Phobos woke at the crack of dawn . Yawning with a stretch, she cast a glance around her . During the talk last night, all of them had started taking on more comfortable postures as time went by and somewhere down the line, drifted off to sleep . Deimos was wrapped around a body pillow like a koala, Ceres was curled into a ball with her tails covering her like a particularly comfortable blanket, and Artemis had drifted off in a half-seated posture while leaning on the cus.h.i.+ons piled against the headboard .

Phobos s.h.i.+vered slightly . The winter air had a bite to it and the fire in the hearth had died out without anyone to tend to it . She hadn't drawn a blanket over herself before sleep had overtaken her and her nightwear was a bit too flimsy to protect her from the chill .

Her eyes lingered a bit on the tight lines of the winged princess' body . Her pyjama top had hiked up a bit, revealing the well-defined muscles of her stomach . Artemis' toned arms and thighs drew her attention as well . Phobos found herself wondering what they would feel like to the touch .

She shook her head wryly . It was too early in the morning to get all hot and bothered .

Getting of the bed carefully so as not to wake the others, she cleaned her mouth with mana before Shadow Walking out into the living room . It was a common failing of all shadow mages . The convenient ability to teleport made them reluctant to use their feet to get anywhere . She pinched her stomach in an exploratory manner, letting out a sigh of relief when she found nothing too exaggerated . Mentally admonis.h.i.+ng herself for her sloth, Phobos entered the kitchen .

Bringing out a pan, she set some water to boil before rummaging about in the cabinet for her jar of ground coffee . She had been introduced to the beverage by a fellow bibliophile at the library . The bespectacled girl had seen her spending nearly the entire day there and the two of them had hit it off . Well… in the sense that they shared the same table while silently doing their own thing; saying a word or two when they both paused for a break . The girl had sworn by the bitter beverage, going so far as to refer to sleep as a weak subst.i.tute for it .

Pouring the steaming brew out into a mug, blowing on it a few times to cool it and taking a sip, Phobos had to agree . She wouldn't have survived these days of late nights and early mornings without it . Half-sitting on the counter, she nursed the mug, letting the warmth seep into her through her palms . It definitely made waking up at morning less of a ch.o.r.e .

'Why hasn't Husband come back yet?' she wondered . He had been whisked off by the two DemiG.o.ds without any explanation, making the subsequent banquet, that was supposed to be in the honour of the winner of the duel, rather pointless . 'What could they want of him that takes so long?' Shaking her head, she took another sip of the coffee . Well, she would just have to wait for him to return and tell her .

She heard sounds coming from the living room and frowned slightly . It shouldn't be Deimos as the white-haired girl was a heavy sleeper . Not Ceres either – the foxgirl wasn't a morning person . Her brow stretched . That only left the newest addition to the family .

Walking out of the kitchen with her mug in hand, she almost ran into Artemis who was trying to enter .

"Ah, there you are . I knew you were up and about but I couldn't locate you . You're incredibly silent . "

Phobos realized that she had been m.u.f.fling her presence with magic and shut it off . "Sorry . My bad . I used to keep my Stealth up at all times for training . It has become something of a habit . "

"No, it's fine . That's a pretty common training method -- maintaining a spell as long as possible . It's really helpful for increasing one's understanding of an Aspect . "

"So, what did you want me for?"

"Yeah…" Artemis tugged at the pyjamas she was wearing . "I'd really appreciate it if you'd lend me a set of clothes . Yours are the only ones that will fit . I want to return to the Palace and sort things out with my father and I don't want to wear that monstrosity of a dress again . "

Phobos nodded . "Sure . But its still early . Have breakfast before you leave at least . "

Artemis opened her mouth to reject but her stomach betrayed her by choosing the exact time to rumble .

"Well . " Phobos smiled . "That settles it . "

Walking into the living room, she tugged a bell-chain to summon room service before settling into the sofa . Artemis drew up a backless settee and sat down to wait .

"There's an arrangement in place for sending up breakfast for four for this room . As Husband hasn't returned yet, you can have his portion . "

Artemis nodded . "Thanks . "

They sat in silence for a moment with Phobos intermittently sipping her coffee . After a while, she said, "So, did we succeed in changing your mind?"

Artemis chuckled . "You certainly were persuasive last night . " She sighed . "But it was actually something else that convinced me . "

"What?"

"The teamwork between Mars, you and Ceres . You created that clone technique, Mars used it in the fight against me to great effect, and then during the banquet, Ceres donated the technique to the Academy . . . It was brilliant how you leveraged the interest generated by the fight and drew in a lot of investments towards researching and improving the technique . Now, instead of only you working on it, you have the best researchers in Regiis giving it their all . "

Artemis sighed again . "It made me think about the advantages of being in a team . Alone, you wouldn't be able to achieve this, but working together and delegating the different parts of the plan to the appropriate candidates, you worked a miracle .

"It made me think that maybe, just maybe I was going about things the wrong way . "

+++

Please read the Author's note below .

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I've been inducted into a new project at work . I can at most write for two to three hours a day . . . no breaks on Sunday either . That amounts to one FeralHeart chapter or half-chap of Dungeon Mage per day without taking any extenuating circ.u.mstances into account .

I tried rus.h.i.+ng my writing but all that came out was a horribly mutated lump of words . Never rus.h.i.+ng again .

So, new release schedule is one chap every alternate day for FeralHeart and one chap every 4 days for Dungeon Mage .

And as always . . .

Read ahead on P'atreon .