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The idea of their house had steadily remained on Mimsy's mind since the moment that Robert proposed the idea. It was a fascinating concept, the more she thought about it, and each thought brought another, and another after that, exponentially onward until her speculations were running dangerously close to the territory of unfounded theories. Researching 'home' within their databases provided information that (she hoped) was irrelevant to this particular venture, and surveying other hunters would not give a very pure sampling of information; she was just going to have to learn this on her own.

Between her projects, she divided everything into neat little starting points to draw lines of inquiry to progress from. They were simple things, the point A to the point B that was home, but there was comfort in planning, as there had always been. She liked to be important as soon as she could, and she liked to be involved in what was hers.

That was exactly what she was trying to accomplish when she made her way into the towns. There was a multiplicity to her intentions this time, and this seemed to be the most efficient way to achieve her intended result. Robert would still be working towards his community service hours, if she remembered correctly. Hours for a punishment that he'd taken in her place. She doubted that he needed to be reminded of the reasons he had so readily taken the blame, but the box she held in her hands couldn't hurt either way.

All of catcalls were not necessarily ignored by Mimsy, but she didn't react to them either way - she was too busy staring, at first, then too busy holding the box to the side to avoid crushing its contents between them, then too busy musing about the connotations of the word 'precious'. When Robert stopped twirling her around, she brought the box close to her chest, and reached up to pat his sweat-streaked cheek.

"You," she answered, blinking her bleary eyes. "I mean. I am out here to see you. I am pleased to have made your day. It is evident that you have been working very hard. You are undoubtedly the man for this job."

Her thumb brushed across his skin, back and forth, as steady and constant as a pulse.

"I have had some things on my mind with a frequency that I cannot ignore, and one of those things is how you..." She closed her eyes with half a smile as she narrowly avoided divulging more than she planned to. "Well, for the sake of brevity: I thought that you deserved this."

Because she failed to fully grasp the concept of giving gifts, she did not understand that that act of opening the present held part of the excitement in itself; she opened the box for him, then held it up for him to take it.

The 'gift' was an eager little thing, the size of a small puppy. It poked its head out of the box, squinting as it tried to focus in this bright, sunny world.

"It is for you. I will ensure its safety in the containment facility, but it can stay with you in one of the runic cages, if you would like for it to. You are welcome to tend to it at your leisure. In the absence of traditional farm animals, this is the best I can do." The minipet had been keeping her attention as she spoke, wiggling in its attempts to escape the box, but she managed to ignore it to look up at him again. As she held the box steady, she tried to smile. "I did have something else that I wanted to speak with you about, if you have a moment..."

"Yes, I did," Mimsy said, biting her tongue in favor of pedantic corrections and technicalities. If Robert thought of it as a puppy, then it was. Ruining this for him would go directly against her intentions, and this was a very important point.

So it was a puppy.

She watched him pick it up and handle it more affectionately than she had ever seen someone treat a minipet. It didn't surprise her - it made sense that it would be him, because he was the man for this job, as she said. While she waited, she carefully examined each seed of thought that planted itself in her mind. There were problems that could arise if the wrong reaction took root, and she held her breath until she secured conclusive evidence that this would work.

It came as a great relief when there were no pangs of envy or loathing, and she took note of her success. As hypothesized, allowing him to love something created the distinction. This was good. This was very, very good.

"I am glad that you love it. Or him, rather. I apologize." She doubted it mattered, but it might help to continue to mirror his perspective towards it.

She opened her mouth to speak more about his new pet, effectively distracted from her plan, until his compliment registered. A smug smile crept across her face, and she 'casually' put her hands on her hips in triumph.

"Yes. Thank you. I am so pleased that you find my efforts exceptional. That is exactly what I would like to be, and the position that I intend to keep." She paused, then reconsidered. "For you, I mean. Of course. It is of paramount importance that you have the best, which I am."

Maybe that was a good save.

"Ah, on that note..." If not a good save, a good segue, at least. "The topic that I wanted to speak with you about regards one of your possible connections. I am unsure of the degree of the connection, but I would like to address it before it becomes something that might be harmful. To us. I am sickened by the thought of harm coming to the best relationship. Assuming that you agree, I think that it would be best that you avoided Sasha, whenever possible."

Reassurances were exactly what Mimsy needed right now, and she soaked them in as she basked in her triumph. This was going even better than she had hoped it might.

"Laika," she repeated, finding humor in the declaration that this was his name. It didn't matter, she supposed - it was not a gendered name, and she doubted that neither Robert nor the minipet particularly cared anyway.

"Hello, Laika." In an attempt to appear friendly, she pat it on the head with the ends of three rigid fingers, which didn't work very well at all against all of its wiggling and licking. As she began to withdraw her hand, she took on a look of deep concentration, and cleared her throat to speak again. "I am your mo...your mother."

A deep sigh of relief followed her tense introduction. It was all okay. She'd actually (kind of) managed to say it. A lightheaded rush of adrenaline followed her little victory, and she had to stop to try to recall why she'd ever wanted to warn him away from her in the first place.

"What is wrong with Sasha is..." She frowned and folded her arms, so tightly that she was almost hugging herself. "Truthfully, I do not know. Can you trust my judgment without empirical evidence for the time being? There is something in the way that she spoke to me and touched me that implies a reason for concern, and that is all that I know with certainty. I feel as if I have unwittingly entered a competition with her, but I do not know what awaits the victor. I am confident that she would attempt to destroy this if the opportunity presented itself, however, in hopes of removing me from her path to that victory."

One hand untucked itself from her other arm, and she reached to touch his face again, with the ends of three fingers.

"So you will not present yourself, right? Our safety is important, isn't it?"

Robert's reaction to Sasha was exactly the ideal that Mimsy had been hoping for, but she feigned innocence to watch it play out in its entirety. It always thrilled her to see such a response, when the reminders of the emotional capability that she lacked showed up in such brilliant excess in him. Having something that she saw as blindly loyal and unfathomably powerful at her side was almost as intoxicating as her own success.

"I mean what I said. She..." A small noise of irritation halted her explanation as she failed to find any words to accurately describe the interaction. It bothered her to discover that Sasha had forced her away from what was comfortable, even now; she was cornered into expressing something with actions instead of words, and she hated that it was this. "Like this, whatever the competition may be. There were alternating attempts at provocation, presumably to see which of us would be the first to surrender. That was my intention, at least."

The imitation was not nearly as light and purposeful as it had initially been. She moved to stand as close to him as she could, to toy with his hair and touch his face again, notably different than any of the ways she had before. When she finished her reenactment, she stayed close, and settled beneath the protective weight of his arm.

"Yes, I love you too," she murmured, gently tugging on Laika's ear. "And I do not want anyone to touch me either, excepting you. Nor do I want anyone to touch you, or us. We have to be safe. I trust you to be cautious with anything that could threaten that - not just Sasha alone. You will be, won't you?"

The sudden motion startled Mimsy, who had thankfully released Laika's ear in time to avoid accidentally pulling it off. Her breath caught in her throat as he pushed the minipet into her arms and told her to put him back in the box. He actually wanted to put his puppy away.

This was surpassing even the greatest of her expectations, and it was difficult to hide the elation that tried to peek through her expression of forced neutrality.

As requested, she placed Laika back in the box, and had only a second's reprieve when she stood up again - then his hands were on her face instead, pleading or searching or rubbing the disparaging attempts at discomfort away.

Mimsy smiled. Her cheeks blossomed with pink everywhere he'd touched.

"I did not know her well before. We spoke only in passing. I do not know what she is now. Is it possible that this is what she has always been, hidden beneath the simulacrum of goodness that she put on display? It must have been there to some degree." She leaned against him, palms pressed against his chest. "It was cruel of her to purposely deceive you, if that was the case. No one should take advantage of your extraordinary ability to see the good in others."

There were exceptions to many things.

The shift in his voice quieted her again, and she drank in the wrathful sound, reveling in the satisfaction of its taste; or how she imagined it might taste, were it on her tongue instead of his. She held on to one little piece of it, even when he'd stopped, one small sample pinched between the thin glass of a slide.

"'Nobody is touching you but me'?" she asked, hurriedly speaking again when she was immediately displeased with her 'question'. "You are assuring me that I am the only one who is allowed to touch you, correct? If this is the case...I would like to be notified of any similar intrusions. So I can handle the problem, of course."

It was probably best if he didn't.

The wiggling box was picked up and tucked under Mimsy's arm again as Robert presented his own theory. She nodded politely along, and knew it was the more probable of their ideas, but it was not the most beneficial to her.

In great contrast to that very minor loss, she found more victories in the words that followed, captivated once more by the shift in his tone. She smiled again, exhilarated and wicked, barely dampened by the time he saw her face again.

"Thank you," she murmured, distorted through her teeth. "Of course you would be there. I would never exempt you from any 'tangle' that forms in reference to you. That would be a callous mistake. Your importance makes your absence unforgivable."

She never intended to specify the reach of those unforgivable absences, but the whistle did provide excellent timing.

"Home?" She raised her eyebrows and offered half of a different smile, hesitant with her reaction. "To which home are you referring, sir? Will you be showing me home, as promised, or will you be returning to my current residence with me?"

Logically, she knew that it was much too early for that concept to have reached its completion, but stranger things had happened on this island. There was a yearning to know that got stronger by the minute; she was inexperienced with everything that followed her choice to place that ability to know into someone else's hands, for the simple fact that she had never allowed such a lack of control before.

But he would show her. If not today, by some incredible anomalous occurrence, then sometime. He promised, and she believed him, through the turmoil of her sea of doubt.