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You don’t remember how old you were when you realised what it was.
You do remember the dinner - a long table of carved crystal warmer than the stares weighing on you, the finest food in the system left untouched on the table - and keeping your head down, trying to avoid looking directly at any member of your family. You remember your gaze landing on your wrist and thinking-
Oh. It’s a match.
An old thing from bygone times, when harnessing fire was necessary for survival, when the only way to live was to risk the flames.
You wouldn’t even have recognised it if not for having seen a picture of an old soldier holding one in some history lesson or another.
It was equal parts unsettling and fascinating and, although no one would take your questions about it seriously, it kept you company through many a long, awkward, landmine-ridden conversation.
+ + + +
(Nerissa worried. She’d glance at it on occasion, quiet. One day, away from the veiled barbs and sharp looks of your other siblings, she grabbed you by the shoulders, stared you in the eye, and said:
Fire is a dangerous thing, my treasure. It only takes a spark to ignite. Be careful. )
+ + + + +
No one knew what yours was, of course.
It wasn’t the done thing, showing the marks, not in polite society anyway.
Besides, if they were publicly known, Nerissa says, there would be hundreds of people clamoring at the gates, claiming to be a match for the royal children. It would take a few days to disprove each claim, time better spent elsewhere, not that your father would ever even entertain the idea.
(You don’t know how old you are when you realise your mother’s marks are not a match for your father’s.
You’re fifteen when you hear your older brother dismiss the idea as a romantic fascination of the lower classes, who cannot marry for power and influence.)
Would it be so bad, you wonder, to meet those people?
Even your older siblings agree that making connections with the right sort is important. You’re not sure you know what they mean by the right sort but you’re sure you don’t think it as important as they do.
All you need is one person. Just one.
It doesn’t even have to be your soulmate, you think, as the twins ignore your attempt at joining their game, just one person to play with. To speak to.
Surely, if you met that many people, you’d be able to find a friend?
+ + + + +
You don’t know what his is.
It’s not the done thing, showing the marks, especially not to people beneath your station.
(You don’t think you care about that but Nerissa told you to keep it hidden, keep it safe, so you do.)
So, it isn’t until the morning after the meeting that you notice the new addition.
Curled around the thin, pale handle is a bright green stem, culminating in a little gold bud right above the head of the match, so close it almost seems to be resting on it.
You stare. You stare and you keep staring, because it has not changed once as far as you can remember, and you know what this means, but yesterday was spent in isolation, pushed away into an insignificant corner, and you barely saw any living soul except for Nerissa, and the Royal Guard captain, who introduced you to-
The cutlery clatters to the floor.
(Later, the sound will ring again in your head, the herald of happiness. Later, the sound will ring again in your head, when you’re stood frozen in the dark, alone alone alone -)
You rush through the endless corridors, ignoring the astonished looks sent your way, looking for him. It takes insisting that another member of the Royal Guard show you where he is, that it’s important and it can’t wait until he’s done being shown around, to find him.
“Show me,” a demand more than a request, but he doesn’t sputter as anyone else would have done, only raises a brow before lifting up the sleeves of his uniform.
There’s the match and, peeking from behind as if hiding, a tiny thing of green, with a gold bud.
+ + + + +
(Zovack is a damn genius, Damon will tell you later.)
+ + + + +
Time flies after that.
You have what you wished for all those years ago - a friend, someone of your own, someone who cares about you, even if it’s out of obligation at first.
You have comfortable silences and hidden jokes, mischievous smirks and nervous smiles, rule-breaking plans and newfound freedom.
(The bud blossoms, little by little.)
You have pearls of laughter hidden in secret passages, sparkling green eyes daring you to move, firm hands on your waist and red strands clutched in your fingers.
(The flower is beautiful, all delicate, shimmering petals, its golden colour regally complementing the deep red of the little matches surrounding it.)
You have happiness and comfort, dreams and hopes and enough courage to realise them someday, and a sense of belonging so deep it's carved its way into your soul irreparably.
+ + + + +
(No one notices the change. No one but Nerissa, whom you’ve told, all excited, heart aflutter and shining with happiness.
She looks at you and for a moment, you see doubt and dread. Just for a moment, but it’s enough to make your words falter. She sees the change in your expression, of course she does, and is quick to offer reassurance but her smile is too brittle.
You swallow down your own rising doubts.)
+ + + + +
The screams are drowned out by the pounding of your heart.
You run and you run and you run, desperately looking around for a flash of red, but all the ones your gaze lands on are wrong, too deep and too dark, splattered and pooling and the cries-
The bridge isn’t what makes you scream out. Your hand clutches at your wrist, the burning sudden and sharp, scorching its way up your arm as you shout yourself hoarse, until the pain snaps something inside you and it all goes dark.
+ + + + +
(It only takes a spark to lose everything to the flames.)
+ + + + +
It feels like a part of you is missing.
At first, you think it’s the memories. The crew is helpful, trying their best to be accommodating even if there’s little they can do. Ryona has you come in for some test and it’s not until she asks, gentle and ethereal, that you notice it.
You don’t know what it is.
You know it’s a mark, you know what they are, the knowledge coming from somewhere deep in your mind, but you can’t make out what it actually is.
A thin line of black and scattered grey is all that can be seen. Your eyes water if you gaze lingers too long on it, so you decide to file it away for later, too busy trying to make sense of everything else.
(No one really mentions it except for Damon, who makes a ghastly joke about the incident having broken more than your brain, being promptly interrupted by a horrified June.
Calderon, though… Calderon stares at it, when he thinks you’re not looking, gaze softening with something that looks a whole lot like sympathy .)
+ + + + +
Ayame is the one who notices it.
You’re sitting down next to her as she points out several buttons and switches, going over what they do in a way that goes completely over your head. It’s a nice distraction from the scorching heat of the planet, from the way Oppo’s suspicious - if friendly - gaze lingered on you a little too long, at least, and seeing her completely in her element soothes something in you, so you listen.
“Hey, what’s that?”
The sudden change in tone grabs your attention. You look at Aya only to see her staring with a raised brow, pointing at your mark and drawing your own gaze to it.
(No one in the crew covers theirs and it shouldn’t bother you but it does. You shy away from looking at them, always feeling you’re not supposed to be seeing them.)
It doesn’t take long to spot the difference. They sprout from opposite sides of the black and grey smudge, both a pale, sickly green, one dimly gold and barely there, the other dark red with sharp edges.
The look of confusion on your face is a perfect replica of the one on Ayame’s. You both sit there, staring down at your wrist, until June pops in to gently remind you both that you’re needed off the ship.
+ + + + +
(Your family didn’t put much stock in it. Better to marry for something other than fate’s whims - in a world of gilded halls, ruled by politics and money, such things are deemed unimportant.
They never told you the stories of legendary lovers, the epic tales of romance conquering time and distance, overcoming all the obstacles in the universe.
They never told you about the tragedies either and maybe that would have been more useful.)
+ + + + +
You can’t force yourself to breathe.
He used you.
He used you.
The smiles and the jokes and the whispered hopes, the frantic dashes down dark passageways, the secret excursions down to the city, the gentle dances in the dark, the comforting touches.
All an act to set you up as the unwilling executioner of your own family.
Vexx is standing right there, exactly as you remember him and yet nothing like you remember him, and you can’t force yourself to breathe, to think, to do anything but stare and clutch at your wrist because suddenly all you can remember is the pain, the burning -
The sound of something delicate clattering to the floor rings in your ears.
“You were my soulmate .”
Something flashes in his eyes just for a moment. If your hand wasn’t clamped around your wrist, if you could manage to stop the thoughts swirling in your mind, you think you could call him out on the lies, or hit him, or-
“ And? What were you expecting, Your Highness? An epic romance, a happy ending?”
Nerissa’s warnings, that one look of doubt, of dread, flashes clearly across your mind.
“Life isn’t a fairytale,” he says, harsh and unfamiliar.
But it was.
For a while… it was.
+ + + + +
Calderon’s yelling doesn’t register.
Nothing registers until Bash has pulled you aside a little, to ask if you’re okay, genuine concern in place of his usual jokes and easygoing manner.
You’ve remembered how to breathe at some point. Your mark still burns - it doesn’t, not really, it’s just the memory of the pain, and when you wondered about getting your memories back, you didn’t mean this, you didn’t mean like this - but you’re breathing.
That must count for something.
That has to count for something.
(Later, when you’re avoiding looking at the ashes marring your skin, Bash tells you his mark was on the arm he no longer has. You look at him, a flash of pity and another of envy coursing through you, and wonder whether that’s better or worse.)
+ + + + +
The sun shines through the window into your room.
You stare at the spot on the floor unblinkingly, not truly looking at anything.
Your arm aches or maybe burns or maybe itches, you’re not sure.
It calls to you, the mark, and you know somehow that it’s changed again, even though you’ve never been able to tell when it’s happened before.
(June is avoiding you just like you’re avoiding looking at it. Neither of you can help it and neither will end well.
Some things are doomed from the start.)
You’re not sure what sight would scare you the most: the charred remains and ashes from before, the struggling buds just barely rising, a new match just waiting to ignite, unmarked and unblemished skin?
You’re not sure which one you want to see either.
A breath in. A breath out.
Slowly, you move your gaze away from the floor, first to the bed, then to the skin of your wrist.
There, in the place it’s always been, you see-
Oh.