Aran - The Encumbered
A few days have passed since the departure of his finest soldiers and not a single word had arrived from the vessels. No pigeons, no letter, nothing but quiet disappointment had taken over his mind. Assuming the Djinn queen had cast some spell on his soldiers, Aran turned to his council only for them to sit quietly with only Maryline the eldest blabbing on about her mind.
"It has only been a week my lord, you worry too quickly," her cackling bounced off the walls and echoed through the halls, all the while, the other wise men and women scorned her with curses behind sealed lips.
Pacing about in the hall, Maryline kept tapping her stick on the dark tiles veined with gold. It was her way of warning the dissents to keep their thoughts to themselves. She'd used the same method to berate and beat the confidence out of the young wise men and women, and even in their adulthood the council couldn't break out of their fear for that woman.