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None of them were what they were before they entered the Void. All of them young, hanging onto the hands of adults or siblings, watching the stars fade away through the observation windows, witnessing the end of familiarity.
Their world grew smaller, enclosed between the walls of the ship, bathed in red emergency lights. Their families grew mad, or perhaps a little too clear-sighted about the future. And yet, all the same, they were the ones who grew past what they would have been – who adapted, who survived. The Zariman was to be their tomb, but it became their creche.
They were not children anymore.
Persephone was the Orokin construct, the designation for their weapon. She was one of many, one of hundreds – or thousands. Shaped into a tool and wielded against foes, there was little left of the person underneath the infested flesh and steel. Like a cog she worked in tandem with others - Forseti and Cerberus and Hades - in perfect synch with them. At other times she did operations alone. But always they were working to destroy the monsters clawing at the Orokin's door.
A machine crafted of blood and bone, as much as any of the warframes she rode within.
Soma was the child, the little girl holding onto her father's hand as they boarded the ship that signaled the end of everything she'd ever known. Small and watchful, she'd made him stand in the observation deck so he could name stars for her, tracing constellations against the glass.
The memory of his name, of his face, were gone. But she could remember the scratch of his beard, his rumbly laugh, the warmth of his hands as he taught her to pluck notes from strings, on nights when she reached back the farthest.
Later, Soma would again be the woman who was both the war dog and the child, and neither still.
Then there was the woman who awoke from the dream, lost and cornered by an enemy equal to herself. The Stalker had faltered, had been beaten back, and she'd been left holding the pieces of herself as she realized she was not one of the creatures with terrible power she had believed herself to be.
But that wasn't right either. She could feel the void singing under her skin, prickling in her eyes. Human was not the right word for what she had become. Neither was she warframe, nor Orokin, nor anything else she knew.
The Lotus asked her who she was, the girl, the weapon, the operator, sitting back in the transference seat and bruised around the neck.
There were no eyes to meet when she looked up in response. Her jaw ached, her head throbbed dully. There was only one word she felt would fit between her teeth.
“Nowhere.”