She has never felt less in control. 

This was what it was to fight someone strong. She was audience and centerpiece all at once. She made no decisions. She expressed nothing of herself. She had no chance to answer. She wouldn't have anything to say if she did. Every trick, every customization, every strength had been stripped from the Aeteline. It was powerless. She was powerless.

This was what it was to fight someone weak. She followed the pattern, exploited the cracks, exactly as Mirror had arranged it. She was guided, softly and inevitably, towards her victory. Every act of power created a shadow, every revealed gap in the armour determined where she would place her hands. She had taken no position and so she could be anywhere; she had no ability to take a position so she had to go where Mirror placed her. Her hands were bound by ribbons of light. Her feet moved to music she was not permitted to hear. 

She knew the words Speak Not but here she realized there was a difference between being silent and being unable to speak. Her previous fights she had been enthroned in power. She had spoken - frustrated, exasperated, isolated battles, conflicts that did not last long enough for the rage in her to pass. She had never been held like this and been forced to listen before.

Mirror was strong. Mirror was weak. Solarel was nothing. Perfect nothing. She moved like water in between the gaps in Mirror's light and she'd have her nothing victory. It would prove nothing, express nothing, teach nothing. When people asked how to be successful in war the Ancestors would tell them: just fight like Solarel. Tactics were for villains. Beauty was for gimmick bosses. Strategy was a two-episode inconvenience at best. The path to victory was to be this: an empty cypher, a generic protagonist, a blank canvas upon which the opponent paints their illustration of perfection.

She is held. She is caressed. She is kissed. She cannot hold. She cannot caress. She cannot kiss. She is at the mercy of her victory, whatever Mirror decides that looks like. Inevitably she makes her way towards the centre, following the dance steps marked out for her, displaying herself in silence. She cannot even say that she understands now. It's too late for her to speak.