Manners Matter

[Vanellope]

Well. The pony bursting into song certainly wasn't what Vanellope had been expecting. The little glitched girl snorted with barely contained laughter at the absurdity of it all as Pinkie bounded back and forth across the room, singing at the top of her voice. Nine-year-old wasn't even going to say anything, for once; she was more interested in seeing what the two males' reactions would be. Before she could really focus on settling back to enjoy the show, however, Vanellope found the pony colliding with her. On instinct, she recoiled in her seat; back home, anyone touching her was a bad thing because it was usually one of the other racers shoving or hitting her. Almost instantly, however, she realised that her reaction had been unfounded; the pink pony was simply grinning at her.

"It's Vanellope," she replied, before almost immediately asking "D'you always break out into song like that?" The glitch folded her arms across her chest, returning the pony's attention with some interest of her own. Truthfully, Vanellope didn't think she'd been looking sad, but she didn't feel the inclination to contradict Pinkie on that right then.

(I feel this post is sub-par somehow, but I couldn't think of how Vanellope ought to react to Pinkie; well, hope it's not too bad, anyway)

[Sync]

Sync quirked an eyebrow at Pinkie's reaction, and he could hardly keep himself from taking a step back when she got in his face. His not having friends was equatable to an emergency in the pink pony's eyes? Someone ought to have told the one who'd been training him and drilling in the notion that the world hated him all his life. Then, Pinkie burst into song and he was left equally speechless. Singing pony. Singing about something as worthless as friendship, at least to him. He hardly knew what to make of it, really. However, he did like Vanellope's line of thinking from before Pinkie had burst into song. If he hadn't been dead set on fighting until someone got lucky enough to kill him, he might have considered taking the kid under his wing. As it was, though, Sync didn't think that would be a good idea.

When Pinkie was finished singing, Sync just stared for a few moments before his normal expression of contempt reappeared on his face. First he was taking the dumb class in the first place, and now he had to deal with a fellow fire circle member who seemed dead set on making him smile? Well, that wasn't going to happen. Sync hardly ever smiled... Unless smirking counted, in which case he would just continue to do that much. For the moment, though, the greenie wasn't impressed.

"You're really dead set on this whole 'friendship' thing, aren't you?"

As for the manners, he still thought the class was worthless. Manners getting him respect... The idea in and of itself was laughable at best.

"I don't need friendship, and I don't need manners to get me respect. If I can hold my own in a fight, that's all that matters," he stated.

[Vlad Masters]

Oh the urge to smack the kid was getting harder and harder to contain. Vlad rubbed his temples hoping to figure out a way to get these children to make sense. "It seems to me that Miss Pinkie Pie is the only one who can show any sort of respect to anyone." he muttered, and then he heard Sync's comment. He turned around and faced the boy. "Well then, if you think this class is so useless, why don't you give me a three page paper on you would teach this class. Due...let's say tomorrow morning." he said with a smirk before turning to Vanellope. Great. Another smart-aleck, just what he needed.

"So, I guessing you would rather not be in this class. Mrs." he looked at his roll-sheet. "Von Schweetz?" he tapped his hand on his knees. "Tell me then, what do you think this class is about."

[Pinkie Pie]

"D'you always break out into song like that?"

"Um...yes! Wait...sometimes..." The female hoped her song worked but looking over at Sync but he didn't seem to smile. Pinkie's ears drooped. Everyone smiled...even Cranky Doodle Donkey. Her lip quivered, showing off big blue eyes.

"I don't need friendship, and I don't need manners to get me respect. If I can hold my own in a fight, that's all that matters."

"But...everyone needs friendship...it...it's magic!" She turned to Vlad. "If you don't have friends how are you going to be invited to all those fancy shmancy parties?"

[Vanellope]

"Hey, if I didn't wanna be here, I wouldn't be," blunt response was blunt, but Vanellope didn't really care. She was used to going more or less wherever she wanted - at least when King Candy and the other kids were busy being real racers - and was fully prepared to keep doing the same thing here. "I don't figure I got much use for being taught how to behave at parties I never get invited to because everyone hates me, but hey, I might as well learn." She plucked at the end of her tie nonchalantly, mostly for something to do with her hands since she had no pockets to stuff them into. The comment had been delivered completely casually; Vanellope wasn't fishing for friendships or reassurance, and in fact if anyone tried to offer them, she would have been extremely uncomfortable. She was quite simply stating what, for her, was little more than a fact of life.

Still, she might learn something here. Maybe. Vanellope wasn't even sure what she was after from this class; mostly, it had just sounded interesting enough for her to want to check out.

[Blitz]

Entering the classroom, Blitz glanced down at the schedule in his hand before raising his eyes to the chalkboard to see the name 'Professor Masters' neatly written there. So he was in the right class then. Blitz had never taken a class of any kind a day in his (admittedly rather short) life, much less attended a school. Early on, all he knew was that schools and academies were places human kids seemed to hate and had to spend time at nearly every day of the week.

He wasn't sure what to expect here today. Was this going to be like an obedience class then? If so, then he could get behind that. He didn't know how to feel about having to take a charm and etiquette class either. After all, he already had charm... didn't he? But if that was the case, then why didn't Colleen the other Rovers like him more?

Rows of desks and chairs had been set up here already, and he took his seat, glancing around with a mixture of uncertainty and wariness. The teacher, Professor Masters, a human wearing a ponytail, sat at the front of the room at his own desk facing the sea of seats. Looking at the other three students there, the doberman recognized the green-haired disagreeable teen as being in the Fire Circle with him. The other two students were a little pink... pony and a little human girl. The pony's outfit identified her as being yet another Fire Circle member.

[Vlad Masters]

Vlad nodded, pleased and surprised that Pinkie seemed to be the only one that actually knew how this class would be run. "Very good Miss Pinkie Pie, you keep up that attitude and knowledge, you may be the only one to pass this class." he turned his attention back to Vanellope. "What makes you think that you will never be invited to a party like the ones I am describing?" he shook his head. "You are all still young. It might take time but I can assure that I will teach you to the best of my ability." He could only hope that the class wouldn't make his brain explode

[Sync]

He quirked an eyebrow at Pinkie's question. Parties? Him? The two would never mix, and he never expected them to. So, he shrugged again. Pinkie would have been blown away knowing the kind of life he lived, and he chose to keep his past as tightly wrapped as he could possibly make it. There was no reason he should ever fill her in even if they did happen to be from the same circle. They were just too opposite for him to see getting along in any kind of environment, much less as friends. Besides, he'd said it himself. He didn't need friends. Garbage didn't deserve friends when it could just be thrown away as easily as he had been.

"Never been invited to parties, and I don't think anyone's going to start now. That's the way I like it, anyway. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the most party oriented guy. My instructor back home never thought I needed that sort of environment," Sync said. At length, what Vlad had told him sank in. He had to do a paper on manners? That sucked. Big time.

There was no way Sync was doing that paper. So, he just gave a wave of his hand to acknowledge he'd heard that much instruction and decided to blow it off when it came time to do the work. Who really cared if he did the stupid paper? He'd probably be dead by Friday, anyway, so it didn't matter what he did in the classes.

Vlad's question regarding Vanellope's statement struck a cord in Sync. He snickered a little and shook his head. Boy did these people have a lot to learn.

"See, people like me and this kid here? We don't get invited to parties. That's the feeling I get from looking at her, anyway. Besides, why would we want to go to parties? We probably could find better things to do."

[Vanellope]

"Ah, the fact that I'm the reject of my game and everyone else says I wasn't even supposed to exist, maybe?" Vanellope scowled, a ripple of blue code running from her toes to her skull in time with her irritation; she hardly even noticed it. She was getting tired of the teacher's insistance that she needed what he had to teach. She was here, she was ready to listen; wasn't that good enough? Why did it make such a difference to him whether she actually ever used anything he told them or not? Before she could voice any of this, however, the boy whose hair colour suggested he might be some distant relative of Candlehead's spoke up. The glitched girl looked up at him, nodding her own agreement. He was pretty much spot-on, as far as Vanellope was concerned. Once he had finished speaking, however, she turned her attention back to the professor.

"Look, I'm willing t' listen to what you have to teach; just stop tryin' to convince me that I'll ever need it an' start teaching already." Who knew, there might even be something she could use come from it, even outside of the context of posh parties that she wouldn't attend even if she had the choice.

[Vlad Masters]

Vlad was doing his best to maintain his urge to smack all of the students with the exception of Pinkie Pie. So far the dog hadn't done any harm to him and Vlad nodded a greeting to the next student. "Very well. Let's begin then shall we?" he asked, before turning to the board not bothering to see if the other students had bothered to take their seats. "As I stated at the beginning, my name is Professor Masters. This is Manners class." he stood in front of the class. "The importance of this class is to learn how to interact with each other and members of the upper class, weather you think you need it or not." he glanced at Vanellope and Sync as he said this. "Before I begin, i shall be passing around your textbook. You, as students shall be required to read a chapter a night to prepare for this class."

He started to pass out a book to the classmates in it. "Now, this is the first day, so I shall go easy on you. Today, you shall be writing at least one page of paper introducing yourself to me as well as you can. This will not be graded on, it will just give me a chance to know all of you as indivisuals." he tapped his desk with his finger. "Now, just because this won't be graded doesn't mean you can't be lazy. I expect everyone of you to turn in a page by the end of class or i shall give you an extra assignment." 

[Vanellope]

Well, lucky her.

Vanellope flicked through the textbook she had just been handed, not really paying attention to any of its contents. Instead, she was trying to think about the assignment in question. What could she even write? She certainly wasn't going to say anything about how she was a mistake and a glitch, not when she'd actually found a place where people didn't seem to think of her in those terms for once. But she wasn't sure what else to write. Those were, after all, the terms that had defined her life so far. She couldn't even mention that she was a video game character from a land of candy; she was sure Professor Masters wouldn't take that seriously.

"Hey," she leant in Sync's direction, gesturing to get his attention and shifting to be a couple of seats closer to him. True, she didn't know much about the boy; but he seemed to be of a like mind to her from what she could tell, so she could only assume that he would have similar trouble with the assignment. Maybe they could help each other, the candy-haired girl thought. "I'm guessing you don't have a clue what to write either, huh?"

[Sync]

Lovely.

Sync barely spared the text book he'd been handed a glance before groaning audibly at the instructions of writing something about himself. Vlad had to be joking about that much. However, it didn't appear that he was and they were actually going to have to do this. The green-haired teen rolled his eyes and retrieved a piece of paper from his admittedly crappy looking book bag. His instructor hadn't gone to any great expense to make sure he was prepared for the school, and Sync hadn't cared to spend any extra money on himself if he didn't have to. The way he saw things, he'd be dead before long anyway. There was little point in actually caring about his belongings of what they looked like.

Now, though, Sync was faced with a dilemma. He stared at the sheet in front of him and scowled a bit before long. For all his talk before, the teen was struggling to find the right words to describe himself. Flat out saying he was a useless piece of garbage would be questionable at best, and at worst he might get sent to some psychoanalyst or something. There was no way in hell he would admit anything about his thoughts on himself, even if they had been projected in his attitude toward life and everything around him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Vanellope trying to get his attention. Normally Sync wouldn't have bothered, but the kid did seem sort of like him and he seemed to have pegged her pretty accurately with his earlier statement. So, he looked back and listened as she asked her question. It didn't take him long to nod a bit in response.

"Yeah. I have this opinion of myself, and Paulie Perfect there probably won't like what I have to say about myself," Sync admitted. Whether or not Vanellope asked for his life story wasn't his problem. He didn't expect the kid to be terribly interested in what he thought about himself, especially when they were from different circles, but if she did he couldn't stop her.

[Vanellope]

"He's not even going to believe what I have to say about myself." Vanellope had fished a pen from her own tattered-looking bag and was turning it over between her fingers, a frown on her face. "The place I come from's nothing anyone here would call normal. He'd think I was makin' it all up." She didn't elaborate any further than Sync had with his own statements. After all, a world where everything was made of candy and kids were kart racers? Who'd ever believe that?

She was actually much more interested in what Sync himself had said than in going into detail about Sugar Rush, however. "What sort of opinion of yourself?" she enquired innocently enough, shifting position so that she was kneeling on her seat with her elbows propped up on the desk in front of her. She was curious as to what someone like this guy would think of themselves; and besides, listening to him would pospone her having to figure out how to explain her own life in believable terms, even if the reprive would only be temporary.

[Sync]

Admittedly, Sync was rather surprised that Vanellope would want to know at all. Her question sounded so... Innocent. She didn't know the kind of life he'd led, nor did she know how much he despised his own existence, so of course she would ask. A smirk formed on his face as he began to tap the eraser end of his pencil against the desk for a moment. Should he tell her the full story? Probably not; a little kid hearing how he was essentially looking to get himself killed might not go over well. So, Sync decided to try a different tactic in explaining himself.

"The sort of opinion that goes along the lines of 'I have no purpose in life'. That's why I'm looking forward to the fights, kid. At least then I can put myself to use for a little while," Sync said. That seemed better than calling himself a useless puppet, a tool to be thrown away when he'd outlived his usefulness, and a piece of trash. He did need to explain the latter part of his statement, he guessed, and so he would.

"All I'm good at is fighting. It's what I've been trained for ever since I could remember. ...What about you?"

He didn't know why he was interested in Vanellope's opinion of herself, but he kind of was. Strange...

[Vanellope]

"Me?" Vanellope supposed it was only fair; she'd asked Sync about him, so he'd want to know about her in return. Still, the little glitch hadn't really expected him to care, judging by his earlier attitudes. Maybe he didn't care and was just being polite; though his distain for manners in general made that seem equally unlikely. At length, after a debate with herself on how much he'd actually believe, the girl spoke again.

"I don't know," she confessed, returning to fiddling with her pen as she thought. "I mean, everyone back home says that I'm a mistake and wasn't even meant to exist. I've never heard anything else." She wasn't sure why she was even telling Sync any of this. She barely knew him. And he certainly wasn't the most reassuring figure she could have imagined confiding in; but there was something about his manner that drew her in, made her feel as though he wouldn't care enough to judge her. "I wanta believe they're wrong; I'm sure I'm a racer... like, you know, everyone else is back home. But until I can prove that... I don't really have any purpose either," she confessed, shrugging.


(ooc: if you don't mind me asking, I'm kinda curious now; what's Sync actually from?)