"You can! You progressed a lot really fast! I'm proud of you."

There's his flickering blush again. "Thank you," he says shyly. "I- you helped."

"Well I don't know how but I'm glad I did." Gloves! "Here, try these."

Hands: into gloves. Fingers: wiggle.

"...feels weird."

Giggle. "Now let's see you hold the paper." Another sheet!

Brightening of the parts of him not covered by gloves! Cautious reaching out to take the paper. Which doesn't burn.

"Thank you!"

"Cool! Now I just need to make gloves that don't rely on my power."

Nova flickers a little. "I- can just. Avoid flammable things? M'good at that?"

"I mean, that, too, but I'd like you to live as close to a normal life as you'd want to, and so far you haven't even tried it to see how much you like it."

Nova pauses. "I- no. I. Guess I haven't?"

"So, there you go, I'm gonna show you what a normal life's like and you can decide how much of it you want."

He brightens again. "...my choice?"

"Yep."

"I think- I'd enjoy finding out," he says shyly.

"I think you will, too! And I can't offer you much in terms of material goods, I have to support myself on a part time job, but the fact that you eat fuel and don't need sleep makes this way easier to budget for."

He does flicker a little uncertainly there. "I- don't want to cause you problems?"

"It would cause me problems if you were out on your own or living with the Protectorate, I'd be really disappointed in myself. So. Don't worry about it."

"Oh, I- as you say, m-" Slight pause, working on: "Sadde. Thank you."

She beams. "Okay, so, fireproof gloves. Let me see what I can find about those online." She grabs her phone and sits cross-legged on the floor.

While she does that, Nova starts folding the paper, mostly aimlessly, to work on his dexterity.

"Hmm I have a few hits, but they won't be as pretty as mine. I should figure out a way to make some like mine instead of buying ready-made ones but these should probably work fine as a stopgap measure."

"-I don't need them to be pretty?" he points out quietly.

"Yeah but some of them are actually kinda clunky, look." She turns the screen to him to show a pair of thick fireman gloves.

He flickers, focusing carefully. Looks down at the piece of paper he's been folding. "-oh. Yeah."

"But it's a start. Unless you'd rather I not get one of these."