I woke on the sofa, the first light of a new day filtering through the penthouse windows. The heavy blanket was pooled around my waist, and my neck was stiff from the awkward angle. For a long, disorienting moment, I was adrift, the cold, alien silence of Alyssara's sanctum feeling more real than the soft cushions beneath me. The sheer, crushing weight of my new Divinity felt like a physical restraint.

Then, I heard the soft, steady breathing beside me.

Stella was still fast asleep, curled up in the small space between me and the back of the sofa, her dark hair splayed across the cushion. She had, at some point, stolen most of the blanket. A small, involuntary smile touched my lips. The crushing weight of the Divine receded, pushed back by the simple, undeniable reality of my daughter drooling slightly on my shirt. This was the anchor. This was real.

I stayed still for a long time, just watching the sunlight slowly crawl across the floor, listening to her sleep. The day before had been a necessary, heavy fog of reentry, of sleep, of just... being. But now, the sun was up. The world, the one I had just fought to protect, was moving on.

Stella stirred, her nose wrinkling before her eyes slowly opened. They focused on my face, inches from hers, and widened in momentary, sleep-dazed confusion, followed by a flicker of embarrassment.

"You're... drooling," I murmured, my voice still rough.

"Shut up," she mumbled, scrubbing her face with the sleeve of her jumpsuit and pushing herself upright, her hair a chaotic mess. "You snore. Like a malfunctioning generator."

"I do not."

"You do," she insisted, but the familiar, light-hearted bickering was a balm, a return to the normalcy I craved more than anything. She stretched, her joints popping, and then looked at me, her gaze sharpening, the genius analyst replacing the sleepy teenager. "So," she said, her voice quiet. "You're back. It's... done."

"It's done," I confirmed.

"Okay." She nodded once, absorbing the immense finality of that statement. She looked at me, really looked at me, and I could see her perceptive mind working, sensing the change in me, the new weight, the exhaustion that went deeper than just a bad night's sleep on a sofa. "So... what now? Do you... go back to the Kagu place? More meetings? Plan for the next apocalypse?"

I thought of the impending debriefs, the strategic planning for the 7 Demon Lords, the political fallout, the sheer, crushing work that my new status demanded. I felt a sudden, profound weariness.

"No," I said, making the decision in that instant. "Not today. Today, I'm taking a day off. And so are you."

Stella blinked. "A day off? From... what? I'm homeschooled, Dad, my schedule is my own. And you just got back from..." She waved a hand vaguely, encompassing 'killing a god'.

"Exactly," I said, standing and stretching, my own body aching in protest. "I'm tired of this penthouse. You must be, too. Let's... go see the city. Just us. No heroes, no geniuses. Just... a dad and his daughter."

Her eyes lit up, a rare, uncomplicated spark of excitement, before the practicality of her nature took over. "Go out? Like, out out? Dad, you're the Second Hero. I'm... well, I'm me. We can't walk two blocks in Avalon before we're swarmed. It's a logistical nightmare. And your..." she eyed my face, "your 'I just saved the world' vibe is kind of obvious."

"I have a plan for that," I said, a small, genuine smile touching my lips. I went to a secure drawer, one Alastor had stocked for me ages ago. I pulled out two small, metallic discs. High-tech glamour emitters. Not the cheap, flickering illusions, but advanced, perception-warping tech that didn't just change your appearance, but made you uninteresting to the casual observer.

"We're going in disguise," I said.

An hour later, two completely unremarkable citizens stepped out of the penthouse's private elevator into the bustling lobby of Avalon's most exclusive tower. The man had slightly shorter, sandy-brown hair and plain, dark eyes, dressed in a simple, worn jacket and jeans. The teenage girl beside him had her hair dyed a temporary, rebellious shade of dark blue, her genius-level eyes hidden behind fashionable, non-prescription glasses, a baggy Slatemark Academy hoodie (no doubt acquired from one of her friends) swallowing her frame.

The doorman didn't even glance at us as we passed. The glamour worked perfectly.

The moment we hit the street, the life of the city washed over me. The rush of hover-traffic overhead, the chatter of hundreds of people, the smell of roasted nuts from a street vendor and the faint, clean scent of the city's atmospheric scrubbers. After the sterile silence of the crucible and the alien wrongness of Alyssara's sanctum, these simple, chaotic sensations felt overwhelming, vibrant, and beautiful.

Stella, too, seemed to drink it in, her head on a swivel. "This is weird," she murmured, staying close to my side. "Nobody is looking at us. I kind of like it."

"First stop," I said, "is a tactical necessity."

"What? A strategic vantage point? Reconnaissance?"

"No," I said, pointing across the street to a vendor operating a steaming, sizzling cart. "I'm starving. And I'm not eating another nutrient bar for at least a week."

We got spicy synth-lamb skewers, dripping with a sauce that was probably hazardously hot, and ate them standing on the crowded sidewalk, leaning against the wall. They were delicious. I watched Stella happily burn her mouth, her eyes watering, and felt a profound, simple joy. This was it. This was the peace I had fought for.

"So," she said, fanning her mouth. "Where to, 'Not-Dad'? Slatemark campus is just three blocks east. Wanna go see where my friends pretend to study magic?"

"Lead the way, 'Not-Stella'," I replied.

We walked, just two more anonymous faces in the afternoon crowd. Stella pointed out the Slatemark Academy from the outside, a soaring tower of white marble and glowing blue runes. She talked animatedly about her friends, about the projects they were collaborating on, the debates they had over physics versus magic. It made her world, the one she'd built for herself outside the penthouse, feel more real, more tangible to me.

"Okay," she said, finishing her skewer and tossing the stick into a recycler. "My turn to choose the next stop. And you can't say no."

"That sounds dangerous," I said.

"It is," she grinned, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me down a side street. "We're going to the arcade."

The arcade was a cacophony of light, sound, and adolescent energy. Holographic displays flickered, simulated gunfire and roaring engines echoed off the walls, and the air smelled of floor sealant and ionized particles. It was, in a word, perfect.

"You're going down," Stella declared, dragging me toward a massive, immersive racing sim. "Synth-Racer 5000. Last one to the finish line buys the synth-ice."

"You realize who you're talking to, right?" I said with a mock-serious tone. "Peak... well, my reflexes are pretty good."

"Yeah, yeah, save it for the Demon Lords, old man," she shot back, climbing into the cockpit. "Let's see you handle a hairpin turn at Mach 2."

What followed was, perhaps, the most humiliating defeat of my entire life. My divine-level perception, my micro-second reaction times, my ability to process complex battlefield data... none of it mattered. The game's controls felt alien, non-intuitive. I crashed into the first wall. I crashed into the second. Stella, on the other hand, drove like a seasoned professional, her genius mind instantly calculating the ridiculous physics of the game, her fingers a blur on the controls. She lapped me. Twice.

I emerged from the cockpit to the sound of her triumphant, howling laughter. "You... you are so bad!" she gasped, wiping a tear from her eye.

"The controls were unresponsive," I grumbled, but I was smiling. Seeing her this happy, this carefree... it was worth the loss.

She proceeded to utterly destroy me at a light-gun shooter ("Your aim is terrible, how did you even win?"), and a complex holographic dance game where my attempts to follow the patterns were, according to her, "physically painful to watch."

I was the Divine protector of this world, a being who had just stared down a god... and I was being mercilessly humbled by a fifteen-year-old in a video game arcade. It was perfect.

As the sun began to set, painting the Avalon sky in hues of deep orange and violet, we found ourselves on a high-level parkway, synth-ice in hand (I paid). We sat on a bench overlooking the glittering cityscape, the noise of the traffic a distant hum. Holographic birds soared through the air, and the park's floating lanterns began to ignite, casting a soft, warm glow.

We sat in comfortable silence for a while, the light-hearted energy of the arcade fading into a quiet contentment.

"This was good, Dad," Stella said finally, her voice soft. "Thanks for... not being a universe-ending cosmic entity today. Just... Dad."

"I needed this," I said, my voice equally quiet. "More than you know."

I looked out at the city, at the millions of lights, the millions of lives, all moving, unaware of the battle I had just fought for them. I thought of Alyssara, of the agonizing, necessary choice. I thought of Emma. The grief was still there, a thin, clean scar, but it no longer ached. The past was settled. This, sitting next to my daughter, who was complaining about 'brain freeze', this was the present. This was the reality I had chosen.

We walked home slowly as the city lights brightened against the twilight, just two more people in the evening crowd, our glamour discs holding steady. When the penthouse door sealed behind us, the comfortable silence of our home felt different. No longer a sterile, tense waiting room, but a place of earned peace.

"So," Stella said, stretching, a content, weary smile on her face. "Same time tomorrow?"

"We'll see," I said, smiling back. "You still have to finish your paper on quantum fluid dynamics for your Slatemark group."

She groaned dramatically and trudged off toward her workshop, but I could see the lightness in her step. She was okay. We were okay.

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