She sets down upon the Stormlands of Roevg.

Once she had to crawl against the howling wind. Now, with the Aeteline, she stands tall. She never experienced such might before. She never -

... She did. She must have. She Walked the Mountain. With... with nothing more than her mortal strength she fought a God. She climbed its legs, arm over arm, muscles burning, heart pounding, head dizzy with adrenaline. It had felt like everything. When it had turned and almost threw her she'd seen death and when her grip held strong despite that she'd laughed like the devil. When she'd stalled out of charge halfway up and needed to press herself against a heat sink to recover she'd nestled against it like an infant. It had been beautiful. She'd chosen it from amongst all the Gods because she'd thought it had been the most beautiful of them -

An irrelevant memory. A precursor to the Aeteline, a means to become her true self and nothing more. What was some godbeast of the natural world compared to she as she was now? Already she could sense the wild machines all about her, cowering away like wolves from a flaming torch. She was the greatest hunter, the hunter of huntresses, and these mindless machines would give her their strength -

... The Sunhorn. That was what it had been called. Her first god. She had welcomed her in. She had left her to struggle against her. She was like a deer, a vast, mechanical deer with antlers that could channel the power of the sun. She had morphed to a bipedal shape so that she could swing with her sword but the true speed, the true adaptability was in that animal form. The Sunhorn had asked so much of her. It had asked her to explore it. Asked her to understand it. Asked her to learn its secrets that she might get the most out of it -

A wretched way to fight. To pursue a stag without knowing if there was purpose. Why fight using an unconventional blade? It cost so much more time and capped out lower than perfection with the standard. Time spent exploring a blind alley could have been spent perfecting her true self. That was the truth below all of the dance of mechanized combat: just fight normally. Every step from the standard was a step away from power.

But I almost lost to -

Almost! Almost! Irrelevant! Why fixate for years on an almost! If you had been with me all that time we would have eclipsed everything!

Aren't we the same?

...

We are the same.

...

Target identified. Hunt commencing.