"'Personal amusement.'" He sniffs and shakes his head. Perish the thought. His ideas for persona amusement and hers apparently were quite different. "If that is to your liking, then by all means. The counsel of this school encourages it, but I have no need for it. Efforts here could be better spent toward helping those of us brought here to learn what they know that pulled us into this world. Perhaps we could even help speed the process along, but no. They guard that magic as if their lives depend upon it."

Could he blame them? He might. He of all people understood pride far better than some, and yet he didn't appreciate having it brought to bear against him like this, not when it meant the difference between his returning home and not. But then, what did he have to return to? What really mattered? Whether or not their lives depended upon this magic, he would return to Gaia and... what? The entire world had been turned against him by his own doing. He would no longer be welcome in Treno, he was sure. His palace was all that was left to him, protected by a desert few to none dared to venture to.

That was, if he lived long enough to see it again.

Did he want to go home to that? Could he go home to that? Given the alternative, in his mind, he knew there was no choice at all. Die in isolation or die surrounded by a world of potential he had yet to explore. Habit and his own stubbornness wanted him to struggle against it. He wouldn't be told what to do. But...

"They have a study of the stars, I have heard. That might be of some interest."