It's a nice library, especially for such a small town, with plenty of everything, but a focus on science and poetry, a well-appointed children's' section, a nice selection of music and holovids, and comfy chairs offering varying amounts of privacy.
Right now, though, it's closing time; the announcements have been made, the final checkout rush handled, and now the librarian is making one last check before she locks up for the night.
Daisy watches after her, for a moment, before looking back to him. "I'm glad you're staying."
He ducks his head, his own smile turning shy, and a little confused. "I- s'good here?" (There's a tiny hint of 'what else would I do?')
"Good," she grins.
"If you did want to go, we'd help you with that. I don't know what we'd do exactly, but we'd figure something out - some good place for you to go."
He curls his legs up to his chest, and rests his chin on his knees. "You're good," he says quietly. (Better, he thinks, than he deserves, but they seem to want to be.)
He leans against her, hands far enough away from both of them that when he starts playing with his flames they're not likely to singe Daisy.
He'd got thinking, the other night, watching his flames echo his fingers as he learned to sign. Maybe he could make it form other shapes? His first attempts are mimicries of the stick figure animals he drew.
He smiles, and eventually lets his flames settle, and just sort of stares at them, smiling slightly.
He blushes slightly, ducks his head. "Seems to...be easier to get it to do things than to stop."
"Mmhmm. Pradnakt will be able to help with that - there's some things she didn't want to show you until you already knew she was a Sith, she might start with those soon. But practicing like this helps, too."
He nods, and turns his hand over and back, watching the way the flames flicker and shift with the motion. "S'nice being able to."
He hums. Eventually, though, he shifts, glances back in the direction of the houses.
He does his best to return the squeeze, and then walks beside Daisy back to the house.
There's a red glow from where Pradnakt is sitting on the roof of her house.
"Do you still want to sleep in our house tonight?"
He looks up at the red glow, a little wary, but then back to Daisy.
He considers - he, strangely, doesn't want to be alone he doesn't think. "Please?" he nods.
"Of course. Dusk will be a little while, I think; you can take your time in the shower."
She leads the way in; Nine is inside, sitting at the worktable. He looks up when they come in, but doesn't say anything.
"Is something wrong?"
"I don't know. Did Dusk leave?"
"Oh, no - she was out with us for a little while, and she's meditating now. I think she'll be in when she's done."
"Ah, okay."
He follows again. Hesitates, looking between Nine and Daisy, not sure what to do, half wanting to escape and take a shower.
"I'll be back in a minute," Daisy tells Nine, and then gets down a change of clothes for Nova and leads the way back. "We'll be in the workroom when you're done."
She goes back and sits by Nine. Droids don't cuddle, don't even have a close equivalent, but the way she chooses to be close to him suggests comfort and trust nonetheless. "I told him about Dusk."
"And...?"
"He's staying. I think he'll be okay. We would have been in trouble if we'd told him when you wanted to, though."
"I don't understand."
She sits for a minute, thinking about how to put it. "Humans don't think about being on the same team the way we do, it's more complicated for them. And Dusk has been trying to show him that he can be on ours, but until last night, he didn't believe it - not about her, anyway. And I don't know what she did last night after she had us leave, but it must have finally convinced him, because this morning, he did believe it - remember how he sat by her, and let her touch him, and calmed down when she did? That's what that means, in humans, it means he trusts her as a teammate. And I think if we'd told him about her before he trusted her, he wouldn't have been able to - it's easier for humans to go back to trusting someone than to start trusting them, even when that's not really logical."
"Okay. Should I be... touching them, or letting them touch me?"
"You can if you want to. Dusk knows it doesn't work that way for us; she wants to touch me a lot anyway, but she usually doesn't. Nova likes to be touched, but you should be careful, he gets scared easily. You've seen how I do it, that I offer him a hug and let him come to me?"
"Mmhmm."
"Do it like that, at least to start."
"That makes sense."
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