Maru

(Artist: Mimpish)

You grab a bouquet before you head out from the farmhouse, a clear destination in mind. You take the path north over the road and past the mountain trail, enjoying the walk while you figure out what you're approach might be. Maru always looked so cute in her glasses and her intelligence is a big turn on for you too. Demetrius' attempt at warning you away is certainly not enough to stop you.{if Robin >= 1} Consideration for Demetrius has certainly not held you back from other interests already.{endif} You walk into the workshop and wave to Robin, she waves back but is too busy working on some sort of wooden construction to chat and you're not interested in disrupting her today. You make your way through the house to Maru's room.

She's similarly engaged, sat on the floor, back to you as you walk in while she works on what appears to be a pile of nuts, bolts, electronics and god knows what other pieces of metal. She grunts softly as she puts her whole weight into pushing down on a spanner, tightening some bolts into her contruction. You clear your throat to announce your entrance, "one... second..." with a final push she manages to spin the spanner a few more degrees down. She relaxes and twists where she sits to turn her face to you, her left arm lifted as she wipes her forehead with her purple sleeve, possibly making the machine oil mark across her face worse than it had been before she turned to you. She smiles at you, still red in the face a little from the exertion. "Oh, Farmer! Sorry I thought it was my Dad."

She quickly tidies up some of the various materials scattered around her room and makes a space next to her on the floor, inviting you with a smile to join her, speaking excitedly. "You're in perfect timing to be part of my first test! Here you sit here, and hold this." She pushes a box with a big red switch into your hands. You'd been planning to lead with the bouquet but Maru's excitement has sort of put a hold on that for now. You decide to let this play out first, joining her sitting on the floor, your knee touches hers but she doesn't seem to notice.

Maru holds a much more complicated looking operating box, there's multiple dials and sliders, a pressure dial, two digital numeric displays and an oscillating line running across a third display. The wires run in a tangled mess connecting her panel to your switch and both to the strange contraption on the floor in front of you. It's a squat metal rectangle, two equidistant circles on the front face you, you can't help but think of them as eyes. "Ok so first test of operation, we'll have to see what the power demands are like and if it all holds together!" She grins at you, excitement clear on her face, eyes twinkling behind her glasses. "I'll need you to flick that switch when I tell you, and then turn it back off again as soon as I give the word ok?" You nod, thankful you're on this side of the operation. You would say you're pretty good at 5{if Level >= 7}, maybe 6{endif} things. This is definitely not one of them.

You watch Maru closely as her fingers delicately slide controls and turn dials, the displays shift in response to her touches and she gazes intensely at them. You hold your single switch tightly, ready for her word. She mutters to herself, her eyes flicking between the various read outs as her fingers make subtle alterations to her controls "voltage rising... reverse the polarity of the positron flow... resistance rising within parameters..." you hope that none of these phrases mean 'flip the switch' because you're hoping for a pretty clear instruction before you do anything. Maru taps the dial, makes a soft humming noise in consideration and then raises a hand, one finger raises. "Ready..." Ok, this seems to be for you, you prepare yourself as she slides a control up and then drops her finger to point directly at you. "Now Farmer!" You throw the switch.

There's some sparks from the wires around you both but nothing enough to be real cause for concern. The eyes on the box start to light up the box begins a soft hum. Maru turns and grins broadly at you, "It's working! It's working!" She's yelling much louder than she needs to, the electronic sounds not being that loud, but you can see she's almost vibrating with excitement. You smile back at her, still holding your one switch in a **** grip, as you see her eyes stray behind you, it seems your backpack may have fallen slightly open and her eyes focus on the last item you delicately placed in there. "Is that a bouque-" her fingers have left her control panel and from the corner of your eye you see one of the numbers rapidly climb from 10 up to 99, as it blinks out there's a bang and a spark of light from where the wires meet the meet the box. Immediately followed by another spark from the switch you have in your hand and sudden burning pain as electricity sparks through you. It's hard to judge while it's happening but you feel like you've lit up like a cartoon and Maru can see your skeleton. You drop the switch to the floor, as you shudder and feel your hair stand on end. Once you disconnect from the power you slump down again, your right hand instinctively wrapping around the palm of your left where it burns as you grunt with pain.

Maru gasps, quickly turning back to her controls and flicking something, shutting everything down before she turns back to you. "Oh my god, are you alright?! Here, sit here." She half drags you to sit on the seat in front of her desk which you willingly sink into. She kneels down next to you and gently rests your left hand, palm up, on your lap and uncurls your fingers. She winces when she sees the burned red flesh and looks up at you aghast, you give her an unconvincing smile. She fumbles one of the drawers open and retrieves some burn cream. She's clearly shifted into nurse mode now. "This will sting a little," you brace as she gently squirts some of the cream into her hands and starts to rub it over your burned palm. She watches closely as she works, trying to be as gentle as possible over your sensitive skin. She's knelt over your hand as she works and you watch the top of her head, her auburn hair hanging over her face. He touch is gentle and the cream starts to sooth the pain immediately, you're soon less tense and more relaxed into Maru's chair as she continues to rub the cream into the palm of your hand with her fingertips.

"I'm so sorry..." she looks up you from where she's knelt, her hands continuing to stroke your palm. "I got distracted by the..." she nods to where your bag lies, discarded on the floor in the panic, the bouquet you'd bought for Maru pokes out of the top. "Was it for me?" She asks quietly. You nod and smile at her, "Yes, I wanted to-" you wince as she squeezes your hand a little tightly. "Sorry! I just... oh I've kind of ruined the moment now haven't I?" You look at her, on her knees in front of you as she sighs. You don't think things are going so badly to be honest.
"It's ok, it doesn't even hurt." She looks back up at you, eyebrows raised, clearly doubting that statement. "Well it feels a lot better already at least, thank you." To show her, you close the fingers of your left hand, squeezing around her hand where it was still idly stroking the cream in. It hurts a little still but you don't let that show to Maru. She smiles up at you, "that makes me feel a little better then, thanks." You sit for a moment with her hand in yours as you smile at each other, you fingers gently stroking hers. "How do your hands stay so soft with all that farm work?" She wonders softly to herself, her fingers tracing over the undamaged parts of your skin.

After a moment she taps your left hand with her free hand, "OK, open up again, you're still my patient I need to look after you."
You obediently release her, "yes nurse." She grabs a little more cream and rubs around the edges of the burn, you continue to stroke her wrist with your thumb as she works making her blush and avoid looking back at your face. "And yes... I will..." she nods to the bouquet you brought, shyly looking up to make eye contact with you for a second before returning to your hand. With your right hand you stroke her hair as she gently leans down, placing a delicate kiss against your palm before she looks up to you again. Ready to follow your lead.

+1 Relationship with Maru