Two things were upon the mind of Irina as she stood there listening in, eavesdropping you would say, upon the two petite girls speaking quietly of the knightly woman in their midst, before she broke up the casual snickers and the conversing with a gruff clearing of her throat. The first was of course her natural, almost instinctive concerns over if this beautiful and sure to be eventful night was going to go off without a hitch, or if Lord Varros would dare to show his sinister face to Irina yet again, only this time without anything to stop the bastard from enacting his terrible atrocities Irina was dead certain he had planned for Crystal and for her. The second however....was more of an off-topic and rather....more of a personal matter to the woman without regards to her duty as a Royal Attendant. Irina...she pondered upon Crystal's earlier words, how the lovely Princess stated she....[i]liked[/i] the woman of armor. It brought many a inquiry to the woman about this girl, as what did she mean by [i]like.[/i] Well of course it meant she may have no further quarrel with Irina, at least that's what she thought, but usually when a person tells someone they [i]like[/i] them, nearly half the time, they....no...no that's preposterous! Irina, yes she was upon more friendlier terms with Crystal, and even she would admit having an eye for beauty that the Princess.....she was the fairest and most dazzling of women she had ever met, beautiful in every whimsical way, but to say her thoughts towards the Princess....were that? No...of course not.

But it came as a surprise that when she overheard Ginger speak of a sense of distaste in men from Irina, the knight's face grew instantly hot, an uncomfortable heat scorching her with mortification. True, even if she paraded about as [i]one of the men[/i] in her armor, she really had no taste for the opposite sex at all, but perchance that was due to her being...wronged by so many of them, excluding her father of course. Twas men who treated Irina as a sword they could toss away, twas men that laughed in her face with such ill glee when telling her she would never be a knight as long as she lived, and....twas men.....who took away her father....... Since her journeys began, she's always had a sort of...drawing towards women, but not in that way certainly. More of just...getting along with them easier than she would with men, and was it a crime, a terrible transgression for a woman to admire another's beauty? Still....Irina had to wonder about the Princess, especially when the girl wrapped her arm so tight around hers and leaned in ever closely, resting her head upon the woman's arm, and closing her eyes in what Irina saw as....rapture... The same could be said of the woman, just as the Princess' scent fell upon her nose and she took in the wonderful aroma of lavender. Ahh...such a relaxing and lovely fragrance..... The maids and wenches smiled to the two of them beaming brightly. In their eyes, the young lasses must've seemed as closely knit....perchance....a couple..... "Well...." With a soft smile of her own, Irina whispered after the maids had departed from her chamber, leaving Irina and the Princess Crystal to their own. "I suppose we could wait a few minutes or so, but we don't want to be late, do we?"