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At the gentle correction Earako cringed in guilt before picking up the napkin in front of her and spreading it carefully on her lap. A dark scowl at her Da' had him doing the same thing. She would not let him be bad. Not tonight. It wasn't that her Da' wasn't perfect, in his way. But he was... not a gentleman.

"Ma'am?" she asked, her voice, as ever, gentle and quiet, nearly a whisper. "What's the lady like thing to do with wings? I should keep them folded, right?"

Hopefully, she wouldn't get in too much trouble for asking a question. As for the food, she didn't touch it, watching to see what the others did before navigating the dangerous unknown of cutlery.

"Too long," Michael replied, smirking again. "We must arrange to get our young ones together more often."

Parody again, an attempt at what he imagined someone raised with these sort of manners might sound like. Still, his easy manner allowed him to pull it off rather well.

Eyeing his food, he hesitated. None of it looked particularly familiar. Salad and some sort of weird soup, couldn't they have a nice, normal steak?

Oh the poor thing! Upon hearing Earko's question Madeline suddenly became embarrassed. She hadn't been expecting this sort of question...what a wonderful girl, the teacher was thoroughly impressed. Now, to come up with a satisfactory answer to such an intelligent question. "Besides an excellent question Earako, the answer is yes. Truthfully you won't ever find such a problem listened in any manners book you read. However, I would assume it is only polite to the other guests to let them have their space. Your wings are so large and lovely, if you opened them it might crowd the poor guest next to you--Keivlos you do not use a fork to eat soup!"

On from one problem to the next. "However..." she glanced down at the two males whom so far had been having the most problems. "It seems you did right, soup spoon is your largest spoon. Desert spoon, on the inside is smallest...the one in the middle is for the main course. Each set of utensils is set like this, working your way from the outside in when you eat. Oh, and please everyone do not use the napkin to whipe your mouth like a trucker, gently dab at your lips should they become dirty. Which, I hope they shouldn't ...small bites. "

A quick smile and she demonstrated with her own soup, just what a small bite was. So dainty, then again she had been doing this for years. "Ana! NEVER take a sip ouf your drink when zhere is food in your mouth!" the tone and slight accent in Madeline’s voice suggested the chameleon had committed a deadly sin. "And please dear...don't butter your bread in one large chunk, break off a peace and then butter it. Nibblez! Nibblez!"

"Oh, and Anoki dearest," The teacher tried to take her blood pressure back down a couple of notches speaking just fine again, "If you are lost, take a hint from the hostess...one should watch their hostess for a cue of when to begin, or wait for her to allow them to eat. In this case I was testing you, but at a real party, do take note."

Earako relaxed after recieving the teacher's instructions, her wings ceasing their restless, confused adjustments and settling neatly against her back. The teacher's compliment wasn't lost on her, colour showed up brightly against her stark white skin, and she smiled with a hint of shyness. Her wings were a pride, like her carefully designed clothes. Maybe she was pale and colourless and boring, but she could at least create something interesting to look out.

Glad to have some instruction on how to eat, she made an attempt at the salad, picking up the most outside fork, and spearing a bit of her meal. Chewing carefully, and making sure to keep her mouth closed, she quickly decided that she wasn't a fan of salad, something they never had at home. So what did someone do if they didn't like the food? Pushing at it with her fork without attempting to eat more, she decided the soup and bread might be a safer bet.

Big spoon first. Right.

Michael watched his daughter with a hint of pride, the smirk he wore giving way to a more gentle smile. As disinterested in the whole thing as he might be, he still adored the girl, a fact that sometimes got lost in the chaos of dragon scratched furniture and jealous younger sisters.

He ate almost absently, using the right spoon for her sake, but showing no real interest in the meal. Maybe the next course would be more... normal.

"M-mist?" Another odd question. The teacher raised her hand to her head and rubbed vigorously at her temples before she actually realized what she was doing. That probably didn't leave a good impression on Chath. The children seemed nervous enough as it was. Yet...how do you answer such an odd-- oh never mind. Clearing her throat she nodded at the young boy. "Why yes, any and all personal needs should be taken care of privately. That was very thoughtful of you to ask Chath. The bathroom is down the hall..." she nodded off to the right and then watched as he excused himself from the table.


Oh dear...what next? She was suddenly so perplexed that she didn't feel like correcting the children about eating their salad. Right fork...wrong method. You scoop salad, scoop! Don't stab at it like some cave man. So the meal continued on rather uneventfully except for the occasional squawk from the far side of the table. Madeline glared at her son. He was probably the one child who could ruin this whole meal and the one that needed schooling the most. In fact, she had held this class mainly for his benefit (if not to bring more culture to D-corp). Why? Why was Keivlos such a special child.

Upon seeing that the children were finishing with their appetizers she called for dinner to be brought on. Hmmn, not bad they had all at least sampled everything and..."Anoki, you certainly have an appetite for salad." Madeline was not scolding him, in fact she was happy. " Children these days don't get enough greens, I'm pleased to see you do..." she paused as the first dish was placed on the table, chicken breast with peach glaze...a fair amount of grilled stake, tomatoes with fresh mozzarella...lots of rice dishes, some good pasta. She had needed a large selection. Appetizers were one thing, but all these children had such different diets. "Help yourselves, " Madeline offered, "But remember no reaching...you must ask your neighbors to pass you the dish you wish!" Hopefully this would inspire talk among the quiet children. After all it was good to have a bit of light dinner conversation.

"Moroccan Couscous, Michael? Ms. Raven?" She had noted some tensions earlier...maybe food would lighten the tone. "You know, it's really great to see a father taking interest in his daughters activities." She added flashing the father a smile. As far as she knew, most of the parents at D-corp were female, it was refreshing to see a dad. "And Ms. Raven, I must say you have the best posture I have ever seen."

Real food! Reassured that she wouldn't spend the entire night starving, she reached for the steak, which was luckily well within a polite reach. Serving herself, she was slightly disappointed to see it wasn't as rare as she would have liked. Da' said she liked her meat best still on the cow. A silly thing to stay, but still, no one ever served it quite rare enough.

Having obtained the most important part of the main course, she scanned the other options. Rice wasn't that bad, and she wanted to be polite. Still she didn't know what everything was called. "Anoki? May I try some of the stuff that's by you, please?"

There, that had sounded polite, hadn't it? But it really was kinda quiet, and she hadn't seen Anoki since they got their eggs. Surely it was alright to talk a little. "You look very nice tonight. I like your tie."

That was the sort of thing that polite people said, wasn't it? She did her best to make it sound natural, smiling and reminding herself that she was a lady.

What the hell was Morroccan Couscous? No hope for it though. If he dared refused, Earako would spend the whole night sulking. Even if she had gotten away with barely touching her salad. "Co-- I would love to try some."

Biting his tongue to remind himself that his near casual utterance of 'cool' would also leave him with an angry daughter, he painted on a smile. "Thank you. Earako is so--" he paused, searching for the words he wanted, "So feminine, that it's difficult sometimes for me to know what she needs. She was very excited about this class."

Madeline couldn't help but beam as she watched Ana pass her neighbor his food. It was cute. He could have reached, but everyone seemed to be trying their best at dinner tonight. Ah, such an awkward age...someday they would get the hang of everything.


Speaking of awkward ages, the tone in Michael's voice suggested he was having a hard time dealing with his daughters current interests and hobbies. "Well Earako seems to be very happy right now, it seems that you are doing a wonderful job."

Turning back to Raven, "Ah, I was hoping someone would enjoy it. I wasn't quite sure if any of the students would find it...appealing at this age. However, I felt it was best to expose them to different culinary experiences. Oh and Michael--" The blonde flipped her head back towards the father, "I could be wrong, but I have a feeling as Earako grows she'll began to partake in less feminine interests. Little girls sometimes-- " she smiled, "They go threw these phases."


It seemed as if all was going well, everyone was having a moderately good time, the children were learning manners, and the adults were socializing. However, at the end of the table lay one irate and growingly agitated raven. Keivlos stared darkly at his food...disgusting. What was that green stuff? Where was the red...where was the dead? Weary dark circled eyes switched back and forth from one side of the room to the other, and he began to pull and tug at his feathers. Pieces of his dark and beautifully tattered wings floated down into untouched soup. Silent. The room was abuzz with talk...but to him it was silent. The moments slipped by until the child couldn't take it anymore. "REEEEED! " he screamed out, as he grabbed a bowl of spaghetti sauce and chucked it at Anoki's head.


Madeline flinched as she heard the sound of food flying through the air, and then again as some French Onion soup flew at Michael's head...then again as a plate of rice made it Chat's way. In the pit of her stomach that horrible sinking sensation rose..."K-keivlos no!" Oh, but it was too late.

If he hadn't thrown the spaghetti sauce first, Keivlos's second attack might have hit its mark. As it was, Michael had some slight warning of what was become, and street trained reflexes took over. Reaching up, he slapped the bowl of soup back in the direction of the raven, getting splashed in the process, but succeeding in changing the path of the bowl.

If he was supposed to be upset, the raven had failed, for the first time of the night he was genuinely amused, laughing roughly at the chaos the little raven had created and doing his very best not to burst into applause. This was so much better than trying to make conversation with Raven. He liked the species better than the woman, that much was clear.

Intent mostly on the compliment of her dress and not nearly so fast as her father, nor as aware of her surroundings, Earako stared in shock as Chath, who sat on her left, got attacked with rice. And as if that weren't enough, the boy's reaction to it sent her drink toppling into her lap, liquid splashing onto her pristine dress and wetting the dark fabric.

Jumping backward, she knocked over her chair and stood dripping, glaring pure murder at the raven from behind her dark glasses.

And then... she shrieked. And here, it should be noted (as she often forgot) that while she spoke in a whisper, she screamed like a bat, creating a high pitched penetrating sound, nearly painful to hear. It bounced off the walls, bringing hints of images back to her ears. But those didn't matter now. What mattered was her ruined dress.

Her ruined dinner, and it'd been so perfect.

Far too involved in his meal and trying to remember which fork to use, Anoki was blissfully unaware of his surroundings. He didn't even look up when the raven shrieked, assuming it was something the teacher would handle.

Then a bowl of bright red sauce fell on his head, and that he DID notice.

Luckily the bowl had smashed against his horns, so instead of a possible concussion there was only some mild dizziness. He was, however, dripping with smashed tomatoes and broken glass. Too stunned to do anything but look around in confusion, he saw the other chaos and winced.

If the raven had flung anything towards Raven, the bird would have found his namesake far more easily angered. As it was, drops of sauce and soup splattered against her clothes. Horrified, she jumped up and backed away, mentally searching for a cleaning spell. It was a mistake to come, after all.

Earako's screaming made them both cover their ears, but Anoki also closed his eyes. This proved to me a bad move, as someone crashed into him, bringing them both to the floor. Fortunately he wasn't trapped under the other person for long, but he was still very soggy, slightly nicked from the broken bowl, and extremely addled. Finally the ibex decided that the best move would be to stay on the floor until things settled.