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When she first met a Space Marine, she hadn’t been made an inquisitor yet. In fact, her name wasn’t even Sofia Vallen back then, but she had long forgotten what she used to be called in those days. Not that it mattered much, anymore. No, the day she first met one of the Emperor’s Angels, she was a little girl that had just lost both parents.
Back then, she did not know the true meaning of loss yet, of war, of terror. She hadn’t yet learned that sometimes people might leave forever, not yet experienced the pain life had to offer, and she had no idea of the cruelty the universe was capable of yet.
Men with rifles had pulled her out of the rubble of what once was her home, brought her into a makeshift refugee camp, and all she knew was that she was cold, hungry and scared.
The camp was nothing more than a few hastily erected ferrocrete shacks lined with barbed wire. It reeked of blood, of sickness, of waste, of human misery. When it did not rain, a near constant drizzle of mucky brown water, ashes fell. The child quickly learned to hide during the day, hiding from the noise and the machines and the strange men and the distant gunfire, only coming out at night, scavenging what leftovers she could find. She learned not to trust strangers, to take what she needed. She was alone.
It was during one of her nightly excursions, sticking to the shadows, evading the dangers lurking in the night, that the girl first met him. A sentinel, bolter in hand, stoical and motionless, just like the statues she saw the day her parents took her to the big city. The hulking silhouette of his armour alone made it obvious that this was more than just a mere man, more than just a soldier. He was huge.
Of course, compared to the little girl, no older than six or seven standard years, any adult was huge, but this one towered over even the tallest men by several head lengths. For all her inexperience and her young age, she was a quick learner, and in those first days in the camp, Sofia had already been taught to fear and avoid anyone bigger and stronger than her. Which were most people.
