A Lady’s Training
“Mitsuha, why are you so ungraceful?” Sabine uttered out of the blue.
“What the heck…?”
Mitsuha and Sabine were having a perfectly ordinary conversation on the third floor of Mitsuha’s General Store when Sabine popped the question.
“Honestly, I’ve been thinking that for a while.”
“A while?! That’s quite a thought you’ve been sitting on all this time!”
She’s really having a go at me, isn’t she…
“Whether you’re in public or eating with me in private, you’re always so…ungraceful. You can’t even dance, and there’s no care in the way you carry yourself.”
“Grk!”
“I suppose you can feign it well enough that people don’t think you’re a commoner. But you obviously haven’t been taking your schooling as a proper lady seriously.”
“Urgh…”
Well, duh. I’m a pure common thoroughbred, commonest of the commoners. Of course I haven’t had any etiquette training. All I’m doing is mimicking what I’ve seen in manga, novels, anime, movies, foreign dramas, and what I’ve read on the internet.
“I thought people were giving me a pass because they assumed the practices associated with ladylike behavior differ in my homeland.”
“It’s not what you’re doing that’s the problem. It’s that there’s no elegance to your motions. Every gesture should be intentional down to your fingertips. You lack core strength, and your posture is bad too. You’re good at crushing your opponents with words, but you don’t know how to maneuver someone with gentle persuasion. You can’t ride horses, and you don’t know how to fight or use a dagger. Well, I guess ladies from your country don’t need to learn self-defense techniques if they have a gun.
“And I heard about the rumors,” Sabine finished off, “that you don’t have a musical bone in your body!”
“Ouch!”
“You’re a princess. Why haven’t you received proper etiquette training? You’re not the daughter of a lowly concubine or a mistress of common background, right? You’re clearly knowledgeable and educated, and there’s not a scar on your clear skin─it’s not like you were trapped in a tower or abused.”
“Y-Yeah… I got along just fine with my parents and sibling…”
Sabine’s asking some real sensitive questions… She doesn’t normally pry into personal matters so aggressively.
“Then why don’t you have any proper etiquette as a lady?!” she huffed.
Oh─is she…worried about me?
“You’ll never find a husband this way! Actually, that’s not true… There are plenty of men who are dying to marry you because of your status as the Lightning Archpriestess, the princess of a powerful country, and a viscountess… But you’ll be ridiculed at parties and banquets─they’ll call you a barbarian with no manners. I mean, no one will say that to your face, but a handful of women are jealous of you. Women in high society are two-faced.”
“You haven’t even had your debutante ball yet, Sabine. How do you know so much?!”
“This is common sense! Something you seem to lack entirely!”
Wow, she’s actually angry. This must be a serious concern, then…
Which means… Uh-oh!
…And so Mitsuha began her lady’s training (crash course version). She brought Colette along so she wouldn’t have to suffer alone. This is for Colette’s future too, actually!
“Now turn! Focus! All the way to the tips of your fingers and toes!” the instructor commanded.
Rather than teach Mitsuha herself, Sabine brought a professional from the royal palace. She was apparently the person who oversaw Sabine’s etiquette training.
…Does she just want to drag me through the same pain she experienced?
“Says the person who dragged me into this!” Colette cried.
“Oh, did I say that out loud? Whoops.”
Colette was fuming.
Hang with me! There’s no way I could do this alone!
“No talking! Now turn! On your toes!”
How did I get myself into this?!