Phoe

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Watching Machia stumbling around her own space in this quiet stupid makes it very difficult not to worry she's been possessed after all. A lot of the halting and the clumsy way she cleaves to apparent routine just smacks of some type of petty evil ghost. Or it would, if she didn't know this woman so well. And if she had less than unshakeable confidence in Blanche. But she did and she does, so that made this more of a puzzle of logistics than anything.

Madeleine stares in silence. She has no idea how long this routine takes to complete, how much time she needs to wait. She is simply a passenger here, this is just another dream to walk in and watch because she is not allowed in, she is once again the sky and all the sky can do is--

She frowns and tucks her chin against her fist. Tap tap, tap tap, her finger against her cheek. She sighs and pulls out her phone, her free thumb dancing across the pad with the kind of speed only long familiarity can grant. For one single moment she hesitates and looks up again to watch Machia stand there with a toothbrush jammed stupidly in her mouth. Then she looks down again and rapid taps a single spot five times before finishing up and carrying the little screen into the kitchen.

...Eggs are very easy. Because they are like coffee. It is nothing but the manipulation of heat and water, simply turned toward emulsion instead of extraction. In fact this is how she learned to cook in the first place: heating water and pouring it into a pan in her room until turned her food into something like a thing she could eat (without risking the communal kitchen and its terrifying friendly faces) in the limited space she had. Once she understood the connection, mastering the forms was easy.

Beating mixes everything evenly. Salt breaks down the proteins early. Then it's about moisture. From vegetables, from fats, directly from a little cup she found in the sink... it doesn't matter. She just needs enough. Make the evaporation do the work, slow the cook so that it can't fry. Higher and higher. Fluffier and fluffier. Like a sunny little cloud. Running through with roughly chopped spinach, onion, peppers of every color and style she could find, mushrooms, olives. Carrot. All added at different intervals, all chopped with the kind of dexterity that implied she had hooves. This should be crunchy, this needs to be soft, this will force the omelette to cook longer before it...

She glances at her phone. Wheels around sharply to put her eye on Machia again. Heaves a relieved sigh. Watches her phone a minute longer and frowns.

Her flip is a thing of beauty. No one is around to see it. The dish she plates is huge and bouncy, soft like a sheep and laden with delicious vegetables and textures. She glances at her phone again and snap looks around for Machia a second time before refreshing her pan and pouring the remaining egg mixture in for a second cook.

With one arm, she guides Titanomachia to a seat. The other sets a plate down in front of her, then places a fork in her hand, wraps her fingers tight around it, and guides it into the omelette. It is... different than feeding her. Different than what Machia does for Madeleine. This is gentler. More halting. It is simply guiding the one in control to the proper course of action.

"I will not let... them see you. Until you are Titanomachia. This you, this... sleeping beauty. That is mine. My secret. Now, please. It is good, I promise."

She watches Machia eat for a moment before suddenly making a strange face and scrambling to grab salt she can sprinkle over the top to finish with. Suddenly her phone buzzes. Madeleine almost drops her own plate as she runs full burst toward the door. Her hands tremble as she opens the door. Just a crack. Her gleaming amber eye peeks out into the world.

The door opens wider. She bows, waves, bows again, and bends down to pick something up. With the nervous precision of a bomb disposal technician, she turns the Coffee Horse logo on the biodegradable neoplastic box away from the table. And she pulls out cup. After cup. After cup. After cup. Seven in all. She scrutinizes the labels but the scrawl is hasty and hard to read, so in the end she just sniffs them until she finds the one that makes her nose wrinkle.

And that's the cup she sets in front of Machia.

"I had them add honey. And vanilla. And cinnamon. And," she looks down at her phone, "Four extra servings of cream. This place uses a very light roast, producing the mildest base of any chain. But still, I needed to make it... beginner friendly. Do not turn your nose up. You need it."

She sits down, opposite. Grabs one of the other cups and takes a long, ear fluttering sip before she finally settles into her own breakfast. Wait. Wait. She is simply the sky. Hers is nothing more than to wait.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"Rainbow is... a good look for you. You should consider dye."

Madeleine's arms pull Machia tight against and then - suddenly - release. She sits up and rolls off of the couch bed with a jerky sort of heaving motion and then bends down to examine her partner's face. The circles under her own eyes are sharper and darker than ever: she is plainly exhausted. But all of her attention is on checking Machia's eyes, her hair, the elasticity of her skin. She steps away with a small nod.

"Well. For a first attempt that wasn't terrible, at least. I wonder, did you notice me at all? I would be impressed if you did."

Her smile is coy, quiet. She sighs as she shrugs her shoulders and slips out of the white and black lab coat, tossing it at Machia and leaving herself once again in next to nothing. She lingers for a moment on the boundary of too close and too far. She is almost like a painting - the illusion of depth brought about by clever oils and color, receding where the eye wandered and encroaching where it focused. Her little smile vanishes, and she slinks away to her own neatly folded clothes. She puts her own outfit on again piece by piece. Everything she wore the previous day, frowning more with each addition.

She does not put the earrings on. Those sit in her palm as she crosses the room one more time and sits down on the still unfolded couch. And she yawns.

"The night... is passed. The morning... bright and young. So I return to being Madeleine Cross, the legal property of Titanomachia. And I would ask of you, O Master mine, to please bring me to a cafe for breakfast. Laugh at me all you want, but I am weak. You know that I, I need..."

Madeleine hangs her head. She pinches the dragon design on her earring, rubbing up and down the length of it between her thumb and forefinger.

"Or I could just, just, go without. I could... cook. Vegetable omelettes are actually my specialty."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Madeleine rises in step with Machia. Right now and at no other time, the energies in this room are hers to command. She may pluck strings and wind fates together or tear apart the structures of power as she likes. But her eyes do offer clues. The storm inside the amber is warm. Though her face is expressionless, she radiates a kinder sort of power that is useful only for protection.

"...I do not think you will handle the floor particularly well. So we will fold out the couch."

A beat. She doesn't watch Machia for a response - it's much too likely she will HMMM her way out of this if given a chance - she holds Blanche out in front of her as she crosses the distance and places the tiger in her companion's hands.

"You promised, do not forget. In matters of the occult... you listen to me. You have bared yourself to a guardian totem tonight. That affords you protection, but it requires you tear down walls. Your soul is vulnerable, and darkness follows me everywhere. Blanche is powerful, but this is not her territory. So tonight..."

She takes Machia's forearms and wraps them around the stuffed animal until she is hugging it against her chest.

"You will sleep like this. And I..."

Like shadow, she slips behind Machia and drapes her arms over her shoulders. Her body presses into Machia's back, firm and muscular and warm. For all that her body is a thing of crafted power, her skin is distractingly soft, and where it makes contact it is like electricity. She rests her head against Machia's neck and back.

"Will sleep like this. We will not use your bedroom. You are attempting to retreat. It will destroy you. I will not allow it. You will stay... in my arms. All night."

And then she releases and glides over to the couch. It has been a long time since she's needed to manipulate furniture but these things are always simple. With a little bit of fumbling with the cushions, she has it folding and pulls the bed out in a motion that is smooth enough in the moment not to break her spell. If only just.

She turns and repeats the motion of her fingers from earlier over an implied ear, eyes locked on her partner's.

"As you drift off, you are going to meditate on the feeling of my fingers. This will help me find you in your dreams. I will guide you, so that we may run together. None of your tricks, no Vade Retro to worry about. No Gata and no HexXer, no scoring zones or opponents. It is time you connected to the part of yourself that called you to this form."

She smiles, reaches forth, and pulls Machia down into the cushions without bothering with sheets or pillows or even the lights. She wraps tight around her, and nuzzles into her messy hair. The pair of them, sharing a couch cushion for support.

"Be not afraid. In the light of the morning sun, all shall be as it was. You shall resume your demonic dance, and I will belong to you. So for tonight, just for tonight..."

Her breath tickles the back of Machia's ear.

"Just let this happen."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"...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."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Madeleine opens a drawer, stares at the contents through dead and distressed eyes, and closes it again without a word.

Repeat five times. That can't actually be it, can it? She repeats her repetition. Then she does it again. Then, she tears open the rest of the room looking for the hidden switch that would swing open the fake wall and reveal... anything, really? Anything other than this. Because there has to be something else. There has to be a look somewhere in here that is something other than the desperate cry for help that filled this entire--

Well actually that was the other thing! It's not even the whole room! All this space! All this space and, and, and!!

"I am no longer asking you. This has become an emergency. I insist that..."

Madeleine halts halfway across the room and simply stares at what she sees. She is dressed now in plain, but powder blue underwear and the only acceptable thing in the entire apartment: Machia's lab coat. Even as a piece of battlewear it was still the softest and most beautiful thing that she could find. It did not fit her the way it did Titanomachia; the coat sat flat on Madeleine's hips whereas it always flattered Machia's curves. And the sleeves were a hair too long for her arms so they rested unfashionably far past her wrists to around the base of her palms.

But for all of that it was beautiful, and she was beautiful in it. But not half as beautiful as the sight she was witnessing now. She closes her mouth. She sets aside her demands to go clothes shopping, to burn her rest day at a shopping center giving this wastefully gorgeous woman a makeover. She sets aside the list of complaints and her arsenal of arguments as to why addressing them was necessary. All of that could come later. It's a point she could better make inside her own apartment, where she could show off the full depth of her knowledge and reveal herself to Machia as a proper magician.

Her furious pout melts into a quiet smile. Right now it did not matter. Right now her heart is melting. Right now...

She reaches over Machia's shoulder and lifts Blanche's left paw.

"The first steps are the simplest," she says, turning the little leg so Machia can see the silver thread stitched into the paw pad, "I enhanced her with materials that conduct mystics better than stuffing. Her tail is also weighted with iron pellets, if you were wondering. And there are the... alignments, so that the rest of it will stick. The materials for this are largely irrelevant, compared to getting the shape and the runes correct. There is a second set with trigrams, as well. I could draw them for you later, if you'd like? Originally, I did the whole thing in red pen and a stack of printer paper I, uh, borrowed... from a shipping store."

Madeleine coughs and releases Blanche back into Machia's care. She walks around the pair of them and settles down on her knees with a smile. The back of the lab coat and its many ribbons splay out behind her like the tail of some strange sea creature. And she smiles.

"But that is all armament and accelerant. I put a sword and a shield in her little hands so she could be my brave warrior, and I opened up her ears. Of much greater importance... is communing. The totem guards you when you are at your most vulnerable, so you must build it pathways through your soul with sympathetic connections. All children know this innately, of course. Your guardian animal is the one you speak to. Ask it for advice, and listen when it answers. Tell it all the things it missed while you were away. Trust it with your fears, your secrets, your insecurities. The longer you do it, the more powerful she becomes. Blanche is very powerful; I trust her with my life. And now I'm trusting her with yours."

She holds out her hand from her spot on the floor. Perhaps in offer, perhaps in a vain attempt to snatch her stuffed animal back, perhaps to close the distance between them even a little bit, perhaps in silent demand to be helped off of the floor again. Or maybe all of these, or maybe none of them. Maybe she's just casting magic right now. That is the mystery of the moment.

"Do you... want to try it yourself? It doesn't have to be a tiger necessarily, whatever you own can be made to work. Or if you prefer you can work with Blanche for a while. She is going to be guarding your stuff for a while, you might as well get to know one another."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Madeleine smolders in silence. She does not nod or shake her head, and no words come out of her mouth for the longest time. There are no signals except for the fire in her eyes for several desperate and silent minutes until she blinks, and after that sighs.

"That drone is not to touch my clothes. We can make time tomorrow to make a trip over there and grab something... together."

And after that she did not make a peep of complaint. She ate without being ordered, drank appropriately, and left for the shower at the first gesture.

When she came back out, dressed now only in a towel, the marker pattern was still visible on the skin she'd left exposed. Machia had been correct about the ramifications of not using the pink soap. Madeleine paused in the act of wringing out her hair to look down at her feet and observe a white stuffed tiger sitting in her path, maybe slightly larger than a typical house cat. She bent down to pick it up with a smile, and touched its forehead to hers.

"Welcome to the demon's den, Blanche. Did the trip treat you well? ...I see. Reparations? No, I don't think we're in a position to... hm. I see. Well, no, that is valid. You are wise among beasts."

The smile on her face faltered when she looked up and saw Machia standing there, staring at her. She tucked the stuffed animal in the crook of her arm and clutched at it possessively.

"A-as anyone serious about the occult understands, the best defense for any mage who seeks to conquers demons is a tiger. And after... too much research, I concluded that a live animal would be too difficult to care for long term while maintaining a training schedule that could advance me to regionals. And then of course it turned out that Tiger Escort Services were not at all what you would think! A-a-and that, left, uh, Blanche."

She coughed. She had begun stroking the plush's fur, but didn't seem to notice.

"Communing with the totem is the most cost effective way of increasing its potency as a spiritual tool. That is all you were witnessing. Do not snicker."

A pause. She glance down at her towel, and flushed red, which did wonders to highlight how much marker was all over her.

"Right. I... hadn't anticipated you would be serious about my offer. So I do not have any pajamas with me. Is there anything I could borrow for tonight?"

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"Thash ha grr'sh mishchrruh--"

Madeleine swallows her prawn.

"...mischaracterization. There is a desk as well. And a lamp! Not to mention a chair, which is where I hang my coats. The rest of it is dedicated to closet space. There would be no room for my clothes if I bought something as useless as a bed, Machia. Don't be stupid. And do not paint me to be some kind of coffee-obsessed lunatic. I enjoy it an ordinary amount, thank you very much. Oh, and Blanche is in the closet furthest from the door. That's my tiger plush, she guards my very best dress. Though she does also help me sleep, but how did you?"

Her thought is interrupted with a mouthful of golden, delicious, fluffy rice, which she chews with all of her typical poise and dignity. This is much easier than it was the other night; her extremities are not fighting her nor is she dehydrated to anywhere near the same degree. She is simply exhausted and in large amounts of pain. Completely ordinary.

But just the same she does not protest the steady flow of food being offered to her but quite contentedly opens her mouth to accept every varyingly crispy or soft or chewy or shrimpy bite. At some point into the second prawn her ears start to flutter. Immediately after she notices she holds up a hand for a pause and frowns. She reaches for a glass of water and sips.

Just how long has Machia known how to cook? What had been the point of making Madeleine do it for so many months, if she'd secretly been better in a kitchen the entire time? Was it just not scientifically interesting enough if her dinner guest wasn't on the edge of breaking?

"This is very good," she says instead of any of that, "Thank you."

A beat. Madeline watches another prawn dance in front of her lips. She bites down on it with a blush.

"Just... for the record, this is not my limit. I could easily endure another session tonight, possibly even two. Given how badly I failed, I'd prefer it, even. But we have more training tomorrow, and the unsanctioned match on Friday coming up as well. I thought you would appreciate it if I... wait. Twenty percent? Just how little do you think of me?! Put me in now, you jerk! I'll show you twenty percent!"

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Her lips are for drinking coffee and her eyes are for staring into Machia's. Her skin, in all its varying states of marking and disrepair, is an engine whereby the heat of her body may be discerned from the sweat on top of it. Her breath is for gasping - first the desperate panting of a cornered and tortured animal, and then the slower more reverent 'oh' of a hiker observing an unexpected sunrise.

In short, that is what Madeleine Cross is worth. That is what she's for. She is only vaguely aware of the fingers disappearing toward zero, and only when the hand lowers completely does it cross her mind that there is a challenge for her to fail. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, -1, -2, -3...

Her face turns redder. Her heart ceases to race, but simply flutters instead. Why won't her body work right? Why won't her brain? All of that was awful but she's still Autumn Wolves Can't Won't Chorus. So what is? Why is? This... feeling? She sips coffee with undignified desperation and shrinks away from the aggressive face held much too close to hers.

"...Ah. I knew it. The moment where it switches to kindness really is the hardest part. That was a total failure. I'm sorry."

She's still there. Machia is still there. Even the coffee is still there, which is somehow the most intense thing to realize of the lot. Steam is hissing off of several parts of her body as cubegel repairs her poor abused torso but all she can focus on is the light and delightfully fruity notes of the drink still held as if in offer, as if she were worth this beautiful treat prepared in the exact way she prefers it. It's a specialty cultivar, even, and the longer she considers that the more of her brain seems scrambled.

Was. Um. Was anybody speaking just now?

"In, in, in my... defense," she stammers, "I, I only messed up that bad because of you. If it had been, uh, a-another face, I, er. I wouldn't have failed. Your eyes are just so... or, no, it's really your smell? N-no, I mean! I don't! I don't... know. It doesn't matter. You're the one Taowu will use against me, if it comes to that. So you're the one I have to overcome."

She sighs, a noise that is three quarters sniffle. Uncountable minutes of condensed pain she endured as a crystal song all creep across her now, all at once felt as phantoms in the form of rapid healing.

"I can't, uh. D-do that again. Right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please. Hold me. I'm at my limit..."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Wait.

What do you mean?

This has all been the dots?

Then... what about the... wait.

Pressure? I don't

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pain hot hurt no press stop why there'snostaticthereshouldbesomethingsharpcutoffmythoughtsitsallclearIfeelitIfeelitIfeelitIknoweverythingthat'shappeningthisisworseworseworseithurtshurtshurtshurtsmakeitnotIdon'twantitautumnwolvescan'twon'tyouknowalreadyIshouldn'thavetosayitthisiscruelthisistoomuchIcan'ttakeitIcan'tdoitIcan'tIcan'tIcan'tI

thre'se a tingh lkei ari on hre bcak adn it feles ncie. Mdaliene tkase a beraht and trsie ot clma hreslfe dwno. is't funyn. wnhe the netx dpro cmoes seh cn'at feel ti. hTe fcous is lal nO oen poitn and ti hruTs so muhc taht hte dtos juts trace bakc tooooooooooooo the criscle. It wsan't os bda wehn it statred btu het mroe teh rnio bruned Madelnei wnatde ot csream. she falots ni teh ira adn baerth hadr. Through theet. Yuo nudertsnad, rghit?

it's the dffiercne bewtnee holding yoru hand over stmae and, and, adn... grpinpg a hot pna by the handle wtihout rlaeznig it's been voer heat the hwoel time. A delay. Then htur so sharp it obliterates eyrvhtngi lsee.

If this is the circle the star must be worse. If this is the circle the star must be worse. If this is the autume the wolves cna't won't chousr.

"Plllllleaaase. I can... I can... do... this... Mhh. Machiaaaaaa."

The dots are easy now. The circels are hard but she's dnoe one now. Another. Make it to eht next one. Jsut one more. Another circle. And then hold on. Madeleine. Madeleine Cross.

Even if you fail.

Please.

Make it to the worst.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

What's funny is that this is an almost perfect environment for memorization. She has no body. She has no weight. She cannot shift or wiggle or speak or do any other stupid thing that could mess her up, so all that's left is just a mind in a world of perfect rhythm and glass. The vibrations are just the phrase moving through her consciousness, the tempo is high but the phrase this time is so simple it's almost

I

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G.

Breath. Breath. Breath without breathing.

Pain. Pain. Pain without feeling.

The shape of her body is defined by scalding drips. She is not Madeleine. She is a constellation.

Smelling vaguely of Yirgacheffe.

It is the kind of hot that should scar her.

It is the kind of pain that should break her.

She is a body of stars trapped inside a telescope, a spine and a beating heart with limbs that are only theoretical and invisible hair that drifts toward the floor with a soft pull like a lover's hand around her skull. The nebula is crackling with low heat and kinetic energy and her sweat is colder than ice and it hurts much sharper than it should because it's healing straight away but then it sizzles and the syncopation and

D
R
I
P

She is defined anew. The pattern changes. Same as the marker, the burst and the wet and then the lingering evaporation. A dress designed in coffee. A hideous waste she cannot scream about. A smell that is frenzying and soothing in the same exhausted thought and Autumn Wolves C█N'T Won't C████s.

Madeleine.

Madeleine.

Madeleine.

Madeleine Cross.

That's her name.

That is the spell: Pain is what happens to her. She is.

So. Again.

Autumn. Wolves. Can't. Won't. CH♦RUS.

...That was one of the stars, wasn't it?

Maybe she clenches her teeth. Maybe she hisses. Maybe she is still breathing. But she is, at least, Madeleine Cross. So even if this is ultimately beyond her, she tries.