Lady Mito led Yunan, Reina and Kitty to her own palace, where she and Reina used to reside before.Both her daughter and the boy she brought were almost completely without any etiquette and she would not let them meet other imperials before they were at least presentable enough.
Emperor Hoshi was aware of how Debauchery worked and did not find it surprising that they made Reina forget her training in the way of imperial and courtly behaviour, and was rather happy to have such an attentive wife who took the guests in and immediately started teaching them the correct behaviour before they made an embarra.s.sment out of themselves.
The etiquette was more of a behaviour correction than a skill, although it was hard to learn because habits are extremely hard to change and conscious behaviour makes one look pretentious, even so, in the upper echelons of n.o.bility, it was better to look like a pretentious p.r.i.c.k than to be called a mannerless savage. That is why imperial consort Mito drove the three of them hard in their way of learning, Reina and Yunan in the way of royals and Kitty in the way of servants, and as for failure, the punishment was a beating by a ruler.
The beating naturally did not hurt but it was humiliating, therefore, Debauchery who kept in touch would taunt Yunan and Reina about it, as for Kitten she really did not care and was only learning because Mito told her if she did not learn to act that way others who she must not kill would laugh at Yunan, it only took a week of taunting before Yunan had enough and hatched a plan to give the others looking and laughing at them a taste of their own medicine.
During one of the early sessions on how to talk like a sophisticated gentleman, Yunan asked Mito if she wanted to meet and train those who made her daughter forget her hard work and the answer was "if you can do it, I"ll teach you a few things you can never learn in the cla.s.ses" there was a good determination on her face so Yunan obliged during posture training.
Yunan teleported Debauchery, told the genie to absorb all the mana in their cores and make sure the communication ring can never be removed even if the die, when all of Debauchery and the Valyrians, including Leol and Muscles, Sarah, Drogon and Sapphira, Ophelia and Anne were present in the hall, with no mana to run away and faced with the dangerous smile of a mother who bowed gently and said softly "thank you for teaching my daughter".
Some flashbacks happened in the minds of Debauchery and they all shrunk like they were dehydrated vegetables, all except for leader who bowed back and said with a calm and relaxed tone "my pleasure, although I have to apologize for making her forget a few things, if you need any help please ask away, we are at your service". Leader looked like she was n.o.bler than all of them combined, that brought a more sincere smile to Mito who now had a favourable look on Leader, and decided she would be the helpful aid she required to drill the etiquettes into the kids and the rest.
When everyone saw their mutual recognition some sighed with relief and some felt a shiver down their spines and then all of them dropped bullets of sweat when the next exchange happened. "You must be Mary, the holy maiden, as expected of a figure such as yourself, would you mind helping me teach these savage Barbarians the way of the civilized society?", "Not at all lady Mito, it would be a great pleasure to instruct such rabble and turn them into somewhat civilized folk, after all, you can"t expect dirty mutts like them to be fully rid of their fleas no matter how you wash and groom them".
"Well said maiden, how about we sheer then and douse them in some alcohol to purify them as well as possible? Having dirty mutts in my palace is a health risk". "Alright then lady, I will offer all my ability to aid in this undertaking". Only the dumbfounded Dustan could talk after such exchange he whispered to Balin besides him "is it gonna hurt?", Balin shook his head "I don"t think pain and hurt are enough to describe what we will go through". Somewhere among the targeted students an "oh" sounded in sudden revelation.
And then h.e.l.l was unleashed in the usually quiet and serene palace of lady Mito, where the students of etiquettes were blockaded in a big hall where they had to perfectly act refined and n.o.ble like without looking like trying hard while doing it. "That is a spoon, not a shovel, hold it correctly". "Why are you cutting the meat like it will run away, it"s already on your plate so take your time".
"Sit upright, and don"t slack your shoulders,heads up, only your eyes, lips and hands move while you eat". "Why are you walking like wading through mud, this is the finest carpeting in the world, you don"t walk on it, you step on it while apologizing for being a low life who dares to step on it". "Good lord, what is with that smile, are you trying to scare the life out of me? Do you even know what gentle means you ugly brute!". "Dwarf, even if you pretend to be as tall as a mountain you will always be small, act like it bothers you to look up once in a while, and while we are at it, stop touching the servants, their b.u.t.ts are not included in the service".
The dual teaching methods of lady Mito and the inspection and punishment by Leader was enough to drive the boys to the brink of tearing their hair and risk angering them and seek the sweet relief of death. However, on the other side of the spectrum, they were so nice and accommodating to the girls who were so fast on the uptake and were learning these things like it was some kind of thing only females could do.
As for the boys, it was hard to change the walking posture because they didn"t have one to begin with, the way they acted was the most efficient, time and energy-saving way. Holding a spoon was meant for shovelling food into their mouths, the soup was meant to be drunk from the bowl, not sipped from spoons, a fork was there to stop the meat from squirming too much while being cut or stabbing into a salad or other bite-sized pieces of food.
Cold drinks are meant to be chugged for maximum refreshment and hot drinks are for warming up in a cold day or to time a conversation, when they learned that you only sip from the teacup twice or thrice to make the others around at ease and was not meant to be for enjoying the tea itself, or that alcoholic drinks were to toast and hold in hand and are not to be drunk unless in privacy, or in such cases as a toast, again the container must not be finished in a social setting.
Food was to be eaten slowly, in small doses and not to eat to full, if you are hungry eat before or after the meal not during the meal. The utensils that are set up on either side of the plate are meant to be used by the hand on the corresponding side for the right-handed, reverse for left-handed, smiling is not a friendly gesture nor is scowling aggressive, words are not meant to be literal, emotions are to be faked and poker faces were forbidden and true faces are even more so. Lies and deception are as common as talking about the weather, trying to gain benefits is a must with every meeting, your friends are meant to be there for when you need them, your true friends can never be introduced to the community, servants are just a bit higher than bugs and commoners are lower than s.h.i.t, being nice to a servant is being a gentleman, and being nice to a commoner is an obligation, so many rules and regulations to learn and endless practice to learn and fail over and over again.
Although it went fast by any standards, Yunan and the boys had to study for 3 months just to be given a pa.s.sing grade while the girls were natural at it and only needed a single month to master the intricacies of the etiquette. Once everyone was allowed to leave the training hall, they uniformly marched into the back garden and every single one of the 15 of partic.i.p.ated in a most vulgar and outright uncivilised conversation one had the fortune or misfortune to hear. Three months of acting all nice and proper got even leader to curse and join such an unscrupulous conversation, while lady Mito only giggled as she watched, being prim and proper was a stressful thing and she just made the most free of parties out there act stuck up for three months, her revenge was already taken and thus she decided to let them vent out their pent up emotions.