Aria flashed her husband a playful look of her own as they approached the hangar.[i] On the contrary, I disagree...you don’t give yourself enough credit, you’re very distracting at times.[/i] Any further banter was cut short as the Chancellor and her companions came to meet them. Each Qyaari present graciously shook the Chancellor’s hand and accepted her condolences for Voldon’s loss. 
Sitting with the other Elders and Yerbol close to the front of the crowd afforded Aria an all around view of most of the funeral-goers. A considerable proportion of the Academy faculty were teary-eyed as they listened to Matthew and Saresh’s speeches, even Cheriss had shed a few tears (although the Elder was quick to swipe them away and sit in stony silence acting as if they had never existed), however her polite decline to speak any words in front of the media crew said enough. Saresh’s address had been impressive, and unsurprisingly drew an almost enthusiastic round of applause from the listeners in front of her. After which the official procession carried Voldon’s coffin away and the other guests dispersed. A few excused themselves and bid their farewells, but most seemed very eager to drift towards the repurposed dining hall and stay for a meal before thinking about their next destination. As Yerbol and Matthew bore Voldon’s coffin to the transport, Aria lingered behind in the garden to direct the guests to restrooms, the dining hall and the like.  It wasn’t until that moment that the Champion truly began to appreciate just how well the Qyaari Academy had flourished over the years. To think, when they had first set themselves up on Zinuthra (a long-forgotten planet, back then) it had been nothing more than a pair of ramshackled buildings whose very walls had been falling apart from the inside out. Serenely, she reflected that her younger self had cynically written off the whole effort as nothing but an aid to her own survival, at the time. Building it up had taken a lot of co-operation and effort, but seeing its booming success in the gaggles of youngsters and Alliance cabinet members that milled to and fro before her had been well worth their efforts. 

As the majority of the guests filtered into the dining hall, Aria noted that a few scattered groups of the student body remained. They clustered close together, mumbling and kicking pebbles about or pretending to admire the decor as if they weren’t entirely sure what to do with themselves. Aria hadn’t noticed Cheriss hovering in one of the back rows until the Dathomirian strolled up beside her, casting a glance towards the students. 
“I’ll go talk to them, can’t have them wandering out here unsupervised...besides, a good meal will go a long way to help raise their spirits, I’m sure.” 
“No, no...I got it.” Aria interjected, figuring she could do far worse, she thought she might try her hand at guiding the wayward younglings herself. Though she had been unsure at first, teaching had slowly grown on her since the first set of younglings had been brought to Zinuthra and she finally felt as if she was taking the role in full stride, rather than being coerced into something at the Elders’ behest. Cheriss paused as if considering this for a moment, before the Elder shrugged and turned to head inside with a small nod.
“Very well, then I will leave you to it.” 

As soon as the Champion approached them and enquired the cause of their dawdling, the youngsters barraged her with a tyrade of frantic questions. 
“What’s going to happen now?”
“We’re continuing our training, aren’t we?”
“You’re not going to send us back?” 
“What do we do now?” 
“Alright alright….all of you just CALM down!” Aria didn’t like having to raise her voice too much, but it became a necessity if less to shout AT them than to make her own words audible over their clamoring. When the wide-eyed children obediently clamped their mouths shut and stared up at her pleadingly, she followed up with: “Thank you. NOBODY needs to panic, alright? I promise every one of you that the Academy is NOT going anywhere. Zinuthra is, and always will be, the home to any Force user that wants to stay here.” 
Annoyingly, she didn’t have to lean very far down to get to their eye level. “Now, I will be the first to say that there are very likely going to be disruptions to your class schedules for a while”- after all, Aria did not believe in beating around the bush and certainly filling their heads with false assurances would not help any of them at any rate -”until we’ve finished rearranging tutors around to accomodate for the...the change.” the Champion had to pause to clear the catch from her throat before finishing up with another smile. “But the Elders and the faculty will do everything that we can to ensure it doesn’t impact on your training in the long run.” she was pleased to see some of their faces brighten at her assurances (maybe she WAS getting the hang of this after all!). 
“Now come on, all of you, Voldon wouldn’t want you moping around out here; get yourselves inside and fed or else I’ll have to send Cheriss out here to sort you out.” 
The Champion’s good-natured threat caused the students to erupt into a chorus of squeals of “Oh no!”, before hastily scurrying for the nearest entrance lest they incur the Elder’s frigid wrath. 

The dinner and resultant conversations passed by smoothly, by Aria’s standards. It wasn’t until the Champions had retired for the night and her husband had voiced his concerns to her that she gave any second thought to the Chancellor’s manner throughout the service. Aria was silent for a long time, her brow knitted in a contemplative frown, as she sifted through her own memories and tried to find anything that seemed as out of place as Yerbol had suggested. 
“...I-I don’t know, honey…” she piped up eventually after a lengthy period of silence. She hated disagreeing with him so blatantly (and certainly didn’t want him to feel as if she thought his perspective was invalid), but she wasn’t quite sure how much merit they could put to the implied accusation. “Nothing seemed OFF, to me...scripted, sure, maybe.” Aria shrugged, falling back into the pillows on her side of the bed and staring at the ceiling. “But that’s not uncommon for big political figures...I dunno how much summit work you ever did with the Jedi but on Dromund Kaas it was pretty common for the diplomats to end up looking and sounding like robots. The Acolytes used to take bets you know, on how much of their words were their own.” 

The Champion turned to lie on her side and face him, waving the last comment off. “But that’s not important. I’m not saying that...that whatever you think you saw or felt isn’t real just that....” the frown returned, man she was digging herself in deep here! “I don’t know, it didn’t seem like she meant anything bad by what she said? Maybe Saresh just wasn’t sure what to say, or she had a lot of things to say but didn’t know HOW and she needed a hand? Even Cheriss and Malu didn’t say anything else at the service.” neither, she noted silently, had they themselves...but then that was different, they had said their peace before the formal memorial had even started. 

“Still, if it’s really bothering you I don’t suppose there’d be any harm in keeping an eye on her, right?”