Ophidian stopped beside Kitori and looked at her.<span style="color: #006600"> "if you truly need answers to these questions then so be it... but you should know that she may take these questions as a sign that you don't trust her and react badly. weigh your options carefully my love."</span>he leaned over to kiss her cheek before he headed further out, exploring the water. the gentle waves made Mydras cling to Kitori tighter while Syrenka slowly loosened her grip, not nearly as nervous as her much younger brother and soon Kitori would be the one holding Syrenka from drifting away as she splashed and babbled in the water.<br/><br/>Sylavandra settled into her second glass and nodded. Ibara rolled her eyes and shook her head.<span style="color: #b35900">"or just don't try to make jokes when you aren't up to it? you're not fooling anyone so you can drop the act, i don't expect you to be cheery. i don't want a partner or friends anymore. i don't want a life or children or family or anything else i once wanted. i don-"</span><span style="color: #ff4d4d">"enough Ibara. we heard you the fist twenty times."</span><br/><br/>Vincent pursed his lips and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with crossed out words on it. he placed it on the table and then moved one of the conjured glasses onto the paper and slid it across the table. "look down at the paper through the bottom of the glass." the glass was acting like a primitive magnifying glass making the small letters much bigger. "this is exactly how my work began. i saw this and i sought out and invented ways of getting more and more magnification. eventually my tools got so powerful that i began to see the tiny life forms that have become my obsession. there isn't much to teach right now, i spend most of my time drawing much, much larger pictures of the germs and giving them names... but i suppose i can teach you how to help me do that if you can draw a little. i also watch and write down what each germ does. some are very lazy while others zip around surprisingly quickly and are hard to study."<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>