The strain had become too great and she kept asking questions. Every spare moment she was awake, she asked him the damned infuriating and infernal questions, as though cursing every step of the way the progress Velentham had managed to make on Sanria's mind. He forced her to sleep through much of the effort in keeping the tent cool, but without the proper amount of sleep, even the voice of his father had grown louder.
"My son, this is not the way..."
"I know what I want, father!"
"There is no need for - "
"Silence! You're dead! You're gone! You have no right to tell me what to do!" It had to end.
It had been at least a week since they'd arrived on the surface of the Rok. A week and Velentham was absolutely spent. He waved his hand over Sanria's sleeping form, and she woke suddenly. "Come," he said, his voice raspy with exhaustion. "We're going to leave here."
"Are we going home?"
"After a fashion, my love."
"I'll have to stop back at the castle, I'm sure they're wondering where I've been all this time."
"There's no..." Velentham suddenly growled. "You're not going back to the castle! It's just us now! No one else matters! Do you hear me?!"
There was the look he loathed. Her eyes widened slightly and looked down, a beaten animal, as if he'd truly hurt her. "I didn't mean to shout, but your questions are driving me mad."
"I just... I have obligations."
"Not anymore. Soon enough we'll be out of this realm and heading to our true home."
"The cottage?"
"NO!" Velentham grabbed her, seething, barely able to contain his rage. As his ire was raised, so too, did the temperature in the tent rise. He released his cowering lover and expended yet another dose of magic to cool the place. Then he turned back to her. "No more talking about obligations and old places, okay? Only the future. Where we are headed."
"Okay..."
Velentham rose, stooping beneath the tent. His energy was waning fast, and if he were to go anywhere, it had to be while he had the strength left to manage it.
At a wave of his hand, the tent vanished and Sanria audibly gasped. They were cocooned in a bubble as he held a hand out to Sanria. She took it and he pulled her close. They would land where they landed, though Velentham took pains to make it as far from the Great Realms as possible. "Rethink your priorities, my son..." Velentham ignored the sound of his father's voice in his mind and in a flash of light, deposited himself and Sanria back on Toril-firma.
