She shook her head, smiling honestly.

"It's getting too dark to sew," she explained, tying off her latest stitch and sticking the needle in her pincushion. "And I don't want to disrupt my book, so I was going to just watch the sky a bit myself............. so, like, you might say that you've got perfecting timing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Oh, I'm not reading," she said, though she frequently multi-tasked. "I've got a spell running on my book, so I'll be here for awhile!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Nina laughed, holding up the tiny shirt she was working on. "Just sewing, tonight!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not very good at, like, complicated things, so I have to concentrate on it!!!!!!!!!!"

Though she was a lot better than she had been a year ago. Making Sir Foomy's costumes took a lot of effort even if she did cheat outrageously with magic.

"For a toy squirrel," she said, laughing. "It's a friend's graduation this weekend and I'm making him a gift!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He'd be very confused by her silly gift. It'd be great. And Nina knew Noctis would appreciate it more than he'd appreciate something big and extravagant even if he just gaped and rolled his eyes.

"And, like, the spell's a gift for my brother???????????? Though I haven't decided when to give it to him.........."

True enough!

"It's capturing the sky," Nina explained. "Well, like, it's basically video recording it???????????? But only, like, as if we're up there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That had been the hardest part of the spell. Nina couldn't fly and she'd had to redo the math over and over until she'd gotten the right height.

"So, when he triggers it, it'll be like he's surrounded by stars?????????????" Folding her tiny squirrel shirt, Nina smiled softly. "It's, like, back......... home," she was a bit hesitant calling Insomnia that, but it was her home, too, wasn't it? "there's a lot of daemons that come out at night so it's not safe to be outside??????????? My brother loves the sky here so, like, I thought............"

She laughed, suddenly self-conscious.

"It's really a bit much to say I thought I could give him the sky but, like, I guess that's what I'm doing.........."

She considered him quietly.

"Hey," Nina said, her voice soft, "are you okay?"

"I mean, like, you don't have to say what's wrong or anything!" she said, backpedaling. "It's just, I thought, I mean.........."

Nina hesitated.

"Sometimes you seem like you're really not okay."

She wanted to reach out and... brush his arm? Touch his hand? But Nina wasn't sure how he'd take it, so she refrained, settling instead for a sympathetic smile.

"It's a pretty good place," Nina said simply and warmly, choosing to not pry further into that right now. "It does take some getting used to, though!!!!!!!!!!! I saw you yesterday in the park------did you have fun??????????????"

"Fresh Eggplance," she said, laughing. "Like, my team totally failed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Though we came in second in my part of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Which was the most important part.

"Ulysses was on my team, though, so it was a lot of fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Was she testing the waters? She was maybe testing the waters.

.........

..

"What???????????" That was a confusing sentence!

"That's impressive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she enthused. "No wonder, like, he was kind of disappointed you weren't on our team!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And it had nothing to do with how attractive Julius looked!

Honest!

And, like, with that awe Nina felt a little bad that Uly had wanted Julius on the team because he was pretty.

She got that sort of awe.

"Yeah," Nina said, a little more softly. "You were wanted on our team."

"Mae tends to shout," Nina admitted, not mentioning that she'd noticed that Julius didn't like shouting. "The race probably didn't convince you of it, but she's really great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And you weren't the biggest size mismatch------Cait and Grog looked funny too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And had come dead last. SO.