaliate. "Try again: 'Outside would be fine, thank you. I enjoy the atmosphere, but in the sunshine and the rain.' "

"..." Tayuya blinked. 'Yeah' was not ladylike? Grumbling under her breath she uncrossed her legs and recrossed them. "Outside would be fine, thank you." She tried to resist the urge to glower. This was her choice, to accept Kabuto's stupid baiting. She'd live, she supposed. "I enjoy the atmosphere."

"Wonderful."

Gracing her with a smirk of a smile, Draco waved his wand once more, summoning two cups of tea, the sugar cubes and the milk. There was nothing more trying to someone than trying to make conversation, eat, and look proper at the same time, and with that in mind he had set up some cake and buscuits along with the tea before hand on a small table nearby.

"Would you like milk and sugar in your tea?" he asked politely.

She admired the wave of the stick that procured the tea, wondering exactly how that worked. Opening her mouth to ask, she closed it smartly shortly after, since she didn't know if it would be polite to butt in to ask. Her first guess would be 'no'.

"I would, thank you." She chose her words carefully, determined to see this through correctly.

Well, things were brightening up pretty quickly here. Draco accordingly served the tea, floating the delicate saucer and cup to Tayuya's lap and drawing his own close. He had served his parents enough times to know how it was always done. The sugar and milk returned to the table and the cake and biscuits returned to float in the air between them.

"Would you like a little something?" he asked, voice blandly cheerful. "They're from a bakery just down the street. They're quite good, if you like sweets."

Tayuya plucked the teacup from whatever invisible force kept it hovering, propping the saucer on her knee and holding the cup in her two hands.

"Thanks." She said, but quickly corrected herself. "Thank you."

She took a sip, enjoying the taste. She never had been too fond of tea, but the milk and sugar helped mask the taste she wasn't fond of, but this was pretty good, considering.

"Sure, I like them well enough." She wasn't quite sure if she was suppossed to pick something out of the air or wait for them to float towards her.

" 'Thank you, yes, I would love to,' " corrected the Malfoy heir and he flicked his wand once more to slide the tray in her direction. He had to say, she certainly learnt quickly. She was hardly older than him - maybe even younger. He couldn't really say, the way she was clothed and acted.

Inhaling the scent of his tea before he took the first sip, he almost grimaced at the taste. Really, not a good brew at all. He would definitely have to find somewhere that sold a better quality sometime soon.

"Thank you, yes, I would love to." Tayuya repeated, miffed that she'd gotten it wrong. She watched the tray float her way, still mysitifed by the way it worked, though she tried to act as though she cared less and saw such things every day.

She carefully took a biscuit, cupping her hand under it to catch crumbs as she took a bite. Pretty nice, really. It'd been awhile since she'd tasted anything sweet, since it was all she could do to buy groceries correctly.

"So, Miss Tayuya," Draco drawled, done with the really small talk and down to business. It would be a proper challenge, after all, to see if she could eat, balance the tea on her lap, and talk at the same time. It took some people years to figure that one out. "Why are you trying to become more... ladylike? Not that it's not an admirable thing to be trying, of course, but out of curiousity..."

"Oh, yea- yes, I figured you would want to know." Tayuya tried to watch each word, and not chew with her mouth open. Jiroubou had always told her that was unladylike. He also thought the same about cursing. She couldn't believe the fatass was actually right.

"A... superior of mine told me that a certain male was more feminine than me." She paused to take a sip of the tea, setting her biscuit slowly on her upper thigh and picking up the saucer in it's steed.

"And I don't take kindly to insults of any kind. So I decided to prove him wrong."

Nodding knowlegably, Draco ignored the plate of food and sent it back to the table. She was doing alright, surprisingly. Cleerly being impolite was more of a life choice than a perminant problem.

"Well, I hope I can help you out in that situation, Miss Tayuya. Did you have anything in particular in mind?"

"Manners, mostly." She was good at balancing the two things, her tea and biscuit. "Or, questions about manners, to be more specific." She didn't know what was ladylike and what wasn't. She took a bite of her biscuit, chewing thoughtfully. Like... if she covered her mouth, could she talk with food in it?

"Ask away."

"So, if I reached over here..." She demonstrated by leaning to the side and plucking another biscuit from the floating plate. "Is that ladylike?"

Draco shook his head emphatically.

"Anything that requires effort on your part is to be completely discouraged. Always ask your host if you want something more than the original serving, in the most polite and least obvious way you can think of."

Now that he was trying to explain it to someone, it really was rather silly the things that people considered good behavior, but as his mother had always told him - it was the manners that distinguished the animals from the purebloods.

"So... ladies don't do much, do they?" Tayuya arched one brow. And here she thought there was supposed to be some supreme effort involved. "They just sit there and make other people do stuff for them?" She took a bite of the biscuit when she finished, fighting the urge to use the confection to gesture with.

"Exactly," Draco agreed, smirking. That was the whole point of working your way up to the top of the ladder, after all, wasn't it? Sit back and watch everyone else do the same thing.

"Part of manners is figuring out how to get people to do things for you and make them think that they'll get something out of it."

"Manipulation, then?" Tayuya smirked. "And here I thought that would be considered bad manners. She sipped a bit from the teacup, holding it carefully in both hands, it seemed delicate. "So I make everyone into my fetch boys and make them grateful to do it?"

Well then, it didn't seem like Draco had to teach Tayuya much at all. She must have noble blood in her veins somewhere. She had already adopted that haughty voice almost subcontiously.

"Of course. A ballroom might be even more dangerious than a battlefield - at least on the battlefield you know the people in the same uniform as you won't stab you in the back."

"Eh, I wouldn't count on that too much." Tayuya mentioned in an offhand tone. "Someone could have henge'd one of your comrades, or used a genjutsu." She smiled. "I don't trust anyone, which makes everything much easier." She waved a hand. "Of course, you always have to be looking over your shoulder, but it's better than finding a blade buried between them."

Pouting at his metaphor being burst, Draco took another sip of his tea. He didn't know what a "henge" was, nor a "genjutsu", but he got the point.

"You'll fit right in, then," he replied, getting back on track. "It's always best to imply that everyone around you isn't worth noticing."

"That I can do." Tayuya smirked. "And here I thought that this part would be hard." She tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair as she thought. "I suppose I'll have to throw in some yes, no, thank you, if you would, and pleases, then?"

Draco smirked right back. "Obviously."

With a wave of his wand, his tea returned to the table with the other dishes without spilling a drop.

"Unless you have any more questions, I think you can handle yourself in proving whomever it is wrong."

"Hmm..." Tayuya tipped back her head, looking up at the sky as she thought.

"Very well." She stood, finishing off the last bite of her biscuit and draining the tea with a last, long drought.

"Thank you for the consultation, Draco Malfoy."

"It was my pleasure, Miss Tayuya."

Standing politely to let his guest leave, Draco descreetly flicked his wand to banish the crumbs on Tayuya's lap. He was feeling pleased with a job well done, and a brief break from the otherwise troubling life he was leading.

"As to our deal concerning the... price for this meeting..." She had almost forgot the business transaction involved. "You'll understand this will have to be extremely discreet..."