Velentham leaned against a tree and pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. He lifted a match, and using only his thumbnail, set it ablaze. It was a trick he had learned from his time in Heifong, the stinking cesspool of filth and degenerates. It was useful when dealing with the drunken fools that waddled up to him wanting to fight since he was gold and seven feet tall. He lifted the flame to his cigarette and brought into his lungs the soothing heat of gray smoke and let it out again. He didn't notice it billowing up into the canopy of the trees around him. His eyes were trained on the cottage.
He saw the boy and his dog leap from the porch and head into the woods. He saw Sanria lean down and stop the little girl from leaving the porch as he held the second drag inside, the pressure soothing in his chest with his arms crossed over it. Thasmudyan, the man who looked like some beggar, was right. She was here, with his cousin, Gilean.
Velentham let the breath out, the smoke thin and dissipated from being held so long and forced out so fast. Gilean, after all his bullshit, had married his girl. There wasn't any descriptor for the feeling that curled within Velentham's heart. Gilean was the reason his father died. Gilean was the reason he couldn't get home. Now, Gilean was the reason he couldn't get Sanria. Anger held his beating muscle in its taloned grip, and squeezed. Perhaps cold rage could be said of him now. After all, Gilean had obviously used the Celestial charm to get Sanria. She was enchanted, it was the only way. And given everything Gilean had told Velentham about not using it on her...
He took in another long drag, the smoke caressing his nerves and helping him to see clearly. Velentham uttered a spell and vanished into nothingness, the only indication he was there, the smoke that appeared like magic from a non-existent cigarette. There would be more than hell to pay, but first, as Velentham finished his smoke, he would think of how best to drag Gilean away and crush the life out of him. One had to plan carefully when dealing with a Celestial, even if that Celestial was a bastardization of what his people truly were.
