Inspirations and revelations

The trip back to the rest of their group was filled with angry silence. Both of them were mad at each other, and neither were willing to let go of their anger until the other apologized. Luckily, they quickly found Iro and Panos, and both could see just how angry they were with each other, so the siblings silently decided to separate the pair for the rest of the trip. Luckily the adults of the group finished their errands soon after, meaning they made their way back soon.

Even though the trip back was much faster than the trip to town, thus much more fun, Mina couldn’t enjoy it with all the things running through her mind. So, the moment they touched down, Mina hopped off the fiterolta and started marching her way to the main hall.

“Where you going Mina?” Natalia asked when she saw Mina walking away.

“I’m going go talk to Mr. Athan and the others.” Mina said. “There was some stuff in town that I want to talk to them about.”

“Oh, what kind of stuff?” Natalia asked. Mina turned around to tell her, but when she turned she saw Nik coming right up behind his mother, and any feeling of anger that had faded from Mina since the fight came back in full.

“Important stuff, stuff that I saw. I’d say you could ask Nik what I saw because he was with me, but I doubt he could see past those stupid glowing knives of his!” Mina yelled, then promptly turned and continued marching towards the main hall.

“Th-” Nik started, only for his mom to already have her hand over his mouth to stop him from saying anything. She knew her son well.

“Alright, we can talk later then.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Once Mina got inside the hall, she leaned against the wall and took some deep breaths to try and calm herself down. As angry as she was right now, the only person she was angry at was Nik. She was mature enough to at least try not to take her anger out on Athan and the other two.

“Is something wrong Mina?”

Mina snapped her head to the voice, prepared to yell at whoever it was to leave her alone, only for that voice to be Athan himself. So instead she held herself back.

“Just… Nik…” Mina growled out, and Athan nodded in understanding.

“Ah, I see. I understand. Don’t tell Dory or Natalia this, but I regularly find myself coming the end of my rope with that boy.” Athan said knowingly. “Here, why don’t I make you some tea to help you calm down.”

Mina didn’t say anything, not trusting herself to not yell if she tried, and instead just followed Athan over to the kitchen area, silently taking the offered tea when it was done. Athan sat down a couple chairs away from her to give Mina her space, and Mina slowly drank the tea as she calmed down. It took about 10 minutes, but eventually she was able to relax enough to trust herself to talk to Athan without accidentally snapping at him.

“Thank you Athan.” Mina said.

“My pleasure Mina, you clearly needed that.” Athan replied. “Now, was there anything else you needed?”

“Um, actually yeah.” Mina said, and Athan raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “I saw something weird while in town.”

“Oh? Weird how?” Athan asked.

“Well, me and… that one… went to a church service earlier.” Mina began, not even wanting to say Nik’s name. “After the church service, we saw a couple people get arrested just for jumping over a puddle. The guards claimed that the king had made jumping over puddles illegal just this morning.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, thing like that do happen around here unfortunately.” Athan said with a nod. “The king frequently makes seemingly random nonsensical laws that essentially give the guards an excuse to arrest whoever they want. It’s been happening ever since this puppet king has taken power, but we have still yet to find any sort of pattern to it.”

“Can’t we do anything about it?” Mina asked, but Athan shook his head.

“Unfortunately not. The ‘king’ has absolute power to instate any law he wishes at any time, and no one can do anything to stop him. To stop this would mean taking down our enemy entirely, and sadly we are far from achieving that goal at the moment.” Athan explained.

“Alright, we can’t stop it. But, what about the prisoners? Can we save them? I stopped the two guards from taking the people away, so could we possibly break into the prison and free these people?” Mina suggested.

Athan opened his mouth with the clear intention of saying no, but stopped. He paused, took a moment and really considered Mina’s suggestion. She could see the gears turning in his brain as he considered everything, though what exactly he was thinking she couldn’t tell. After a few minutes though, he actually nodded.

“While we wouldn’t be able to break into the main prison, the king did somewhat recently build a secondary prison for unknown reasons. We could possibly break into that one instead. I’ll have to talk about this with Elias and Lefteris.”

Athan then abruptly stood up and began walking over towards the back rooms. before he got too far though, he turned back to Mina.

“Before I go, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” He asked.

In truth, Mina had a lot of questions she could ask him after her day today (one of them being why anyone actually likes safranos). But, she held back, both unsure of if Athan was the right person to ask, and she didn’t want to keep him too long. That said, after the morning she had there was one question she had to ask, had to know the answer to.

“Um, actually, there is one thing.” She started, drawing Athan’s full attention. “I was wondering… will I ever be able to go back home?”

Athan was visibly caught off guard by her question for a moment, but soon enough his look changed into a sad smile, and Mina’s heart plummeted. He then sat down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I wish you didn’t ask that, I hate to bring you bad news Mina.” Athan began. “However, I would much rather not lie to you. As far as we’re aware, there is no way for you to go back home. There might be. Lefteris may be one of the best mages in the country, but even he’s not infallible. There could be a way to send you home that we aren’t aware of, but as of right now there is nothing.”

“Oh… I understand.” Mina said, suddenly feeling completely numb.

“I’m glad you do.” Athan said. “Now, while I would love to stay here and comfort you more, I must apologize as I really do need to talk to Elias and Lefteris about this idea you gave me. It’s also getting quite late, so you should probably be getting ready for bed.”

“Alright.” Mina answered automatically.

“Good.” Athan said as he stood up. “I’ll see you in the morning Mina.”

And with that, he walked away, leaving Mina all alone. With nothing else to do, Mina stood up, and made her way back to her room.