Can't stop me from snatching this out of the tags on a different post and making a new one!
I fucking think about this scene ALL THE TIME.
Eli specifically setting out to find Nico to check on her, actually finding her, and sharing an intimate moment of friendship with her.
It's important to me because one, the first time we see Eli specifically go out of his way to show Nico she's important to his team is in Spirit Rebellion with their meeting with Slorn. And then through Spirit Eater we get a rift between the two of them. And this rooftop scene is like the first moment they get where yes, they once again get a bridge between them via their concern and feelings for Josef, but also them being wizards together.
And like, Nico doesn't get a pov in the first book, in the second we get to see how she actually feels internally about Josef and Eli, and we get to see Eli appreciate her but still treat her as Josef's friend. It's like they have an understanding that Josef is what ties the two together, and they have to level with that. In book two we get Eli finding out about demon seeds being wizard and starts inviting Nico into that world, trying to open that shared thing. That is then stressed in the third book, but they do come back together and trust each other, for Josef and for their trio.
And that rooftop scene is great because they get a moment of friendship. That also leads into one of the best scene openers of all time; the King and Queen of trash.
Also, it's the first time Nico admits feelings for Josef, and her mental spiral about Adela being his "perfect demon free princess", fucked me up. So I'm glad to have immediately gotten a scene where she is both introduced to alcohol and platonically intimate with Eli.
Also her seeing the spirit world, and being the actual first thing in the entire sphere to try and describe what she's seeing to a person who can't. Not even Gin was able to describe what spirits looked like/how they see to Miranda, but Nico tried and succeeded. That's huge.
And Eli flashbanging her with his spirit on a hunch is hilarious. That's another thing. Eli doesn't fucking do that.
He's really powerful, and he's got (at this point in canon) the mark of the Shepardess, but he's a master of soft touch. Like Miranda has figured out the smallest opening of the spirit can make everyone a little unnerved and step away from her, but Eli doesn't go opening his spirit full blown often, he uses it to grab spirit's attention very gently. And he HATES showing Benehime's mark. And doing either would gather the attention of every spirit in his range, full open spirit or mark of the favorite, they will fucking wake up. But like nada, no spirits woke in the roof.
It was a controlled flashbang. But imagine that for a moment. Just as you gotta imagine how it is for a spirit deaf person to watch Eli converse with a wall. You gotta think about how Eli watched Nico react to a trick he was testing, just she looks dead in his eyes, and recoiled having been blinded by fucking nothing he can see. Like he knows what he did, that was the test, but it's probably the closest he's gotten to half of an experience. And then he gets to question a person with Spirit eyes and know in some part he can trust her for it.
Also, I checked the scene to write this, when Eli interrupts Nico's internal dilemma, she takes a moment to process it's him, because he's glowing. And then that light goes out and they have their moment, AND THEN he flashed her. So Eli snapped her out of her throughts by putting the bottle to her cheek, but his spirit was open.
So I will point out he probably tried to get her attention by talking to her like a spirit, just as he does later in Spirit End. And when she didn't react, then he prodded her with the bottle. But it means he was trying to wake her from her mental sunny field by talking gently in his spirit voice, which was probably his second attempt.
So adding onto that lovely Nico and Eli scene, shown to us via Nico's perspective, is Eli, finding his friend on the roof of the palace facing the window and thus the door Josef just disappeared behind, in a complete trance, and he tried very sweetly alerting her to his presence for a while before lightly touching her face and her jerking to reality and staring in confusion dead at him because she couldn't see him behind his slightly open spirit.
And then they pulled an all nighter, bribing servants into bringing them junk to look at.
In the middle of a war. Like they knew by then their continent was facing invasion by the Immortal Empress by then. Nothing bad had happened yet but like they knew she was active.
I love them so much
Stole this from @camthecatchameleon 's tags so I'm tagging you so you can see this lmao tehe













