Domesticity: Easily Taught, Less Easily Learned

[iwhinny4dragons]

Sybil hadn't done much entertaining that was not a large party or female or both. Usually, both. Nor had she ever taken it upon herself to cook unsupervised, before, though it seemed silly to think she wouldn't be able to. She was quite good at a lot of things, really, though she did not advertise the fact. If cooking was anything like math

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[sir_samuel]

Sam was regretting agreeing to come already.

Not that he could have said no, not really, not with Sybil standing there looking both hopeful and determined when she had asked. It would be simple, she had promised, just the two of them, nothing to worry about, mother will be out - and yet, and yet, there were still the ridiculously overwhelming double-doors, and the wood floors so waxed and polished he could see his face in them, and the, well, mansion-ness of everything.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about this dinner business, either. This was a new step. To what he hadn't quite figured out yet.

He stood in the foyer where he had been let in to (by the kid, Willikins, thank gods, and he had even been comfortable enough to offer the kitchen boy a nervous smile), his helmet in his hand, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. He had done his best to clean up, shined his breastplate and everything, and that was something he hadn't tried in a while. He wondered how long he would have to wait. He wondered if he would be chased out by Lord Ramkin's ghost before Sybil got here.

He wondered if he should have brought flowers. Or something.

[iwhinny4dragons]

Sybil swallowed, but smiled graciously, forcing herself to slow to a more respectable pace as she came out from the doorway to the informal formal dining room (which was further toward the kitchen than the Formal formal dining room), and self consciously ran her hands over the front of the dress.

"Sam," she greeted. "Hello."

[sir_samuel]

Despite his fears he smiled brightly when he saw her. "Sybil." He shifted his helmet to one arm and scratched the back of his neck nervously. "How- how are you?"

There was some ettiquette to be followed here, he was most certain, but he had no idea even where to begin.

[iwhinny4dragons]

"Very well," she said, meaning it, now, and stepping a little closer, smiling at him, "thank you. Things have slowed since the funeral and everything, and the last of the family's gone home. You look-" She took in the polish and the other ways he'd clearly brushed up, and smiled more, if softly, and blushed a little.

[sir_samuel]

Sam blushed a bit and ducked his head. "You- you look nice," he told her, and then took her hand briefly and kissed her cheek, because it seemed like the right sort of thing to do.

[iwhinny4dragons]

"Thank you," she said, eyes closing briefly and a broader smile lighting her features when he kissed her cheek. She threaded her fingers with his, holding his hand for a prolonged moment.

"Well, it's just this way," she said, tugging him toward the first door to their left.

"How was the walk here?" she asked, because men of the Watch were not just ignored in the city as they had been but were being actively shunned. It had been a favorite topic over numerous dinners- the state of crime in the city and how very few streets there were, anymore, that were safe or respectable to live on.

The room they entered was not grand so much as palacial, in miniature. Not that miniature. The dining room table was about twenty feet long. There was a door at it's other end.

[sir_samuel]

He stuck his hands in his pockets immediately after, his head slighty ducked as he followed her to the dining room. "It was fine. I like walking." Both statements were true, even if they didn't hold what you would call the whole truth. He did like walking and it had been fine - he'd gotten there, hadn't he? But it hadn't been the most comfortable walk of Sam Vimes' existance.

He had never ventured beyond the foyer, of course, and wasn't sure what to expect. And what he did find in the Ramkin home startled him further.

The table was ridiculously long. Even in a quiet room you'd have to shout to hear from one end of it to the other. Despite his struggle not to, his eyes widened a little.

[iwhinny4dragons]

Sybil lead them through the far door and into a much smaller, differently decorated dining room. The table looked like it would happily seat perhaps eight. Their settings were at the corner of the table.

"How late can you stay?" she asked, moving around to her seat, leaving the head of the table for Sam.

[sir_samuel]

Sam hesitated a little, and then sat there, uncertainly and awkwardly. This room was at least comfortable, but there was something unmistakably grand about it that made him feel out of place, and he could not help shifting in his seat a little.

"I've got tonight off," he told her with a sheepish sort of grin. "So no worry about the time."

[iwhinny4dragons]

"Oh!" Sybil gasped, smiling brightly. "You were in uniform, so I'd assumed- Oh, that's lovely." Willikins took that as his cue to bring out a very fine bottle of wine and a tray with two impractically attractive soups on them. The contents were somewhat simpler- mushroom soup, nothing fancy, in actual fact, save that the mushrooms it was made with was perhaps of a higher quality than some. She thanked him, and he nodded once, retreating to the kitchen.

[sir_samuel]

Sam smiled sheepishly again and shrugged. The truth of the matter was that he spent so much time in his Watch uniform lately that that was what he thought of when he dressed in the morning. And cleaned up a little it was the closest thing to formal clothes he had.

[iwhinny4dragons]

It was the sheepish smile that made Sybil decide she would get him talking- really talking, telling her about anything she could- by the time dinner was done.

Sybil rarely didn't accomplish her goals.

When Willikins announced the duck, it sounded awfully, well, posh, but the reality was, of course, substantially less than. It wasn't seared and rare on the inside, it wasn't particularly delicate. It certainly wasn't good cuisine, but it certainly edible. She blushed over it a bit, because she knew it wasn't good, but Sam, of course, made her feel as though she couldn't have done a better job. The meal was finished with a small palette cleanser or mint sorbet.

The thing you did after dinner was take drinks in the parlor, as far as Sybil knew, so they did. She looked over the assorted bottles with, not quite dismay, but a certain lack of understanding.

"I have no idea what any of these are," she said, "they all just look like tea." Amber liquid, to someone who drank, was so much more than simply amber liquid. But Sybil only drank the small tasting glasses of liqueur she was given at formal occasions, and so had never bothered with the stuff.

[sir_samuel]

It was true. Sybil's goals were always met with success, somehow or other. And so Sam did find himself talking - not about anything in particular, or even anything very serious, but he grumbled about work, and talked about his mum, and laughed, and found himself feeling genuinely comfortable in the enormous, grand house.

Sybil had that effect on people. More importantly, Sybil had that effect on him.

He barely noticed the food, whether it was good or bad - Sybil had made it, and he really didn't mind the crispy bits, and the dinner wasn't really the point anyway, so that was all right. He smiled through dinner, and made fun of the sorbet, and laughed some more.

Sam followed her to the parlor, and despite the settled comfort, stood a little uncertain and wide-eyed near the door as he stared at the finely furnished room. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Sam didn't drink very often - his mother wouldn't have Approved - and the times he had it certainly hadn't been of the variety and quality of the Ramkin liquor cabinet.

[iwhinny4dragons]

She smiled back at him.

"Well, I don't really know- Oh," she said, as a thought struck her, and she moved to the grand desk in the corner. It was several hundred years old. It looked it, in the way it looked expensive. She went into one of the drawers.

"Here we are," she said, because she knew Sam smoked, and also knew that he didn't smoke very good tobacco. It was one thing she did have a nose for- the difference between cigarettes and cigars. She lifted a box of the latter out of the the drawer, which she closed and headed back over to Sam.

"If not a proper drink, I can at least offer you a cigar."

[sir_samuel]

Sam blinked a few times down at the box, and then looked back up at Sybil. "Oh. I, well-" He bit his lip sheepishly. "Are you sure they won't be missed or anything?"

It only occured to him after he said it that the person that would miss the cigars was, well, no longer in a state to do so.

[iwhinny4dragons]

She shook her head, smiling.

"No, no one in the house smokes," she said.