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If Lienna butchered her first attempt at a noble’s greeting, Auberon didn’t show it; either she properly mimicked the ladies in waiting or he was just too polite to brush her off, either of which worked for her. For now, anyway. In any case, her gamble paid off as the House Leader rattled off the Faerghian nobles in attendance, of which only one name mattered to her: [i]Lord[/i] Kellen Fraldarius. 

Lienna poorly contained her shock, raising a suspicious brow. What on earth was a [i]Lord[/i] doing at the Officer’s Academy? Wouldn’t he be much too old and busy running his territory? Lienna didn’t claim to know anything about how the ruling of noble houses worked, but this didn’t seem right. Or maybe something bad had happened, and the acting head of the family was only a teenager? She really had no way of discerning one way or the other; she barely knew the goings-on of house Gautier, and she lived in their territory all her life. 

More immediately concerning was the confirmation that a Fraldarius was in attendance at all, and the fact that she should probably make an effort to get to know him - if he didn’t know of her already. She didn’t need to understand the dynamics of political intrigue to know that having an ally within her new extended family would be hugely important, but it might have helped to know [i]how[/i] to go about it. 

Could she squeeze more information out of Auberon? He seemed nice enough, if a bit stiff, but she was already looking at him with thinly veiled suspicion. She’d heard plenty about how highborn folk acted, how they never spoke plainly and were always plotting something behind the scenes. Despite having come to Garreg Mach to make powerful friends, it seemed to Lienna that every interaction held just as much opportunity to make powerful enemies, without any way to tell the difference. She couldn’t read the nuances of these people - for all she knew, every smile could conceal a knife behind their backs. 

Ugh, her stomach was too sore for this nonsense. Why couldn’t people just say what they meant or shut up?

The tall, red-haired one seemed a little more normal - or rather, a little less [i]noble[/i] - by the way he spoke. Lienna was pretty sure he was the simpleton who clapped when Auberon finished his speech, so she was expecting him to trip all over himself trying to appeal to the dear leader when he approached, but it wasn’t so. That was for the best - Lienna wasn’t sure she could stomach any suck-ups. 

[color=baa7c7]“Well met, Derec,”[/color] she replied cordially, borrowing his greeting. If she could go by the lack of titles tacked on to his name - or the deer-in-crosshairs expression written all over his face - it seemed like this one was a commoner like herself. Not that she was about to go advertising that fact. But she did wonder why he would come to Garreg Mach to begin with, and who was paying for it. She knew the Officer’s Academy was technically open to commoners, but even if they had the means to pay for it on their own, she couldn’t fathom why anyone would [i]want[/i] to attend. If they didn’t have plans to join the upper class, as she did, what was the appeal? Was he trying to join the army? If the Gautier soldiers who traipsed through Hima were anything to go by, then surely the requirements weren’t [i]that[/i] high.  

And so, as with Auberon, Lienna was left with more questions than answers, and a healthy dose of suspicion left over for Derec. But now she’d been standing there like an idiot for far too long, and needed to come up with something - or else find a way to politely excuse herself to go nurse her growing stomach ache. Fortunately, although it wasn’t an excuse to leave, she [i]could[/i] latch on to something Auberon said, speaking of a Blue Lions victory. She could always get behind winning. 

[color=baa7c7]“I think we have an advantage,”[/color] she agreed. At least that much made sense to her. [color=baa7c7]“In Gautier, it’s a fight just to get by; if it isn’t just the cold out to get us, it’s wolves or bears or raiders from Sreng.”[/color] She crinkled her nose in disgust. [color=baa7c7]“There’s no way a bunch of…”[/color] she was about to say ‘pampered brats,’ but she slowly thought better of it, [color=baa7c7]“...[i]students[/i] from the South will give a House full of Faerghians any more trouble than we’re already used to.”[/color]

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