Ma'ar is still frozen on the spot, staring in wonder. 

"Yes, of course." 

It's hard to tell when they start moving, the Void mostly looks the same either way, but Urtho assures Carissa they are. 

They're going home. 

She clings to Leareth and the baby and tells him everything that happened, in approximately chronological order.

Leareth seems equally inclined toward clinginess. He hugs her a lot. Listens. Mentions whenever he thinks she did a particularly good job; he's impressed with how she handled explaining the situation to Ma'ar, and also the conversations with Urtho. He doesn't remember the fight or the Mindhealer incident at all, and wonders if they happened in his own history. Probably similar things happened; he doubts he managed to make fewer waves, in the world where he didn't even have Carissa there to help. 

"I think you would've been much more - careful, traumatized, whatever - by the time you got there - it was so far -"

"More than five hundred miles, no? Or so I gather from the, well, archaeological evidence. The location of the craters." 

" - gods. Yeah, that sounds about right. We were going to ride it, but I thought - he wasn't eating enough - safer to call Urtho."

"I think so, yes. I am glad you did." He puts his head down on her shoulder, suddenly tired again for no reason. "...And I am glad that one version of my world, at least, will hopefully remember Urtho's life from something more than a crater and a legend." He glances over at Urtho, who's currently occupied, explaining to Ma'ar how their Void-navigation works. Leareth lowers his voice." He was - is - an incredible person, just...out of his depth." 

"It's a beautiful tower. And I'm glad you had something like that, even with - how it worked out - it'd be a different kind of tragedy but not really less of one if there was nowhere in the world you could learn enough magic to achieve anything."

Nod. "I am not sure how far I would have gotten alone, but - not far enough to become immortal, I think, before the end of my natural lifespan. And I am glad that I still exist." 

They fly on through the void. Eventually Ma'ar extracts himself from the conversation to complain that he's hungry, and Vanyel digs up food for him, and then folds out a mattress and says he's going to get some sleep. They've been sleeping in shifts, while they search, but the way back will be a lot faster, they know exactly where they're going. 

It seems not ideal, that he was so far from Cheliax and hard for anyone to reach if there was an emergency, but she guesses with Aroden back as a god there are less really emergency emergencies and it's hard to feel anything but happy. And desperate to be home, even if this place is also safe - in some senses ridiculously safe - she wants to be in a normal furnished room in her country with walls Leareth warded and the gods that care about them...

Leareth fills her in a bit on the intervening months, during the rest of the journey back. There haven't really been any emergencies since the emergency that was her disappearance, although Aroden's go at the Starstone certainly managed to be incredibly stressful despite the result not really being in question at all. There've been a lot of problems, sure, a lot of ongoing headaches - though not the literal kind from talking to Abadar, anymore, that much is nice.

(He was really glad to still have Khemet around to talk to, but does not bring this up to Carissa, it seems like it would just make her feel jealous despite not endorsing that.)

He stays awake for a long time, talking to his wife and hugging her, but even with a Ring of Sustenance, eventually he needs to take his own turn on the bedroll. Vanyel has a Ring of Sustenance too, though, and is awake by then and promises to keep watch for him. Not that there's anything in particular that can threaten them in the Void, aside from its intrinsic Void-ness; basically nothing can survive there. At least not as far as they know, and their travels haven't turned up any anomalies (yet). 

Vanyel sings. 

"Thank you so much for helping Leareth with this. I'm so glad he had you."

"You're welcome. We're so glad to have you back." 

And shortly after Leareth wakes from his two hours of sleep, Urtho announces that they're within range for an ordinary Gate. "Just a moment, I'll tether us." He smiles at Carissa, eyes twinkling. "We'll have you home safe in just a moment." 

"Thank you."

And the second he has the go-ahead from Urtho, Leareth raises a Gate, to the Gate-room directly across from their suite in the palace. He can technically Gate directly in, the precautions against Teleports don't block his own Gates, but it'd set off all sorts of alarms.

He will, however, scoop Carissa up in his arms and carry her in, opening the door with magic. 

Clingclingclingcling - "is someone going to get Ma'ar and Dierne situated - he'll be nervous -"

Ma'ar is trailing behind them, Dierne in his arms; he doesn't look scared, just a bit tense. (He's only a bit scared, Carissa is right there and she's calm, but he's not feeling as calm as he's trying to look.) 

"Oh, good thought, I will ask Vanyel." 

:Van, can you look after Ma'ar and get him and his - baby sister, I suppose - set up, please?: 

:Yes, of course - I'll bring Dierne to the nursery, it should all be set up now, I'm - not sure what we'll do about Ma'ar but I suppose you do have extra bedrooms in here and I can give him a tour: 

Vanyel turns to Ma'ar and gently suggests this plan. He's pleased with it. He likes children. 

Leareth is finding himself more inclined to go hold his baby daughter than he'd expected, but first he wants to carry his wife to their bedroom and lock the door and put MORE wards on it even though this is objectively ridiculous, and then hold her and be very very very relieved. 

:Urtho will tell Nayoki we made it back: he assures her, :she will take care of alerting the servants and such. ...It was moderately annoying keeping your disappearance secret, most of the palace staff think that you were finding pregnancy overwhelming and so went to our house in the country, the location of which is concealed for security reasons: 

It is objectively ridiculous how the safer she is the more she wants nothing except for to cling to him. "Makes sense," she says. "Probably only half of them think I was murdered in a power struggle."

"I almost hope someone tried to murder you in the past eight months! They would have to conclude my security precautions are absurdly good, that they could not find you anywhere in this plane or the nearby ones, which might discourage any future attempts."