Miss Mira was panting slightly. Clearly, she'd exerted herself too much just then. She had only started exclaiming excitedly once she'd seen Arin, but even that was too much for her still frail body.
The woman swayed slightly, and one of the gathered villagers leaned forward to offer her support.
In the meantime, the others continued to stand still and simply stare.
At last, Arin cleared his throat slightly. The sound broke through the tense atmosphere, and all at once, everything seemed to start moving again.
'Was it truly a... distortion?' asked one of the men in a hushed voice.
'It was,' Arin responded. 'But you needn't worry. It has been thoroughly destroyed.'
'Needn't worry!? I was near a - a distortion? I'd never have come here if I'd known!' exclaimed another man.
'How terrible. How terrifying. How terrible...' mumbled a woman, shuddering bodily as she repeated her words.
Sir Veylor stepped forward, coming to stand right in front of him.
'When I first heard miss Mira speak of it, I didn't want to believe her words. I'd hoped she had misunderstood something...'
Arin sighed.
'I don't know what you've heard, so I cannot confirm whether or not she did. What I can confirm is that the distortion is no longer an issue.'
'But it truly was a distortion, then? Here, in our Silvershade, we truly did have a distortion -'
'Yes, you did. Not anymore. It has been thoroughly destroyed,' Arin repeated himself in a firm voice.
'How can you be certain of such a thing? It is a distortion!' squealed another woman, from somewhere further to the back of the group. 'Call for the officials at once!'
'And we should all leave this place with haste!'
'How terrible… terrible…'
'Had you known all along? And you didn't think to tell us!?'
'You must have! And yet, you still called us here, and put all our lives in peril…'
Arin's face grew stonier at the increasingly accusatory tone seeping into the clamouring voices.
He noticed that sir Veylor wasn't among them. In spite of the questions that he, too, might've had, the man seemed to have been placated by his first reassurance, and was content with waiting for him to explain further.
Even so, he didn't speak up to silence the others.
Miss Mira had also gone quiet now, and was looking up at all the gathered people from her bed. There was a confused and somewhat frightened look in her eyes, that were somehow still spilling with tears.
'Feel free to do all of that,' Arin said at last, turning his head and directly addressing the noisier people from amongst the group.
'You, call the officials. They ought to know. It's good that you're taking charge of that.'
'You, leave this place. Spread the word to anyone else who feels the same way. Whatever compensation has been promised to you, shall now be granted - if it hasn't already been. Make sure to collect it before you leave.'
'And for the rest of you, no. No, we most certainly did not know about the distortion. Do you truly believe the two of us tower magicians would risk our own lives, all for the sake of just whiling away the hours in this village?' Arin scoffed a little. 'Do you think we have nothing better to do?'
'In any case, the moment we realized what it was, we quickly moved the source away tosaveyou, and destroyed it. Would you have preferred if we'd wasted time making announcements instead?'
The voices quieted down almost immediately.
'Y-yes. That makes sense!' came miss Mira's soft, trembling voice. 'And, don't forget, they are our saviors! I, and all of these hundreds of families around me, would be d-dead, if not for them.'
'Oh, of course, you wouldn't speak a word against them,' came an almost inaudible mutter.
'Both sir Rin and sir Siel chose to remain in Silvershade, even after learning that the strange slumber takes its victims in the night,' Sir Veylor said suddenly. 'And even after falling to it once, they remained directly involved, and worked tirelessly to finish things.'
'We would do well to refrain from throwing any baseless accusations around.'
'And, who are you?' asked someone. 'You gathered us here, yes. But I've had dealings within Silvershade for several years now, and never once have I seen you about.'
'You-!'
Arin's brows pulled together, as sir Veylor launched into telling some random man exactly who he was.
He had been expecting some trouble, and even panic, when he'd come here. Caught in time, everything should've been easy enough to resolve. However, there was something… strange, about the current situation.
It was almost as though the group had a select few people scattered about who, for some reason, wanted confrontation.
It's like they weren't even actually troubled by the distortion; they were just taking the opportunity to jump into any fight they could get.
…Huh. What was their goal here?
Well, whatever it was, he didn't want to get into it right now.
He could tell that most people had been successfully appeased by his words, in spite of the almost mocking tone he'd used to deliver them.
So now, it didn't make sense for him to stay here and give those few others the pleasure of picking apart his words and stirring up even more nonsense.
'Well,' he said. 'I see no reason to waste any more of my time upon dealing with any of you. The officals, when they arrive, shall be informed of everything. If you have any doubts or questions, take the matter to them.'