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If Mimsy had known that it was as easy as threatening him, this all might have gone in a very different direction. This was not an ineffective route, but threats were not strange new territory. She could handle those.

"But games are meant to be fun, aren't they? I presume that you do not currently associate learning with 'fun' or 'enjoyable', and thought that it might make this somehow feel easier." The idea had made perfect sense, and she might have continued to elaborate had he not touched her lip. She froze again, and did nothing but blink until she processed how to change this topic, which did not get any easier as he continued.

"Miracles?" She finally asked, lips brushing his finger before she inched away. They were not part of her intricate web of assumed truths, but she skirted the edges of what she did believe. It was the best she could do. "We can unearth and create our own miracles instead of waiting for them, Robert. This is an expansive universe of miracles by definition, waiting for you to grasp them. My entire life was devoted towards capturing the miraculous, so I could break them down into something that I could understand."

She stopped to do nothing but watch him, lasting well into the realm of uncomfortable silence, and spoke again without warning.

"Devote just one moment to recalling how closely that word is tied into the fields of science and medicine. I am a scientist, and you will be a nurse. Or a doctor, if you so choose." She smiled, as close to playful as she could manage, and gave him a little nudge. "Together, our chances are doubled. We are a promising team, if you are willing to work with me."

It was somewhat disappointing that he had not been able to concentrate past the very blatant distraction that she presented, but there was only so many leaps in progress that could be made at once. She managed to avoid sighing as she moved out of his lap, and steadied herself on the floor before retrieving the book he'd thrown. Holding the textbook with care, she pulled the nearest chair towards him and moved to sit in it, angled towards him.

"I want to do this," she assured him, opening the book. "And I enjoy the shared sense of accomplishment that I get from this specific sort of achievement, anyway. Now." One finger tapped the first page of the textbook, and her other hand reached to take his. "Tell me what you need for me to do."

There was one minor problem with the request that he voiced: this was inevitably going to be focused on biology, on medical science, and her area of expertise was physics. The last classes that Mimsy had attended before arriving at Deus were so disconnected from the human body that they would not even be on the same relative scales. She would be relying more heavily on a cache of general science knowledge than she was comfortable with, and she anxiously picked at her thumbnail and stared at the book to buy herself time to think.

<Conundrum of carelessly copious confidence!> Svensyl mocked in singsong. She didn't need the reminder; over-confidence and a refusal to admit a lack of knowledge had nearly caused her death, far too many times, but she never really learned.

Still, this was studying in the safety of one small room, not the middle of a competition or a mission to seek Insanity Titans. The beginnings of this couldn't be much worse than high school biology, which would buy her plenty of time to brush up and do her own studying. It was persuasive enough for her to feel like this could be done.

"I can do that. We will work through it until it all makes sense, like the story of Laika." She sat up straight, encouraging confidence. "Please feel free to ask any questions that might arise during my explanations, as well. If you still feel as if you don't know or understand the information after that, just tell me. We can make another attempt."

She felt something akin to guilt for asking him to do something that she stubbornly refused to do herself, which was odd enough to merit an entire day of questioning. It was brushed aside as a stray point of data, a fluke, to save herself the trouble. She didn't experience guilt. Thinking otherwise would be a waste of time.

Unsurprisingly, Mimsy was mostly oblivious to the level of happiness that Robert was experiencing. It was easy to see his smile out of the corner of her eye, but a happy smile was a smile unless she took the time to measure and compare it, and her mind was focused on their task instead.

The text was not fully visible from where she sat, but her eyes scanned the portions of the pages that she could see, skipping words and sentences that were blocked into a lack of completion. It was a relief so far - none of this was at the forefront of her mind, which was to be expected, but it was nothing that she had never seen before.

Her attention was still on the material as he spoke, so his words took a moment to sink in past the words on the page; she gave him a curious look once they did. They had been talking about studying, not anything that called his love for her into question. How strange.

"I know," she replied, putting her hand on his shoulder. She'd said it back to him once, when short lines of logic led her to believe that it was the simplest solution. The right answer. Now she knew better than to assume she understood anything about love.

She leaned to rest her head against him, then tapped the page again.

"But I don't think that is written in your book."