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"Tell Rasputin I said hi!" Oz yelled at Kostya, just as Zoe finally relinquished hold of the first of three carriers. She had gotten distracted due to Ian's dazzling horribly, awfully, no good smile. That weird feeling in her heart was probably heartburn, and the churning of her stomach horrible dark forces at work. She felt even more miserable and slunk under the table and remained like this.

Oz peered under the table. "Are you going to give them the carriers or not?"

"No," replied Zoe, now sadly texting herself a very sad text about stupid men, "I retire."

"You can't just-" Oz sighed as Solia popped up again, "now hang on a second. Okay, one for Rasputin, check, one for Jafar," he handed one to Ian, "check, and one for..." he trailed off and stared at Solia, "... teen witch wannabe, check." Each of them was handed a cage. "If you don't return these, we'll be at your doorstep, forever watching you."

He gave them mysterious dark eyes and then slowly, dramatically lowered himself under the table as well.

It was rare that Mimsy took notice of things that were out of the ordinary in her environment when she was busy thinking, but a large pile of what appeared to be runic minipet carriers were a bit difficult to miss. She paused, thoughtfully staring at the cages, their distributors, and those who remained to gather their rented items, tilted her head, and hmmed quietly.

"I love minipets," she finally offered, her monotonous voice devoid of any excitement that sentence probably should have held. "How much must I love them to have one?"

Her head tilted to the other side as she gestured to the pile of carriers.

"A what?" Mimsy narrowed her eyes and tried to recall why that term sounded so familiar, one hand slowly reaching up towards the top of her head. It wasn't as if she could really have felt the crown anyway, if it were still there, but she was still too focused on his question.

"I don't know what any of that is," she admitted, having determined that it would not harm her scientific credibility to not know about Disney princesses or soft grunge. Having her entire chest covered by her lab coat was what made her not look like a true scientist, but she couldn't have known that either. "So...no, I suppose. I am not that."

Her eyes wandered away from him and stared at the pile behind him again.

All Mimsy gave him in response was an awkwardly long stare as she hoped that inspecting him might offer her some level of understanding. It didn't.

Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she nudged a braid aside to unclasp her necklace, clutching the chain in her hand.

"Oh. You should not hate me. I can give you an incredible gift. If you would prefer a fee instead, upon seeing what I have to offer, I am willing." Once again, it lacked the excitement that it should have had, and was a very bland sort of pitch. "Surely you have your minipet with you. Show me, and I will show you."

The urge to laugh at the sight of the Poms was strong, but Mimsy managed just a tiny half-smile instead.

"Okay. This is my artifact. It is called the Gift of Prometheus, if my studies are accurate."

She looked up at him in a way that implied her studies were accurate.

"It allows minipets to speak. This why I hope to earn a carrier," she explained, carefully lowering the necklace towards the minipet. The pendant, which looked like it contained some kind of miniature glitter galaxy, barely tapped it on its head before she pulled it back again.

The artifact could speak for itself - almost literally, in this case - but Mimsy couldn't resist taking the opportunity to establish how much she knew about a topic. It was not entirely fair, considering the general lack of study that everyone else had in reference to this, but that didn't cross her mind.

"It does." She waved her hand dismissively, as if granting a creature the ability to speak was not a big deal. "I have used it to speak to several. If you are interested, you can contact me at a later date to speak with the minipet that accompanies you in the carrier. Or carriers, should you be granted ninety-nine. Any, really."

Zoe waited until Molly was quite done talking to Mimsy. "They hate it. The cannon cats I mean. All minipets hate it. All minipets hate you." It was important to tell people what they deserved to know. "And no, you can't have ninety-nine carriers, we don't even have that many. You may have one, if you answer the correct answer." She shuffled her card and read it. "What is the proper way to groom a minipet?"

Molly was just staring at Mimsy with wide eyes like she was the best thing ever since sliced bread now. Like some kind of hero-worshipping awe. Her hands will still clasped together. "That would be amazing!" She squealed. "Thank you so much!" But then the Poms spoke, and Molly blinked before looking a bit scandalized.

"O-oh dear...! I think it needs a nap..." She murmured in a hushed tone.

She then whirled around to face Zoe, going wide eyed. "H-hate...? Um...but..." She looked rather at a loss, and worried. "W-well I haven't played with the other mini-pets yet...b-but I think the Canon Cats do like...me?" But now she was filled with self-loathing and doubt because this stranger said that the mini-pets hated her.

"The proper way to groom a mini-pet? W-well...um..." All she had to go by was when she groomed Canon Cats. "You hold them firmly, but don't crush them, and then you use the cute little brush to make their fur all nice...?"