Chapter Text
“Now remember, your highness; Proper posture for a lady is sitting up straight. What are some examples of improper posture?”
The young princess sighed, then grumpily gave a reply while thinking through the various sitting arrangements she’d done in the past; “...Sitting criss-crossed, laying down on it, sitting with your legs up on the back of the chair, standing on it, trying to sit on the arm, sitting on it backwards, leaning and balancing the chair, and…..sitting under it.”
The tall man nodded; “Yes yes, very good. And is there anything else?”
Though she knew what Kasey was implying, Gabby sorted through other answers she could give him; “Uuuum… Maybe….sitting on the chair sideways? Is that allowed?”
“No it isn’t, and you know very well what I-” The little princess interrupted; “Well why not?”
The butler then sighed as he re-stated a line that he’d said dozens of times to her by now. “It just isn’t- well, proper. Now if you’d please-”
“I think it should though. There’s plenty of reason to this one, Kasey.”
“Oh, ‘plenty of reason,’ you say? Just like how ‘standing on the chair is advantageous to a young girl because she can both stretch her legs and see any approaching threat before anyone else seated at the same time ?’ On what terms do you possibly define reason for sitting sideways, your highness?”
“If you think about it, you’ll understand; You’ve said that a proper posture for a girl on a horse is to ride side-saddle and not front-facing, even though it’s not as stable, right? Shouldn’t I sit the same way on a chair?”
“You’re missing an important part of the question.” Said the man, obviously tired. “Is a chair a member of the equine family?”
“The…what family?”
“Horse. Is the chair a horse. Also, you should know what equine means if you finished your reading yesterday- never mind. ”
“It’s…” Gabby searched for some kind of answer, but couldn’t think of anything at the moment. “No. No, it’s not a horse.”
“What a shame. Now back to the original matter; Is there any other seating arrangement you can think of that one would consider improper posture?”
Gabby stopped herself from rolling her eyes, and glanced back up at Kasey, knowing full well that he was referring to the most frequent pose she had trouble with, which happened to be the same one she’d been doing since he started talking;
“....Slouching?” She said reluctantly.
Kasey nodded,
“Yes, excellent guess. That happens to be the particular posture that you’re currently engaged in, isn’t it?”
“.....Perhaps.”
Gabby continued;
“Can I……
continue
to be engaged in it?”
“Please sit up, Gabby. We’ve been over this enough that I know you know that you shouldn’t.”
“But why-”
“Once again, it is because if you slouch often, it can come across as rude, lazy and generally uncivilized, but most importantly it ruins your back.”
The little girl groaned and sat up straight with her hands in her lap, then gave Kasey a gentle glare, if that were possible. “It really can’t be that bad. It’s a lot better than sitting up all the time.”
The man chuckled, and knelt down to her level. “Oh, you’d be surprised.” Gabby threw her hands up in frustration; “ You’d be surprised- it’s a lot comfier than it looks! I don’t suppose you’d know though, Kasey; I bet you’ve never slouched in your life!”
Kasey smiled, “What if I told you I’m speaking from experience?”
Gabby turned to him, surprised, “Huh? You mean your back’s all messed up from slouching when you were my age?”
“Oh, yes- it hurts your neck too. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have knelt down. It’ll be slightly difficult to stand up again.”
Gabby didn’t find that to be new news; “Oh, I already noticed that. You seem to have a little trouble getting up from sitting down sometimes, or bending down to get something. I think I’ve even heard you complain about your back hurting before, too.”
Though Kasey wasn’t very pleased to hear how observant the little princess was, he went on in hopes of making this a learning opportunity; “Yes, see? It’s all from slouching so much in my youth. So unless you want to grow up with a back like mine, You should always remember to-”
“I knew about it” Little Gabby interrupted again; “-But I just thought that it was because you were old.”
Kasey started to get up in a bit of outrage, but Gabby just jumped out of her chair and rushed off in a fit of giggling mischief.