This is a pretty respectable interest to have. Tiro is also interested in flying. He borrowed this artifact from his family's collection to go flying with!

It's really neat.

She doesn't ask whether she can borrow it, though it looks like she wants to.

He doesn't make the offer; he doesn't know her that well yet. But he's happy to talk about Steelwings some more. Steelwings: pretty great.

She's awkwardly avoiding looking at him now, and stammering. (She really really wants to try it, but you can't ask to borrow important things it's rude she knows that much and probably against regulations not that she knows them all-)

Information about Steelwings is still being conveyed, though.

"...Are you okay?"

"I'm... Bad at... Talking to people. Can I borrow it there I said it I was rude you can say no and we can go back to talking about Steelwings."

"No, you can't borrow it. Tell me more about Steelwings!"

Steelwings are pretty great and Knight knows a lot about them! She offhandedly mentions her two patents. 

"I'm getting older though. Twenty seven. In a few more years I won't have enough mana for combat left. Guess I'll go racing, research and development maybe..."

"What happens to your mana when you get older...?"

"Disappears. We just get less and less. Goes down by half by thirty. Injuries do it too sometimes, or malnutrition, but mostly age.

"Huh. I wonder why."

"If you wanna meet a doctor, I think we can do that. They're gonna be busy after a battle though you know. Obvious reason."

"Yeah. I can skip it. They have better things to do."

Back to talking about steelwings. She's heavily into theory now, it's a surprising amount of math.

Tiro can keep up with surprising amounts of math! It's kind of fun, even!

Yeah, she'll keep happily yammering away about Steelwings and only glancing at the cool artifact every once in a while all day if he lets her.

He does have to go get lunch at some point. But then he can come back!

Does he want to try helping Knight install this new part? It's made of an alloy of a fancy new metal called aluminum, they've started to refine usable amounts of it in only the last two years.

Sure! That sounds like fun!

She barks out commands and names of tools or steelwing-parts, explaining the process very fast.

It's absolutely delightful to not have to slow down her explanations for someone.

They have to open it up, move this assemblage out of the way, unscrew a bunch of things, lift the new part in and fit a bunch of tubes up to it, screw things back in, move that assemblage back, then double-check it all.

And they do, and it works, and Tiro is delighted to help!

Tiro's going to be Knight's new best friend at this rate.

At one point Gren comes in to question Knight about the rest of the squad's 'wings. Knight reports that they're in acceptable shape, to which Gren wryly comments, "Which means 'excellent condition' to anyone else. Hi Tiro."

"Hi Gren! Knight's teaching me everything she knows about Steelwings, it's pretty great. But if you have a suggestion for something more useful I could be doing with my time, I'm all ears."

"Funny you should mention. You might not be pleased by this, but the Unusual Resources Division is very excited about the glass you make when injured. They're probably going to ask for more sooner or later."

"You're right, I'm not pleased," he says. "Making that stuff hurts."