[i]Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.[/i]

[i]Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.[/i]

[i]Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.[/i]

[i]Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.[/i]

Hold onto that, Madeleine. The first step to being able to repeat it back come the end of this is having it in the first place. [i]Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.[/i] Ok then. It belongs to her now. All she has to do is keep it. [i]Chiron runs with--[/i]

Where is she? How did she get here? She was not expecting it to feel so... real.

Blindfolded and bound, Madeleine can only live in the world of sound. And at first all she does is hear the noises of this unnaturally natural world, but Machia's skilled manipulations pull the entire rest of the world out of her bending, twisting ears. She feels the wind on her face, the tickle of her bangs against her forehead where it tugs at them. She hears her tank top fluttering and strain against the ropes keeping it tight there. She feels the warmth of the sun against her shoulders, even though it makes no noise, just because the purity of this hallucination tells her that it cannot be raining. 

She can see the sky. It is endless and unbroken by the rise of buildings or mining equipment or all the little signifiers of civilization that have been part of her world since the day she was born. There are small wisps of cloud twisting up above her, and if she stares at them long enough she will start to see shapes, shapes that tell her stories. Stories about Chiron, running with fair ribbons through grand many stars... oh, but she [i]would[/i] like to see that. It would be beautiful, to see the night sky this far away from people. In a place, an impossible and secret place where there was no light pollution to steal all the secret colors of the night sky. 

She is kneeling near a lake. She can taste the water on the breeze, she can hear the little ripples of the waves as they surge. These are not true tides, just the water churning when the air plays with it too hard. It is beautiful and serene, especially set against the staggering fields of tall grasses that dance along with the wind and the water and tickle her thighs. 

Madeleine tries to stand and explore this glittering paradise that Machia has constructed inside of her, but the ropes pull her tight. She can feel every inch of her body as certainly and intimately as if she were actively measuring it. Even the pieces of herself that normally fade into the background of muscle memory are singing with all their might, joining the chorus of a woman who will never move, nor fall to the temptations of this mystic land. For piety's sake, she prays to Chiron of the fair ribbons. 

But she can hear the distant thunder of a herd. It pulls her short, and tears dampen her blindfold. Her breath hitches and her feet clench even as her chest starts to ache with a longing that has little to do with this challenge or its ostensible goal, or even her desire to be in the Hexadrome to compete for the dream she has which it unlocks. Hoofbeats fall on grass like a waterfall crashing over all creation. 

Madeleine's voice is only audible to her through the vibrations in her skull. For a split instant, the fidelity of this place fractures. Shadows take it, black silk and eyelashes where there ought to be waves and reeds. But there's no reprieve from the rhythm of the falling hooves, like rain, like hail...

"Ah," she moans helplessly, "I want to run..."