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The Bookbelt | Monday

It was… probably best not to ask just how early Nina had gotten into work at her shop because by the time she officially opened, she'd cleaned the place from top to bottom, put away the new books, submitted her order for more, and gotten Halloween decorations up (the random bowl of candy was actually, like, on point today, though she wasn't eating any of it)…

Then she'd taken up the bulk of her counter space with art supplies. Like, sure she could do things low-key and simple for when she was selling tickets tomorrow but… really… that just wasn't her style.

So there was a ferocious amount of black, orange, and silver glitter being wielded today at the book shop.

All in the name of Homecoming!

Mwahaha!

The Bookbelt is Open! And… very, very glittery.

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And sometime around midmorning, there was a Liam. "Good morning!" he announced as he made his way into the shop.

"Good mooooooooooooorniiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she enthused, beaming as she looked up from where she was glittering up a poster.

"I can see you've been busy," he said, taking a look around the newly cleaned and decorated shop, as well as her current project.

"I couldn't sleep," Nina admitted, with a bit of a shrug. "So, like, I figured why not get a jump on things?????????"

And then it had snowballed...

Yeah, he'd noticed the lights on in the shop rather early today, but had deliberately waited until a little bit later to stop in.

Still, that 'couldn't sleep' got a concerned frown out of him. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Everything's fine," she assured him.

Well. 'Fine' was a broad sort of term but in this case...

"I just, like, couldn't shut my brain off enough to sleep, you know?????? I kept waking myself up with a 'ohmygosh, don't forget this!!!!!!!' until I gave up on sleeping since clearly it didn't want to happen??????"

It was actually pretty accurate?

"Ah," he relaxed visibly. He was, of course, aware that 'fine' was relative, when you took certain recent events into account. But it was still a relief to hear that things weren't worse, or that there was no new crisis to speak of.

"Clearly," he agreed. "The shop looks good."

"Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she crowed, which did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that she was rather touched (at his concern) and pleased (at the compliment).

"And, like, it gave my hands something to do while I tried to figure out my costume for Homecoming??????????? I still haven't really decided...……."

Nina. This was your fault. You picked the theme.

“Costume?” he blinked at her. “For Homecoming? I thought the costumes were generally done on Halloween?”

"Well, yes," she admitted. "But, like, I want to fit this year's Homecoming theme??????? Because it seems silly to set the theme and then not dress to it...……"

And it wasn't like a cute guy was taking her this year anyway. She might as well find her fun where she could.

“Of course, now I have to ask what the theme is,” Liam pointed out. “So...?”

Nina drew herself up with grave dignity, which the sheer amounts of glitter sticking to her were determined to undermine.

"Gothic horror slash romance crossed with a 70s disco!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This was what happened when you let Nina pick the theme.

Liam was silent for a few moments as he digested all of that.

“Well,” he said finally. “That explains the glitter.” Which was rather more in abundance than usual.

She shook one of her hands out, shedding glitter everywhere.

"I'm doing most of the decorations by magic," Nina admitted, since that was going to be the only way to get her vision for the evening down properly. "But, like, that just means that the things I'm not doing by magic I've got to put all the glitter into!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The fact that she was doing the party with magic was also why, come the weekend, she'd discover that she still had her abilities even when other people had them swapped around.

Otherwise the party would be ruined and that was just not on and even the island knew that!

Liam gave her a thoughtful look. "Magic decorations? So is that a sort of, you cast it and it's done thing, or do you have to concentrate to keep them up?" he asked.

Yeah, Nina knew that look well.

She strongly suspected she was going to be getting it from her brother the moment he saw what was going on too.

"Combo of both???????" she offered, shaking her other hand out really only accomplishing getting glitter everything. "Like, I could do it 'cast it and then maintain it', but I'd be wiped, so I've been building the spells needed in my notebook and stocking energy away in them ahead of time, a bit every night," she'd slept really well all through vacation and not just because she was out and about like a maniac all day, every day, "which, like, is probably why I couldn't sleep last night, now that I think of it, since it was the first night in a bit where I didn't drop all my excess energy into my spells before sleeping……….."

Nina trailed off, then shook her head.

"I'll have enough energy that, come night of the party, I'll just have to expend the energy needed to kickstart the spell, and I'll do that early enough that I'll be able to catch my breath before the party!!!!!!!!!"

This was why Nina liked it when she could painstakingly plan her magic ahead. It was way less tiring.

"Well," Liam said. "So long as you'll actually get to have a chance to enjoy yourself at the dance."

He was really leaning hard into this whole fake-dad thing. Sorry not sorry, Nina.

She honestly really loved it.

"Oh, I will," she promised. Even if her lack of a date was tragic. And, like, sure. She could fix that. She could ask someone.

Buuuuuuuut she'd asked Owen to date her and that had gone terribly. Nina would kind of like a guy to ask her this time around.

"I have plans for the party," she continued brightly. "I wouldn't miss it for the world!!!!!!!!!!!"

It was going to be good.

"Good," he nodded at her. "I'm glad. And speaking of enjoying yourself- how was the trip?"

"Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Even the weird end of the world one! Nina had loved it!

She'd not been stupid enough to go riding the possessed rides though. She had common sense.

"Oh!!!!!!!!!! Wait hang on, stay there, don't move!!!!!!!!!!" Nina bolted to the back room, with a, "I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!", tossed over her shoulder.

“I- okay?” Liam said, looking somewhat bewildered. Especially since he’d actually come here to drop off something he’d promised her, ages ago.

Nina was kind of like that, yeah.

She came out in short order, carrying two bags.

"This one's for Miss Verity," she said, "so you're not allowed to open it!!!!!!!!!!"

But he could take it to her, since Nina had gotten her one since it had felt weird to get him one and not her. Inside of it was a styling pair of ears.

"But this one," Nina said, beaming. "Is for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And yes, she'd gotten him ears.

... He was also getting a bunch of glitter in his general direction as she offered the bags since... well. Her existence was currently glittery.

He was going to be picking glitter out of his clothes and hair for the next forever, wasn't he?

Still, glitter or not, that bewildered expression transformed into a mixture of 'gobsmacked' and 'pleased'. The idea of presents was still unfamiliar enough that it caught him off guard (in a good way) every time.

He dug into that bag with a certain childish glee, and not even the sheer sparkliness of what he came out holding deterred that at all. Because yes, it absolutely was not at all his style, but not in a 'I don't know you too well so I got you something generic' way, but in a 'this is the complete opposite of something you'd pick out for yourself and I damn well know it' kind of way. And it was a gift. For him.

"These are," he paused for a moment, trying to come up with an appropriate adjective. "Impressive," he settled on finally, with a grin.

She giggled and grinned back at him.

"I know they're ridiculous," Nina said happily. "But, like, that's the point of them!!!!!!!!!!"

Sure, some were pretty but most of them, even the pretty ones, were silly.

And yes, yes he was DOOMED to glitter.

Edited 2020-10-20 19:46 (UTC)

"Ridiculous or not, you took the time to pick something out. For me." Yeah, still absolutely gobsmacked by that. "Thank you."

He settled them in place on his head, and then raised an eyebrow at her. "How do they look?"

You know, other than 'completely at odds with his monochrome outfit'.

“Absolutely perfect,” she assured him, feeling that it was the complete truth in that moment. He might be monochrome in outfit but his sheer joy was impossible to label as anything but—perfect.

"Good," he said with a nod. Yes, he'd be wearing these ears at least until he left for the mainland later that day. "I have something for you too." A beat. "It's not nearly as sparkly."

But she would, hopefully, find it reasonably cool?

She was almost 100% likely to love it!

Nina giggled. “Pretty sure the returnee is the one meant to be giving presents after a vacation, but I won’t say no.........”

"Well," Liam shrugged. "Technically, this is just something I said I'd put together for you a while ago." He fished something approximately the size of a baseball out of a pocket ~~which despite the picture was not currently glowing~~ and held it out to her.

Edited 2020-10-21 04:04 (UTC)

Nina eyed him, and it, before she reached for it.

"What is it??????" she asked.

She could guess it was the lexicon but... how?

As she took it, she'd find it noticeably warm to the touch. "The Eunoia lexicon," he explained, confirming that suspicion. "Start by thinking 'on' at it."

If she did so, the device would begin to glow, and then begin to emit a column of light.

"It's warm!!!!!!!!" she said, surprised before she shook her head and, grinning, thought on.

"Oooooo!!!!!!!"

"It's semi-organic," Liam explained. "Very responsive to thoughts. So if you think of a word- or a concept- it'll give you the pronunciation, both serene and fierce, as well as the written representation."

Though full written sentences in Eunoia were... complicated. Well, okay, honestly, nearly everything about Eunoia was complicated, for a human mind, but Liam was certain Nina would enjoy the challenge. They'd get to sentences once she had a decent amount of vocabulary to work with.

"I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!" Nina declared, with utmost honesty and glee. "Ohmygosh, you're the best!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Liam beamed at her. "It's still not going to be easy," he warned her. "Eunoia isn't really like human languages. It takes a different way of thinking. But the lexicon should help, at least."

"Since it won't be easy, it'll just be more fun," Nina reasoned, bouncing a little on her toes. "It'll be a real challenge!!!!!!!!! Most of the big, modern ones here aren't very challenging........"

"If I didn't think you were up for it, I wouldn't have put it together," Liam replied honestly. "I can't really speak to the difficulty of languages here, though." A beat. "Pun not intended."

She laughed.

"You know them already???????" Nina hazarded. "And, like, no, it's great-----I need a long-term challenge!!!!!!!!!!"

"Not all of them," Liam admitted. "That'd be quite a feat. But a lot, yeah."

Edited 2020-10-23 00:54 (UTC)

"Yeah, that's so many!!!!!!!!!!! I'm mostly focusing on, like, the big ones?????? And then crash coursing through the ones of countries we visit on trips!!!!!!!!!"

Which was still a lot of languages but at least manageable.

"So English, obviously," Liam said. "What else? Hindi, Mandarin...?"

"Yes!!!!!!!!!! Spanish and French, I'm fluent in now, in addition those two," she offered. "My Greek is pretty good, but my Ancient Greek is better--so is my Latin. I'm currently focusing on Russian, German, and Japanese right now???????"

"Oh, Japanese," Liam said, nodding approvingly. "That one's probably more challenging than the others?" he guessed.

... Listen. Listen. His nerdery was literally a biological compulsion. He could not help it!

"It's more challenging, for sure," she admitted. "Like, I've got basic conversational skills down, that was easy enough but getting all the nuances down is much harder-----and that's not even getting into their written systems!!!!!!"

Liam nodded. “Also, aside from Mandarin, the rest of those languages you mentioned are all in the same family,” he pointed out. “Japanese, on the other hand, kind of stands on its own.”

Nina laughed.

"But that makes it more interesting in some ways??????? Like, learning Spanish and French at the same time was a challenge because they're almost too similar so it's hard to keep them straight when you're learning them!!!!!!!!!!"

“Huh,” Liam said thoughtfully. “Never thought of it that way.”

Which came from never actually having to put in the work of learning them in the first place.

Yeah, Nina was good at languages but she still had to work to learn them!

"It was, like, not something I would recommend," she admitted. "I'd be writing a sentence in French and halfway through it'd be in Spanish?????????"

Pfft. Just be born knowing stuff, Nina! Easy.

"I can see how that could get confusing," Liam agreed. "Less of a problem now, though?"

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The Bookbelt | Monday

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