As they met up with the rest of the Elders, they all had various points of further encouragement to offer to the duo, Aria shooting them all a grateful smile. The news that there actually WAS some form of curriculum planned out was very comforting. Like Yerbol, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of admiration that the Elders had managed to continuously run recon missions AND arrange to have a teaching plan written up, and datapads distributed to every student, before the Academy had even opened. The Champions had a lot of learning to do if they were going to live up to that standard. 
“Any last words before they arrive should be said now.” At Voldon’s suggestion, Aria couldn’t help but groan softly.
“Can’t we send them back? I’ve changed my mind.” 
This brought a chuckle from both Ailel and Cheriss, the former shaking her head in amusement as she insisted.
“Come now, Aria. You might find you enjoy teaching.”
Cheriss too, shot the duo a smile and murmured. 
“As Malu said, we’ll be around if you need us. Though you’re more than capable of handling a gaggle of younglings without our help.” 
Aria hoped they were right. She wished they’d known about the planned material beforehand, so they could have had a chance to look over it and familiarise themselves with some of the content before having to ACTUALLY instruct on any of it. 
I suggest we get a quick glance over what they’ve written up while they’re settling into their quarters. She put forward quietly to Yerbol before the group of students stepped into the room. 

Voldon’s last comment had not been an exaggeration, the academy indeed did require a gargantuan amount of their spare time, the days seemed to blur into one as they spent close to a week flitting from one class to the next, some practical and others more lecture-based, and when they weren’t teaching they spent most of their time sparring themselves in order to keep their own skills up to snuff. There was hardly any spare moment to do anything other than freshen up, eat or sleep. Aria found herself wondering how the instructors at the Korriban Academy ever managed it. Despite their initial misgivings, the Champions threw themselves into the role of instructors with as much enthusiasm as they could muster, and found they rather enjoyed it once they got into a proper routine again. While the “house rules” were less strict than they had been at both the previous Orders’ teaching establishments, time constraints did have to be placed on the lengths of lessons to ensure that everything remained running as smoothly as possible. The students didn’t seem to mind, and most were amicable and eager to learn from the two Champions, though a few tried their luck during the initial sessions due to the pair’s reluctance to be too hard on them from the outset. They soon learned that was a mistake, as naturally their pupils would attempt to push any boundaries their tutors set. 
A few days into their lecturing sessions, however, and they soon found their stride. Perhaps a by-product of being the daughter of a high-ranking Senator and a Sith Lord, Aria was capable of barking at them like a drill sergeant (where called for, of course, it turned out to be particularly helpful during practical lightsaber drills where the duo walked the pupils through the most basic movements of the first two forms...with any luck they wouldn’t be needing those skills for anything other than practise sparring or defending themselves against Riika cats should any get too close to the outdoor training areas) as well as being encouraging and quietly understanding towards the less confident students. 

As promised, they would frequently catch glimpses of the Elders as one or two of them hovered in the doorway of a training room to check on their progress, but none of them made any comments unless first invited to do so. Aside from enlisting Cheriss’ help to recall the attention of a particularly over-excited gaggle of six (or so)-year-olds, by the time the first week was drawing to a close Aria was confident enough that she no longer felt like they NEEDED to be there “just in case something went wrong”, and rather as though they were a welcome break from the monotony of the various drills and texts they had the students studying. The young pupils were always keen to interact with the Elders, and despite the fact that they complained about having “no time and other places to be” (due to STILL attempting to track Illesia and the Xiis’ movements throughout the galaxy), the Elders always found a few minutes to offer their own words of wisdom or stern reminders for the youngsters to listen to their teachers at all times. 
The Champions had been so busy with their tutoring roles that they very nearly weren’t involved with tracking the Xiis at all; sparring sessions and lectures alike required meticulous planning or they quickly went down the drain and got WAY out of hand, which Aria found out the hard way one day after she pushed lesson planning aside in order to spend the time in one of the war rooms with Vano tracking holomaps and other records of possible Xiis sightings. She had tried to improvise the next morning’s lesson on the spot, and the students had almost instantly overwhelmed the already tired Champion. She had to call in Yerbol and Cheriss from across the hall for backup, and the Dathomirian had made a comment about her father turning in his grave if he could have been aware of her poor planning skills. The pair had laughed about that thought later that night before settling down to sleep. 
Thankfully, the Tuk’ata were able to come and go throughout the facility as they pleased and so they didn’t have to worry about Chwuq and Taral becoming overly restless due to not getting enough exercise, they could easily take themselves for a romp through the jungles if they felt the need to. They became a little complacent about not seeing Aria and Yerbol enough, and once barged in during one of Aria’s meditation classes, which had been fun to defuse although it HAD given Aria an idea for making their next endurance training session a bit more interesting by getting the Sith hounds involved. Yerbol had been a bit apprehensive about encouraging them to chase the younglings due to the possibility of their hunting instincts kicking in again and something going horribly wrong, but with careful reminders that it was meant as a GAME and that nobody was to get hurt or they would be appropriately disciplined, Chwuq and Taral seemed to quite enjoy having the opportunity to wrestle any of the slower runners to the ground until Aria or Yerbol called them off. Not having their faces slobbered all over by the large beasts seemed to be adequate motivation for the class’ pupils to try their best at traversing the obstacles in a timely manner, too, rendering the strategy a reasonable success. 

After the initial success of the Academy’s first week however, the duo were enjoying a much-deserved respite on one of the plush couches situated in the window bay of the Academy’s library while the students milled about the shelves and computer terminals doing independent research on Kator’s Philosophy (which they had of course named after Renso). The students were relatively confident on their own and would develop much needed cognitive thinking and reasoning by having to work together to research and deconstruct the scenarios that the Champions had spent the best part of last night and the early morning constructing for them. Whenever they weren’t providing some careful encouragement to a stumped pupil, they would exchange idle chatter with Vano as the Mirialan hung about nearby to offer her aid, or simply enjoy the vistas outside of the large full-length window they were seated in front of whilst trying not to fall asleep. Just as she was about to nod off again, Aria was jerked awake by the Mirialan’s voice beckoning them over from a nearby terminal.
“Uuhh...you guys MIGHT want to come and take a look at this. Cheriss just sent me a news report that’s circulating out of Dromund Kaas and it looks pretty suspicious.”
Aria exchanged a glance with her partner. Things had been quiet since their last encounter with Illesia on Coruscant, too quiet. Like the calm before the storm...perhaps that storm was about to break….