"And this is why leg-locks are the superior guiding position.  You can do most of what you were going to do ANYWAY, but with guiding!"  Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.  "Oh, one sec, I'm gonna scooch a little bit, don't drop anything."  Reeeaaaaach for a pillow, a second pillow, and a third pillow.  Good enough to prop himself up so he can watch!  "Oh.  Um, would you like some extra pillows?"  Tim reaches behind his head in case the answer is 'yes'.

"It's very smart! And, I think that would help, yes," she scooches up herself, leaving room for the placement of pillows. 

Tim will lean forward and place his pillows behind her, then resentfully detangle for just long enough to acquire pillows of his own.  After a moment of thought, he also grabs some controllers.  "We don't have to play, but I don't wanna get up again if you decide you're tired of showing me your gems."

"But then I'll have to get tired of showing you yarn, and measuring your head for your hat." 

She will help him get settled again once he arrives, and then she hands him a plastic box full of rocks in many tiny compartments so she can pull two more out of her backpack and set them on her lap. 

"Well, we've already established that you've done your research.  I shouldn't be surprised that you'd come prepared."  Little smile.

Tim is entirely capable of holding a tacklebox full of rocks.  He has been training for the last four months to safely hold tackleboxes, and will accomplish this task with great aplomb and little fanfare.

"Mhm! You can take a look at those if you want," she is digging a few more things out of her bag, larger stones in boxes filled with stuffing to protect them from damage. "Don't worry about losing them, I can find them." 

"Oh.  Yeah, I guess you could."  No, it wasn't stupid to worry about losing them, of course she was going to be able to find them, she's got stonesense or whatever, but this is the one time in 9,999 that you wouldn't need to worry about losing a small valuable thing into the abyss of a plush rug.  Tim will poke through the gems and look at some of the more interesting ones.  Rumor has it that there's an orange one lurking about somewhere?  Maybe he'll be able to find it.

She did hand him that box, yes! They look a little dull inside their little compartment, but when he takes one of the larger ones out and lets the light shine through it, the glow is really something. 

"You found the spessartites! What do you think, in person?" 

"These are really cool, actually!"  Huh, they're kind of translucent?  Looks pretty cool, I can see the lights through it.  The sleepy esper is distracted even from guiding by the prospect of a cool new toy.  "And you help find these?"

"These ones are German," she nods, "I found them a new vein there. This one, though," she taps the larger stone he's holding, "That was a later gift." 

"What's the story behind it?"

"I go into crystal stores all the time of course," she sets the large rock boxes on top of her tacklerock boxes as she speaks, but doesn't unbox them yet. "The, mm, spiritual ones? I made friends with the owner of one in Germany, while I was there, and she sent it to me when it came into her hands. She thought I needed to, hm... Take control of my life? And spessartite garnet helps, apparently." 

"Huh.  That was sweet of her."  What do you even say to that.  "Did you manage to take control of your life afterwards?"  Half a smile, enough to let her know he's not taking it too seriously.

"I think so. It took some shocks, but I think I'm doing better, now." 

Would he like to see the big gems? There's her amalgam ruby project, which is a dangerously large ruby she frankly shouldn't be carrying around with her, but who would believe she'd be carrying around a giant ruby? She has been carefully perfecting it for several months now, after forming it from a bunch of tiny fragments. 

Or how about the amethyst snake bracelet, with its intricately formed pattern of dark and light purple scales, which she can gently untwist to wrap around her wrist? 

Or the third box, which contains an intricate cameo carved into smoky quartz, depicting a mother bear with three cubs coming over a rise?

Do geese honk!?!  Of course Tim is curious!!!

is.  Is that a ruby which is, poetically speaking, BIGGER THAN TIM’s head???  That is the largest gem of any kind Tim has seen in his ENTIRE LIFE.

The wristband is also very cool!  It’s very cool how nobody could possibly wear that except by Sara’s consent. Really, truly permanent accessories sound interesting well, it’s not really on the cards.  No use thinking about it.  If she demonstrates her ability to wear it, Tim may snuggle his legs closer.

The quartz cameo does get an impressed “awwww” and several minutes of fascinated staring from various angles.  And he’ll hold it up to the light, too.

”You’re very skilled.  It’s obvious that you’ve put in the hours to get here.”  It is very clear in Tim’s voice that this is one of the highest compliments he has on tap.

"Thank you! It seemed a shame not to become skilled, if this is my power. Though, I carved the cameo by hand, some, with normal tools. I only used my power on it to touch up any mistakes." 

She is in fact wearing the snake bracelet now, coiled half a dozen times around her forearm. She appreciates the extra surface area for guiding, though he runs through her backlash from that brief control fairly quickly. 

"I pulled this one out of a large amethyst formation I found at a craft market in rural Saskatchewan. I'm still not sure where it came from." 

She will also explain the ruby. 

"The pieces came from a mine I surveyed in Australia. I pulled out all the fragments and combined them into this. It wasn't very clear, at first, but I've been working on it." 

Snake bracelet is very cool!!  Tim will, if permitted, run his fingers over it over and over again until he realizes he's being weird unprofessional about it.

"The little image?  Sculpture?  Anyway, point is, that's actual skill.  Not just brute forcing a power, you know?  It's cooler to me, anyway."

"You're still working on that?!  What's it going to look like when it's done, a lighthouse!?!?!"  Tim is perhaps slightly more overwhelmed than anything by the sheer size of that monster ruby.

Maybe she has a little blush going from the cameo compliments. 

"A cameo is a gem - or a shell, I guess - with something carved into it like this. Maybe you have seen museum pieces or something in a film? Where a woman wears a white stone with a face carved into it on a necklace or brooch?" 

She shrugs. 

"The Ruby won't get larger," she assures him, "I'm just making it clearer. Here," she offers it to him, and digs a small light out of her kit, "If you look when it's lit up, you can see the inclusions- em, the cracks, and imperfections. They are hard to fix without ruining the structure of the gem." 

"Oh, right."  Better social noise, Tim.  "I don't think it ever occurred to me to, er, try to figure out what to call those."  Also I don't really go to museums much.

Ohhh, that makes sense now.  Okay, yeah, I do see the little blemishes and lines on it.  "What does it look like when you get rid of those?  And why is it so hard to do?"

"It's all so small, I have to move slowly and, em... Experimentally? They are bits of other things stuck inside the gem, and I have to extract them without damaging it.

"Without the inclusions, it will shine more... Uniformly? And the cracks will not be visible."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to remove the impurities before merging the ruby chips together?"  Tim turns the precious ruby over in his hands.  How long did it take her to do this?  Especially given guiding costs.  Wow.

"Maybe? It would have been easier to get the ones in the middle," she admits, sheepish, "But I didn't realize the problem until I had already merged them all. I could take it apart again, but..." 

She shrugs.

"It is more a piece of busywork than anything. Luc, my current partner, needs guiding more often than I do, as he is a combat esper. So I need something to do to guide him more efficiently, on days I have not taken a survey." 

On days she has, it will often take multiple sessions to get her back to zero. 

"A piece of busywork."  What a world, when a gem the size of my fist is 'just busywork'.  Wait.  Current partner.  Combat esper.  "Oh, I hadn't realize you were already partnered?"  Augh.  Uptalk, why.  I need to get a shock collar for 'um' and uptalk.

"Yes, but we are not very compatible, and he is moving away. I hope he finds someone better, there."

"Oh.  I see.  That explains why you were at the mixers, then."  Tim's eyes are pointed at the Ruby, but they're not really seeing it right now.