"What sustains me... It is you."
Since The Old Peace introduced the Xenoflora, we wondered how Lotus managed to survive as she does now, far away from home, in an Origin System without the Tau Blooms.
This line of hers in the Dark Refractory explains everything:
I know I ask much of you. Yet, you rise to the challenge. Always. What sustains me? It is you.
Like how the Holdfasts are given strength by the Tenno to resist the call of the Void Angels, the Lotus system is being sustained by their surrogate Void children.
Either in a literal sense: being a source of energy for Lotus to passively "feed" upon... Or in a more abstract sense: by allowing Lotus the protective strength of love for her children that keeps her safe from the Indifference.
So when we think of the Tenno and the Lotus as synonymous, symbiotic beings working in tandem... We can infer that by willingly putting her children in cryosleep after the Old War, after the Night of the Naga Drums, the Lotus was also willingly weakening herself to other hive minds, influence, and outside control.
She, Natah, must have known that she could gather ambient strength from the Tenno. This would add even more layers to her decision to defect from her birth's purpose. She must have known it was a huge risk for her to take: to seal this newfound alternative for Sentient strength - her Tenno - away on Lua, sending the entire moon to the Void with herself in it.
If the Void is truly as toxic to Sentients as we were led to believe, Natah was taking a calculated risk doing what she did to protect the Tenno. Regardless of her success as a spy in the Origin System, her body would have always been on the line: in danger of being reclaimed by her father, into another hivemind without the Tau Blooms, or in danger of being reprogrammed by the Orokin.
When Hunhow's plan was in motion, Natah knew her role as a spy was integral, but she saw different paths to take:
She could follow the plan: kill the children and return to Hunhow. But she risks being "reclaimed" into another hivemind should she disobey more orders.
She could save the children by hiding them in Lua - sealing away her source of power, keeping the children safe from harm. But she again risks being reclaimed into another hivemind OR by the Orokin, without Tenno strength.
She could join her children in hiding in the Void - allowing herself to suffer from Void poisoning for decades and generations during her long vigil for her children. BUT, she keeps her individuality as a (relatively) lone Sentient.
This third option was a calculated risk. For her to defect, to betray her father, to live as the woman she wants to be. A mother, despite her barren self. With children who love her, who give her strength in more ways than one.
Against the odds of her pre-determined fate, the desperate misery of her people after catastrophic Orokin sabotages, Natah saw an opportunity for new life, and took it.
Her adoption of the Tenno was as much an act of love, as much as it was an act of survival.
It was an act of someone who saw more to Sentient suffering, who saw a way to, in time, heal and return what was stolen from her people.
This extends to her acceptance of the Margulis within her. To the Lotus system... Their love, their children, the love for themselves, and their survival... They are synonymous.
To teach the Sentients of Tau that they can heal from Orokin cruelty... To love her children, to protect them, to show her people that it's possible to live in peace, to give each other strength... For Tenno and Sentient to ally as a family...
It may very well be her singularity of purpose.
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