Madeleine. Her name is pronounced Madeleine. Madeleine Cross if you wanted to get technical (which she very much did). There is a lot of power in a name, which is to say that there are energies surrounding every syllable, like incantations in a magic spell. There are any number of ghosts and demons you can hold at bay or even outright defeat just by saying their names. 

But it must be done correctly. That is the key. Say it wrong and the spell goes awry. Say it wrong and you lose your miracle. Say it wrong, and you get cursed. 

[i]It won't be a problem. They probably won't remember to say it at all, once they see me play.[/i]

She can feel Machia's thigh press into her hip. The hairs of her sleek, black tail lift and swish in response. She needed to learn how to control that. It made it too easy to read her, and the one thing she could not afford to do if she wanted to survive this... partnership was hand Titanomachia any ammunition.

She couldn't be allowed to know how good any of this felt. How much Madeleine looked forward to some of her sessions just for the sake of having them. If she let this, this, this... [i]woman[/i] know in certain terms how talented her fingers really were, it'd be the same as handing her binding magic. The whole thing would rapidly grow intolerable. 

Those talented fingers wrench her hair, pulling her neck until she feels the restraints biting into her body. Madeleine clenches her teeth as her tail slaps the inside of Machia's thigh. 

"I don't know," she sighs, "Who most of these people are. But if they... want to train when I am active, I'm going to say yes. I don't care if they're sloppy. If they can see me and say 'come over'..."

One long, flexible ear twitches from on top of her head. It bends away from the nonsense on the stream toward the nonsense of the woman on top of her. To listen to her breathing. To listen for the cluck of disapproval as it strikes Machia's teeth. Or maybe she was about to start that condescending chuckle of hers that marked the descent into one of her theory lectures on the nature of Aristea! Either way, the words would do what they were meant to. 

Madeleine smiles into the table, a little magic just for her. It wasn't fair. To take this woman away from the sport she loved. She couldn't make it worth it. But that didn't make it not fun.

"And if you're just going to braid my hair all day, at least untie me first. I could make us coffee..."