The timer ticks down to zero.

The scoring zone clicks off.

Two women wrestle in the grass and increasing amounts of mud, just outside the hex.

One of them is painfully aware of falling short. The other is snarling, so caught up in the fight and the scent of her opponent that she has no awareness of the time. Or the concept of scoring zones.

Madeleine opens her eyes. Then she starts to see. She takes a late foot to the chest, sprawls backwards onto the ground, and pushes herself up to sitting. She is covered in sweat and grass and dirt, and her breath is hot and heavy. She looks across, just across from her, and there is Titanomachia.

Without her coat. Without her ribbons. Just as hot, nearly as breathless, just as dirty and gross. Not invincible, but... ordinary. Like her. Madeleine wipes her lips with the back of her wrist.

"Ah," she says, curling inward, "S-s-sorry."

This is the part where she stands up. This is the part where she extends her hand to Machia to-- no, wait, this is the part where she takes her mark again before the next round starts! This is hardly the first point Titanomachia hasn't scored on, if Madeleine isn't ready she'll be behind and her mad, stupid scramble would just get her killed or worse, she has to go, she has to fight, she has to be a good practice partner, she--

Her cheek is wet. Why?

Madeleine looks up at the sky. No helpful drops of rain obligingly splash on her forehead or into her eyes, but her vision feels more blurry than it ought to for her level of fatigue. Something dribbles off her chin and strikes her collarbone. She looks back and Machia again and touches her cheek, and now her fingers can trace her tears all the way back to her pale golden eyes. Sh-she? Ah, ah, ahhhhh!

To say that the dam bursts would be laughable. It's not misrepresenting the situation but it's so far underneath the mark of reality that it may as well convey negative information. First the tears start streaming. These are the cracks spreading across her. And then there is no dam at all, there never was. Just a void that water temporarily forgot that it could rush into. 

She falls forward onto her knees as her face twists into something ugly and utterly uncomposed. This is what it means to be vulnerable. Hormones are rushing through her system and all of her emotions are set to 13 and every breath only comes into her body so that it can hitch and squeak and come back out as a sob. The word 'sorry' repeated endlessly but mangled in new and exciting ways until it physically drags her forward and she is flopped, twitching wet and loud, into Machia's shoulder.

Because it shouldn't have been that close. Because she should have seen that beautiful juke coming and started moving to counteract it before it ever came to her useless animal maneuver. Because she wanted to do a better job than this. Because, because... because she wanted to see it [i]work[/i]. She wanted to witness the perfection she used to watch that seemed so beautiful it was like watching art. Because she was worried. Because she needed to say something, and she couldn't. Because she should've noticed sooner. Because every time she 'won' it came from some obnoxious stupid technicality that proved [i]nothing[/i] about herself. Because really, that last lunge should've beaten her anyway. She wanted it to. And it did not. Because it was selfish not to rehab Machia, selfish to take up her time when it should all be going into her instead, because it was monstrous to consider it, because outside of the flash of realization in that single instant...

She wasn't that impressed at all. And everything is wrong now. And everything is upside down. And everything is wet and sniffly and sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry

Madeleine stops. She takes the deepest, most centering breath that she can. She moves to push away and stand again. She falls apart instantly and collapses straight back into the storm. In this moment, all she knows is that she ruined everything. The world is ending, and this disgusting sticky mess is the proof.