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Jorah raised his eyebrows at Clarissa’s comments. She’d already been talking to some of the Lions, eh? Well, if the Officers’ Academy welcomed commoners alongside nobles, then it came as no surprise to him that one of them was “behind on a number of social and academic skills”. Outside the walls of Great Lords’ estates back home were hundreds and thousands of everyday peasants in the same boat; if anything, it was the nobility’s pathological attachment to ceremony and procedure that was out of place. Of course, he’d been banging that drum since childhood and no one ever bothered to listen, so he doubted he’d change any minds now. So what if his point was tangentially related to worming his way out of etiquette classes? It was a good point!

But doomed and silenced as ever, Jorah elected to use his mouth for chewing rather than talking, starting ravenously on his second plate before it had the chance to get cold. That was, until a scuffle broke out just outside the dining hall and some lunatic started shouting about the end times. 

A spike of panic rang out through the dining hall like a scream at the sound of a struggle, but while the thief himself was radiating a fair bit of it, he wasn’t the source; if Jorah had to guess, it was more likely the white-haired Lion - Lena? - Clarissa’d been talking about, who jumped to her feet in record time at the first sign of a struggle. That wasn’t the lightning-fast reaction time of someone who “felt out of place”; the closest thing Jorah could compare it to was the behaviour of the sailors he drank with on the Derdriu waterfront. Some of them would jump up at the first sound of trouble, be it the crack of a breaking chair leg or a peal of lightning; he learned it was a reflex honed by years at sea, where pirates and storms could converge on a ship at the drop of a hat. He doubted this Lion was the seafaring type, but if he had to guess, he’d say she’d spent a fair bit of her life on the lookout for [i]something[/i]. 

Not that the thief wasn’t interesting in his own right. He had to have a set like bronze to try stealing from Garreg Freaking Mach in broad daylight, if not a bit light of head to compensate, and it was clear to Jorah that he believed every word he said: the man was a storm in his own right, a swirling maelstrom of dread and panic and feelings of doom, all amplified like a horn in an empty hall. The poor man must have been out of his mind with fear; maybe that was why whatever affliction he clearly suffered from prompted him to do something so stupid. 

But the man was quickly taken care of - though Jorah was sure it didn’t feel that way to him - and after a moment, the thrum of conversation in the dining hall resumed, tensions starting to ease as students and faculty alike shared commentary. Clarissa spoke up as well, earning her a mischievous look from Jorah.

[color=FFAB66]“I don’t know…”[/color] he hummed, eyeing his friend. [color=FFAB66]“You heard him. The [i]Mark[/i] will be our downfall when [i]she[/i] comes. Maybe he’s really our saviour warning us of our impending doom.”[/color] Jorah waggled his fingers at Clarissa like a nursemaid telling a ghost story before resuming his work with his fork. [color=FFAB66]“That better not have been a shot at my face paint,”[/color] he added, slurring with his mouth full. 

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