Chapter Text
The arrow hit its mark in the center of the target with a soft thwack . Takumi allowed himself a small moment to nod in satisfaction before he nocked another arrow and took aim.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted Hinoka entering the practice range, and already a wave of frustration threatened to rise within him. He flicked his eyes to her. She could wait a few more seconds, he told himself as he lined up his next shot, breathed slowly, and let his arrow loose. It landed just slightly to the right of the previous one. Hinoka clapped, but Takumi just shot her an annoyed look.
“What’s the matter?” he snapped. One of Hinoka’s eyebrows went up.
“Can’t I come see how my baby brother is doing sometimes?”
The corners of Takumi’s mouth twitched downwards. “I’m not a baby.”
“Yeah, you are,” she said. Takumi grit his teeth and she relented. “Okay, fine. I came to talk to you about something.”
“Well?” Takumi prompted when she didn’t elaborate.
“Don’t be rude,” said Hinoka.
“I'm not-”
“I just overheard Orochi and Kagero talking about their soulmates’ words, that’s all. It got me thinking.”
Takumi let his frown deepen. He was not in the mood for this conversation, which should have come as no surprise to Hinoka, considering he was never in the mood for it. Every time she said she was ‘thinking’ about soulmates, it meant she'd come up with some new way to prod Takumi about his mark. He made to grab another arrow from his quiver.
“Do you think,” she said quickly, “that the location of the mark has any meaning?”
“Why?”
Hinoka shrugged. “Kagero was saying how it was difficult for her to grow up with it on her back, where she can’t really see it - but then her soulmate’s is on his chest. I guess it’s not like Saizo can easily read upside down either, but-”
"I have no idea, and I don't know why you're asking me," Takumi interrupted.
“Just wanted your opinion, that's all.”
Takumi very much doubted that.
Hinoka had never been particularly good at disguising her attempts to discover the details of the writing on Takumi’s left hand. All the same, if this really was her latest attempt at wheedling information out of him, he wasn't impressed. The gloves on his hands would be staying put. Takumi tugged one of them back into place and pointedly rolled his eyes.
“It's not like it matters,” he said, “but I guess the location has to have some kind of meaning.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” said Hinoka.
“No clue.”
“Hmm. I guess there's not really a way to find out either.”
“Guess not.”
A brief beat of silence passed between them. Once Takumi was sure his sister was out of questions, he strung his bow.
“Well,” said Hinoka, taking the hint and turning to go, “I guess I'll see you at dinner then.”
“Yeah, sure,” Takumi said offhandedly. His focus had already gone back to his bow.
Hinoka sighed as she made her way to the stables, wondering whether there wasn't some way to get Takumi to open up about his soulmate’s words. All she knew was that they were written on one of his hands. And even then, that was more because of Takumi’s insistence on always keeping them covered than anything else - certainly not because he'd volunteered the information.
She wondered what it was about Takumi’s words that made him want to conceal them so badly in the first place. Her own words, written in elegant script along her calf, were a bit outside of the norm, but she liked them well enough. It was fairly obvious where she’d meet her soulmate. After all, she thought as she rounded the corner into the stables, there were only so many places where the first thing you’d hear from someone would be-
“What a breathtaking pegasus.”
The words had come from a young man, taller than Hinoka, with hair as fiery red as her own. Hinoka’s body froze.
“Thank you, I groom her myself,” she finally managed to say. The stranger’s eyes widened.
Elise giggled as she ran towards the library. She narrowly avoided bumping into Felicia, shouting a quick ‘sorry’ over her shoulder as she dodged to the left past the clumsy maid. When she finally reached the wooden double doors that marked the entrance to the library, she slowed down, pausing to catch her breath before shoving them open.
“Leo!” she shouted. Heads turned; Elise gasped and covered her mouth, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. “Leo, you’ve got to hear this.”
“There’s no need to yell, I can hear you just fine,” came Leo’s less-than-enthusiastic reply from the next row of books.
“There you are.” Elise hurried over to Leo and gave him her brightest smile. In return, he put his book back on the shelf and faced her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Kamui found her soulmate!” Elise chirruped. Leo’s expression morphed into one of cautious optimism - about as good of a reaction as Elise had been expecting to get.
“And who’s the lucky man?”
“He’s…”
Some of the enthusiasm within Elise dimmed as she considered how best to break the other half of the news. She cast her eyes about, searching for potential eavesdroppers, and beckoned for Leo to come closer. After a beat, he crossed to her side of the books and leaned in so she could whisper in his ear.
“He’s one of the prisoners that was brought in the other day. Handsome, strong, and, um… Hoshidan.”
Unlike Camilla, Leo didn’t respond with outright frustration. He straightened back up and considered for a moment; Elise watched him with bated breath. If Kamui couldn’t count on her siblings, Elise thought, then her romance would truly be a lost cause. And with Leo being the brains behind most any plans Elise herself took part in, she didn’t dare to imagine how she’d go about helping Kamui if he turned on them now.
“Where is Kamui?” Leo finally asked.
“In the dungeons, ‘patrolling’ so she can speak with him. Camilla’s covering for her.”
Leo nodded, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, and Elise breathed an inward sigh of relief. He wasn’t planning to betray them. If anything, he was probably working out a way to support Kamui. That thought made all the excitement of the situation come rushing back.
“That reminds me!” Elise said. “I’ve gotta go tell Xander. See you later, Leo!”
The walk to the dungeon from Leo’s favorite library - the magical one - felt like it took a small eternity. His mind raced all the while. Sure, it was good to hear that one of his siblings had found her soulmate, but the fact that he came from Hoshido was almost bad enough news to outweigh the good. What would their father think? How would they keep this from his spies, or worse, Iago?
Leo bristled. There was little he could think of that would serve as a crueler fate for Kamui than to have Iago discover the truth about her soulmate. No, as her brother, Leo could never allow that. He would have to formulate a plan to keep both Kamui and her soulmate safe, even if he was Hoshidan.
He spun webs, each of them half-complete. Iago, the spies, even the maids and butlers - all of them would have to be carefully kept in the dark if this was going to work out. And Leo very much doubted that it would be possible, let alone feasible, to conceal anything from that many people with any degree of success. The other option was to recruit help, but Leo turned that thought away without giving it much consideration. He and his siblings had each other. It was too risky to have anyone else.
Still, Niles and Odin could be counted on, he reminded himself. But to construct a whole plan that hinged only on his own two retainers…
Leo made a mental note not to let Kamui know how gloomy her prospects looked.
The fact that his sister’s soulmate was hardly a surprise, at least. Her wrist, he knew, had the words “... Princess Kamui?” - complete with the punctuation marks - written on it. A few short days ago, he would’ve hardly counted that as a blessing, but it at least meant that her soulmate couldn’t possibly be a Hoshidan royal. Leo scoffed. From what he’d heard, the Hoshidan royals were largely airheaded anyway, not to mention arrogant. Kamui would be better off with this ninja of hers.
… Which brought him around to the question of his own soulmate.
Everybody wondered who their soulmate could be, that much was a given. Many books and plays had been written on the subject. He’d only recently been to see a performance of one such play in Cyrkensia with his father and retainers. That did not, however, answer the question of who his soulmate was, or when they would meet. Leo didn’t appreciate that uncertainty.
Odin, Leo recalled, had apparently known his soulmate since he was quite young. Wherever Odin had come from, he’d had to leave that soulmate and childhood friend behind when he came here, but Odin never doubted that the two would reunite someday. Curiosity had driven Leo to ask after Odin’s words. In response, Odin had drawn back his sleeve, showing off the sloppy, scrawling handwriting spelling out the words “It’s not like I was crying or anything” with all the pride of someone who couldn’t be happier about the tattoo.
As usual, Niles was Odin’s polar opposite. He’d volunteered his own words (“Do you need something?”) when Leo had broached the subject, but he hadn’t seemed to feel particularly strongly about them.
Though Leo would deny it if anyone asked, he’d spent much time wondering about the nature of the words on his own right palm. After all, a phrase like “what are you doing here?” left much to the imagination.
Takumi found himself feeling distracted the rest of that day.
No matter how he thought about it, something about the whole concept of soulmates rubbed him the wrong way. For starters, who even assigned people to each other in the first place? And what if you and your soulmate both just had the word “hello” written on your skin - how would you ever be certain you’d found the right person then? No, the whole idea was too vague and opened up too many possibilities for serious mistakes. Takumi told himself he wanted nothing to do with it.
He fired his shot and barely hit the target at all. Gritting his teeth, he resisted the urge to throw his bow on the ground and quit, picking up another arrow and focusing hard on the center of the target instead.
Why was Hinoka so obsessed with finding out about his tattoo anyway? If she’d ever bothered to actually listen to Takumi, she’d know that he considered soulmate tattoos to be something private, something for the two soulmates to share alone. He really didn’t see the need to go showing them off to other people simply for the sake of it.
Besides, comparing tattoos was useless. Some were compliments (like Sakura’s “you’re very pretty”), some gave clues to the nature of the first fated meeting, and others still included names. Phrases could be long, or very short, or anything in between. As for Takumi’s, well…
His arrow hit the outermost ring. Takumi sighed.
“I need to let this go,” he said out loud.
If only his brain agreed.
Even without Hinoka’s constant prying, he still spent plenty of time wondering why his own words had to be, well, that. What he wouldn’t give for something interesting like Kagero’s “I’ve heard about you”, or Oboro’s “here, let me help you”. But no, because he was Takumi, he had to be stuck staring at the same unkind words as always.
On the back of his left hand, in a very elegant looping script, were the words “that's none of your business”.
He started to string his bow again just as Hinata came running into the range, waving his arms about wildly. Oboro was chasing him, clearly trying to get him to stop making a scene, but Hinata reached Takumi first.
“You’re not gonna believe this!” he yelled as soon as he was within range.
“Believe what?” said Takumi, putting his bow down and facing his retainers. Hinata came to a stop in front of Takumi, took two deep breaths, and was immediately whacked on the back of the head by Oboro. Before he had the chance to complain, she stepped up and delivered the news.
“Princess Hinoka found her soulmate earlier today,” she said.
“Seriously? Who is it?” Takumi asked, his eyes going wide.
“You know how Sakura’s got that new retainer? The one that just got here yesterday?” said Hinata. “Yeah, him. His name’s Subaki, he’s a pegasus knight and his hair’s almost as bright red as Hinoka’s. Apparently he’s real handsome too, but I only got a quick look at him before I ran here.”
“... I can’t believe it,” Takumi said, half to himself. It felt a little on the nose for Hinoka’s own first meeting to happen right when she’d just been trying to make Takumi talk to her about the topic of soulmates. Then again, this had to take Hinoka’s mind off bugging Takumi for the next little while. Takumi shook his head.
“So what happens next?”
“I think she wanted to introduce him to everyone,” Oboro said.
“Right, but Sakura’s coming along ‘cause he’s her retainer and all that. C’mon, I’m sure they’ll be looking for you by now!” Hinata added, grabbing Takumi’s wrist and dragging him off towards a different part of the castle. Oboro followed close behind.