8383/Consolation for the Crushed

Consolation for the Crushed
Date of Scene:	23 October 2021
Location:	The Griffin
Synopsis:	Mairin finds comfort somewhere she never expected to go.
Cast of Characters:	Mairin Moran, Satana Hellstrom

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Mairin Moran has posed:
     Mairin has walked home, slammed a racquetball into a wall for an hour, read, and slept, but the dull ache in her chest just isn't going away. That burning feeling behind her eyes that threatens to turn to tears every half hour is still there.

    So she's gone out. She should be working. SHe knows it. She took yesterday off. Slept for ten hours and everything. And a lot of good that did her. But she can't focus. Even her usual tricks aren't working. And so she's here. At the Griffin. Walking up the steps to ring the bell and stand there, back straight, eyes clear, ready to tell Thomas exactly where he can put all of his talk about 'nice hair' and 'being worth it'.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
The new web of Infernal magicks protecting the Griffin keep Satana aware in the background of passers-by and approachers. Of course they only work if she pays attention. Which she's absolutely not doing right now.

Right now she's engrossed in finishing off an enchantment, music blaring in the background: a nu-metal opus:

    'Cause I can fly with no wings
    Shine in the night with an eternal fire
    The art inside me is unleashed
    I'm naked now in obscene colors

    (OOC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wA0skGcp5o)

Naked she is, but for the butcher's apron she's wearing (and dancing in). And obscene is definitely her colouration: dark red to rust brown of blood and viscera staining her hands and arms (and a bit of her face). And music is blaring so loudly that the quieter music from the alarm system's Wurlitzer is not making itself heard.

The imps have heard, however. As has Bloord, their now-fiend overseer. Who sighs resignedly and goes to the door.

"I'm sorry," he says in polite words with a surly, growling voice, looking like half a beach-bodied muscle builder, half a nightmare from the worst dreams of a schlock horror movie producer. Probably a guy in a costume from the film set that Satana graces every so often, right? "The Mistress is in her laboratory. Please come in and I shall inform her of your presence."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    If Mairin is surprised, disappointed, or intimidated to have the door opened by a.... monstrosity, it only shows in a slight frown. Maybe she's just getting used to it here. That's a scary thought.

    She gives a curt nod, then steps through the door. "Please do," is all she says, in a cool, calm voice as she walks to the lounge to sit in one of the chairs. Not on the edge. Not with all the timidity and grace of a mouse ready to spring for cover. No... Leaned back with arms laying casually on those of the chair. As though SHE were the one recieveing a guest and not the other way around.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
Following Mairin along to the living room and ensuring she's seated, all in gruff, almost dismissive mannerisms, Bloord turns and walks down the stairs to the cellar. His mannerisms and demeanour as a (bad) butler such that it may take a few moments after he's out of sight for the distracted Mairin to note that he's ... uh ... not clothed.

Right. Costume.

Downstairs the blaring music that was coming up from the basement cuts off and there's a little grunt of pain. Then Bloord's voice, barely audible (and certainly not loud enough to make out the words of without enhanced senses), then, "Oh, the mouse that grew into a rat! Lovely! Tell her I'll be right up after I clean."

Which he does. After which he sullenly stands in a corner staring at Mairin with undisguised loathing.

Satana comes up thereafter dressed in a slinky neck-to-floor gown (with bare feet, however) that might as well not be there given how it clings to her form and leaves little to the imagination. "Mairin, how pleasant to see you!" she effuses, her attitude having changed completely ever since Mairin stood up to her and demonstrated magic. "I'm afraid Thomas and Saeko are out and about, hither and thither, and I'm unsure when they'll be home. You'll have to put up with me as hostess."

She looks Mairin up and down, registering facial expressions but for some reason completely unmoved by the look of angry misery.

"Is there anything I can get you? Beer? Wine? Rum? A heavy duty vibrator with the butterfly attachment? Ice cream?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin ignores Bloord for the most part. As much as one CAN ignore a naked fiend standing in the room. Instead she stares out of a window as she's waiting, noting, but not really listening to the sounds from the basement. And slowly, by degrees, she actually does relax a little, until, when Satana finally enters, she's able to great the succubus with a smile that almost touches her eyes.

    "Thank you, Satana. Actually, some water would be very welcome. I'm sorry to have come by suddenly. I'm sure you have work to be getting on with. I can come back another time..."

    She says it, but she makes no move to stand or leave. Because she really doesn't want to.

    In fact, she actually takes a moment to take in all of Satana. As if really seeing the woman for the first time.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"Water?!" Satana says in mock amazement. "I think that's a first. And nonsense, I finished my little project, so your arrival was timely. I would have been bored what with both Thomas and Saeko gone and nobody to play with."

She claps her hand and an imp bustles into the room. "Water. Just water. A pitcher. And slice up a lemon and put it on a plate next to the glasses."

The imp tears off to the kitchen and Satana's eyes fall on Mairin, catching that frank look.

"You like what you see. I thought that Thomas was barking up the wrong tree..."

These were not questions.

The succubus settles down in an armchair across from Mairin, looking at her thoughtfully. "You seem upset by something. I hope it wasn't my little piquish outburst with the cat. I was just being a bitch. It happens. Thomas likes you." She's polite enough not to say "unaccountably". "Since I value him, I would like us to be friends."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Fingers pick at the arms of her chair a bit but she doesn't argue with Satana's observations. "Thomas is..." she smiles a bit, "Kind. Unaccountably so." Shes not afraid to come out and say it. "As is Saeko. I think, right now, I prefer your opinion."

    A pause as she stares at the woman opposite. "I... Just need time to readjust. To process new data and form new assumptions. Sometimes analysis can lead onto paths you believe will be fruitfull... but they turn into dead ends and you have to backtrack, find where you made the mistake, and correct." She shrugs slgihtly. "I obviously made a mistake."

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"I ... think I'm following along? You're trying to power up that robot cat with magic now, but have come across problems, and since you saw me do it you want some advice. Am I close?"

The playful demeanour and slightly cruel bent to the lips suggests she's teasing.

"I should warn you that technomancy, done properly, rests on a strong basis of theoretical magic. After all, technology is just debased, poorly-understood application of magic, so if you understand proper magicks, technomancy almost comes out of it as an epiphenomenon."

Someone who looks like Peg Bundy's twenty-something sister with a demeanour to match really shouldn't have words like "epiphenomenon" slip out of her mouth. It feels unnatural.

"But," she continues, looking Mairin over thoughtfully, "I think we could definitely come to some kind of arrangement when it comes to instruction. We'd have to make your apprenticeship formalized, of course."

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin smiles, "You do know how to tempt a woman," She takes a deep breath. "But no. I already have a teacher and I'm rather fond of her."

    There it is... that slight frown. The stab of pain she can't help but show because it's far too recent and too deep.

    "No, these assumptions were of a more personal nature. My work is actually progressing at a pace I consider..." She waves a hand without lifting her arm. "Adequate."

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
Even someone as thick as a whale sandwich could spot that pained expression and its juxtaposition.

"Oh dear," Satana says, looking at Mairin with ... no, not empathy. Understanding. As in comprehension.

"Tell me if you've heard this story. Student falls for teacher. Admires from afar. Finally works up the nerve to approach the teacher with expressions of love. Is rebuffed ... rudely or gently, doesn't matter. It hurts."

Satana's eyes gaze into Mairin's as if staring straight through into her soul. (Which, do be fair, she totally is.)

"But you still love her. Am I close?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Another wave of her hand, but this time with a deep, recentering breath. She's given away more than she planned apparently.

    It doesn't help.

    "I'm not a child. Love isn't a thing that just springs fully formed out of the grass. Psssion... desire... Want... Those grow like weeds. Quick to spring up, but not sustaining." She titls her head a bit, perhaps surprised at her own anology. Then shakes her head.

    "But yes... in it's basic form I think I have heard the story before. Recently."

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"It's ill-advised anyway, sweetheart," Satana says, standing and approaching Mairin ... as moments later the imp returns with water, placing a tray with a pitcher, a plate of sliced lemon, and two glasses on the coffee table.

"Would you like a slice of lemon in yours, or just plain?" she asks, crouching down to the coffee table height and looking up at Mairin from over her shoulder, hand on the pitcher's handle.

Then, continuing, "It's not a good plan to have romantic attachment to your teacher, at least not at the start. Magic is dangerous business and romance could be a distraction."

She waits for Mairin's response to her question, for all of about three seconds. Then adds, "How strong was the rejection? Door still opened? Or slammed closed?"

Another three-second wait. Then an offer.

"I can help you forget her." The precise nature of this help is not made explicit...

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Blue eyes watch Satana as she stands. And perhaps... there is the hint of desie behind them. But if so, it is one locked so far behind walls and gates that Mairin herself may not even know it exists. Or... Perhaps she does. Hence all of the walls and gates.

    "Yes please," she answers to the question of lemon.

    "I'm aware it isn't, she returns. "I've been a teacher. I know the dangers even without magic. I was foolish enough to think that this might be different. That it was worth the risk for the reward. That I..." She pauses, then shifts tack.

    "She was quite firm that I was both too young and too..." She ponders the right word... "That it was foolish of me to consider it."

     She leans forward to take the glass and takes a long drink before leaning back again, the glass resting on the arm of the chair and her eyes watching the ice float around. "I don't want to forget her..."
she says softly.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
Satana dutifully puts a slice of lemon into the glasses, one in each, and pours. She holds both glasses out to Mairin, letting her choose for that little symbol of safety. Security. Which she seems to need right now.

"Well, making you forget her forever would be a long and difficult enchantment," she says, "and likely would make it hard to continue as her student on top of that."

Then, somehow, she's right up against Mairin, not touching, but close enough that her body heat can be felt.

"I'm very good," she adds, her voice in a purr, "at helping people forget their woes for a few hours' dalliance, however. That was more the kind of forgetfulness I was offering."

It's strange. This woman, up close, smells of cinnamon, bubblegum (old-school Hubba-Bubba, to be specific), and just the slightest hint of sulphur. And the presence she has is unusual. A way of filling all the senses and being the centre of a world. A shapely, soft-in-the-right-places centre that distracts with its curves and its graceful, almost hypnotic motions. And eyes that are beginning to fill Mairin's world: obsidian sclera and red iris with faint pinpricks of ember red in the pupils.

"I shan't rob you of your feelings, but respite, surely, is attractive ... ?"

Mairin Moran has posed:
    Mairin looks up at Satana as she comes close. She can't help it. She's just starting to get used to Saeko's allure. Her soft, easy flirtation. And, if she'd been truthful to herself when she left her appartment, that was what she was looking for. But this... This is something else entirely and it calls out to something far deeper. More buried.

    Her eyes lock on Satana's and she can feel the pull. She can sense, even if she can't quite visualize, everything that the woman might do for her. Every way that she might help her forget. And, distantly, in the far reaches of her own mind, every reason not to screams out at her.

    Any other time. Any other day. Those screams would reach her. But today she's someone else. Someone who is tired of listening to all the caution and all the rules. Someone who wants.

    So, she says nothing. Just staring into those eyes and letting herself imagine... And one hands reaches out. Just a few inches, from the arm of the chair, toward Satana.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
None of the triumph crowing in Satana's mind shows on her face or in her body language. Hands blindly set aside water as she pushes the last air gap toward contact, body easily sliding into place lounging on the sofa, half over Mairin, the hand on the side with Mairin's reaching hand cupping the good doctor's face while the other hand cups ... elsewhere.

Lips reach lips for a gentle, teasing kiss that sends tingling through to the very soul.

"Anything you want," Satana murmurs, barely audible. "To me or from me. I'm here for you. To take the pain from your soul away."

Lips touch again, then slide in a series of brief kisses along the jawline before the voice murmurs again, puffs of air tickling Mairin's earlobe.

"Let me bring you release."

The iris closes. The screen turns black but for the circle surrounding the pair's faces, seen over Satana's shoulder. Subsequent sights and sounds are kept, mercifully (or frustratingly, depending on one's tastes) off-screen.