Hey Jude (we're sorry)

[magicademynpcs]

Who: Jude and Professor Trammel.
Where: Professor Trammel's office.
When: Around Now
What: Etiquette lessons.
Warnings: Politeness.



Professor Trammel's office is impeccable, classy, stylish, and completely unrevealing. No one who stepped into it ever came out feeling like the decor had taught them anything about the Professor, including whether or not that effect is intentional. Nonetheless, it welcomes, and rather than a seat behind his desk, Professor Trammel takes one opposite Jude so it's more like a sitting room than an inquisitorial affair.

"What I need to know to start with is two things. What is the meaning of etiquette to you, and why do you wish to learn it?"

Comments

now the song is in my head

[daughterofclay]

Jude is nervous, which is stupid -- she has consorted with kings and queens, foiled assassinations, ruled an entire kingdom for most of a year, for God's sake.

But those are things she's had to do. She doesn't have to come here, doesn't have to humble herself, doesn't have to ask for help. Even though the stakes are so small, it's nerve-wracking. She has to force herself to keep her hands still in her lap; her back is ramrod-straight, and the tension in her shoulders could hold up the Golden Gate Bridge.

She starts with the easier of the two questions: "I know it's important. Both here and back home, it's..." What? "It's a measure of how much one belongs."

Which is admitting, if indirectly, that she doesn't particularly belong anywhere. But then again, she's Sundered, so that much is obvious. She forces herself to look Trammel in the eye.

"Doing the right thing in the right way opens doors which would remain shut otherwise."