[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/231109/0ba929c62ce0023295985d603785fcba.png[/img][/center][hr]Ionna was no stranger to harsh teachers. In a lot of ways, Dame Irina reminded her much of uncle Dragomir, and their training regimes, while of course different on many scales, were similar in spirit, and certainly in rigor. They had similar expectations, and when they weren’t met, they expressed their disappointment in similar ways, right down to their expressions. It was what had made her tutelage under Irina more sufferable, while also quelling some of her own homesickness. Some days it really was enough just to hear another Rodion accent. 

So, Ionna listened intently to the debriefing, and when the expected dressing-down came, she took hers on the chin. Frankly, it was harder to hear her criticisms of the others, Sara especially. Ulysse had been slain, there was no one else to look for Nadine. If anything, Ionna had been the one to hinder the Fire Templar’s search, though somehow she doubted that would have changed Irina’s opinion. Zacharie at least emerged relatively unscathed. That was good—she owed him big for taking care of Dom [i]and[/i] Kasper. An extra cookie next time, maybe.

Either way, they were dismissed, and Ionna was a tad disappointed. She’d hoped for some good news, about Nadine, about the attackers, about anything. In her mind, nothing was beyond the ken of the church, and part of her had expected they’d arrive to find Fyodor waiting with the head of whoever had masterminded the attack. Sometimes it was easy to forget how human the church was. In its own way though, that was good. 

But then Dame Irina called her back, along with Sara and the Wind Templar, Jannick. That, she guessed, was probably [i]not[/i] good. Not for her, probably not for Jannick, but especially not for Sara. Ionna liked Irina, but she didn’t know her on a personal level. The woman was a soldier, and she was Rodion, and frankly her most recent experience with that combination left her extremely concerned for the only Kaudian in the room. If Sara ended up in her crosshairs, Ionna worried there might not be a Templar of Fire come daybreak. 

That didn’t seem right. Sara hadn’t done anything wrong, or at least nothing any more wrong than the rest of them. She’d only followed Ionna after Nadine, and it wasn’t like Theobald had suffered in her absence. She shouldn’t be the one in the line of fire.

As the ballroom cleared save for the four of them, Ionna took a deep breath and reaffixed the smile to her face, before stepping forward. “[color=E40040]What’s up, teach?[/color]” she asked, bubbly as ever. “[color=E40040]Somethin’ we can help with?[/color]”[hr][@Obscene Symphony][@Stern Algorithm]