It's easy to forget that Heinkel is in fact a noble. And not just any noble too, son of the greatest national heroes no less. King Gionis even wanted to make a great celebration across the whole kingdom when Heinkel was born. This guy is educated and his manners were perfect.
So imagine him randomly letting some of it slip. Like him randomly making comment that only Priscilla can understand because it requires reading experience of 3 whole libraries. Or imagine their camp was invited somewhere and one moment Heinkel is just "ha this painting is fake" in some hallway and only Al can hear him. Or he's helping Schult with some tricky part of the etiquette. Or Heinkel correcting someone in history or whatever subject, he couldn't care less actually but if he's a bit drunk and/or if it's Schult...
——
Schult had been serving Lady Priscilla for some time, but he had never attended a reception before. Now, one was scheduled for a few days later.
One evening, in an empty room, Schult practiced his bows, introductions, and everything a servant needed to know for a formal reception.
He had to perform perfectly! Otherwise, he would disgrace Lady Priscilla!
The door opened, and Schult froze mid-greeting to an imaginary gentleman with an extravagant cravat.
"Oh, Schult-kun. I thought no one was here." Al tapped his helmet awkwardly with a finger.
"Al-sama, do you need this room? I'm sorry, I was just—"
"Ah, don't worry." The man gave a thumb-up with his only hand.
Schult had known him long enough to understand the meaning of that strange gesture.
"Hard to believe, but I come here to read when I've bored the Princess and she sends me away," Al waved toward a small table where, sure enough, a book lay. "Am I interrupting?"
"N-not at all!"
Al sat on the couch, picked up the book with his single hand, and started reading. Remarkably, he did even this while wearing his helmet.
Now Schult practiced only the movements, a little too embarrassed to speak.
Both he and Al were distracted by the sound of the door opening. A tall, red-haired man poked his head in.
"Damn, not here," he muttered, and was about to close the door when he noticed Schult.
...The door swung open again.
"Are you practicing a bow?"
Schult nodded.
Heinkel looked at him and signed.
"That's not how you do it..."
He entered the room and stopped in front of the startled boy.
"Watch. I'll show it just once."
Schult's eyes went wide as he watched Heinkel-sama placing his left foot behind him, drawing the right toe in a small scraping arc against the floor. He pressed his hand to his chest, then swept both arms outward in a wide, graceful gesture as he bowed low from the waist.
The whole movement was oozing with sharp sarcasm, yet mixed with astonishing elegance.
The sequence itself was the same as Schult's, but the execution... Neither his unshaven face, nor his worn-out clothes, nor even the bottle of alcohol in his left hand could overshadow that grace.
"Whoa. I keep forgetting you're from nobility, old man, and then you pull something like that," Al whistled. He himself lived at a respectful distance from etiquette.
"Tch." Heinkel shot Al an annoyed look and turned back to the boy. "Got it?"
"Y-yeah..."
After the man left, Schult returned to practicing his bow. It came out better now that he had something to aim for, but he was still far from matching Heinkel's polished grace—the one Heinkel himself had left to gather dust and rust.
