Always difficult to say with amazons, but this story always gave me a sense of "okay, so this is what Phillipus is trying to live up to," and the claim she makes on her - "our captain" - is very much an admiring one that puts Egeria on a slightly higher level. So my take is "awesome big sister who looked out for me and I wanted to be like and I'll be awesome at her job in her honor."
... on the other hand, of course, that's not all that dissimilar to her dynamic with Polly. Still, I think Perez was playing up a platonic connection here (I think he was with Phillipus-Polly, too, for that matter).