Welcome to Gaia! ::

The faith that Robert had in her was encouraging. It was a gesture that her ego greatly appreciated, having someone believe that she was the best, and Mimsy lapped it up to fuel her confidence, filling the gaps where it had begun to weaken.

"No. I am but one of the most brilliant humans to ever exist, though I do have you, however." She reached up to pat his cheek, an indicator that she was not scornfully correcting him, simply stating the facts.

"It is fortunate that I do have you - if the paradigm shift is significant enough to alter the world as we see it, we might find ourselves in something that seems very much like a different world entirely. It is not likely, but it cannot hurt to consider it, and I am comforted in the knowledge that we would not have to be alone." One of the shadows swept close to them, mouth wide in a silent howl of bitter despair. It bore a faint resemblance to Mimsy, if she had been Clerise's sister, perhaps; she recognized it as her mother, and noted that the look of contorted agony was better suited for her than any way she'd ever seen her before.

She didn't point it out, and made no indication that she'd seen it. She just smiled a little wider, and leaned into his arms.

"I am glad to have a home," she remarked, her smile so significant that it seeped into her tone. "One that will exist in every world, no matter the circumstances."

Since s**t was going down, pokerus flew away to where the action was.

[exit]

Now was as good a time as any to begin preparing for the multitude of possibilities, and Mimsy was pleased that Robert seemed to agree. She intended to listen to his ideas with patience and interest, but couldn't restrain herself from speaking up at the concept of candy people.

"Robert, you would eat me up right away," she laughed, scandalized. "Thank you for keeping me safe in your stomach, though. Would that make you a king, or a knight? What variety of candy would you consist of? And what is the game of 'Candyland'? Is it a game made of candy? Is it all just make-believe?"

The idea of plant-people was a bit more intriguing, and she gave the concept a moment of actual thought, as opposed to immediately piling all of the questions on him. If she were a plant person, that meant that she could sustain herself on sunlight, without bothering with food. Unless she was a carnivorous plant, of course. A Venus flytrap, perhaps, to account for her affinity for the cosmos. Then she would only have to eat once every two weeks, which would be even more efficient!

"I was concerned that your stronger roots would strangle mine, and disable my existence, but I have solved our plant-person problem. You can require nothing but sunlight, and grow big and tall around me, and I will devour our foes as a carnivorous entity. We will form a new variety of symbiotic relationship."

Proud of herself for coming to such an amicable conclusion, she glanced up at him, hungry for more to solve.

"Tell me more," she urged, eyes wide and curious. Though she didn't return his sentiment, it was there within her; a year ago, she refused to sleep, just to avoid the possibility of waking up in another universe. Now she spoke lightly of them.

Now she had no reason to be afraid.

"I appreciate your acknowledgement of my excellence, my taffy knight, and will accept a small amount of root tangling within a margin of safety. I will not have a FEAR shield to account for any accidental roughness," Mimsy reminded him, twisting to give him a pointed look.

She'd already been part of the cosmos today, but Robert proposed something that almost directly contradicted what she had been before. Something that cast light for everyone to see, something wondrous and untouchable, revered as an entity of everlasting guidance. The whole galaxy, and all the galaxies close to them, could still see her for a long, long time after her death.

It would be nice to be a star, if she were not doomed to dark matter.

"We would be a stellar collision, in that case." Better to spit out facts instead of disagreeing, she thought. "When our fields of gravity meet, inevitably drawing us towards each other, there will be only two possibilities: we form a supernova or a black hole. Which would you prefer?"

The generalizations of the two gave her a fairly good guess of what he would select, but her lips quirked into a bemused little smile as she realized how easily she could complicate that.

"I will remind you that a supernova, while brilliant and recognized as a beautiful celestial event, expels our mass and energy all throughout space, whereas a black hole would mean the creation of our own magnetic field, trillions of times stronger than any force known to man."

It was a good answer.

A surprisingly good answer, which Mimsy had absolutely not expected. She stared incredulously at him, marveling at this display of his astounding ability to both prove her wrong by acting in a statistically unpredictable nature, while still managing to get the answer entirely correct. How did he do that? It would have taken months for her to arrive at something like that, following numerous calculations and projections, if she arrived at it at all.

Even as he kissed her, she never quite closed her eyes, half-stuck in a loop of awe and contradictions.

"A very valid point," she eventually said, somewhat breathless. "It is best to span to the farthest possible reaches of all nearby systems, and to travel endlessly to everything beyond that. I accept this answer as the most superior possibility. Congratulations!"

She applauded for him as the world fell to pieces around them, because it deserved immediate recognition, and gave him a congratulatory kiss to make up for anything their previous one might have been lacking from her side.

"I want another. Another where we deserve infinite congratulations." She waited with (an attempt at) a hopeful smile, regretting only that the familiar shadow had not stuck around long enough to listen in on them.

For a few moments, Nkosazana lingered, looking out on those that had gathered -- against Medea, and for Medea, and even neutral she had to guess -- wondering what they were all thinking right now. About the horsemen, about the hunters and what they had done, about themselves... It was enough to make the priestess even more uneasy, and she did not know why she let herself sit there reflecting on it. It only made her feel worse.

Perhaps she didn't.

She knew what she had to do, now. There was only one thing she could let herself do.

Nkosazana gulped, heading towards where the shadows had headed.

[Exit]