Her analysis is perfect. Everything is within her calculations.

The feeling of writing a battleplan was transcendent; it placed her outside the field, outside her body, outside herself. Now it was a cascade of decision points. The initial skirmish. Initial advantage. Mirror pressed back, forced to reveal her first secret. Momentary advantage, overcome into reversal. Despearate at the climax, Mirror reveals her final secret. Counter and execute. She was a piece in her own puzzle - even the Aeteline was as much a slave to the inevitable, crushing logic of Tactics as she was. Perfection existed and its demands were not kind.

Strange that Mirror emphasized her imperfection, the uneven lipstick. She was as close to the heart of what battle Had To Be as anyone and yet she decorated herself in scars and asymmetry. She didn't understand the affectation. It did not square with the philosophy of One Layer Of Defense. If she was not perfect she would lose.

But, she had her own foibles.

She didn't turn on her own pilot camera. Not because she didn't want Mirror to see her but because... perfection existed, and its demands were not kind. She was worn. Ragged. Hollow. She had not found the time of capacity for dresses or beauty, or food more than in passing. Her scales had lost their shine and her batteries were drifting along a twenty percent charge to keep her kinetic reactions under control. She looked tired. She felt old. It had been a long time since she had Walked the Mountain. She wasn't sure how she'd ever done it. In contrast to Mirror's active jitters, the Aeteline's movements are precise and stable, moving as precise as a machine and holding each pose until Tactics demanded it reposition.

She is a shadow of Mirror. The beauty, the paint, the dress, the slashing patterns and glittering blade. The loving attention given by loving engineers to every aspect of her God. In comparison the Aeteline is raw and unadorned, black armour panels and magenta undercarriage, function perfected and nothing more. 

A shadow and a mirror were opposites in many ways - but when they moved, they were identical.

> Tsh. That one's on me.
> I legitimately didn't think that technology had any relevance to warfare.

The Aeteline raises its hand, the golden coruscation of her digital blade warping and shifting into reality. She brings it around into an imitation of Mirror's stance. Her choice of weapon is both reflection and escalation - this blade is ethereal and cannot be parried, nor can it be parry. But, as always, the threat of the silver blade conjuring into existence could reverse the logic of combat in a second.

> The Sage Zaldar said:
> Let your actions be your voice. Let your hands fill the silence. Let your heart be manifest in the world.
> To write your thoughts on air is to ground yourself on nothing.
> A spoken vow leaves no legacy. 
> Only the stones and silica remember.
> I will not give you a Whispered Promise. I will carve my words into the bones of this planet before the end.