8371/Mairin the workaholic

Mairin the workaholic
Date of Scene:	22 October 2021
Location:	1A - Mairin's Studio Apartment
Synopsis:	Mairin got a lesson in self care, and promissed Demona she'd practice it.
Cast of Characters:	Mairin Moran, Susan Sullivan

---

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin's room is no neater than the last time Demona was here. If anything, its worse.

    The table is still a mess of machine parts and circuit chips, and the kitchen counters are covered with little piles of assembled parts that don't look like anything useable. The trash can is overflowing and buried ina mountain of cast-off mistakes and scrap leavings of all kinds. And her desk is covered in open books arranged into small piles. Mechanical... electrical... programing... AI.... magic theory.... Magic history... Romance...

    Yep, for some reason there's a stack of romance novels laid out. Well read ones by the look of it. Their pages marked and a notebook sitting next to them with pages of notes.

    The floor hasn't been spared too, as it loks as though she hurridly scoured her bookcases for what she needed and just staked the wrong ones on the floor. Everywhere.

    Mairin herself is sitting on the bed, leaning back against the wall when Demona walks in. Looking as though she just woke up after giving a very sleepy "It's not locked."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona enters and immediately stops, holding the door open as she looks at the carnage around her. She tosses the door closed behind her and moves to Mairin. "When's the last time you slept?" she asks.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    As Demona walks through the room, little bots skitter, crawl, and fly away from her. None of them larger than a softball, some are obviously failed attempts at something that were just set aside, but others are fully functinal, and all of them resemble some kind of small anmal or insect.

    Mairin looks down at the book in her lap, a text on energy projection theories, then back up. "I slept..." She thinks, "Besids just now? I think I slept last night. Maybe around three hours." She yawns again and moves the book in her lap to one end of her bed to join a pile of othes. "I usually have to after I cast the spell."

    "Is something wrong?" a bit of adrenaline causing her to perk up. "Are you ok?"

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "No," Demona says, defiantly. "You're not okay, and that means I'm not okay. Go to sleep. I'm going to clean up the mess in here. When you have slept at LEAST five more hours, I will talk to you. No alarms. Just let yourself sleep. You're burning yourself to death in sour qi."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    She shakes her head, starting to get up. "I'm fine, Demona. I just need to finish a few more things." She looks back and forth among the multitude of simultanious projects as if trying to figure out which one she was going to work on next.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Without unclipping it, Demona pulls up her gas mask and tosses it to the floor. She grabs Mairin under her arms and picks her up before pushing her against the wall. "Listen to me very carefully," she says, her qi pooling in her voice, making every syllable resonate in every fiber of Mairin's body. "You will sleep, and you will do so now, or I will throw you off the roof."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin utters a little squeek as she's lifted and for a split second there is a fire of definace in her eyes as they look into Demona's. But she just doesn't have the energy or the will to fight her friend. So instead, she simply nods. "Promise you wont let me oversleep?"

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona lets Mairin slide in a controlled manner down the wall until her feet touch the floor. She hugs Mairin tightly for several moments. "Just sleep, okay? I'm going to be cleaning up stuff out here, and I'll start working on the mechanical stuff I know how to do until your body is caught up. You won't be idle, even while sleeping." She finally lets go of Mairin and says, "Go sleep," she insists. "Don't make me carry you."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin nods mutely against Demona as she's hugged and ordered, then stumbles into bed as she's let down. She doesn't even bother moving the books on her bed. Just snuggles in amongst them like a dragon sleeping on a treasure horde.

    She's asleep in moments.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona gets to work. She gathers obvious trash, cleans, and takes out the garbage. In so doing, she has to read a lot of papers, both printed and hand-written. She finds herself with several dilemmas from all the papers she reads through.
    Demona gathers up the various failed projects and discerns why several of them aren't working. She then fixes a few hardware and electronic problems, likely just caused by Mairin working while not having had enough sleep. Mairin will be out for a while, so Demona shelves and organizes books to give herself more room to work. Eventually, she has nothing left to clean or repair and has to get to work building more of the large order of bots Mairin has been working on.
    After about ten hours, she's run out of parts that Mairin had on hand. With nothing left to do, she moves to Mairin's bed and starts gathering books off of it, putting them away and organizing them as well. She is as meticulous with the books as a lirbarian, but once she's done, she sits on the side of Mairin's bed. She brushes her cold fingers over Mairin's hair and ponders waking her.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    The collection of papers and notes that Demona finds as she cleans is as varied as it is numerous. Sheafs and sheafs of drafting pages with dozens of designs for little robot parts. None of them seem to really make sense at first, until Demona places the right sequence together while a fist sized fly trundles passed. Each schematic is for a unique part but not of a unique thing. They're meant to be modular. Put together in various ways to form all of the little bots around her. With that realization, she's easily able to see about ten basic parts common to most of the bots in the room. And these match the small piles of parts scattered across the kitchen counter.

    There are also about twenty drawings of the little robot balls. Each slightly different. By the looks of it, Mairin's updated the design about 12 times since Deomana worked on them last. Each one becoming more and more complex.

    And then of course there are the two creased and crumpled notebook pages covered in flowing latin script that is deffinitly not Mairin's writing.

    Along with all of the miscilanious books. The romance novels might make Demona pause as well. The notebook next to them scrawled with notes on comonalities between them and certain words circled like... Dancing. Garden. Danger. Coincidence. and the like...

    As for Mairin herself... She sleeps dead to the world, barely moving the entire day, even as Demona's finger brushes her hair.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona begins speaking softly. "You're crazy, you know. Increased complexity will lead to more failures. Disaster relief robots are almost always as simple as possible to keep them robust." She shakes her head. "And you've got a severe robot hoarding problem." She stands and moves to the kitchen, watching as little robots fly to a wireless charging station, land for a bit, then take off again. Demona is impressed by the robotic garden Mairin is making. She begins to struggle through brewing a pot of coffee. She's never even tasted coffee before, let alone made some herself.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin does stir slightly, muttering things in her sleep. But it's all a jumble. Or in latin. Or maybe both. But by the time the coffee is in full swing, she's right on that edge of wakefulness. And it's then that she jerks awake with a terrified cry, sitting up a bit in bed as she tries to catch her breath.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Sorry!" Demona calls out from the kitchen. "Your apartment isn't on fire! I'm trying to make coffee!" The smell of the heating pad under the coffee pot covered in dust is more unpleasant than just a hot plate on its own.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin jumps out of bed and scrables to her desk to snatch up her phone and fire off a text, then looks up at Demona with a deer in the headlights look. "You're ok..." she breaths, her chest heaving but gradually slowing. "Oh..." She looks back at her phone, fires off another text then sets it down. She stumbles over to the table and slumps into a chair. "Just... A bad dream."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Fair," Demona says. She sniffs at the air. "Your qi smells a lot healthier." She gestures at the coffee. "I made you coffee to help you wake up."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    She gives a weak smile, and takes the cup of coffee with a shaking hand. She quickly brings the other up to keep it steady. "Thank you."

    She takes a sip, makes a slight face, but smiles. "I don't usually drink it," she explains.

    She looks around the room and notices Demona's work for the first time. She turns and looks at the clean table, then up to Demona. "You cleaned my room?" She looks at once confused, grateful, and embaressed. "You didn't have to do that."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "I cleaned EVERYTHING," Demona says. "Also:" she says, "I fixed several broken robots, built the robots you had parts for, and re-organized your library. It's genre-separated, then organized by author--last name, first name--then alphabetically by title." She takes a breath then lets it out. "Felt good to get all that done," she says. "Now it doesn't look like a train wreck in here." She raises an accusatory finger of conflict. "And you, young lady," Demona commands, "are going to start sleeping regularly and learning good time management." She lowers her hand. "How did you let it get this bad?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin looks for all the world like a scolded teenager under Demona's accusing finger. She sighs and rubs a hand over her face. "I don't know, honestly." She looks around at the ten or so bots moving around the room. "I've just had SO much on my mind. And so many things I wanted to get done." She shakes her head a bit. "I'm usually much more organized." There's something like a chuckle. "I think the only good sleep I've gotten in days has been at Thomas'. Whenever I'm here I just can't stop thinking about everything that needs done."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Thomas?" Demona asks. "Like...the cat guy who gave us work? Are you...seeing him?" she asks, somewhat confused.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    "What? God, no." Mairin makes a disgusted face and it isn't from the coffee this time. She actually takes another sip as if to wash the thought out of her mouth. "No... I just." She looks up at Demona and bites her lip. "Well I went to him to see if he could help with your identity. And your clearance. And it was..." She shakes her head a little. "Well he has some unusual housemates, I'll say that." She shrugs a bit. "But he has a way of... Making me relax. Nothing.... like THAT," she makes a vague motion. "Just... Well he's kinder than I first thought." She smiles obviously happy, but not lovestruck.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Oh!" Demona says. "Yeah, I always thought you were a bit hard on him. I didn't get the same impression from him you did." She moves to pull out a chair for Mairin. "What's wrong with my identity?" she asks. "Or is that just something that's necessary to doctor for clearance?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin sits in the offered chair and sets the mug down. "Well, yes. The government isn't exactly fond of handing out clearances to dead people, as we talked about before." She lets the part about being hard on Thomas just slide by. She knows she was now. "He has a friend who can help. They'll make a full identity for you. You'll be able to file taxes... the works. And you'll be able to get the clearance you need to work on the reactor." She takes another sip, her grimaces getting feinter as she gets used to it. "Theres also..." She shifts a bit in her chair. "Something else one of his friends might be able to help with. If you want."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "I mean," Demona says, hesitantly. "I have a driver's license, was able to register the van, I accessed my old bank accounts...I am definitely going to be trying to file taxes." She sits opposite Mairin. "What's this other thing they want to help with?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    She shifts in her seat to face Demona a little better. "One of Thomas'... housemates, is a kitsune." She waits to see if she needs to explain what this is. SHe doesn't want to make assumptions.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Cat man has a fox girlfriend," Demona speculates. "Or guy friend, I guess, but I've never seen fetish art for males. Not sure they exist."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin laughs. "Something like that. A kitsune is a... sort of devine messenger for a god. Acting as an intermediary between the god and worshipers. Among other things," she adds, because the whole things is really more complicated than that. "I was able to talk to this particular kitsune, Saeko, and she indicated that she would be able to..." She shrugs a bit, "I honestly don't know if it would be lifting, or suppressing... But, at any rate, she can make you human again. For the right offering to the god she serves."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona's brows furrow in a suspicious expression. She shifts in the chair, narrowing her gaze as she looks at Mairin. "What kind of 'offering'?" she asks. "I'm not sacrificing someone."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin nearly spits out coffee as she laughs. "No... I would hope not. And anyway I think that would be the other housemate's area." She shakes her head. "No, I don't think it would be anything like that. From what I've read, people seeking the favor of Inari ususally leave foods, or money, or something of personal value. I think in this instance, and Saeko aluded to this as well, it would need to be something of personal significance." She shrugs a bit. "It might be easier to meet her and ask her yourself to get the details."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona looks at her hands for a moment as she considers. She is quiet for several moments as the sound of electric motors and tiny rotors fill the apartment. After some time has passed, Demona says, "I'll do it." She looks up at Mairin and says, "I'll talk to her, at least."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin waits patiently, sipping her coffee and starting to look a little more like her energetic self. When Demona finally makes her decision, she gives an encouraging smile. "I'd understand if you said no. But I'm glad you're at least willing to hear her out." No mention of how she begged to take the price FOR Demona. Nope. "I'll let you know when I can arrange a meeting. It shouldn't be long, though."

    She cracks a giant yawn and streatches, her back crcking a few times, then looks around the room. "I suppose I should get back to work... I have a redesign on the portal-bot I want to try out, and some tweeks to the wing units of the flight moduals. Oh, and I still need to finish researching the energy shield. Dr. Edwards had some facinating thoeries on how to generate a barrier with micro-emiters." She stands and walks to her computer.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona sighs and her shoulders sag like a weary parent of a toddler who's always rushing toward danger. "Mairin," she says as her eyes close. She holds a silence for a moment. She looks up at her friend and says, "This was a one time thing. I have responsibilities. Today was my day off, and I spent it cleaning your apartment." She shakes her head. "Not doing that again. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to sleep eight hours a night, and take one FULL day off for every six days you work. No work, no intense socializing, no networking, just sit with your smutty romance novels and veg. In exchange, I won't suck out your qi and make you my thrall to force you to behave." The last sentence is said dryly, but is intended as a joke. However, to prove the seriousness of the rest, Demona holds up her hand, pinky extended.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    She gets only as far as waking her computer before she's forced to turn around at her name. She goes from embaressed, to indignant to sheepish in the space of a few seconds. "But... What if something important comes up at night?" she asks, then adds, "Could I make up the sleep the next day?"

    She stands there, oblivious to the monitor displaying her open browser with what mucst be a million open tabs. And on the active one, a store that obviously sells... dresses? And not normal ones by what's pulled up. But something elaborate and vintage. It's hard to tell from the table.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Self care," Demona emphasizes as she rises to her feet. She shakes her fist with pinky extended in Mairin's direction. "Eight hours every twenty-four of sleep. One full day every seven to veg and so things to recharge." She insistantly wiggles her pinky in Mairin's direction.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin considers this for a moment, then walks up and curls her pinky around Demona's. "I promise," she says with a small nod. "I'll take care of myself. And I'll keep my appartment clean." She grips the other pinky tightly, then lets go and hugs herself. "Thank you, by the way, for cleaning. It was really nice of you. You didn't have to. And," she adds hurridly, "Thank you for caring. About me. Esspecially enough to come and check on me. You're a really good friend."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona smiles. "You're worth it," she says, putting her hands on her sides, just above her hips. "No matter what you put me through, you're still a human being worthy of care. You're also my friend, and I kind of want to keep you around." She reaches out and her hoodie rises to meet her hand. "Speaking of self-care," she says. "I better go somewhere with tons of qi so I can get some meditation in." She puts the warm fabric over her head and slides into it like it was cooperating with her wearing it. She picks up her gas mask and slides it onto her face. "Let me know if I messed anything up on those robots, okay? I need to learn where I'm lacking so I can improve." They were true to Mairin's blueprints, but if Mairin's blueprints had errors from her being tired while doing them, that wasn't on Demona.

Mairin Moran has posed:
    She smiles, but shakes her head. "You and Thomas both seem to think I'm worth all this trouble to..." She shrugs, "I don't know... I don't understand it. But I'm glad. I'm glad to have you as a friend, Demona. And I want to keep you around too." She grins. "Go meditate. I think I'm going to..." She looks around at her appartment. "I think I'm going to eat. And then maybe go for a walk."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona nods content. "Good," she says. "I'll see you later, Mairin. Keep being good to yourself." She puts on her stocking cap and heads for the door, clearly pleased with how her teacher and mechanical mentor is promising to take better care of herself.