"Say, Eirika?"

"Hmm?" Eirika looked up.

The two were sitting side by side in the library. The book Nino had been reading when they first met lay finished beside them, with the little girl currently holding one with an intended audience two years older. At first Eirika thought it lucky that the library had books catered to children, but with the number of manaketes in the Order she supposed it made sense.

"Do you know someone called Florina?" Nino cocked her head.

"Florina? Oh! She's your friend with the lilac hair, isn't she? I've seen her a few times, but I've never had the chance to talk to her."

Nino's face fell. "Oh, but you should! She's really nice!"

"If she's your friend, she's bound to be nice!" Eirika giggled. "Will you introduce me to her?"

"Okay!" Nino's grin was contagious. "You two will get along great, I promise!"

"Really? Well, why don't you tell me about her?"

"Oh, Florina's the best!" Nino looked up with a pure smile. "We met when we were travelling with Lord Eliwood," she began. "She's really shy, especially around men, and she's really quiet, but she's also really, really sweet! She comes from a place called Ilia where it's really cold and she has two older sisters and all three of them are pegasus knights - "

"Nino!" Eirika laughed. "Breathe!"

"Hmm? Oh, okay." She took a deep breath. "And...and she can be a bit clumsy sometimes. Like, once she was so scared of archers hitting Huey - that's her pegasus' name, by the way - that she fell from the sky and landed on Lord Hector! I mean, I wasn't around at the time, but no one was hurt so it's really funny, right?"

"You know a lot about her," Eirika smiled.

"Yeah! Oh, and she's been teaching me how to ride Huey and says I'm getting really good at it!"

"Just as good as you are at reading, I'm sure." Eirika nodded to the book in Nino's hands. "You're not slow at all, you know that?"

Nino blushed. "You - you still help me with all the big words."

"Only some, and you're already learning to break them down for yourself."

"Oh...okay." Nino looked at the book for a moment. "Florina helped me with my brothers too," she mumbled.

"Oh?"

All Eirika knew is that Nino and her brothers had parted on bad terms and that she had come to blows with one of them. She had decided then and there that she didn't need to know the rest, especially not after learning of her mother.

"Yeah. She let me talk to her about them and..." she sniffed. "We had a big ol' cry about them together." She laughed it off, but the sound was forced. "Pretty silly, huh?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh..." Nino paused, then shrugged. "Ever since then, she's been like a big sister to me."

"...oh." Why did that make her stomach churn? "You spent a lot of time together, huh?"

"Yep! I have other really, really good friends too, like Jaffar and Rebecca and Erk - he isn't here yet - but Florina's the only one I can talk to like that."

"...well, that's what girls are for," Eirika smiled and felt awful for her brief hesitation. Now that she mentioned it, Eirika did remember seeing the two together often. They always looked like they were having too much fun for her to interrupt them, but it had been making her uncomfortable lately and she didn't understand why. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks!" Nino nodded to herself, then looked at her. "So...should I introduce you two when we finish today?"

"Wait...today?" The Princess sat up. "Today today?"

"Uh..." Nino cocked her head. "Well, yeah? I mean...I can't have two sisters who've never even met each other yet, can I?"

Eirika frowned at her with an open mouth for a few seconds. Then...

"Ah! Eirika! What are you doing?!" Nino gasped, face turning red. "Seriously! I - I can't breathe!"

But Eirika was hugging her too tightly to care.