With our little girl and her "nanny" gone, I sealed the doorway, leaving a window open so I could keep an eye on them. "So, should we all get to work?" I asked as I spun on my heel and headed for the door, though I was instantly stopped as expected.
"You have patients to see. When you are done, everyone here meets in my office… Yes, that includes you Rein since your daughter has more control over the man than most anyone else, you may be able to instruct her on how to keep this man from summoning yet another living weapon." As Halsan left, we all glanced at each other, then everyone glared at me.
"I must say, he handled that much better than I thought."
The only one amused by the statement was Leeson, which given his weakness to humour didn't count.
"Truth be told, I want to know why Eve looks like she thinks you deserve this, what did you do to her on your trip?" Valo said, a knowing smile on her face.
"Normal stupid choices, made her an unwed mother to the strongest kind of humanoid rank divine summon, left her feeling uncomfortable whilst I acted inconsiderately the usual Adam stuff I guess." I declared with a tone of genuine guilt.
Eve grabbed my arm and squeezed unusually hard. "No, he noticed me acting weird, then he felt guilty after jumping to conclusions and decided to do something dramatic. Naturally, he completely forgot I'm an empath and could follow his thoughts based on his emotional flow."
I froze, as I considered her words, then gave everyone a sideways glance. "She is absolutely correct from start to finish. Like I said "usual Adam stuff", now we need to go."
"Adam, talk. What did you decide?"
"I decided, I need to love you, but I just don't feel it and I won't let you waste your life with a man who can see how beautiful, how smart, how powerful, how honest and compassionate, how determined you are and is still too broken to love you. I will do what I have always done, what I think is right and what I think is right at the moment is for me to figure this out whatever the cost!" My voice had gradually raised to a roar without my notice.
"I'm sorry Adam, this is going to hurt." She replied walking over to me and hugging me as she put head against my chest. I could feel the tension in her, then as she looked up at me, I could see the pain in her face. "Adam, you're breaking my heart." She said finally as she placed her head back to my chest.
The words hit me harder than anything. The woman was all I could think about, my only ambition in that moment was to make her happy and I had broken her heart.
I cracked my neck. "We are late for the clinic. If we are late, so are the patients." I said robotically before opening the door and leaving. Some of the others shouted after me and I gave an obtuse glance back toward the door to see Eve shut it.
I made my way in silence to the clinic, unaccompanied and unfollowed.
Upon my arrival, I apologised for the late arrival, luckily everyone was understanding though it didn't take long for someone to ask the question that was clearly on everyone's mind. "Where is everyone today then? Not like you to walk about without at least one pretty woman in tow."
"If you mean Eve, the word is beautiful, I'd say "pretty" is such an understatement it's just easier to define it as wrong." I replied, still talking robotically without stopping my work. "I'm here because I am not a man that is good with feelings and there were far too many at home for me to handle."
"Come on Teacher! You don't need to be good with feelings, just feel them for god's sake." The man became nervous when I started laughing.
"God's sake, you do know gods see feelings as a weakness, don't you? They see it as a mortal condition, so god's sake isn't what I would call a reason to feel them." I continued to laugh for a moment before stopping abruptly.
My speech wasn't accompanied by the usual headache of a revelation and I didn't even know why I made that speech or how I knew, yet there was no shred of doubt in my mind that every word was entirely accurate.
"Sorry everyone, It was a long trip, guess I'm more worn out than I thought." I was attempting to void the tension that had begun to dominate the atmosphere and was failing miserably. I cracked my neck again, a niggling had worked its way into my skull and was making my it tense whilst the skin crawled.
Then the door opened, revealing everyone I had left behind and Eve walked over and hugged me in the same way she had at home. Noticing my anxious breathing, she pulled a face, one not of judgment, nor disappointment or emotion, but of curiosity. It was as though my behaviour was a puzzle piece she was trying to place perfectly just by staring at it and not the rest of the puzzle.
"Sorry everyone, Adam and I are both a bit exasperated. I'm sure everyone will learn soon enough, but since you're here… The snake that once resided at the mine, his Askel, recently changed and acquired a human form and that of a little girl no less. As a result, we are thrilled to announce that we have chosen to adopt her. Her new name is Quatal, if you see her please be careful, she is not great at controlling her strength just yet."
Eve's speech cut through the tension like the sun through darkness, turning uneasy attitudes to celebratory. With that settled she came over and hugged me once more, struggling to fight the urge she was carrying to drag me home and comfort me properly.
With everyone helping we got through it, though not as diligently as I usually would have. Since we had to go to Halsan's office when we finished, we decided to do a full day at the clinic.
When we stopped for lunch I called the two back from the dimensional space to eat, but before I could pass out food, Eve told me to stop.
"You said you will do what's right. We all spoke about it and so will we, so I want you to make something to keep track of your heartbeat every second of every day, but you can't look at the results. You give them to me, you go nowhere alone and we are going to document the next month of your life thoroughly, I also need you to document your dreams first thing every morning."
She stated her plans in a way she knew I couldn't interfere on purpose, as much as she loved me, she couldn't trust me not to skew the results inadvertently for whatever she was thinking.
I produced the device she described immediately , as well as its counterpart for reading the results and talked her through it. I then implanted it on the spot, which would usually require surgery, but it would be impossible to perform it on myself, so I just had to jam it into my chest.
"So the deal is we both do our methods and do what we feel is right in the end?"
"I know what is right, so yes. This ends in our marriage, I won't let the man I love throw it away because of outside interference blinding him." As Eve spoke, the deva laughed, before kneeling to apologise.
"Forgive me my Lady, I meant no disrespect, in fact it is a relief to see he met his match at last."
The words made Eve blush, she then ran over and kissed me, stunning everyone. "Also, what I said this morning was part of my theory. You could never break my heart, you love me too much to even consider it."
"Ok, well men and children eat up here, women and deva eat downstairs." Valo declared, not hesitating to push them all, including the walking extinction event that was the deva.
The rest of the day passed quickly and without any more surprises, except when the deva asked me if it was ok to keep secrets from me if Eve instructed it. Of course, I didn't have a problem with it, but I just wasn't sure if it would serve a purpose since if I later ordered her to reveal those secrets she admitted she would do so.
Afterwards, we all headed to the principal's, I mean Prime Minister's office, for the meeting. At which point he spent an awfully long time staring at us in silence.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke. "First, did either of you two consider that Quatal is now the princess of our kingdom?"
"No." Eve and I answered in unison.
"Second, how long is the deva going to be staying?"
"As long as she wants?" I answered, as more of a question than an answer.
"Did you even bother to ask her name? A deva moving into this increasingly bizarre kingdom is one thing, but maybe she would feel more welcome at least if she were properly introduced." Halsan said, with a tone of genuine disappointment at our callousness.
We looked at her guiltily and she seemed understandably hurt, making us all apologise, particularly myself since she had been referring to me as Lord.
"The name bestowed on me was, Astrael. My… creator said I reminded him of a starless void, beautiful and deadly, something mankind would spend their entire existence to reach only to find me beyond their grasp." She replied in a way that seemed to accentuate the characteristics she described.
"Can I just call you Auntie Astra? You remind me of Papa a bit, like you're family."
"That is Adam's decision… It may not be advisable though, it's best you don't get too attached in case I have to return to the domain of black."
"Don't be ridiculous, if my daughter wants you here, as long as my wishes are your obligation then that is your obligation. She needs someone who understands her nature in a way her own parents cannot. Under no circumstance can she go to the white though, I don't know why but I feel like that would be bad." I said clearly, before my voice faded to the mutterings of someone not quite sure what they were saying.
"Well child, it looks like I am to be your Auntie Astra from now on." Astra at last managed to say after stifling a laugh for a long time. "I cannot do too much however, if the white feels I intervene too heavily the consequences would be apocalyptic, I wish I could say more, bu-"
"Help us raise our child, help us fill her life with love and fun, that is all I could want."
"The same for any others that we have as well. You can't show favourites." Eve added hurriedly as if the offer would disappear.
"I hope it isn't a demotion from your place beyond transcendence."
"Actually it's about the same, though that tiger from the white has become quite grey and now watches the border in my stead." It was clear from the way she quickly asked me to send them back to the pocket dimension that she had said more than she should, so I did so immediately.
When they had left, Halsan began thinking of how to break the news to foreign nations that we had a deva for the nonexistent royal nursery, which made Eve realise she had to write a letter telling Vedna he was a grandfather, though the mischievous grin confessed her plan to keep things vague.
Finally, Halsan got to the meat of the meeting. Apparently he had nearly finished the base plans for the inauguration ceremony, but he now needed to know if Quatal would be declared crown princess from the start or whether she would wait until the usual age of fifteen.
"Why wait? She will be a princess regardless, but make it clear, she will not be married off politically and anyone who even suggests it will suffer my wrath unbridled… By which I mean the nanny's, she kneels to me and still scares the crap out of me, so she should be perfect for keeping those people at bay."
Everyone chuckled in full agreement, then Eve declared she had a theory to test before dinner and dragged me home. "Before I do this, I need you to know, it is purely selfish and not really part of the theory." I immediately knew what she was going to do, I knew from the abrupt exit and as we headed upstairs it was even more apparent.
I had addressed the emotional impact of our recent interactions, but the physical was another matter entirely. To her I had simply been teasing her, overly so with the newest method I had discovered. In other words, I had wounded her self-esteem, she had no way to know that I had struggled so badly the last time that I couldn't even control mana.
So, I needed to let her use me a bit. When we made it to the bedroom, she pushed me onto the bed, but not before she removed the threat that laying down posed to her ability in removing my shirt.
"This is the last time something like this will happen until the wedding, I mean it this time. The absolute last." She stated adamantly before climbing into bed and kissing me.
When she had done everything she could without going a step further, she gave me permission to leave.
"I can guess what you wanted to see and I'm sorry but, I don't think you will get the answer you want. This will be more informative for you." I held out a memory orb for her. "So you know it's not edited in any way. It starts this morning and finishes now. I also included my memories from other times and you should know something…"
"What is it, oh, but if it is sweet you best leave, I'm struggling with the mortal weakness." The fact she referred to desire as mortal weakness, as it was in the older version of the holy scripture was all the point of reference I needed so I made to leave.
Stopping as I opened the door, and saying what I intended to. "You said the other day, I stole the first touch of your body. One reason I'm taking this so seriously is because I want to be worthy in my own eyes of taking a much more significant first." As she lunged at me too, well I'm not sure whether it was to kill me or something else but with the ferocity survival odds were slim regardless, I threw the memory orb as a distraction and fled.
I then headed to the basement and constructed a side room that was not a secret and existed solely to contain a permanent gate for the pocket dimension that led to the house I had made there.
When I was done, I was about to step through to call the two back to help with dinner, but then Eve tackled me to the ground. "You're so dense, you're a dummy!" she shouted as I tried to get back up, only to see her already climbing the stairs again.
"Good dummy or bad dummy!?"
"Dense! Good dummy, Dummy!"