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It was astounding that one uncomfortable implication, one single seed of doubt, could be so persistently pervasive in one's thoughts.

The primary obstacle that had prevented Mimsy from immediately approaching her Division Leader to inquire about his state of reality was how positively absurd such a question might seem - which, thankfully, she had recognized shortly after setting out to ask just that. Still, the question remained on her mind, and no amount of theorizing about the subject had brought her any closer to a comfortable solution on the matter.

What it had done was provide her with several new ideas and a few hundred new questions, and if anyone knew the answers that would sate this curiosity, it was Dr. H. There was a substantial possibility that he wouldn't grant them to her anyway (and she could not even begin to count the reasons that she believed she did not deserve his knowledge), but to not attempt would be irresponsible. It would be bad science. And if he happened to incidentally provide some evidence that he was who she believed he was, she would readily accept it.

As she stood outside his office, she slowly exhaled and closed her eyes tightly, as if she were wishing something in or out of existence. When she opened her eyes and found that nothing was discernibly different, she took a deep breath and knocked.

Even with an abysmal understanding of most social cues, there were some things that were as apparent to Mimsy through time and corrected error as they would be to everyone else. The visual indicators that she noted as she entered the room added up to one of these, and she paused as soon as the equation came together.

"Oh." With a little flinch, she tensed, aware that she had quite probably interrupted what was likely a precious moment of rest for a very important man. A deeply rooted reminder nagged 'you are not supposed to do that' in an empty and rule-driven child's voice, and her eyes wandered around the office interior as she avoided looking at him in her state of shame.

"I am deeply apologetic for disturbing you, sir, I--" She caught a glimpse of something moving in a cage, disrupted as she wondered why the small silhouette looked familiar. "I have been unable to dispel a curiosity involving the...the, ah, Famine clones, golems, or whatever they may be classified as, and I cannot trust input on the subject that is not yours. If there is a better time..."

Distracted by the ruffling of feathers again, she trailed off and waited, eyes lingering on the creatures in their enclosure.

"Oh." This one was more audibly relieved than the last, and the short sigh that followed it was of a similar nature. A tiny smile, gracious and honored, was present in her silence for a fraction of a second. "Thank you. I will be mindful of that."

As she busied herself with collecting and reorganizing her thoughts, shifting the priorities to better reflect this reassurance, the movement distracted her again. She closed her eyes and made another attempt, which was derailed just as quickly by the sound of fluttering. Instead of covering her ears and looking undoubtedly ridiculous, she considered why she was trying to ignore them at all. She was curious about them, wasn't she?

How simple a start to the aforementioned encouragement, she thought, finally relaxing into a posture that was less rigid, more proper.

"This regards an unrelated subject, but...since I noticed them a moment ago, I have been curious about them, which might clarify my difficulty in simply ignoring it: might I inquire about your 'companions'?" She tilted her head and blinked at him, just once. "Are they specimens for observation, or have you adopted them as pets of a sort?"

He'd noticed!

"Yes, sir." Mimsy barely stifled a laugh, but a humbled smile was still very present. "I am most certainly aware of this possibility."

A little over a year ago, she might have thought differently. She might have discredited whatever this experiment may have been, due to its obviously conflicting interests; but there were many things that were once black and white then that were nothing but grey now. She thought only of how interesting an implication this was, and momentarily wondered why he'd kept these specifically, before attempting to return to her initial subject.

But in the dim light of the room, she finally realized what it was that had first caused the creatures to hold her attention captive.

"Is that a runic cage?" Her gaze moved between the doctor and his 'pet specimens', two dots that she was still failing to connect. "They are minipets, aren't they? Are they present for general observation, or are you testing a hypothesis?"

When these were not minipets, the ill-fitting implications were not nearly as relevant - and in their absence came a flood of exciting potentials.

"Of course. Yes, of course, I--what are they? What classification of matter or energy constitutes their existence?" In her eyes was the eager, obedient anticipation of a tamed creature awaiting a release command, and her hands clasped themselves tightly in front of her in the continued exercise of restraint. "How are you sustaining them? May I see?"

The action was parsed as permission, and she risked being wrong to avoid irritating him with redundancy. A short breath was let out through a brief smile as she shifted her weight, calculating the most promising approach.

Her experience with intercepting and capturing small creatures had increased exponentially since her arrival here. Those that she caught in her childhood tended to be neighborhood cats or juvenile rabbits along the edge of the forest, not birds, but she'd had very recent practice of that sort. The bird she had researched and selected as the most suitable Christmas gift was ground-dwelling, and didn't typically fly very high; still, it had taken quite a bit of time to locate one, and substantial planning and patience to catch it.

As she knelt and gingerly cupped her hands around one of the freed doves, she remembered how similar that first bird felt against her palms, the flutter of its heartbeat beneath the bright crimson patch of feathers on its chest, identical to the bright crimson patch of feathers on the chest of this...

"Sir," she choked out, eyes turned towards him with a glassy sheen of awe. "Did you--I have always regarded your brilliance as unmatched, but this--"

She tried very hard to find the right word, but there simply wasn't one.

The look given to her was not one that Mimsy found particularly familiar towards her, especially not from someone in his position, but it certainly didn't seem negative. It was a bit nice to be regarded in such a way by someone she so greatly admired - nice enough to prompt her to want to thank him profusely for it - but that fell short of something that she could reasonably believe was socially acceptable.

So she said nothing, opting to remain kneeling and examine the bird in silence. The movements of her fingers over its feathers were clumsy, but determinedly careful, trembling with the restraint one might use while proving that they could be gentle with the family pet, honest.

"Did you reverse engineer this capability--technology?" She wasn't entirely sure what to call it, and her gaze flickered up to him in her uncertainty. Her voice was still soft as she spoke, a whisper of utmost reverence. "Or did you separately devise it?"

Upon hearing the first plural notion, her eyes drained a portion of their excitement and fell towards the bird again. She softly tapped it beneath its beak with the back of her nail to force it to look up at her, and attempted to coax it to stay there by lightly smoothing the tiny feathers on its neck that she'd disrupted.

After a moment's thought, and another moment of chewing her lip, she calmly, quietly asked: "We?"