flavour of the day, rocky road, grapefruit, malt and some others
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: A Lot to Learn
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: masticate, Rocky Road #12: classroom/dojo, Grapefruit #28: in his shoes
Toppings/Extras: malt, fresh pineapple, whipped cream
Wordcount: 592
Summary: Isaac Prowse’s table manners leave a lot to be desired.
Notes: Before Isaac was quite so gentlemanly. Masticate: To grind or crush with or as if with the teeth in preparation for swallowing and digestion; to chew; as, “to masticate food”. Grapefruit PFAH: Ashdown : if I only had a heart. Pineapple: It’s enough to make kings and vagabonds/ Believe the very best.-“Can You Feel The Love Tonight”, Elton John. (Could not resist…)
“Hey, look,” Isaac said, picking up a lovingly-engraved silver fork and holding it up to the light. “Me an’ Charlie used to steal these.”
“Charlie and I,” Edward Ashdown corrected weakly, for lack of anything better to say.
Both of them were seated in the dining room of the seventeen-year-old Edward Ashdown’s townhouse; a bright room in which every single surface gleamed, a tiered and frosted ceiling shining down at them from above. A warm fire and some dim lanterns cast an apricot-tint to the sculpted white plaster with sharp, curved shadows flickering over their heads.
Ashdown was starting to think that perhaps even his wonderful self could not teach Isaac Prowse how to behave respectably. Occasionally it looked like there was a glimmer of hope, and then his newest employee would insist on showing him one of his own forks as though it were something worthy of note-adding the fact that he used to be a petty thief.
And with bad grammar.
Eyeing him meekly, Isaac put the fork down. His scruffy auburn hair had been shorn off when he’d first arrived and was beginning to grow again, making him look a little less odd, but he still looked out of place in the clothes he had been given. Every now and again he would unconsciously tug at the pristine white collar like a dog with its head stuck in a bucket.
All in all, not a hopeful start, but Ashdown had decided to make a conscious effort to be more patient with the street-born man. Even Ashdown couldn’t be totally unfeeling; Isaac had not had an easy life, and Ashdown only knew the very bare details of it.
Nonetheless, his table manners really could do with some improvement.
He stared, trying not to let his eyebrows twist as Isaac demolished the plateful of gently steaming food that had been brought out not so long ago.
“What?” Isaac asked around a mouthful of potatoes.
“Well… first of all, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Ashdown said, trying to sound helpful rather than appalled, “and don’t chew with your mouth open and… didn’t your mother teach you these things?”
“My mam died when I was three,” Isaac said with a shrug after swallowing his mouthful.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ashdown said carefully. “Who did you live with afterwards?”
“Brothers.”
“And didn’t they teach you?”
“Well,” Isaac appeared to think for a moment, “we didn’t really eat.”
At a total loss, Ashdown just watched as Isaac wolfed more food down. He was hardly the type of person to start weeping into his handkerchief for the sake of orphaned baby rabbits, but he was feeling the beginning twinges of sympathy. He wasn’t at all sure that he liked it, but it was hard not to.
Until his aide-to-be folded an entire piece of meat into his mouth without cutting it. Then Ashdown burst out: “That is disgusting.”
“No it isn’t,” Isaac insisted-or at least that’s what Ashdown thought he was insisting. It was rather hard to tell around the mouthful of turkey he was devouring. “It’s a natural process.”
“Natural? Not the way you’re doing it!”
He couldn’t even guess at what Isaac’s response to that was meant to be. It didn’t even sound like English.
“Last I heard, there wasn’t a carrot famine in London,” Ashdown continued scathingly, “though a shortage isn’t out of the question at the speed you’re going.”
Isaac rolled his eyes.
“What does it matter how I eat?”
“You have a lot to learn,” Ashdown sighed.
Title: A Lot to Learn
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: masticate, Rocky Road #12: classroom/dojo, Grapefruit #28: in his shoes
Toppings/Extras: malt, fresh pineapple, whipped cream
Wordcount: 592
Summary: Isaac Prowse’s table manners leave a lot to be desired.
Notes: Before Isaac was quite so gentlemanly. Masticate: To grind or crush with or as if with the teeth in preparation for swallowing and digestion; to chew; as, “to masticate food”. Grapefruit PFAH: Ashdown : if I only had a heart. Pineapple: It’s enough to make kings and vagabonds/ Believe the very best.-“Can You Feel The Love Tonight”, Elton John. (Could not resist…)
“Hey, look,” Isaac said, picking up a lovingly-engraved silver fork and holding it up to the light. “Me an’ Charlie used to steal these.”
“Charlie and I,” Edward Ashdown corrected weakly, for lack of anything better to say.
Both of them were seated in the dining room of the seventeen-year-old Edward Ashdown’s townhouse; a bright room in which every single surface gleamed, a tiered and frosted ceiling shining down at them from above. A warm fire and some dim lanterns cast an apricot-tint to the sculpted white plaster with sharp, curved shadows flickering over their heads.
Ashdown was starting to think that perhaps even his wonderful self could not teach Isaac Prowse how to behave respectably. Occasionally it looked like there was a glimmer of hope, and then his newest employee would insist on showing him one of his own forks as though it were something worthy of note-adding the fact that he used to be a petty thief.
And with bad grammar.
Eyeing him meekly, Isaac put the fork down. His scruffy auburn hair had been shorn off when he’d first arrived and was beginning to grow again, making him look a little less odd, but he still looked out of place in the clothes he had been given. Every now and again he would unconsciously tug at the pristine white collar like a dog with its head stuck in a bucket.
All in all, not a hopeful start, but Ashdown had decided to make a conscious effort to be more patient with the street-born man. Even Ashdown couldn’t be totally unfeeling; Isaac had not had an easy life, and Ashdown only knew the very bare details of it.
Nonetheless, his table manners really could do with some improvement.
He stared, trying not to let his eyebrows twist as Isaac demolished the plateful of gently steaming food that had been brought out not so long ago.
“What?” Isaac asked around a mouthful of potatoes.
“Well… first of all, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Ashdown said, trying to sound helpful rather than appalled, “and don’t chew with your mouth open and… didn’t your mother teach you these things?”
“My mam died when I was three,” Isaac said with a shrug after swallowing his mouthful.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ashdown said carefully. “Who did you live with afterwards?”
“Brothers.”
“And didn’t they teach you?”
“Well,” Isaac appeared to think for a moment, “we didn’t really eat.”
At a total loss, Ashdown just watched as Isaac wolfed more food down. He was hardly the type of person to start weeping into his handkerchief for the sake of orphaned baby rabbits, but he was feeling the beginning twinges of sympathy. He wasn’t at all sure that he liked it, but it was hard not to.
Until his aide-to-be folded an entire piece of meat into his mouth without cutting it. Then Ashdown burst out: “That is disgusting.”
“No it isn’t,” Isaac insisted-or at least that’s what Ashdown thought he was insisting. It was rather hard to tell around the mouthful of turkey he was devouring. “It’s a natural process.”
“Natural? Not the way you’re doing it!”
He couldn’t even guess at what Isaac’s response to that was meant to be. It didn’t even sound like English.
“Last I heard, there wasn’t a carrot famine in London,” Ashdown continued scathingly, “though a shortage isn’t out of the question at the speed you’re going.”
Isaac rolled his eyes.
“What does it matter how I eat?”
“You have a lot to learn,” Ashdown sighed.