Almost against her will, Madeleine strains at the vines that are crushing her into Machia. Her body is flushed with heat and her mind is full of seawater and foam, all brine and beauty and no space left for higher thought. She has one eye left that she can look out from, just half a face that hasn't been swallowed by dark feathers. She turns her head away from it all, hiding the part of her that got touched against the floor, and watches a discarded pillow sitting on the floor. 

And then suddenly she is... no. She is [i]not[/i] free. To be free she would need the use of her legs, and both arms, and both eyes. To be free she couldn't be in this much pain, and her heart would have to slow down until the long ears standing adorably upright on top of her head could hear something other than her own rising blood pressure or the groaning of her muscles. She is not free. She can simply breath. She can move her right shoulder enough to push up off the ground. 

It's not nobility or love or even fear that makes her struggle. No higher functions are commanding her in this moment so she cannot be commended or derided for struggling her way up off of the floor. She's still bound at the hip and the thighs, so it is not her choice to wrap her arm around Titanomachia's waist and start to hobble off. That's just what has to happen. It is like she is being pulled along by a thread, not dissimilar from the flower vines still clinging tight to her body. If that's the destiny Taowu meant then she must be wiser than she looks. 

Madeleine stumbles forward, for now a substitute for a missing leg. She can't remember standing. She doesn't know why there's a pillow in her hand, or how it might have gotten there. All she knows, though she couldn't explain it even if she understood it for herself (or if she had the power of speech returned to her) is that she needs to fly. 

With one hand, she squeezes Titanomachia from around her waist. With the other hand, she throws a couch pillow through a shattered window. With one leg, she drags herself forward. With the other, she drags Machia with her. There's no rhythm or grace to the motion, no teamwork or coordination. The pair of them, the tangled mess of them really, simply shuffle until they fall.

With one literal cushion waiting at the bottom. 

Madeleine wraps both arms around Machia as she falls, and pulls with all her might. She lands on her back, beneath her fellow prisoner, and coughs when the impact drives all the air out of her lungs. There is no pain where she landed. Or at least, it's nothing compared to other parts of her right now. She should by all rights just lay here and try to recover, but she hastily stumbles to her feet again instead, falling back over four times before she manages. 

Frantically, she rubs at her face with the inside of her elbow even as she gasps for breath. Still she feels the pull. Move, move, [i]move[/i].

She does. Down the road, as fast as she can. Just her, the greatest athlete she has ever personally known, and a very tacky pillow.