I released my divinity, then brought it back inside, not restraining but compressing it. It made Quatal feel dizzy and tingly, though she was giggling at the tingles so I chose to continue.
When I had compressed it enough I felt a connection with all nearby shadows, like they were all a part of me at some point. I focused on the connection I could feel with the deep shadow being cast by a tree, then pictured the darkness of the teleportation room in Abelegia.
It took a lot more divinity compression to feel that far away, but I just about managed to reach it before willing the two points to create an open tunnel between them. With surprisingly little effort on what I thought would be the hardest part, the shadow bubbled up and formed an archway, from which we could hear panicked voices yelling.
"Oh, that accent is familiar. My father is going to kill you." Eve called from my shadow.
"It'll be fiiiine." I said. "Quatal was desperate to see Grandpa, weren't you?"
"Yep! I love Grandpa... Wait... How did you know I wanted to see Grandpa?"
"We mentioned him.... That is usually all it takes with you."
"Thank you Papa, you know me so well."
As the centre of the bubbling archway cleared to an open path I stepped through. "Hello, sorry to burst in, somebody was desperate to see her grandpa and threatened to fly in."
Quatal gasped dramatically and at first I thought she was going to snitch on me... but then she spoke. "How did you know that? Can you read minds Papa? Oh wait, I know you can... No fair, I call cheater."
"Quatal, I didn't cheat... Wait, you were going to fly ahead? Askel, if you ever fly away without Mama and Papa knowing or saying it's okay, we will be very angry young lady."
That was when Eve and Cosmael appeared from my shadow and I heard the loud crash of metal falling. "Can you two wait until there aren't weapons pointed at us please... Ahem! Apologies, my husband and daughter ran off without warning, please tell my father that we have arrived."
"First, though... Eve Take Askel, finish her lecture, I'm gonna pass out real quick..." Then I hit the floor, before waking up in a strangely familiar room."
"Idiot. You exhausted yourself, you were out for seven hours. The girls are with my father, on a tour of the city." Eve explained as I came to, lying in bed with her in front and facing away from me.
"Sorry, is it just me or is divinity consumption hard to gauge, I didn't know it was gone until it was."
"No, it is. Maybe because it isn't supposed to have a limit. I think I'm even worse at judging it than you to be honest. It's just that I don't randomly experiment with personal teleportation." Eve chuckled.
"Sorry, thinking about how strong Sil must be to make the Crackling Jabber made me want to get some new tricks of my own. How did I end up cuddling you whilst unconscious?"
"You were only sleeping in love, I dragged you here and laid you down, then laid next to you. Then you rolled over and well... you've been a bit of fabric away from inside me for about ten minutes now and I thought I would try and drift off to see if you would try something sooner than expected." She chuckled as I pulled away.
"Nope, not there yet... Surprised you didn't try though, I gave you standing permission to."
"I wanted to, but I thought I'd restrain myself as an apology for trying without permission. I don't think I really expressed how sorry I was for assuming, if anything I feel like I made you feel guilty for being unhappy about it."
"Truth be told you did, but I knew you were sorry and me getting guilty doesn't diminish your sincerity. Trust me, we're even on that one, feel free to try but times like this would be preferred okay."
"After you exhaust yourself?"
"No..." I laughed. "I meant when I'm reaching for you anyway."
"Ah. Noted. Shame I don't have any tells like that."
"Oh Eve... It is truly adorable and sad how little you know about your body's tells." As I spoke, I slid closer and just ran a hand up to her chest to find a nipple slightly more firm than usual.
"Please don't tease me like that... We can't do anything... The girls and my father will be back any moment and we have already had a maid knock once to check if we needed anything. This room still only has the child privacy enchantments that stop when someone knocks." She was moaning softly as I played with her breast, then despite her own denial of it being an appropriate time she pushed back into me.
"Eve, did you forget? Those aren't child enchantments, those are just the only ones that everyone else knows. I made ours and only divines can place them."
"I actually had... Can you place them now?"
"Nope..." I declared as I turned around. "You wanted to deny yourself as punishment, I just wanted to see how dedicated you were." I grinned stupidly before a sword of light appeared frighteningly close to making me lose the one piece never lost before.
"You're lucky I still need that... Also, that I haven't quite figured out the page I'm on, but I think that's what we're trying next."
"Haven't figure it out?" The words poured forth tinged with confusion, alarm and a touch of curiosity that was eclipsed by Eve's.
"It's nothing crazy, I just mean it's in dwarf and my divinity doesn't translate well yet."
"I will show you some tricks for that one later..."
With that we had both been disarmed enough, that we could leave we left to find Vedna.
We caught up to them in the central market, Vedna wearing a very thin and ineffective disguise. He was buying the girls a broach each, which was very nice of him since we hadn't seen him be particularly grandfatherly to Cosmael before.
"My granddaughters tell me that I misunderstood your request about monsters." He admitted as he passed the vendor a few coins.
"Yes, the crystal dragon golem is a prize I can't resist, but the idea is to monitor the monsters' behaviour. If they start behaving strangely, leaving their territories etc."
"Ah, I apologise then, I assumed you wanted to explore and tap the resources there."
"Believe it or not that would be more dangerous than the monsters. Never mine that are father, please, the losses will be tragic."
I gave him a brief lecture on monster population and danger correlating to the environmental mana density and by the end he was sold that the risks far outweighed the gains, as substantial as the were.
We then told him we would return for a day on our way back, but I was not in a mood to be surrounded by humans yet and after a brief explanation he had a face of thunder and a most unholy vocabulary.
"I don't blame you at all... Quatal, if anyone ever tries that, show them divine wrath. You can show divine forgiveness to whatever is left. Same for you Little One, honestly, trying to harm children..." He didn't even say goodbye, just returned to the cathedral ranting and grumbling as we waved.
When he was gone we all exhaled with puffed up cheeks, then we left to reach the mountain valley to rest for the night. We neither passed through nor stayed at the entrance, but got about half way before creating a garrison position that could act as a bulwark if the monsters tried to stampede out of the wastes beyond.
Then we set up a network of traps that could cause a mass rock-slide and crush monsters if needed and when our work was done we returned to the safer side and set our camp and as usual had dinner then sent the girls home for the night.
"Adam, I know I spoke a big game earlier but can we not go as rough tonight, honestly I'm starting to feel it. Either way, I think tomorrow is a rest day."
"Eve, the fight tomorrow is going to be intense, are you sure you can handle it with no regeneration?"
"Don't worry, I figured that out already, I will hang back and handle support. These crystal dragons have insane magic resistance anyway, so I'll be more effective in enhancing everyone physically."
"So I guess I'm not of the hook tonight?"
"Adam, my sweet. After earlier I was tempted to heal myself just to ruin you and make you fight while completely ragged. Still might, if I can find other ways to do it though, so I recommend you distract me quickly." She then chuckled as I seemed to burst free from clothing and pounce on her.