The street is illuminated with shocks of glittering light in autumn red. It bleeds into a metallic crimson light. The daemonic effect not only changes the hue of the light but the reflective properties of everything it falls upon. A cackle fills the air -

And then, the snap of a chain. A great shadow pulls a collar tight. And --

*

Titanomachia and Madeleine Cross are suddenly back in her apartment. Everything is back the way it was. The remanants of the arcane are gone - the daemonic presence, the vines, the bloody dress. Even the clocks have wound back. It is as though none of it happened.

But -

- Machia maximizes one of the streams on her monitors. Taowu is sitting for an interview in a talk show, dressed in a debonair floral violet dress with a crimson cravat. Her hand is holding a leash - and attached to that leash is Lios Emiral. Her armour has become a cage of chains and vines, her face-concealing helm jagged with bladed oak leaves, her silver tarnished to obsidian blacks, her two-handed blade coursing with crimson daemon light.

"- so why did you target group three, O Demon Princess?" the reporter was asking.
"I've had my eye on my dear knight for a while," said Taowu pleasantly, lounging in her armchair and raising a hand to trace her fingernail under her blade-slave's chin. "Nothing against group three personally. But I know some people are looking at dear little Sammy as the name to beat this season." Her eyes gleamed red. "We'll see how they feel after my darling pet joins me in the winner's group."

"I think," said Titanomachia in a humbled voice, "that I will listen to you about the supernatural next time."

Madeleine watches the screen in silence. Occasionally she reaches up and touches the spot beneath her eye socket with two fingers, but apart from that she doesn't move a lot, either. Some strange mix of horror and fascination keeps her eyes glued to the screen.

This is her fault. It's her fault in three ways, minimum. If she hadn't told Lios about the cake she would have stormed off like normal and been safe. If she had done a better job with the summoning circle, Taowu would not have appeared and everything would be a mess, but safe. If she had stood her ground and fought, then things would have...

She reaches up and brushes the spot under her eye again. She shivers.

Guilt and shame and some much stranger third thing squirm inside of her uncomfortably. All she can do is watch the broadcast and sit inside of her own head. Was she telling the truth to these people, in front of these cameras? Was this whole thing really all about..? No. No, her presence today was only due to the combination of Machia's reckless half-finished homework and Madeleine's inadequacy as a spirit medium. The song she sang, the words she spoke... those were meant for just the two of them.

But then why? She wouldn't need a hostage, and thinking about it from the perspective of arena stories there was no reason for somebody as famous as Taowu to involve a nobody Madeleine in one of her extracurricular feuds. Even allowing for the boost of interest associated with her training with Machia, it'd fizzle as soon as she got into the arena proper and failed to get herself into the winner's group with all the other major players. And Taowu was very cautious, for a demon. Even Madeleine hadn't been sure if her whole routine was a clever hacker's scheme for the camera or if she'd been legitimate until she'd come crawling out from the apartment floor.

That didn't make any sense unless her interest in Lios was legitimate. And that meant she valued something about Lios, and that meant she probably would have made a play like this at some point or another. There wasn't even a way of knowing what had happened in here to begin with, since she'd run away like a frightened animal. Maybe Lios Emiral was a sub? Maybe she signed on for this?

Madeleine blushes, and shakes her head. She pulls her tail around from behind her and starts to comb it with her fingers, one two three four, two two three four...

It was beyond her. She'd have to ask if she wanted to know. Although, if Lios did not already dislike her before, then--

She turns her head, and stares at Machia.

"...Are you familiar with the story of Der Freischütz?" she asks in monotone, "Six magic bullets for the huntsman, and one for the devil."

She brushes her tail in silence for a moment, and then she shifts her seat closer so she can brush Machia's instead.

"The thing I hear most people ask is, 'what if I never shoot the seventh bullet?' This is because they do not know the story. People are not as clever... as they like to give themselves credit for. They might miscount, or assume they can live with the consequences. Or something outside of their control might compel them to reach for the gun. In the operatic version, a man even teaches his son to forge new bullets to pass the cost off to him. It does not matter. The final shot strikes him cold. I have found that dealing with the Underworld is always like this. It does not give: it only pretends to, so it can take. That's why the only school of magic I practice is banishing."

There had been a horrible knot in Machia's tail hairs, but Madeleine has soothed it out with clever fingers and soft strokes of the back of her hand. The brush might have been easier, but it's hidden in a drawer somewhere, and she could not stand up to retrieve it. Only now is she able to take her feet. She walks away, and picks up the cybernetic leg.

"It isn't fair at all," she says, clutching it tight, "I first came to you deaf and you fixed me. I cannot even heal your leg in return."

On wobbly legs, she stumbles back across the room. She kneels in front of Machia as though proposing, aligning the leg with one hand and tracing the smooth, cold metal of the connection ring with the fingers of the other. She leans forward, and touches her forehead to Machia's thigh. Her ears wiggle plaintively, quietly begging for something she does not receive.

"I am sorry." she whispers as she pulls away.

There is no good way to do this gently, except to wrap her fingers around Machia's upper thigh. She grips the firm flesh there and, slowly and carefully as she can, slots the cybernetic back into place so she can begin the delicate work of locking it and reactivating it. In the end, that's all she's really capable of.

"...!"

There are cybernetics that can come off as easily as taking off a glove. Titanomachia's has no such kindness to it. Everything about this mechanical limb was built to simulate the peak of athletic potential, and among other things that requires a full artificial nervous system. The sensory feedback from reconnecting it is fire and ice, the jagged shapes of a sleeping leg awakening, cramps and bruises, muscles clenching and testing reflexively as they do their best to link to that crackling brain.

Machia is biting her knuckle. She is shivering. Because in addition to the surging sensation of electricity bridging flesh and synthfibre is the feeling of hands. The feeling of breath. The feeling of soft hair, blown out to overwhelming levels by the miracles of technology. Be gentle, she yearns to whisper. Be firmer, demands a voice crackling along the edge of her spine. She feels the shape of a weakness within her, that she wants to feel with stolen strength.

To reach out and take -

"And yet," she said, hand rolling into a fist below her teeth.

She reached down and took Madeleine by the chin, turning her head up to look into her eyes. "I do not accept that there is power you will not master. I will find the path. I will make you capable of walking it. Your path is to the top and you will go through her too."

Sometimes she wondered if when she was talking to Madeleine she was talking about herself. That she'd master this device and achieve that championship herself as she always thought she would. Sometimes in lonely nights she wondered if this was just a way to keep her hand in while she recovered.

But now, with the dark-haired girl sending electricity from her fingertips to her thigh, burning her to her brain, she didn't wonder. She never asked that question when they were together. Something about those golden eyes drove doubt from her mind. This was her sword.

When Titanomachia was hopping all over her apartment on one leg, she did not appear vulnerable. When she was imprisoned in Taowu's vine-chains, even struggling, even failing, even during the worst matches of her career there was no point Madeleine could remember where Machia did not feel like she was holding some kind of secret strength inside her. In face one time she had even come here early and unannounced, and happened to find her sleeping on the couch. Even then she seemed invincible. Shatterproof. Starve her, drown her, throw her off a cliff, Titanomachia would always feel like a woman who could move the entire world.

But here? With her fingers under Madeleine's chin and that look inside her eyes? With her teeth clenched and her lip trembling? With her voice, her voice, her... voice...

Madeleine's fingers slip. A jolt of electricity surges through Machia, followed by a palm on her hip sliding slowly inward. She watches the change in posture and expression with a storm inside her eyes. All that power, tamed. All that strength, useless. All that possibility, pointed desperately at a murky, blind path with pitfalls at every bend. She slides her fingers back down Titanomachia's soft thigh, whispers her wordless apology into her skin, and finishes the reconnection.

Yes, now she looks vulnerable. Even weak. And so radiant it hurts to look at her. When? When did she become beautiful?

She pulls her hand down to rest it on Machia's knee. She allows her head to be lifted higher. Her breath hitches and her body stiffens in the cold air of the room, goosebumps clearly visible on each of her pale, bare limbs. She does not blink. She does not flinch. She does not smile.

"...Yes."

"Then," said Machia. "We will begin by addressing your weaknesses."

She opened a drawer and drew forth a long coil of crimson rope.

"I have wondered for a time if your weakness is the binding of your hands," she said, taking Madeleine's hands up into hers. "The way you take to my table. The way you froze just now. I second guessed myself when you bore the bit with something approaching dignity, but I have my confirmation."

The red thread wove between fingers and across palms, bringing hands together in prayer.

"You hesitate when you are bound," said Machia. "Perhaps it is what drew you to the Hex in the first place. It's what drew Lios. But weaknesses can be the greatest strengths - and the key for you will be knowing exactly how you are bound."

She looped the rope around your neck and back, above and below your breasts, bringing your hands to your chin, reaching down to wrap around your ankles and bind them together. The interlock enforced the kneeling, praying position.

"If your wrists are bound, use your tongue," said Machia. "If your tongue is gagged, use your hips. Accept the limitations imposed on you. Do not volunteer limitations that have not been imposed. When I bind you, I will take the time to do so properly - to permit you only the freedom I have chosen to give. If you are bound by a less attentive mistress and you volunteer the same obedience I have compelled I will take it as an insult. There is a difference between limitation and true helplessness and you will not be complete until you know exactly where that line lies."

Well, that had been... brief. The woman had appeared to her, radiant in her beauty like a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds that always hung over the city until much like that ray of light she was suddenly swallowed up by the Aristeia! athlete known as Titanomachia. But what did it mean that there was a woman there to begin with?

She was beautiful. Why did Madeleine think that? The best and smartest thing that she could do would be to unthink it, and quickly. There were too many Machias inside her head to begin with:

There was the one she first met who mistook her for a fan and threw an autograph at her in the form of an oddly overdesigned paper airplane.
There was the one who brought Madeleine to her lab not even knowing that she was an Aristeia! athlete in her own right just because she was so fascinated by the idea of horse ears that couldn't hear anything that she had to tinker with them. There was the one that believed in Madeleine for whatever insane reason and told her after the worst match of her life that she was going to be great. There was the blushing version with cake frosting on her lips. There was the quiet, intense one that couldn't perceive the world because her eyes were glued to a screen. There was the one who thought the Pain Glove was a good idea. And now there was this beautiful, soft, vulnerable creature who...

No. It did no good to imagine any Machias but the one she was dealing with here. This absurd cartoon character that talked about bondage and binding and being in control like she wasn't tying elaborate, showy knots in a gimmicky position to turn her science project into an art project that... she had to understand how ridiculous this was, right? Did she understand how voluntary it had to be? Like yes, if Madeleine fought her off she could turn that monstrous strength on her and force her to the ground, but that would mean nothing and do nothing. Madeleine could writhe under her grip and Machia would have to compromise on her ropes, and that would prove anything. She couldn't be locked in some silly prayer position without letting it happen, and letting it happen for such a comical length of time that it undermined the whole premise behind the ordeal.

Yes, that Machia was the easiest to shrug off. The one she simply endured because she was irritatingly good at producing better results in Madeleine even though she had to go out in her own time to find a gym and test it all herself because Machia was waiting for... well who even knew what before she was interested in data collection. She really would have thought...

Oh, but those eyes, though. There was a soul inside those magenta pools after all. When the intensity finally drained out of them and they turned to liquid, it was more enchanting than Madeleine could have ever guessed. It even made the usual sheen they had more alluring, knowing that it was not some permanently affixed state she could never let drop. Her weakness made her strength shine brighter. And what would those eyes look like with a smile? Or with gently parting lips and a hitched breath and--

No. No no no no, no! Madeleine did not have a crush on Machia. It was impossible to think of the woman in that way. She was a cretin and a creep and a jerk who she happened to owe a debt to. She was a tool that could be used to pursue her own goals in the Hexadrome (which had nothing to do with bondage sessions, thank you VERY mu-- wait, what was that about Lios? She was into that? Like, actually actually? Wait then the whole Taowu thing was fine! It wouldn't be) damn it focus Madeleine. No more lending credence to the facade. If nothing useful was going to happen today then it was time to go home. Maybe by taking her ball and leaving she'd finally make Machia realize that--

Madeleine moves as if to stand up. She finds that she cannot. Ropes pull at her from above, below, and in the middle. She blinks, stupefied. Wait, but how? How could she have finished this so quickly? Did she have a mannequin she'd been practicing on instead of sleeping or something? After all, it had only been...

She glances at the clock. She blushes. It has been a full seventeen minutes since Machia pulled that rope free. Congratulations, Madeleine. You are now the subject of another weird experiment. She frowns.

"You are... l-lucky I am so patient. Any other trainee would have broken your nose and stormed out," she manages to tilt her head up haughtily in spite of the situation she finds herself in, "I'm the only one who'd debase herself like this. And I... I e-expect to, to be rewarded for my loyalty. I am not cooking tonight. I hope I don't need to make m-m-myself... clearer than that."

Madeleine squirms against the restraints. She pulls down on her arms, thrashes her hips, strains her thighs, swishes her tail and her ears, stretches her fingers and her toes, even. There has to be an improperly tied knot in here somewhere, if she can just, nnnnf, find it! Or at the very least she'll know her absolute range of motion. Might as well try to treat this like training. If she can. Her eyes burn with determination.

She will not lose. She will not lose. She will not lose. Not to her.

"...Well? This is not it, is it? Where is the remote this time? Does it electrify the ropes? Or no, I bet it spits a highly specialized, clothing destroying acid. Or is it bees? Are the ropes secretly full of bees? Am I about to be enveloped in a swarm of angry, electrified bees? I am, aren't I? Every stunt you pull makes my price go higher, you realize. You're going to owe me a new coat soon."

There was a moment of strange relief and realization in Machia. Like a glance back and seeing that the bridge she had run across had not been guaranteed to take her weight. She rolls her feet, the asymmetrical pair moving in unison for a moment, before a deeper calm settles and focus sets in. She is in control. She can think. She can be precise.

"Taowu's arc for the season has been made clear," said Machia. "Lios is the first, but she will not be the last. She will follow through on corrupting three girls and arrange things that they will all fight alongside her in the finals. She will recruit targets who have ability but are held back by their own hesitancy. Li Ting. Argeltia. Ms Verdant, perhaps. And of course - you. She is in her aspect of corrupter, and she will seek to hypnotize you."

She rummaged thoughtfully in a drawer until she produced a pair of special noise-cancelling headphones she had designed herself, specifically fitted to work on the ears she had brought to life.

"So the challenge today will not be the electricity or the bees or the cats with bees in their mouths and when they meow they shoot bees. You know how to survive pain. No. It will be your ears. There will come a moment when you are targeted, outnumbered and bound; the commitment of resources will be too great to overcome. Then Taowu will try to turn you using her enchanted voice. I can see exactly how she'll do it. I can't replicate it myself. But I can try to simulate something similar with technology and time. I will give you a sentence. Your challenge is to hold that sentence in your mind; when the headphones come off you will have one chance and five seconds to repeat those words perfectly. My challenge is to use aural sensation to drive the words from your head entirely."

She turned around, bringing up multiple new screens and devices - audiomixer controls, an entire dedicated ASMR soundboard, multiple different vocalid synthesizers, a synthetic keyboard and a microphone. An arsenal of tools and devices for getting into your head; preparations for a real-time concert made only for you.

"Blindfolded, too I think," said Machia with scientific serenity, producing a long, black silken blindfold. "She might incorporate visual elements into her attack, but you would have the option of shutting your eyes so audio is the only certain vector."

A missed beat. A flex of her feet, testing the foundation, as she stands over you. Time made for an additional few words.

"Are you ready?"

"It... that is..."

Madeleine blinks as she looks up at the synthetic fibers of the ear covers that about to slip on over her head. The fire burning in her eyes does nothing to disguise the happy wagging of her tail behind her. All of a sudden her pulse is racing; the only thing that keeps her body still are the ropes binding her in place.

Those don't bother her anymore, in this new context. Not enough to take back her demands or comments, but it's simply not possible to stay upset about it any longer. Not set against the electricity suddenly surging through her body, arcing her back until it pulls on her restraints. Something in Machia's posture is different. The look in her eyes is different. Even this small pause is different. Madeleine feels her breath quicken, but she pushes it down into her stomach and holds it there until she can release it in one long, slow push.

"Yes," she says, her voice sharp and ethereal, "I am."

She is being trained for the finals. Not to cover some absurd, embarrassingly basic weakness in her game, or to be lectured about what is a sword and what is a gun. She. Is being trained for the finals. What can she possibly give, set against that understanding, other than her best?

She closes her eyes, awaits the blindfold, and opens her ears to focus.

"Testing, testing," said Machia into the darkness. "Repeat after me: Kilo, Nine, Battle, Octave..."

She always took her time with calibrations. "Three tones. Which is the loudest, one two or three? This sound will gradually increase in volume. Flick your tail when it becomes uncomfortable. This sound will gradually decrease in volume. Flick your tail when it becomes inaudible..."

Her voice was quiet and focused, the only thing in your ear. In between question sequences came lulls; perhaps she was typing, perhaps she was looking something up, or setting up a new test. During those moments her mind wandered out her mouth as it ever did. "I know we went through these tests with your initial auditory integration, but this is specifically going to be testing your limits in a way we haven't done before so I need to be sure not to cause damage."

Hands on your head, adjusting the fit of the headphones slightly. Outside air on and off.

"I used to do this sort of thing in university," Machia mused. The effect was uncanny - you knew where her mouth was, but the words came as a breath directly into your ear. "Feels good to have the old equipment out. I financed some of my initial research this way - ASMR performances specialized for nonhuman ear structures. These headphones let me manipulate your sense of distance and spatial awareness -" suddenly her voice felt just as close but coming from behind you instead of in front. "- while also giving your ears freedom of movement. A lot of animal ears can rotate to focus on specific sounds, that's an important part of the sensory experience. The challenge for me is creating an auditory soundscape that reacts to the movement of your ears. The audio difference between a screen and virtual reality."

Her hands came free. Her fingers lingered for a moment on your hair.

"Your key phrase is: Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars. Repeating, Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars. We are beginning in five, four, three..."

The silence opened

Wind

Gentle wind across a grassy steppe. Oceans of grass extending out in all directions. Skies as clear as crystal. Lakes so pure that they were portals to infinity. And in the horizon distance a vast, endless rumble of hoofbeats, as gentle as a heartbeat, though all the world's ruin was heralded within.

Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.

Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.

Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.

Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars.

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. Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars. Ok then. It belongs to her now. All she has to do is keep it. Chiron runs with--

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 would 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..."

You don't hear her interested hum as sound; you feel it as a change in the air - the invisible spark of inspiration that turns the herd.

Horses are things of river and ocean; this is known - but water cannot turn like this. This many bodies, panting breath, flesh and force and power enough to grind boulders to dust and churn this endless grassland into rasputa mud. And they turn. They wheel. The direction of the river changes.

They thunder closer. Not close enough to touch, not close enough to feel their breath, but close enough that you can hear the earth tear beneath their hooves, hear teeth snap, hear the water splash as they gallop across shallow lakes so fast that you can imagine them running over the top of it. They run past you, a fleeting moment in an eternal vista. A long straight line and then a sharp turn, running straight until they enter a gentle curve, another sharp turn, another gentle curve, and then rejoining the flow to form this almost circle around you. You are at the center of an equine whirlwind. The shape that they make with their course almost perceptible through the storm of them. If only you could see, could see from a little bit higher and it would all be clear...

Humanity hasn't really considered horses for a long time. Once they were the great enabler of civilization, but they faded into technology like everything else and then their great size doomed them. Once racing became a thing of pure speed and engineering it was over for them completely. Reduced to historical curiosities, a thing that girls learned how to draw sometimes to teach themselves about musculature (or dragons), now they only wandered about queer little isolated pockets of the world. And people could go their entire lives without giving one the time of day.

And that was a shame. It wouldn't be true if anybody understood how beautiful they were. If they understood how violent they were. Calling them water misrepresented the reality of being among them; if the herd was a waterfall, then it was one large and powerful enough to crush the city she lived in, crashing down on immortal stone that could only endure for so long before shattering into pebbles and less. Every hoof scorches the earth like thunder; clumps of dirt and grass fly and scatter and soak the air with their scent. Like fireworks, like cannons, blasts of noise and fire and transcendent beauty that risks its own destruction even as it wheels about and tears the world with its passing.

You couldn't know this and not be enthralled. You couldn't understand this and not want to become like them. To know was to change, to strive for that transcendent loveliness and beauteous ultraviolence it represented. To be vicious and radiant, to be powerful even when still, to be pure fire in the shape of flowing water. But nobody wanted that. Nobody understood.

...Except Titanomachia.

Madeleine strains against her ropes, until she can feel them pressing into her skin even through her clothing. Enveloping her, squeezing her in every place they have slipped without her permission in their quest to hold her still. She is knelt in prayer and she longs to witness the divine, instead. To stand, to leap, somehow to fly and float above it all, to see without eyes and know what her ears cannot quite perceive: the true shape of these horses and the pattern that sets them galloping about her. Thunder, drumbeats, gunfire, bowling pins roar all about her and her breathing grows faster and shallower and steamier in desperation to see, to know, to feel, to join in, and...

And Chiron runs with fair ribbons through grand many stars. She pulls her wrists to make the rope bite into them. She returns to quiet prayer.

The only way to love this properly was to rise above it. She could not let herself forget why she was here. She can feel the sweat slicking her body, and the fabric clinging to her now sticky skin. She shudders when she sighs.

Titanomachia is, above all, a student of motion.

She has never really understood the potential use case of telepathy. Bodies give off so much information for her already. The way they move - habits and training, breathing and gesture, the blush and biting. Stare at the motion Musashi makes with her sword for long enough and she can see it as mechanics, starting with the flick of her eyes that lead to the intake of breath that shockwaved all the way down through shoulder, elbow, wrist, blade. Disrupt the eyes at the right moment and the whole motion unravels. It's so clear to her. They might as well be shouting.

Only a few people give her trouble. One of them is Sammy. She's a monster. Simply so fast, such sharp instincts that she can complete motions before she's operationalized her read. Another is Madeleine. She keeps trying to make reads and keeps almost being correct. No, that's not right. She's always been correct. Just correct for different reasons than she expected. She's never gotten it wrong, but the geocentric model produced actionable astronomical predictions until advancements in glassblowing produced high quality telescopes. There was a mystery beyond the reach of her chemistry, a dark matter distortion in her clockwork cosmos.

That had to be why she appreciated high-value observation sessions like this one. Having complete sensory control of her subject allowed her to precisely track call-and-response physiological reactions. One of her ears twitched in its headphone setup, the other was fixed directly towards Madeleine to observe the subtle changes in her breathing rate, the way the sound of ropes on skin altered with the addition of sweat, the steady, powerful rise of the heart she had helped engineer. With each interrogation her subject revealed more data; it was only a matter of time before she could extract that central secret too.

The moment came to test her hypothesis.

She was not counting on Madeleine forgetting her lines. That would require a far more extended one than this - had it been two hours already? She blinked. Should consider using eye drops during observation if she was going to - more extended session later. Still, she was simulating magical mind control done by a master of disorientation and hypnosis for the purpose of tactical advantage. Her best tool for making the simulation authentic was her own sense of timing and observation - and the five second time limit. And so she waited for her moment.

She'd know it when she saw it. The moment when the rapture was on the edge of overwhelming. Not when she would forget her line, but when she'd forget how to use her tongue. When she saw it she moved immediately, taking the headphones off in a motion she'd spent thirty minutes visualizing, holding the blindfolded girl's ears in her hands and saying: "The key phrase now."

There had been a moment where-- wait. Was it a moment? It might have been a long time, actually. But it felt so fleeting. It... still. It had happened, in spite of how much she'd been letting the ropes bite into her skin to stay focused, it had happened inside her mindscape that they'd come loose and on shaky feet she'd stood up in the middle of the herd and tried to run with them, run through the valley and over top the lakes and she could feel their heat and the vibrations of their thunder rattling through her when suddenly one wheeled about on her and it

"Mmmgh... uh."

There are words she is supposed to be saying. She can feel the timer ticking down inside her head, the same way it does inside of the arena. The countdown to the loss of her scoring window was blaring inside her skull. Funny how five seconds was so short and yet took so much time to pass, once you became aware of it. But long or short it's inevitable all the same. And her body feels heavier than it should, and she doesn't understand it. And her mouth feels drier than it should, and she doesn't understand that either. And her tongue feels bound and even more useless than when it had struggled against the bit the other night, and she understands that least of all.

Why won't it move? Why won't it let her say the words? Doesn't it know she has to?

"Chhhhhhhhhhhhhhiron..." she coughs, for one terrifying instant sounding like there is no air inside of her at all, "Ch-Chiron runs with... fair ribbons through..."

But she knows. She feels the pang of guilt wrench her chest in half when it registers. Five seconds is several years too short for her to have finished in time. Her body unclenches, which is to say it unravels, all at once. She collapses into the embrace of the ropes holding her in place, sagging against them and well past the point where she can feel them scraping against her skin. The marks are turning slowly to burns and she can't even care because she can't feel it over the prickling jolts of lightning burning out her nerves. Her lungs feel hot and empty and her heart is exhausted as if she'd run for hours without ever letting up.

She is drenched and trembling and so hungry she is hollow, and it's all for nothing because she failed.

"Grand many stars." she says stubbornly, with a voice full of acid.

Madeleine's eyes are glassy and unfocused as she looks up at Machia. She tries to pull herself up back into a sitting position but all she does is convulse; she would fall on the floor in the midst of an apparent seizure. All she is is spasms and dehydration and the sense of immanent unconsciousness.

"...Put me back in," she hisses, "Make it sharper this time."

Her fingernails curl into her palms and bite against the flesh. They are too flat to cause real harm, but they press hard enough that the indentations will be visible long after she relaxes again.

"Bite me. Hurt me. When she touched me it was blinding pain. You can't serve me this doting dream if I'm to beat her. And you hardly had me under for a minute. Stop thinking of me... as weak. Give me another phrase. I'll do it right this time. I'll show you. I'll..."

"You have been holding that position too long," said Titanomachia, undoing ropes one by one. "Get on the table. I need to fix you."

It's too much to move cleanly; she moves you cleanly. Shirt off, face down, back upon the slab - more work to be done. This time without tools - only warm hands to knead your aching muscles, methodically and firmly gripping neck and shoulders. Each touch is a shock against cold sweat, fingers trying to reach through your skin and force your blood to circulate according to her design. Something about the rhythm of it matches with the pounding of hooves - there's a pattern here too...

She pulls you up into a sitting position, still behind you. Takes your hands, closes them around a water bottle, raises it to your mouth. Sits behind you for a beat. Pulls it from your lips. Waits a beat. Lets you/makes you take another sip. Slowly, carefully, arms around you, she makes sure that you move at exactly the speed your body is currently capable of.

Then she takes the bottle again. Pushes you back down, takes your legs and bends them back into a stretching position. "Hold," she says. Then she gets off, walks over to the kitchen, and turns on the stove. Vegetables are laid out already. She starts chopping an onion, then pauses halfway through with the precision of a mental timer. Walks back over to you and rearranges your position, physically lifting and arranging you into a new posture before immediately returning to her cooking. And on it goes; never instructing verbally when she can physically force you into a new position with her hands. And it feels...

Like a relief. After all the pressure on your ears, the silence and soft sound of sizzling vegetables and boiling water, the kinaesthetic motion of hand and muscle, being treated like wet clay to be sculpted - it deeply centering after the voyage into unreality.