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The firm belief that Shu would not be abandoned did also mean that Mimsy had to accept some personal responsibility for her physical body, which had not really occurred to her yet. She continued to assume that there was always the opportunity to come back in some capacity, and the statue back on the island was as good as an extra life, so to speak.

So when she made her way closer to the crater that they were tasked to investigate, it was as if she was fixated on a shiny bauble being dangled by the hand of science. Her body didn't matter here - just her mind, which was very, very hungry. With wide eyes, she stared at the edge of the giant hole in the sand. This was nothing like the craters left behind by a meteorite striking the earth, and was not like the maws of the creatures that she had once encountered here, so every part of her was drawn towards it with awe and wonder.

"Oh," she gasped, dragging the edge of Svensyl behind her in the sand. It drew a crooked line from the Point A of their origin, which edged closer to an apparent event horizon with every step she took.

<That is a hole for very large rabbits!> Svensyl marveled, and had already busied himself with imagining what such a rabbit might look like. A white rabbit would surely stand out here in the sand, but perhaps that was the point. Or perhaps it wasn't!

"Indeed it is." Answering him aloud had become more habitual since Wonderland, and she certainly didn't think to avoid doing so when she wasn't really thinking about her social appearances. She bit her lip, held her breath, and dropped to her hands and knees to crawl closer towards the edge.

And if she happened to fall, she knew where she'd end up, anyway.

The haste in which she was pulled away from the crater was enough to startle her back into a more alert state, and the shock of adrenaline caused her to clumsily attempt to put herself upright. Robert's arms were not very easy to escape from, however, so she only managed to situate herself on her hands and knees again.

"Right, ah...yes. Yes." Her voice cracked as she stared down at him through the thick barriers of both glasses and goggles in front of her eyes, which were slightly askew from the impact of their landing. "Shu is probably not down there, anyway, and I doubt that I would be a particularly delicious pancake, after all, and..."

The longer she spoke, the harder it was for her to hold herself up in the shifting sand, even with Svensyl's assistance. She slowly slid to her elbows, until the tip of her nose touched his.

"...and..." No, the thought was long gone by now. She continued to stare in the absence of the words that she intended to say, waiting for him to speak. Or maybe they didn't need to speak, if she trusted the suggestion that Svensyl helpfully provided for her. Maybe--

The indicator on the FEAR Detector weakly began to beep, then blared out an alert at full volume without warning just a second later.

"An anomalous object!" Her head snapped up in search of it, eyes clearly full of that intoxicating sense of curiosity again.

"It is..." Mimsy didn't really know, and it sort of pained her to admit as much, so she said nothing instead. She slid off of him and began to crawl towards something sticking out of the sand. As the detector's beeping became one steady tone, she cleared the notification and she cautiously poked at the apparent object with Svensyl, who giggled in delight at the concentration of FEAR within it, and bent to collect it in one of the containment receptacles that had been provided to them.

"This is disappointingly uninteresting, I must admit, but I have located it nonetheless!" She shook the bag in front of her to prove it, despite probably not needing to, then dropped it into the sand.

Realizing that this might be a mistake, she tucked it carefully into her coat pocket, then turned to look at him again.

"Were you saying something? Was I?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to think, but all she could seem to remember was a distraction.

Which was correct, of course, but it was fair enough that it didn't feel right.

As little as Mimsy cared about doing this, Robert's celebration of her discovery radiated a contagious excitement.

"Congratulations!" Much like speaking to Svensyl aloud had become reflexive since the return from Wonderland, so had the congratulatory reply. She clapped enthusiastically for her own success, and paused to listen to him as he continued to speak.

The comment about itching caused her mind to wander to the idea of FEAR-infused sand mites, which directly conflicted with the thoughts that the rest of his explanation spawned. A thoughtful hm passed through her lips, and she stepped towards him with a little smile.

"Well," she slowly began, reaching to take a fold of his coat in her hand as she neared him. She closed her eyes, tilted her head up, and--

The FEAR detector began to frantically beep again.

The blatant disregard for the serious sanctity of all that was Deus Ex was absolutely hilarious to Mimsy (lab work excepted, as that was something else entirely), and the particular display of it in Robert's actions caused her to burst out laughing. It abruptly stopped when his lips met hers, and she closed her eyes again, clutching onto his coat as if staying near him could prevent her from drifting off into a dizzied state of partial awareness.

It didn't work, of course. Svensyl told her months and months ago, in his own way, that no kisses would ever match the first few that were shared. He encouraged her to prepare herself for that entirely normal shift in data, and she took note but never had to listen. As reasonable as it had seemed at the time, regardless of her unwillingness to be led by him, she had long since stopped believing that.

"All right," she absently responded, not even looking in the direction that he'd pointed. Nor did she move to go search for it - she just stayed in one place, occasionally wobbling unsteadily as she waited for her thoughts and senses to all catch up with her again.

A minute or so passed before Mimsy realized that they were standing in relative silence, with only the sounds of the desert and the Hunters working around them. She blinked and momentarily frowned as she turned to look for Robert. Silence from him was suspicious.

But as it turned out, between the two of them, he was the only one who was actually doing what he was supposed to be doing.

"Oh." She bent to examine what he'd found, and her clarity finally returned as she studied the object that he held. "Oh! Congratulations! A fine recovery!"

When she found herself facing an entirely different direction, Mimsy sighed in a very unsutble manner, then followed her footprints in the sand until she relocated the object. It hardly looked like anything of interest to her - just a portion of a necklace, maybe, but she did find several intriguing bones that she pocketed for later.

Her pace dragged along as she returned to him, slow and steady and entirely disinterested, until she was close enough to touch him. It was then that she flung herself into his arms, chasing the feeling that she'd experienced while working alongside him in Wonderland. This was not work that interested her as much as work for ALICE would, but she could draw parallels here and there, if she tried.

"I have retrieved it, so..." She looked at him over her glasses, which still remained behind the shield of her goggles. "Get on with it, husband."