Welcome to Gaia! ::

There were few occasions in Mimsy's life when she had opted to sit out in the sun. Generally speaking, darkness was preferable and much more comfortable, and the majority of the laboratories that she worked in didn't have windows that opened directly to the outside - especially the one that would soon be shared with Lucky, which was situated well beneath the island's surface.

The existence of the solarium in their home was changing that, albeit slowly. When she initially suggested it, it was under the assumption that she would only use it at night to view the stars within the safety of an enclosed space, and that Robert would be the one to make use of it in daylight hours. With the addition of plant life to care for, however, the sunny room was substantially more incentivized. It allowed for simple, methodical work that could be done over coffee, which meant that the early moments of the day could still be productive. They were like low-risk experiments that she only had to observe, if she chose to, but watching him work with them encouraged a strong desire to share that involvement.

As she slowly sipped from her mug, she gently touched the petals of one hydrangea bloom, which was flourishing well in the summer sun. It shifted beneath her, swaying in a bright blue greeting of 'good morning', before settling into its passive state again.

Which was exactly what set off a lightbulb of an idea.

"Robert?" While she called for him, she moved energetically in search of him, one step short of skipping through the house. The coffee sloshed dangerously back and forth, but had been depleted enough to avoid spilling any thus far. "Have you said 'hello' to the flora today? Come and speak to them with me!"

Supporting the weight of the enveloping hug was a bit difficult, and it required abandoning her coffee, but Mimsy managed. Her face was half smushed against him as she responded with a helpless little laugh, before shifting to take his hand, draping his arm over her shoulder to allow her to easily lead him along.

"Okay. They will be very happy, like us," she assured him, head leaning against his arm. "Well...not exactly like us. That is simply unmatched. Nothing can achieve that. Except us!"

There was a great deal more to elaborate upon where that was concerned, but they'd arrived, and she didn't want to be rude by forcing the flowers to join in on a conversation that was not their own. She had on good authority that flowers spoke to those who were worth speaking to, as long as they were not the ones who had to speak first - that would be bad manners, of course, and she was not one to be purposefully impolite.

"Good morning, everyone!" As she waved with her free hand, she swung their clasped hands back and forth between them, sharing the appearance of an exuberant child. "My husband is here now! I know that he is substantially better company than I, so I will not be discouraged if you choose to speak to him instead. I also choose to speak to him more than anyone else!"

Having done her share of a greeting, she looked up at him and smiled, waiting to hear what he might say.

It seemed a bit pitiable that the plants could achieve nothing more than plant happiness, but Mimsy trusted in the fact that Robert believed this to be good enough for them. He knew far more about this sort of thing than she did, and she felt comfortable recognizing that. There was no reason to give the impression that she knew everything that there was to know about plant life, especially to him. She had plenty to learn from him, and was no less eager to do so now than she had been when this first began.

There was no way that she could match the same surge of adoration that he had felt, but she shared a similar sentiment at the sight of him speaking so readily to all of them. It was not the first time that she had heard him speak to them, but it was the first time that she had paid attention this closely, and the first that they had addressed them together.

Just because they were plants did not mean that they were exempt from the (often needlessly overzealous) displays of evidence that proved they were a married pair.

She giggled when he was nearly done greeting each of them, and brushed her fingers over one of the leaves of the hydrangea, like she was lightly scritching an animal. The plant made no audible response, yet she seemed to be nodding along as if it were.

"They are much happier now that you are here," she remarked, withdrawing her hand from the flower. "I think that they missed you. The stars must be incomparable to your company."

She paused, frowned, and bent to shift one of the smaller pots a few inches from where it currently sat. After straightening it, she nodded in approval of her own work, then walked towards Robert with the look of someone who had a juicy secret to tell. She clasped both hands over one of his shoulders to pull him down towards her, head angled up to meet him.

"The triplets could not even see the stars, they said," she whispered. "So I moved them away from Miss Hydrangea. I think that they are envious of how much we favor her. Do you think it bothers all of them?"

With a thoughtful frown on her lips, she let her hands drop towards his elbow, where she opted to hug herself against his arm instead.

"I just can't help it," she murmured, keeping her voice low as she glanced towards the blue clusters of blooms. "She is important. Not as important as you are, of course, but the most important of all of the...well. You know."

Now she was most certainly being rude, if any of them overheard her.

Confidence was something that Mimsy understood well, and it generally pleased her to see Robert exhibiting signs of it. Such was the case now, with the exception of one little assertion about plants and stars.

"Robert," she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. "Don't say such things! What should happen if they grow to believe that they should not love the stars? What if they presume that each time the stars make them feel different, they are wrong? If one finds something meaningful in the starlight, it should not be ashamed of that, even if they can never be close to it."

Her gaze fell onto the rightmost seedling, with its crooked stem and awkwardly curled cotyledons. Unlike its siblings, it had not poked through the soil after emerging from its shell, and had instead attempted to burrow down into the earth, as if it would have rather been a root than a plant. Days ago, when the seedlings planted next to it had already begun to stretch up towards the sun, she assessed it as faulty and delivered bad news to Robert, assuming that he would want to plant another one.

But when he picked up that tiny pot, he hadn't immediately dumped it out or scooped out (what she thought had been) the useless dud to replace with another. A seedling had been buried in there after all, and he'd only needed to guide it into sunlight for it to catch up to the rest of them.

That was the one that wanted to see the stars, she thought.

"Maybe it endures the day in hopes of simply a possibility of discovering its star. Or maybe the star is already its happiness. Maybe it needs sunlight, and the sight of its star. Maybe it grows and grows, surpassing the others in an attempt try to reach it instead of surviving on sight alone. That is already dreadfully tragic, knowing that they can never t...can never tou--."

Her determined attempt at concentrating was an admirable one, but there was only so long that she could focus on anything other than his hands when he was touching her. The insistent speech was lost in a sigh, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into his arms.

"Let them be jealous," she resolved in a murmur, blindly grinning into the warmth of the sun. "They should be."

The warmth of his words against her neck roused a shiver that was only encouraged by every touch that followed. Mimsy tried to clutch a shirt that wasn't there, only succeeding in grazing his skin with her nails. One of the seedlings suggested that she must be cold, judging from the sight of her.

"Envious of everything," she managed, satisfied with the sentence of only three words, if only because he had presented quite the challenge against her attempts to speak it. "You. And I. And--and touch."

Her thumb poked his side where it had been resting, and she cautiously opened one eye to look at him before daring to brave both of them.

"I can touch the harbinger of their happiness, and can return your touch, and they cannot." Then she touched in proud displays of physical affection, fingers traveling the expanse of his exposed skin, demonstrating for the plants who still focused on the light she didn't want to share. Most of them were silent to her now, while she drew incorrect connections about them that had nothing to do with her own lack of concentration.

"That aside, this is not a result of good fortune. You have earned this." Statistics played a part in this as it did in everything, as did their anomalously above-average circumstances, but nothing was comparable to his own efforts and dogged determination. Those required recognition.

Fortune could seek its praises elsewhere, from someone who had not gained their reward by endlessly expending their own energy, someone who had not built so much of what they had with their own heart and hands.

"All of this," she affirmed, body flush against him. "Even the flowers, as envious as they may be, can admit that."