Who made me Penelope Judith?

3. The noble etiquette

I don't really call that living. It almost sounds sad. Who does she think she is, Wednesday Addams??

As a child all I wished to do was build a snowman with my parents but I couldn't risk catching a cold or it could've worsened my condition...Penelope never even tried it despite having a perfectly fine body!

Penelope you ungrateful little noble...It almost sounds pathetic living like that. She sure was organized and demonstrated some brains there, but who does that at 8 years old?

The good thing was that thanks to her harsh efforts, the etiquette was easy for me. If her soul vacated this body and mine replaced it, her reflexes still dwelled in. When her horrible dance teacher tested my abilities to dance and I mentally freaked because I never did anything even close to moving rhythmically in my life, it turned out okay. The body remembered the steps and it wasn't too hard getting the hang of it afterwards. During my meals, my hand automatically went for the right forks despite their millions if different sizes. I didn't have to stay puzzled for long on which spoon was for soup and which for dessert.

It's a 12/10 for muscle memory.

The noble etiquette was so deeply imprinted into Penelope that there was no getting rid of it.
I knew how to curtsey perfectly, I had good table manners. The only thing that I don't have the hang of yet was my tongue. I didn't act naturally like Penelope. I didn't speak the same way. That was no longer important since I intend on changing her whole dialogue now.

I stifled a yawn as the teacher was dragging Roselia across the room for the uptenth, making her twirl and swirl in a ball gown. She was less performant in her dancing than Penelope, well me now. I couldn't tell which were her missteps since I know nothing about dance, I just follow what Penelope's agile body tells me to do when the music starts, but I could tell they were frequent, judging from how her face was twisting up and down.

(Despite her having said that she will not wear the low made bracelet in front of other people, I could see the green braided craft was still on her wrist. Roselia, you like that bracelet don't you...)

"Very disappointing, miss Roselia." The teacher grunted, an old lady with a sharp yet hoarse at a time voice, silver hair pulled into a bun, and wrinkled skin. Her eyes were piercing and her mouth was always twisted in some sort of distaste towards us, her students. "I thought I asked for you to practice your steps more often!"

Roselia looked down, I could tell she was very annoyed by the way she was clenching her fist. At least she's not crying. She seems too proud to cry.

Nobody in my old world would even expect such a young child to dance this way unless she's a prodigy like Diana.

Diana, I wonder what you're doing right now...

~•~•~•~

Diana twirled around the coins that the nobles had given her. Her mouth still retained the taste of the hot chocolate from the other day at the festival of Obelia. She was lying on her back on her makeshift bed on a large carriage meant for dance troupe transportations, just deep in thought and twirling over and over the coins in her hands. Sometimes she'd grunt as one the carriage tripped a bit.

'I want to dance...' She thought out of nowhere.

They had kept telling her that she was a great, talented dancer. The master also told her that, like every other lady in the dance troupe too.

'But I don't feel that good.'

She liked to dance. A lot. When she dances everything becomes idle, nothing mattered anymore. She was in her own world, free to be herself. Dancing for money seemed wrong...
The master said it himself though, she generated a lot of profit. There weren't many who could dance this way at such a young age.