"I've always loved the Gods," she said. She couldn't help it; the words just had to be on the outside now. She felt like she'd explode if she kept them in. 

She spoke even as she ducked under a slashing claw, wings wrapping around them both as they fell into a free dive. One snapped out, angling the flow, then a second, breaking momentum hard, legs swinging in front - and then extending straight behind her so that she could pass through the narrow gap of the Aeteline's legs. She hit the ground at a sprint, building momentum to hit the air again, passing the shockwave of her landing into the force of her next flying leap.

"Each of them is adapted to its landscape, to its context. They're specialized against each other, against the wilderness, against the damage and scarcity required to survive long term. Specialized against [i]us[/i]. As time went on battle became less and less of their lives. From the ground it made them feel impossible. As the Aeteline it made them feel weak. And I hated that they felt weak, because they were so beautiful -"

She twists, turning her wings upwards, falling like a shot dove. The sword of flame crashes down, just missing her. She drinks in the heat and rides the thermal, exploding up out of her dive into a whirling corkscrew that takes them up behind the Aeteline. The wrong weapon for this battle.

"But!" she laughs wildly as her wing blades carve gashes along the Aeteline's back on her descent, "the specialization for peer combat came at the cost of being able to fight infantry! Against the Bezorel we would be targeted and destroyed in seconds but against this -" Solarel flipped out of her dive and landed again on the ground. Her wings glowed and flashed, breaking in half, returning to the form of swords. The physical silver sword she brought up into a fencing posture as she faced down the mad metal giant. The gold digital sword she left in Mirror's hands where she left her behind the Aeteline, with a clear view of the rents in the metal torso where the data core was exposed. "- against [i]this[/i]," said Solarel with the serenity of the samurai she loved, standing alone on a windswept plain, "I can fight as an equal."