"...Hmmmm."

Madeleine's brow furrows. Her amber eyes glitter as they move about the room. To the levitator, the earphones, to several screens around the room, to Blanche, and several times across the whole of Machia. In this sense at least, the pair of them were opposites: no outpouring of thoughts, no accidental honesty. In the presence of a puzzle, her mystery only deepens.

Without a word, she rises up onto her knees and takes both of Machia's ears in her hands. The lab coat's sleeves are hanging in front of her eyes now, the black and the white barring her from seeing the woman wearing them. Her hands are firm enough to not allow retreat. But her fingers are not curious; they know exactly what they are doing.

Horse ears are sensitive, full of extra nerve endings to protect the investment of all that bendy, twitchy, delicious sensory data. But Madeleine knows their secret pathways too. How long to pinch and rub the tips before the sensation became too much, what speed to stroke the base, where in the inside and where on the back to put her thumb and forefinger and the exact shape of the circles she wanted to rub. Her expression all the while is invisible, hidden. 

She simply draws out pleasure, inexorably. And she is relentless at it - varying her technique and her tempo so that there is no retreat into the world of familiarity. But never, even once, letting it hurt.

Without warning she releases them and sits back down on her legs again. 

"You are... wrong," she says, "But Blanche thinks you did well. Congratulations."