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Clara jogged, alone, down the catwalk from where her room was located towards where her AC was berthed. Being a pilot had its perks, and one of which was sleeping in the rooms closest to the hangar.
She wouldn't describe herself and her AC as built for eachother. No, it was perfect for her, and in turn, It made her perfect. Saying that they were built for eachother would imply that they were both built to be at one another's level; both built to fail without the other there to support them.
But, she hadn't been built for Forest Eel, and It -the individual parts and pilot seat and interface- hadn't been built for her. Instead, It had broken her. From the moment she laid her hands across Its controls and allowed its port entry into her brainstem, she was no longer whole without it. In a way, she had broken it too. She had taken this beautiful work of manufactured divinity and debased it to coexist with her own flesh. She had claimed what was once an angelic figure as her own, and branded it with her emblem.
A mosquito, fitting of her in comparison to Forest Eel.
She felt sick every time she got out of the cockpit, desyncing from the goliath that she'd burrowed inside like a parasite. But she could never stay away, not when the sweet communion of possessing It awaited upon her return.
She watched the mechanics and technicians scrambling far below her: making final checks before her sortie. Well, it was only her sortie in technicality, really it was Forest Eel who should get the glory.
With a quick code, she parted the carapace of her host, sliding through Its armor and into the pilot's seat awaiting her within. Almost giddy with anticipation, clasping her hands around the neural jack and whispering a quick "I'm sorry." before sitting properly, and slotting it in at the base of her skull.
She, no, they, wondered how she could have been considered alive while separate from this. They were one, but separate: two beings acting in perfect synchronicity, neither with full control over the other, but with cooperation and understanding so seamless they relished that small lack of control. At least, Clara relished it, and because she was it and it was she, It did too. She felt as her sense of self permeated throughout her host; her doll. They felt as orders from on high came to launch, and they stepped over to the catapult, all four legs moving in like the perfect machine they were. The perfect machine she made them; the perfect machine It made her. They slotted their feet into the waiting clamps, and braced for takeoff.