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Mella was aware of many things about life, even at a young age for her kind. She was aware that her family had a position of high importance and power. She knew her parents married for power, not love. And she knew she had no intention of following their lead. After all, when you are gifted with the power to find your soulmate, why would you settle for anything less?
She played her part as the Perfect Little Princess who would Do Whatever Her Parents Asked Of Her. That is until her 25th birthday. Upon which she flew from her parents cage of a home. Literally. She had been trained since a very young age on how to use magic. Her 6th birthday present in fact had been the attention of both her parents and an extensive training session on the basics of magic and how to control her powers.
She had packed two small bags of holding - one for foodstuffs and the other for other supplies such as clothing, healing items, and several small pouches of money - and dressed in an outfit of her own design. A deep red leotard with a large opening in the back, covered almost entirely by a black poncho and matching slacks. The only thing she hadn’t made for herself were the thick winter boots she had ordered last winter - claiming her old ones had worn down too much her liking, when in reality she wanted to prepare for the following year. After all, she could hardly ask for the mid-summer while she was making the rest of her preparations now could she?
Ensuring she had enough money to last her in the second bag of holding, she took one last look around her childhood room. It was extravagant, even by royalty’s standards. As well as exceptionally pink. Mella sighed at her parents choice of decor and lack of care for her personal preferences. Not like they would have much influence on her for much longer.
Not like they had much influence over her to begin with.
Opening the door to her small balcony, Mella took in the crisp September air. Beneath her she could make out the golden bushy ocean of Golden Wonder trees, and above her the sky was as deep endless delft blue, with specks of savoy blue clouds. She burnt the image into her mind before taking a deep breath and cast Alter Self. From the opening in her leotard, sprouted two large chestnut coloured wings. She had practiced the spell numerous times in the past - a level 2 sorcerer spell was child's play to her at this point.
Feeling the light breeze against her face and her feathers, Mella stretched her wings open wide, and gave them a few tentative flaps, ensuring her spell had worked properly. Shutting the door to her room, Mella said a silent farewell to the maids who had cared for her, and to her child's name.
Farewell to Mella Yaoyorozu.
Welcome to the world, Momo Naïlo.
One Year Later
Momo let out a sigh of relief as she finished up pouring the final potion into its spherical container. It had been a hard day of work - apparently a large order of cure wounds of all types had come in from the next town over, and they were needed by the following morning, so the entire workshop had been in overdrive trying to produce them.
At her current stage, Momo was limited to making batches of cure light wounds, and while she was concerned for how useful they would be for the neighbouring town, Mistress Shuzenji reassured her that even the weaker potions would be of use, and could make the difference between life and death.
Bidding farewell to her coworkers, and a bow to Mistress Shuzenji, Momo left the workshop for home. It was a half hour walk between the two, but Momo enjoyed it regardless - even simple things such as a walk on her own still gave her joy even after a year of freedom.
It wasn’t until she passed by the adventurer’s guild that she felt the unmistakable warmth of her soulmate markers. Both of them.
Momo froze as the memories came back to her.
***
The pair of horns that marked her left hand had first warmed just a month after leaving her home and title. She had stumbled upon her soulmate - or rather, her soulmate stumbled upon her - whilst assisting in the infirmary at the adventurer’s guild. It was her first full day on the job and she was on what should have been her last patient of the night when her soulmate barged in, left horn broken, a cut under her right eye, and a gnome in her arms.
“Please! You gotta heal my healer!” The tieflings voice was hoarse and dirt was smeared all over her hot pink skin. It took all of Momo’s self control to not cry at the tieflings feet. Instead she silently nodded and took the gnome from her arms, taking a mental note of all the visible wounds she could see whilst grilling the tiefling for anything that could be wrong with the gnome internally.
Thankfully from the sounds of things there were to be no internal issues such as any diseased or poison infections, however there were a slew of visible wounds that required immediate treatment. Momo bade the tiefling to calm herself and request that they could go to the main hall and ask for someone to fetch the head nurse.
What Momo was not anticipating, was the tiefling to rush to the main hall and yell at what must have been max volume for the head nurse, before running back to Momo’s side, staring intently at their gnome companion.
Talk of being soulmates could wait. Someone's life was at risk and it was down to Momo to keep them floating until a more skilled healer could take over.
***
Momo brought herself back just in time to here Mina call out to someone in a panic.
She would later thank herself for standing right in front of the adventurer’s guild, and that Tooru is a kind person.
But right now holy fuck did her guts hurt from getting ran into by a heavily armoured dwarf.
“OhmygoshI’msosorryareyoualrighti’msosorrythatmust’vehurtI’mwearingsomucharmourI’msosor-” The dwarf spitfired while reaching out a hand to help Momo up.
It was when Momo took that gloved hand that she understood why Mina had shouted after her.
“Oh my goodness”
“Oh no”
Momo’s wide eyes faltered at the dwarf’s reaction. Why would you go “Oh no” to meeting your soulmate? Ah, perhaps they were the type of person to prefer monogamy, which Momo could understand but sti-
“Can you let me go please? I… I have somewhere to be and I don’t want to disappoint… either of you.”
Momo’s brow furrowed, “How could you possibly disappoint us? Our markers show that we were made for each other. Surely you can sense that too?”
“Well, yes bu-”
“TOORU!! WA- Oh hey Momo! Perfect timing! This is Tooru! She’s an adventurer and a dwarf and has such a nice voice and she’s great at telling stories AND she’s our soulmate! We really lucked out on her hu-”
“You don’t want me as your soulmate, now please let me go before we all regret it.”
Mina huffed as she towered above the pair on the floor, “And as you can hear, she clearly doubts herself for some reason.”
“I am not doubting myself! I know full well that I will disappoint you! So let me go and let me leave!”
Momo and Mina looked at each other for only a moment before nodding in agreement.
“Nope.” Came their voices, as Momo rose to her feet, still holding on tightly to Tooru’s hand, as Mina grabbed the other.
“Hey! What are you two doing!?”
“You’ll be joining us for dinner of course. We can’t let our adventuring soulmate leave without a good meal.” Momo smiled to Tooru.
“And while we’re having dinner, you can explain to us why you feel the way you feel, so we can say it’s a load of-”
“ Mina ”
“-rubbish.”
At first Tooru attempted to escape the clutches of her soulmates. However both of them had at least an entire foot of height on her, and whenever she thought she could break loose, the pair would lift her by her hands alone
Begrudgingly, Tooru allowed herself be taken into her soulmates abode. Allowed herself to be fed what was probably the first proper meal she’d had in 3 years. Allowed herself to be taken care of. And, for a brief moment.
Allowed herself to feel at home.