Chapter 79 Continued

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Joe woke at about midnight as he would judge it if he were on Earth, but he had no markers to make a reasonable guess and simply turned it to a time of meditation and practicing his various magic exercises before exhaustion and the general darkness which deprived him of any stimulation and had him back to sleep.

Some time late in the night, he felt Kilniara slip into bed at his side and he snuggled in to her, pulling her into a spoon before falling asleep again. He ended up waking again later because his back grew cold and he had to pull the blanket to cover his back again before falling into a deep slumber until the dim light of the early morning sun shone through into the room and Joe woke with a deep breath, Kilniara still breathing deeply in her sleep. Joe yawned, but it wasn't from sleep. He actually woke well rested and the yawn was part of the satisfied stretch of waking satisfied with his sleep.

He began practicing his mana and mana point exercises again, able to put in a good couple hours of work before Kilniara yawned and woke as well, quite a bit grumpier than him. He paused to take in her waking but she simply grumbled, shifted, rolled towards him and then fell back to sleep. Joe smiled then returned to his practice for another thirty or forty minutes before Kilniara finally woke, quite grumpy but awake.

"Good morning, sleepy head!"

Kilniara groaned, turning away and Joe thought that she was trying to fall back to sleep but several moments later, she grunted out a growling morning of her own.

Joe leaned forward and kissed the back of her head, "Waking up?"

Kilniara responded but not in any known language, simply an affirming gurgle of some kind.

Joe chuckled but let her recover as she was wont and returned to his practice. Maybe about an hour later, Kilniara finally roused enough to join him and the two were practicing until they rose from bed and joined the others for a rather late breakfast. Gwenvair actually joined them as well, although her mother didn't come so Joe found most of the conversation was between the others while he mostly listened in. As usual, the two guys and two girls split off into their own conversation, mostly instigated by the two girls as they tended to want their privacy.