Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh OH MY GOSH OH--

It was all that was going through Madhukar's mind as she raced back to Pegasus, leafs and flowers and bits of moss biting at her ankles. Usually Madhukar ran away from things. Today, the status quo wasn't just doing to change -- it was going to flip entirely on its head. She was a lightning bolt skirting down the lane, too full of panic and surprise to enjoy the experience of her new body's mobility. She was running not only to something, but for something. Tunnel runners bolted out of her path, trapdoor rays didn't even bother with their usual jobs of being obstacles. Madhukar had a friend to see and... and a child to meet, presumably.

She hadn't figured out how it worked. All she knew was that she put her magic in that stranger's stone and suddenly it had started glowing, just like her chrysalis shard had when Doug had "practiced magic" on it. Putting magic into the stone... they had both done that, Madhukar was strangely doubtless of the fact. The one thing that didn't add up in her head was that her chrysalis was not her direct stone, nor was it a lost soul. So did it just work on any stone?? Or-- moving on. She was racing past her own thoughts, the result of her utmost focus on a single goal -- her personal power on full display. In this state, who knew what she could crash into?

She could trip over a rock!

She could slam into a deer.

CRASH!

IMPACT. Sudden and dramatic! Madhukar felt gravity trying to tug both vulnerable bodies to the floor -- hers went down with its- theirs- its- theirs- his- his-? His.

As he scrambled, so did she, blinking rapidly, up and away -- there she was, going away again. She recognized the shape, the face, the voice -- oh no, the voice -- she stood there clasping her mask with a hand while she steadied herself and he talked -- always talking, and now she could never keep up -- and now she was steady, so hard to balance on two legs and he'd never know -- or would he know now, now that her mask was slipping, literally slipping, sliding off her face? Wait. Sliding off her face?

She blinked at him from behind her wooden mask, holding it there with one paw. With a shaky breath, she removed that paw... "Are you okay?" Like he recognized her, like he knew her, a polite stranger, a mishap, an unknown rush...

And then her mask slipped off her face for real, fell to the floor. Clattering like the rattle of a snake, a private ode to the tempest welling in Madhukar's heart.

She stood there, blank-faced and breathless, eyes darting about his face as she listened for the pitter-patter of a rainstorm that wasn't going to come.

There he was. The Fungal Prince. "T--" But there wasn't any wind left in her lungs to finish that thought with.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" How do you respond-- "My eyesight isn't what it used to be ... I'm just not sure I know how to place you." Oh my gosh.

He looked sheepish. Embarrassed, almost. And she must have looked like a ghost. It should've, would've, could've been funny if either of them had the ability to breathe, or see, or calm down.

Madhukar considered her options, all in her flurry of thoughts. She could brush past him without talking as to not reveal her voice because she wasn't sure she could hide it well right now, but then he might follow, or worse just move on, and why was that bad? 'Cause he'd done it before, and it hurt to be nothing more than a ghost, and now she was starting to leave her trail in more ways than one, so if he could see wouldn't he find her anyways, wouldn't he catch up, why not throw in the towel? Just let it happen. Put the hatchets to bed.

Madhukar steeled herself. Steadied herself mentally and physically. If she could only lean on something, she would've, but it felt like the walls were either too close or too far and she didn't want to touch them either way. Her little heart was hammering in her fuzzy lump chest, like it was about to burst, a cherry-flavored bomb -- like she was about to through up. But she let it sit. She let it sit because before, she hadn't let it sit; she'd taken it out of the oven too early and eaten her own heart raw and it was wretched and repugnant. Now, he was the only obstacle, and not even the biggest one.

So the felinoid let her heart sit while it hammered out its frantic song, a mad genius at the piano. Madhukar was too busy listening to the craze to think about what to say. Eventually, she sat her body down too, plopped it right in front of the deer, still in complete silence. She picked her mask up off the ground, keeping it on her lap for now.

And when it all faded and the curtain closed, which felt like hours but had really just been an awkward amount of seconds... she spoke. "Madhukar. My placement." Her throat was somewhat looser thanks to the brief "conversation" with the stranger earlier, but speaking still made her hyperaware of her throat. Always tense, always hard to use. But at least she'd done it! She'd given her name, her voice. Now there was one more thing to rip out: "I-I... sorry."

And it hurt like hell.

Silence. Even more silence. So much silence when she'd had enough, she was sick of it already. Her bones felt sick and her legs felt sick and her heart felt sickest of all. He leaned down -- he really had no idea about her, he really couldn't see, he really had a film over his eyes that blocked him, and blocked her, and blocked the world, and -- he leaned down just like he always did. She stood up slowly, rose up above his head. Would he ever see how tall she was now? Would he ever know what had changed in her? Would she ever understand what had changed in him--?

His response was cold. Awkward. Straining them in two, cleaving them further and further apart, like a glaive in Madhukar's mouth, drawing the metallic tang of blood out from inside. There was so much bad blood between them, Madhukar herself could hardly see him through all the red of it. She now had her mask gripped tight in her mobile hand, and tighter still as he went on... and tighter still as he apologized...

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair! Forget his loss of sight, forget her costume, forget the possible "lost soul" made from Madhukar's chrysalis and Doug's magic! Forget it all because right here in this moment, Madhukar was finally standing, on two feet, right in front of him. Talking to him, about him, directly. His face pointed right at her. It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair for him to push her away after she had pushed him away for cycle after cycle! It wasn't fair for him not to cry like he wanted to, and like she wanted to! And it wasn't fair that she didn't have all the time in the world stretching out ahead like a sky of its own, enough time to talk to him, enough air and power to explain why she left.

Because he had hurt her, yes, but more than that -- far more than that -- she had hurt him.

It just wasn't fair. The whole universe tilted against them. The unjustness of it all was burning Madhukar's eyes and cheeks and face. Or maybe it was the pain? Or maybe the relief? Or maybe the-- The pent up tears were beginning to choke her, so Madhukar released them. Her breath hitched and her heart throbbed and at last she began to cry for everything she had missed. Everything she had forgotten. He was right there, and she had feared and longed for this moment more times than she could count.

With her stiffened hand, Madhukar attempted to reach for his face, perhaps hoping to gently guide his head to her eye level. She feared the potential of his recoil... and she also expected it. Blazing pain in her chest, enough to knock her over, but she wanted to feel his presence again. Maybe Madhukar just wanted to see if he was real -- not some phony Fungal Prince, or some leader, or some... some random deer. She, too, suffered from the affliction of words, and the lack of them, so it felt like there was nothing to say for now. Not verbally at least.