She had so much to say. 

But the Sage said Speak Not.

She idolized the Gods. How could she not? The sounds of their battles would shatter the plains. The crunch of their footsteps would tear tear earth. The hiss-zap of their energy weapons would be followed by thunder that would cow the storm. They were so loud. So different from the silence of the Code. The ideal embodiment of the Code. Their words were their actions. With their actions they could hate. Love. Destroy. Imagine getting to say it that loud. To say anything that loud. 

Maybe if she spoke that loud then she could finally be heard. 

*

It was years later. She was still silent.

She'd said everything she could. She'd howled it with the roar of autocannons. She'd shouted it with the crunch of the lance. She'd breathed it with flamethrowers. And still nobody could hear. She meditated for weeks on what she wanted to say and then said it with fire and Tactics. And all she left behind was wreckage. Why? Why did no one listen? Why could no one hear when she was speaking not? Only Mirror. Only Mirror. Akai had tried, but it was barely a beginning. Only Mirror had heard what she was not saying and not spoken back.

She... thought she understood. What she was not saying. She was trying to. She had the emotion of it, fierce and bubbling, in her heart even if it couldn't resolve into words. She needed to resolve it into techniques instead. Everything she knew. Everything she'd studied. Every curve and edge of the Whip. She needed to say what she could not speak with the most perfect battle she'd ever given. 

She couldn't survive failure. Not after all this time listening.

This is the wish she gives to the Aeteline. The cursed engine stirs. It is the whole of her now; the part of her that will wrap that mortal wish in armour and carry it's unspoken passion on the edge of its blade. With a ballerina's grace the Aeteline steps from its mechanical harness, so soft it does not even crack the tile. Her false enemies step back and she waits for them to retreat. She could not not speak with them no matter how she tried. 

She ignites her heels and leaps for the moon. Everything lay as it should. She has adapted to the machine long ago.