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All was well again, and she could focus, albeit on the entirely wrong thing. Mimsy collected her pen and notebook in one hand and rose to her knees with the intention of relocating, then carefully crawled into his lap, sighing in relief that the problem defused itself before it became somehow troublesome. One arm looped urgently around his shoulders, and she began to poke his cheek with the pen to encourage him to face her.

"You look brilliant." And there it was, years and years of defenses against the excellence of glasses, beginning to shift to the forefront of her mind again. "Distinguished. Mm, like a doctor."

As she murmured compliments of sincerity, she stroked his other cheek with the back of two fingers, smiling fondly at him. Her eyes closed just briefly at the word 'doctor', just to hide that inevitable flash of envy, but she otherwise refused to take her eyes off of him.

"I would be honored to continue teaching you physics." Her head leaned on his shoulder, and she very, very gently kissed his neck, as if she was unsure of the proper way to perform this action - largely because she was. "Or...you could teach me, Doctor Morris."

"I said that you look like a doctor," Mimsy corrected him, tilting her head down to whisper to him. "There is no harm in pretending. Especially not when you are pretending for me."

That was not entirely true, considering the bitter resentment she harbored over her own missed chance at a doctorate, but that was much too long an exception to be whispered in someone's ear. She curled her fingers into his hair and pet him like a loyal companion again, occasionally giving the hair between her fingers a light pull when she wasn't paying enough attention. Or it might have been intentional - it was difficult to tell.

"Tragically, I do not know the meaning of 'science ********', nor do I know how we were discussing it. See? This was why I suggested that I should be the pupil." Her head shook slowly against him, and with little to no verbal cues to discern the tone, this was left somewhat ambiguous too. With more caution than necessary, one thumb moved to soothingly stroke his temple.

"But yes, yes. A very good boy." She pat him on the head adoringly before settling herself against him, continuing to lazily run her fingers through his hair. "Did you know that the first sentient creature to be launched into orbit was a dog? Her name was Лайка, and her mission was aboard Sputnik 2. They found her wandering through Moscow and selected her above all of the other dogs, because they knew that the conditions and experiences of her life would allow her a greater probability of survival. She socialized and interacted pleasantly with the other dogs during their training, and was well-loved by those who watched her. They praised her - I believe the adjective that was typically used to describe her was 'charming' - and put her through specialized training, intended only for a dog that was expected to succeed. Each day, they gave less and took more by placing her in living quarters that decreased in size over time, and coaxed her into a normality that was best suited for their mission. She slowly learned what her new life would be like, and adapted more quickly than any of the other candidates had. Her excellence in performance assured them that they had chosen correctly."

The story abruptly stopped there, followed only by the faint sound of her breathing, and an eventual kiss to his cheek before she returned to her train of thought.

"She was successful, by the way. She proved that an endeavor that was once thought to be impossible was possible after all. The Soviet Union considered her a hero."

Laika was always expected to die at the end of the mission, and she had. That was not particularly beneficial to her story, so she avoided that fact, and returned to petting him instead.

Kisses were the key to explaining physics, and dogs the key to explaining space travel. At this rate, Mimsy felt certain that she would be able to explain nearly anything to him, given enough time.

"Yes, I imagine she was somewhat confused. Some of the preliminary tests did simulate an orbital environment, so there is a chance that she was fairly used to it by then. I suppose it would still feel strange, especially considering all of the other factors that a simulation would not have included." A short laugh was her first response to the bathroom inquiry, and she wished that it could be her only response, but she knew the risks of further questioning.

Like the truth. Which still did nothing but harm her story, so she spoke in half-truths and tales of other space dogs.

"A dog-sized waste receptacle in her module, just for her. They even outfitted her with a space suit for the voyage. Incredible, isn't it?" she asked, closing her eyes as she smiled at the garden behind them.

"Regarding her thoughts, however, there was not sufficient technology to know what she might have been thinking. I would lend them my amulet, if I could. I would much rather hear about her thoughts than speak to any of the minipets we have here, were it possible." She shrugged, mostly to tease him for putting his head on her shoulder.

It was very unfair to have shown her his glasses, only to hide them like that.

"If I were on a successful orbital flight, I am not sure that I would have many thoughts at all. I cannot possibly fathom the uninhibited view of the cosmos." Her thoughts wandered to the first night after the fog cleared, when she realized that the stars were visible again. The night of stargazing with others willing to learn. The night of stargazing alone with him.

"I don't want to lose the stars again," she quietly added, trying to breathe past the anxiety twisting in her chest.

Laika was, apparently, the most appropriate story to use in her metaphorical teaching; Robert sounded as if he was somewhat fixated on the dog, even sighing in the way people sighed when they wanted to have something, but couldn't. That sigh was generally difficult for her to comprehend, because wanting something just meant getting it by any means necessary, but the likelihood was so slim here that she thought she might agree with him this time.

It was the amulet that drew his attention away from the dog, and Mimsy was back to not understanding. Why was everyone always so excited about it?

"I suppose that I have put it to good use, yes." As an accessory, maybe. She could count the times that she actually used the artifact on one hand, as she had quickly become disinterested with the nonsense and uselessness of the sentences that the minipets could string together. That was already a constant from Svensyl, and adding to it was just irresponsible.

She looped one finger around a thin chain on her neck and tugged on it until the rest of the necklace was visible. It was a glass orb with a metal clasp around it, and it appeared to contain a small purplish galaxy. Some segments of it glowed very faintly in the shadow between the two of them.

"It was an artifact," she began, extending it towards him. "The 'Gift of Prometheus'. I retrieved it on a mission with Kostya. Have you obtained anything of the sort? Anything useful?"

As she listened to his reasoning on stars that were close to her heart, she let the chain go, and the necklace dropped back down to its usual length. Such a concept frustrated her - she did not entwine herself with things that she could not (at least eventually) see. She wanted very badly to tell him how ridiculous the rationale was. It had a basis in logic and molecular structures, which provided more evidence to some of her own very relevant claims, but he had it all wrong.

"Oh," she said instead, pleased at least with the ability to see his face again. She smiled, pressing her hand flat against his chest. The heartbeat that she felt still knew her name. Her smile grew wider. "Am I always with you, then? I would very much like to be."

Something awful happened? Was she awake for this? That did not seem familiar to Mimsy in the slightest, except for something that she hoped he did not consider 'awful'.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. The recent effects of some very powerful artifacts on you were not awful at all." She poked his cheek. "Unless you have changed your mind about our time there."

There might have been a moment of hesitation to allow an answer before her anger settled in, but words that she assumed were meant to be encouraging were so very insulting to an astrophysicist with a dangerous amount of pride.

"Well, yes." She frowned, and looked somewhere between wounded and confused. "There are literally countless stars that I am incapable of viewing, which all still exist. But it is difficult when I can't see them. It is easy to believe that I no longer have something when I cannot see it. There is an idiom that says something very similar - I am not the only one who feels this way."

It was perceived as such a harmful comment on her intelligence that she was defensive enough to use a phrase as proof. Maybe it would help him see her point, at least.

She calmed as soon as he answered her question, and returned to smiling when he put his head against hers.

"I am glad to hear this. In return, I will ensure that I allow nothing to hide you away from me, so I will not ever feel as if I might lose you, like I might lose the stars."

The kiss that she finished her sentence with was, thankfully, much less creepy than the sentence itself.

'Trouble'. That was a word that a girl who grew up with a fixation for knowledge, immersed in academia, very rarely heard. But she had before, even if it had been scarcely used in conjunction with her. It was a word that happened when she played with boys and imaginary friends. A word that happened only when researching this particular hypothesis.

And these were the reasons that she undeniably knew that she was trouble, because this situation felt a lot like those, save a few important details. He had not changed his mind, and she was the best kind of trouble. She didn't argue those claims - just smiled.

When he touched her cheek, she tensed, then shivered; he seemed to have made such a point to avoid unnecessarily touching her that she was not expecting such a gesture, despite similar actions towards him from her own hands. She thought she liked this better. It felt like she was doing something right, which was important.

She had almost forgotten he said anything to her at all, and when she realized she hadn't responded yet, she struggled to recall what they were talking about, hasty and flustered.

"What? No, I...I--" Her words faltered, and she paused to clear her throat, briefly close her eyes, and smile an almost nervous smile. "That is not how I function. I would search tirelessly, or destroy the 'clouds' more subtly. Thankfully, we need not concern ourselves with this hypothetical, because you have already stated that I will always be with you. I will not lose sight of you as long as this is the case."

She caught his fingers with her hand, and laced them with her own.

"Perhaps you should officially be my bodyguard," she suggested. "I cannot be certain without proper testing, but I think that you could cover all of my body."

When his touch extended past her cheek, Mimsy still reflexively shied away from his fingers. More casual, social touching was becoming easier and easier, and she was determined for this to be easy too. She tilted towards his fingertips, like a cat accepting affection, and tried to direct her thoughts elsewhere, just as she typically might. It worked fairly well until he progressed to her neck, at which point she made a little noise and glanced away from him in embarrassment.

Still much more confusing than it looked.

"So...my bodyguard and my scribe," she began again, exhaling. "Are there any other titles that you would like to claim as your own, while we are discussing this subject?" There were a couple of categories she placed him in that she left out, of course, but they were titles she'd given to him - this was, conveniently, about those he wanted.

"Regretfully, however: even if you could cover two of me, there is only one. You will have to be satisfied with me alone." She raised her eyebrows. "No clone or temporally-displaced versions of me allowed, either."