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Apparently, Soren didn’t have a soul, but Mist wasn’t buying it for one second.
“It’s true! That’s what Calil told me,” Tormod insisted, cowering in fear as she threatened to beat him with the spoon she was cleaning. The two were on dish duty that evening by their lonesome, and the young mage had been babbling about random things for a while— the weather, his studies, something about laguz cuisine— until the topic suddenly shifted to be about those in the mercenary group, Soren in particular. Not thinking much about what he was saying, Tormod marveled at the fact that Mist or Ike could be around Soren when he was, supposedly, a spirit charmer, and that it must be boring to hang around someone who traded their soul away.
It was just a quick comment, and he started talking about Ike not a second later, but the words stuck. Mist had heard of spirit charmers before; if Greil was going to keep his kids around his mercenary business, he figured it best to tell them both about the type of enemies that they could run into, and Mist was more than grateful for that knowledge with every passing day on the battlefield. But she had never even thought about Soren being such a thing, and the more she thought about it, the more she rejected it. “He’s not so power-hungry that he’d just give something like that up,” Mist huffed, scrubbing at her spoon even harder. “Sure, he’s a little bit cold, but he’s nice, too. Someone without a soul who only cares about getting stronger couldn’t be like that, I know it.”
Tormod tapped his forehead, “How long have you seen him with that mark on his head? That’s the thing they get from the exchange, you know.”
Mist thought long and hard. She had known Soren for… a while now, but she had seen that red etch on his forehead ever since he was first introduced to her. He also seemed self-conscious of it, and got mad at Ike one time for pushing his finger on that area in an attempt to tease him.
She tilted her head. “I guess… I’ve always known him with that?” Though she didn’t care about it, her curiosity long gone as it had been so long since they had first met.
“So he gave up his soul before he joined you guys!” Tormod said, as if a code had been cracked, and he was the genius that had done it. “He can’t be power-hungry if he’s already got the power. That’s why he’s so mean, and so stuck up, and so—“
A wooden spoon came crashing down on Tormod’s head with the power of the heaviest, sharpest blade in their convoy, and he went quiet. They washed the rest of the dishes in silence before he stumbled away to go find Rhys for the splitting pain that Mist had inflicted on him.
There was no way Soren was a spirit charmer, Mist thought to herself as she watched Tormod walk off.
Though, now, she was curious about that mark on his head.
***
“Soren? He’s out checking inventory around camp. What’d you need?”
Mist flopped down onto Ike and Soren’s shared cot without asking and nearly bumped heads with her brother, who was laying down on his side reading over a map. “I wanted to ask him something,” she said.
It had been a couple days since her moment with Tormod, but she had been too busy with other matters to even think about it again. It was nearly daily that the mercenaries had been getting into fights now, so a large portion of Mist’s free time was spent either catching up on missed sleep or tending to the wounded. However, when one of those wounded was Soren (who ended up fine, he only had a spear lodged in his leg, and it could have been a whole lot worse), Mist let her mind wander again as she healed him. Shouldn’t that almighty being that (apparently) took over him have kept him safe while he fought? He shouldn’t have been in front of Mist, cursing up a storm as he gripped at her arm in agony. He shouldn’t feel anything!
So, after a little while of gathering up her nerves, Mist decided she would ask Soren himself what the deal was. Just out of concern. She really didn’t want bad rumors spreading about him, so if she could get the facts straight from the source, it would clear everything up.
Of course, she wasn’t really planning for what would happen if Soren wasn’t in their tent… Ike was alone, and from the sound of it, he’d be alone for a while.
Mist groaned and shut her eyes, sinking deeper into the cot under her.
Ike looked at Mist quizzically, putting a hand to her head and ruffling her hair. “You can always ask me, you know. Isn’t that what brothers are for?” He rolled up the map and chucked it onto Soren’s desk, which bounced off a stack of books and fell to the ground. Ignoring that little mishap, he now had his attention on his little sister.
At first, Mist wanted to protest, but she paused.
Actually, Ike would know, wouldn’t he? Soren stuck to Ike like glue no matter where or when, and Ike reciprocated that, whether on the battlefield or in camp (even in their downtime, since she was in the tent they shared right now). The two had been together for so long that it would just be plain odd if Ike didn’t know the answers she was looking for.
“Soren’s not a spirit charmer, right?” Mist opened one eye to Ike, who was now fiddling with her hair— he did that when his mind wandered, messing with hair or strings or whatever he could comb through his fingers easily. She didn’t bother stopping him, since the feeling was relaxing, and instead let her eyelid droop.
At her question, Ike raised an eyebrow. “What? Of course not.” He looked down at her, not just off into space, and scrunched up his nose. “Haven’t you seen spirit charmers when we fight? They’re nothing like Soren.”
Mist knew when Ike wasn’t telling the truth; he’d slur his words together and become as rigid as a board, plain as day. He was a terrible liar, since Greil had never raised either of them to do so. So with this response, where Ike spoke as natural and firm as he always did, Mist believed him. And when he put it the way he did, she could get what he meant. Of all the spirit charmers they had seen, which had really only ever been a handful, Soren did act like he had much more life and attitude in him.
Still curious, however, Mist put a finger to her forehead, “What’s that mark from, then? It’s way too red to just be a scar.” She asked, and something weird happened.
Ike froze.
“That’s… uh…”
He looked away.
“Um…”
He could probably tell that Mist was getting impatient now, so he pulled his hand away from her and waved it dismissively. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, sitting up on the cot and nodding. “Nothing, actually.” It was like he was trying to be obvious about how something was wrong, but Mist knew Ike’s mannerisms were just something that happened subconsciously.
On one hand, she was relieved that what Tormod said wasn’t true, but on the other, she was more than worried for Soren now. She grabbed Ike by the shoulder so she could catch his eye, and when he looked at her, she furrowed her eyebrows. “It’s not something bad, is it? Is it a hex? Is he gonna be okay?”
(Mist had no idea what to do about hexes, since she had never even seen one in person before, but that wasn’t about to stop her from attempting to heal him, or taking him to a church, or something.)
Seeing the emotions run wild on Mist’s face, Ike leaned over and gave her a small, tired smile. “He’ll be fine. Just… I think the last thing he wants is for you to think about that mark. Really.” He put a hand to her head, now a bit more stern. “Don’t ask him about it, okay?”
There was silence. It was clear that Mist’s curiosity had led to the discovery of something very wrong, and it should be in her best interest to not prod any further.
So Mist nodded.
“...Okay.”
***
Of course, there was a huge difference between asking Soren and trying to get the information she seeked on her own, which was what she ended up doing.
When Mist came to Rhys asking for all the books on the body and hexes that he had, he gave them to her gladly, thinking that she was looking to expand her healing horizons on the battlefield. He technically had the right idea— she was going in to learn something, but not anything that she could use in battle, unless more people started to get strange marks on them soon. Once she had an entire pile of books in her arms, she scurried on back to her tent and closed its curtains behind her. Though she shared it with Jill, the wyvern rider had only just recently departed to scout ahead with a few other members of the Greil Mercenaries, leaving Mist behind with plenty of free time before she had to hide her studies.
The first book she picked up was about the body, and all sorts of functions of it. However, this covered diseases and internal mutations, and failed to have anything that seemed even remotely related to what she was looking for— mainly, a forehead marking, or at least something describing characteristics of Soren (small, proficient in magic, pale) for her to relate to.
The second and third books were smaller, but had the same concept as the first. The third did, however, have an extra section with skin diseases and infections, but nothing stood out to her, either. By now, a good hour had passed, and Mist was getting a bit more impatient, so while she looked over the third book’s contents, she flipped open the fourth, which seemed to be some sort of encyclopedia, and let her eyes flit between what she held on her lap and what she laid out on her bed.
Luckily, she wouldn’t have to do that for long. Mist quickly reached a section in the encyclopedia made up entirely of pictures, and the first page had a typical beorc body outlined on it, but now, dozens and dozens of intricate, bright marks adorned the body— on the forehead, on the back, and a few other random spots.
She snapped the third book shut and tossed it aside to get a closer look at the diagram. The marks on the beorc’s body weren’t like Soren’s in their exact design, but they had the same deliberateness that told Mist that this was the page she was looking for. She brought the book closer to her face, as if trying to literally absorb the words.
On top of the diagram was the word “Branded”. Then, underneath that word was a small explanation of the term, followed by another paragraph of long-winded characteristics of said body type.
“Branded,” Mist read aloud. “Someone who is half human and half sub-human, that—“
She blinked, then read the opening sentence again.
When she discovered the text hadn’t changed and what she had just read was actually what she had just read, she stared at the page in silence.
She paused. Read the short intro paragraph— Branded: Someone who is half human and half sub-human, that is made under the taboo reproduction between the two races. They typically have a marking on their body, hence the name Branded. — Then paused again.
Oh.
Soren is half beorc, half laguz.
If she thought about it, the secrecy made perfect sense. Soren wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of the laguz— why would he want anyone find out he was half of one? Sure, Ike was an exception, since it seemed like he knew the truth from his reaction the other day, but she imagined he hadn’t found it out with much ease, either.
“...No wonder Ike didn’t want me to look into it,” she mumbled and studied the diagram, her eyes going down to the list of characteristics shared by most Branded. “Soren’s probably embarrassed by it, or maybe there’s something deeper to this that I don’t get…”
She continued looking over the entire page once more, scanning to see if there was anything particularly life threatening that came with being Branded— it seemed silly, but she was concerned about that the most out of anything. Fortunately, there wasn’t, and she discovered they were actually fairly sturdy beings, with their longevity making Mist’s head spin. Imagining Soren living for over 500 years was scary, but also hilarious to her, in some way. He’d probably still look just as young as he did now when she would be an old lady...
Once she was done with gathering all the information she wanted to know, she slammed the encyclopedia shut in relief.
If the Mist of many months ago were reading the book she held in her hands, she might have been a little scared of the fact that Soren was half laguz. She had thought they were intimidating, that their power to shapeshift was unnerving, and she had no problem admitting to that— part of growing was acknowledging how she felt and working on it.
So, now was different. It had been so long since then, and Mist had matured, not to mention met all sorts of laguz since. She came to realize they were just like her— even someone as big as Mordecai, who was just as scared to speak to her at first as she was of him! The only thing that made them different was that he was a laguz and she was a beorc, but that couldn’t stop them from being friends. Surely, that wouldn’t change with Soren, either. After all, they had already been friends for so long. A small detail like this wouldn’t stop her.
More than anything, she was just glad he was safe, because the hexing books were looking daunting. Maybe that was why many mages weren’t fans of advanced dark magic...
***
Now that Mist knew what she wanted to, and was satisfied by the answers, she needed to return the books she borrowed from Rhys. In case he asked her what she was looking for exactly in all that she had taken from him, Mist studied up briefly on resetting bones back into their sockets just so she could tell a convincing coverup story— if she was going to know Soren’s secret, she was going to make sure she protected it, no matter the cost. And it was lucky she did, because Rhys asked for her to share her studies as she had set the last book back on his desk.
“You’ve never been once for more hands-on jobs like that…” Rhys mused as he took each book individually and put them back in separate stacks in a crate nearby his cot. “Remember when we had to reset Titania’s shoulder a few months ago? You wouldn’t even stay in the same room.”
“Well, y’know… I felt really guilty about that!” Mist flubbed— though she loved Titania, on that particular day she was so exhausted from battle that she didn’t want to even look at another patient and just let Rhys handle everything. “So I worked up my courage and learned how to do that kind of stuff, in case it happens again.”
Rhys nodded, seeming pleased with Mist’s response. Then, with uncharacteristically dramatic flair, he held up a book that said The Dark Warlock’s Guide: Hexes and You! , a grin on his face. “And this?” He asked.
Mist looked off to the side. “W-Well, uh…” She hadn’t come up with a story for the hexes, she just realized, and now she was frozen. And she definitely wasn’t good at on-the-spot lies… She nervously tensed up, ready for Rhys to chew her out.
Luckily, the bishop just put the book away with the rest of them. “Let me guess: want to learn some magic but don’t want Ike to get all worked up over it?” He asked, teasingly.
Mist felt a wave of relief rush over her at the chance to escape the confrontation. “Yes, that’s it! So don’t tell him about it, okay? Besides, it ended up being too hard, so I’m gonna quit…”
“That’s because you tried to start with the hard magic first. Here, I have a beginner’s guide to conjuring up some fire, you can take it.”
“Huh? Oh, I don’t need…”
“No, take it! I was going to throw it out, anyways, so you might as well.”
“No, Rhys, I…”
“And take this tome, too, so you can practice, okay? Preferably in an open area so nothing starts to burn.”
...A lot happened, and Mist ended up leaving Rhys’s tent with some things she didn’t ask for— two books and a number of safety bandages in case she burned herself, all courtesy of Rhys. She’d have to find a way to get rid of everything without him finding out, since she wasn’t particularly interested in magic, but at least there was a small victory in all of this— Soren’s secret had been successfully protected. No one would ever find out, at least, from her… And that made her content.
While deciding what exactly to do next on her way back to her tent, however, she was stopped by a familiar face turning the nearby corner— the tactician himself, Soren.
For a second, Mist panicked, thinking maybe he could sense she knew something, but he approached her with ease, raising his free hand slightly. The other had a pad of paper and pen held in its grip— he was taking inventory, it seemed. “Catching up on some reading, I see,” he called out as he got closer. “A rare sight for you.”
She rushed up to him, stopping by his feet. “H-Hey, don’t be mean! I read plenty!” She didn’t, but she didn’t want to let Soren get away with his remark, either.
“I’m sure you do,” Soren grinned slightly and bopped her on the top of her head with the paper he held. “Just like Mia apparently knows how to hold her tongue.”
It was a joke, Mist knew, but it was said seriously enough that if Mia were around, she might have taken it as an insult. He was always like that, whenever he kidded around— it was always just a little too stiff, anyone not too familiar with him wouldn’t see his jokes as jokes.
That’s right, he was no different than he had always been.
Same ol’ Soren, no matter what. Branded or not.
Thinking about that made her break out into a smile. “Yeah, real funny, Soren.”