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Kasius had strange dreams all his childhood. They weren’t quite nightmares but they weren’t pleasant either. There were too cold rooms, food that barely qualified for the name in his opinion, a hacking cough that more often than not ended with him spitting blood into his hand and wiping it on a shirt he certainly didn’t own, or would ever consider wearing.
Even the dreams where he was happy – running and climbing and chasing around other kids, cuddling up to a man with gaunt cheeks, walking along with his hand in that of a woman with calluses on her palms – left him feeling strange when he woke. The landscape in his dreams was always bland, sparse vegetation, soot covering everything. He wondered how he’d even made it up. He had never seen anything like it. He doubted something so triste could even exist.
One day he brought it up to his Mother in passing, a curiosity that she might find interesting.
She explained about soulmates, how you would dream at night of something that happened in their life that day, as they would dream a fresh memory of yours.
Kasius was torn between delight at someone out in the universe, made for him and him alone, and shock at all the things he had taken for granted, at seven years old, turning out not to be facts once outside the castle walls.
In an odd sort of way, Sinara rather looked forward to her dreams. The ones that were someone else’s reality, anyway.
She had regular dreams, too, of course, and didn’t always remember her soulmate ones when waking. But she very much enjoyed the dreams about food.
There was always a good chance of those: Her soulmate never seemed to lack anything, feasts so common she saw them at least once a fortnight, tables stacked high with things that made her mouth water.
They had been almost torturous back when she had still lived with her family. The times where even the fiercest rationing had left no food for dinner had had her empty stomach protesting at the sights, smells, tastes in her mind. She’d woken curled into a ball and more hungry than before too often.
But now that the army kept her well-fed, the dreams were a great way to try foods she would likely never get her hands on. Since the dreams were someone’s memories, the textures and tastes were perfectly real.
What was unfortunately just as real was the tight, constricted feeling in her chest – her soulmate’s chest – that seemed to linger even during the most extravagant feasts.
She hadn’t dreamed of the woman she thought might be her soulmate’s mother in some time.
Perhaps she was dead.
Perhaps she’d decided she no longer wanted her child, the way Sinara’s own parents had.
His soulmate was part of the Imperial Forces, he had made out that much from his dreams.
Kasius tried his hardest to find and remember some hint as to where they might be stationed in his dreams but wasn’t terribly successful. Looking closely at their own insignia was apparently not something his soulmate did. Understandably so, as it would be a strange pastime, but he still thought they could do it, so that he could dream just who they were and find them.
His identity had to be clear to his soulmate, he was certain.
There could be no mistaking life at court for anything else and if they’d ever dreamed of time spent with his brother, or a glimpse of Kasius looking into a mirror, they would even know it was him, and not Faulnak, who unfortunately shared so much of Kasius’ life that there might have been confusion.
Everyone across the Empire would surely recognize the Royal Family, especially a soldier training in their names.
He just hoped the realisation that it was the second born and not the crown prince hadn’t been terribly disappointing to his soulmate. But if their souls truly called out for each other, then surely it couldn’t have been?
So instead of trying to make his identity even clearer, he tried to share himself with his soulmate on a deeper level. He read his favourite poems again and again, no matter that he knew them by heart, in hopes they might make it into a dream. He lingered on experiments, so his soulmate could look their fill. He wrote out battle plans in excruciating detail to make sure they knew he wasn’t useless just because he was no fighter.
Anything he could think of he did, and hoped it would somehow make it into their dreams.
Until he could find them, he’d already offer as many pieces of his heart as he could.
Her soulmate was utterly obsessed with books. She did more reading in her dreams than she ever did in actual life.
Which admittedly did improve her faltering, though she could do without the poems stuck in her head, always only half-remembered, as was the nature with dreams.
The battle strategies stuck better. She’d impressed more than one trainer with some tidbits they had yet to be taught in training.
She only ever shrugged and smirked when Azale asked her she could’ve possibly known.
Sinara was not about to admit to having a soulmate. Certainly not to her suspicions that they were not only highborn but quite possibly at court, with the sheer number of royal crests that popped up in her dreams.
Sometimes she wondered how mortified her soulmate was at having a commoner as their match.
Most days she did not think about them at all.
Sinara stood over his generals as they took their last breaths, wondering if the prince would even make it.
Blood was spilling out from between his fingers; he wa shaking with the effort of fighting unconsciousness.
“Don’t worry,”she said and felt stupid the second the words had left her mouth. She helped him to his feet.“I’ve got you now.”
That night Kasius would dream of standing over his own crumbled form on the ground at his feet, blood soaking his uniform, terror in his eyes.
The painkillers would make the dream nothing more than a haze when he awoke again.
The journey to Hala was long and mostly uncomfortable, though Kasius was far better company than Sinara had anticipated. She couldn’t say she regretted throwing her lot in with his, not even when he made it abundantly clear he expected his father to punish him - them - for the missteps.
“You can get out before we reach Hala,”he offered one day.
“I suppose I could.” She pushed one of the screws that had held up the mirror in the wetroom across the improvised gameboard between them.“Your move.”
He smiled at her with such sincerity she had to look away.
The possibility of her abandoning him to face whatever punishment might come alone was not brought up again.
When they finally stepped into the throne room, her heart sank at the sight of his father, then started hammering against her ribs so hard it nearly hurt.
It took her a moment to puzzle out her reaction, the intensity of it.
It was the first time she had seen this face in the flesh. She had woken up many nights terrified of it towering over her, twisted with contempt, calling her a disgrace.
Except those had been dreams, of course. Her dreams, Kasius’ reality.
She did not bring it up.
She did not pull away when he reached for her hand on their way into exile.
Kasius stared into the expanse of space before them, trying his best to find beauty in the view. The remnants of Earth did not make it all too easy.
Sinara stepped up next to him, head cocked to the side, and joined him in looking into the nothingness that was all to surround them for the foreseeable future.
“And as the shadows swallow all away,”he said before he realised he was saying it. His cheeks flushed and he fell silent.
Sinara did not look at him. Her voice was soft as she went on, almost absently.“I see that all the light I’ll ever need is the shine of your eyes.”
“No darkness could dim it, no sorrow touch it,”he finished.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and swallowed hard.“I did not take you for a poetry person, my dear.”
“Full of surprises,”Sinara replied. She grinned at their reflections in the dark window.“Must’ve picked it up somewhere.”
Kasius only nodded - and wondered about the odds of her just happening across his favourite poem, of all things.
Sinara assumed Kasius had probably figured it out as well by now and was glad that he did not make a big deal of it.
He was a complete sap, really, but he did manage to refrain from going on about their soulmate bond.
It made it much easier to just allow herself to fall into bed with him without having to wonder whether she’d have to confess that she thought the whole soulmate thing was superstitious bullshit.
They got on wonderfully without muddling things up by making them too complicated for quite some time.
The first time he told her he loved her, she just kissed him.
That night, she dreamed of it, from his perspective, and the overwhelming warmth in her chest at the sight of herself had her shaking him awake at four in the morning.
“What’s wrong?”he slurred, groping around for the lightswitch.
She grabbed his hand before he could find it.
“I love you, too,”she blurted. Then she hid her face against the pillow and pretended to go back to sleep.
He simply wrapped his arms around her with a soft, happy sigh.
Kasius thought he was alright without his soulmate. Perhaps they were even dead; he certainly couldn’t remember any dreams lately that didn’t come out of his own subconscious by the looks of them.
It was a sad thought, truly. But it was hard to mourn someone he had never met when Sinara was always at his side.
Well, when she wasn’t off hugging soldiers who’d brought their new supplies.
He did his best to keep a pleasant smile on his face as Sinara brought her friend - he hoped she was a friend, anyway - over to meet him.
He couldn’t help the surprised gasp as he got a good look at the woman.
He has seen that woman before. She was younger, then, but so was he, and it was undoubtedly her. He would have recognised her anywhere. Afterall, he spent much of his teenage years horribly jealous of the girl that was in so many of his dreams, was with his soulmate so often.
“This is Azale,”Sinara said, and he forced himself out of his stupor.
“Delighted to meet you,”he said, and even sounded as if he meant it. In a way, it was true. He might never have put the pieces together otherwise.“You will join us for dinner, of course?”
Sinara looked ready to protest - clearly, she had not intended to eat with him as she usually did - but Azale beat her to replying,“Of course. If I’m not imposing?”
“Any friend of Sinara is a friend of mine,”Kasius said.
“I’ll remind you of that once she’s hurt your feelings four different ways before we make it to the main course,”Sinara muttered to him.
He took her hand and squeezed it.
Nothing could ruin his mood now that he’d found out that his soulmate and the woman he loved were one and the same.
(Though Azale’s snarkiness did come close to doing it, anyway.)
“So,”he said.
Sinara lifted her head off his chest and propped herself up on one elbow to look at him.“So?”
“Azale,”he started.
Sinara rolled her eyes.“Well, I did try to stop you from having dinner with her.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He reached up to cup her cheek.“I saw her in my dreams when I was younger.”
Somehow, not a hint of surprise crossed Sinara’s face.“Yeah, you would’ve.”
Kasius stared at her, trying to form words for a few helpless seconds, then settling for,“You knew?”
“You didn’t?”she shot back, eyes widening.“I thought we just didn’t talk about it.”
He stared at her for a few moments longer, then chuckled.“You thought I just wasn’t talking about it?”
Her lips quirked into a smile.“Pretty stupid, now that I hear it out loud.”
She laid back down and snuggled against him.
“I can’t believe you knew and never said anything,”Kasius said.
Sinara groaned. It was that sound that never managed to mask that she found him endearing.
“Let me make you a deal,”she said, shifting and straddling him.“You stop pouting about it.” She kissed a path from his shoulder up his throat, then dropped a peck onto his lips.“And I’ll give you something to dream about.”
“Alright,”he said.“I love you, soulmate.”
“And for some weird reason, I love you, too.”
“Because we’re soulmates.”
She laughed and leaned in for a kiss.“You’re real lucky you’re cute.” And then, so softly he almost missed it,“Soulmate.”