Chapter Text
Khalid wonders if his soulmate knows he exists. His mom had told him the superstition when he was young, very young, and he decided to play along, thinking she was just going to play a prank on him. Like when they got in the washroom, she would start making ghost noises or something. Instead, he’d found out that he had a soulmate, somewhere out there, a pretty girl with freckles and brown hair, who had a mischievous look, at the time.
He was maybe eight, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Did you meet baba like this?” he had asked, but Khalid cannot remember the answer. He was too busy hearing music that wasn’t there and being mesmerized.
Almost immediately, he tried to think of new ways to make this work. If it was him, a flame, and a mirror that made the girl appear, how far could he stretch it? He discovered that it only worked in the older mirrors - those, he’d discovered, used a silver filament over the glass to reflect, but newer mirrors, cheaper mirrors, used tin or something else. They reflected in a stretched, strange way, and the girl wouldn’t show up.
So, silver filament mirrors were a requirement. He then tested if the shape of the mirror mattered. Khalid bought a handheld, folding mirror, confirmed it had a silver coating, and that night, he took a little candle to the mirror. That time, the girl appeared and she was reading a book, with a candle sitting on her bed, under her comforter, all miniaturized.
Pocket mirrors were allowed, and he checked that experiment off his list. The next involved types of candles and colors, all of which worked - tallow, beeswax, scented or not, they all worked, so long as they were candles with wicks. Matches, however, did not work. They went out too fast for him to even make an attempt. He had one more hunch, but...
“Hey, Nader?” he had asked one day, over a light lunch. Khalid tore a piece of taftun off, and put it in his mouth, “Can you teach me fire magic?”
“You lookin’ to get my ears boxed, Khalid?” Is what Nader responds, “Even if I could, your mom would tie me up by the hairs of my beard for trying.”
“So…” Khalid responds, a sort of flat smile on his lips, “You can’t teach me?”
“No!” Nader stares at him for a moment, in disbelief. “Why even ask? Have you been gettin in more fights, kiddo?”
“Pssh.” Khalid breathes out quickly, “No.” it’s a very bold faced lie - the kids loved to single him out, after all, but he wasn’t asking about the fire for that. “I wanted to test something.”
Nader snorts, “Let me guess, figuring out how to make potions on the go?”
“Now there’s an idea…” Khalid mutters.
And in intent, rapt horror, Nader shakes his head, “Oh gods, I’ve given him an idea.”
The girls are perhaps fifteen, sitting in a parlor. Edelgard had been through much the past few years, and was barely a waif of a thing, in recovery. Still unused to all the new things about her life, like how she would be racked with pain without warning, her sudden, intense longing to always be outside, and the loss of her right index finger. It had been severed at the first knuckle, and replaced with a plasticine approximation. She’d learned to keep it a secret, under her gloves - no one could tell the difference, except for the learning curve of how to use it. People were kind, though, the lie that her siblings had died to a plague and that Edelgard was still on the mend made them forgiving. Especially her current guest.
The Varley girl had been brought alongside her father, and Edelgard had been tasked with entertaining her. Bernadetta, sweet thing, apologized near constantly. They lapse into silence, and then Bernadetta asks quietly, “So,” with a squeak, “Have you met your soulmate? I know most people never do, but-”
“My wh-” Edelgard rolls her eyes, “Soulmates aren’t real, Bernadetta, what foolishness are you talking about?”
Now, to be fair to Edelgard, her eldest sister - the one who’d practically raised her - had given up soulmates early on. She had studying and training to do, so one day she will take her place as Emperor. Similarly, the next two, after, had also given up thinking about soulmates. They’d need to marry someone important, anyways, guarantee power for the family. And so on and so. No one had bothered to tell her this tradition. And ever since the torture and the unspeakable agreement she had made, Edelgard didn’t have the time to consider it as more than a fairytale.
“Your soulmate, er, your majesty,” When Edelgard looks even more puzzled, Bernadetta scrambles to explain, “You know, the person you see when you take a candle and you hold it up to a mirror.”
“It’s a myth.” She responds, sort of blaise faire.
“Well, of course, you’re right,” poor, frightened Bernadetta began self chastising, “Bringing up a silly myth to the princess, what was Bernie thinking,”
“Hey, hey,” Edelgard moved off her chair, to only awkwardly stand slightly closer to Bernadetta, “Uhm, please, stop, I c-command you,” Yes, perfect, Edelgard, that totally works. She’s panicked too, now, because Bernadetta was her guest, and her uncle would be horribly angry if she had been a bad host, always finding a reason to criticize her, “W-why don’t we try it?” Yes, Edelgard tells herself, this is clearly the way to stop Bernadetta’s tangent.
Bernadetta perked up, “Yes, of course!” and Edelgard breaths a sigh of relief.
Not but five minutes later, they are cooped up in a tiny washroom, the doors closed tight, the curtains drawn, and a long, tapered candle in Edelgard’s hand. She almost drops it, but manages not to. A floor length mirror rests against the wall, and Edelgard stares at it. “Is there… anything I’m supposed to say… or?”
“Nope.” Bernadetta spoke quickly, and then sighed. “Usually, she shows up about a few seconds in.”
“Oh, you’ve seen your soulmate, then?” Edelgard asks, shuffling. Her white dress reflected back the candle’s light. “What’s she like?”
“She’s a singer.” Bernadetta responded, a little too quick. “With really pretty, long brown hair, and her voice is so clear and silvery,”
Bernadetta has continued on, but Edelgard doesn’t hear her words anymore. Just like Bernadetta said, the mirror’s image had flickered with the candle, and she’s not looking at herself. He’s a well dressed boy, in finery that’s foregin to Adrestia, but still beautiful, and he’s exactly her age. He looks like he’s deep in thought, playing some board game, and she can tell someone is interacting with him - they appear like a periphery, moving a piece. Edelgard cannot help but hear strings in her head, like her heart is the rhythm to a song, one that’s never been heard before. Her face burns. “Can he see me?” tumbles out of Edelgard’s mouth, before she even thinks about whether she wants to reveal that information.
“And we met once at the- Huh?” Bernadetta tilts her head, and then answers, “No, not right now. Soulmates can only see each other when they both look in the mirror at the same time, both with a candle. It’s rather hard to organize. People usually try at midnight, but Bernie thinks that’s silly, what if your soulmate lives in a different timezone.”
“I see.” she comments, torn between looking away and watching until the candle had burned down. She had too much, too much to do and too much to be - the expectation of war and schemes all weighing on her, barely old enough to comprehend the idea. But then, just as she is too young for war, she’s at the perfect age to fall in love with an idea. So she just studies him, up and down, watching him almost make a move in his game, before thinking better of it, and doing something else.
“So…” Bernadetta chimes.
“So.” Edelgard’s voice is barely a whisper, like she’s out of breath.
“What does he look like?”
“He’s beautiful.” Again, the words come out unbidden, and Edelgard wonders if she should cut her traitor heart out, if it wished to tattle like this. “I-” She’s reeling and searching her brain for words that don’t sound like mush, “He’s like a lighthouse, and I’ve been at sea this whole time.”
After a poorly muffled snicker from Bernadetta, she turns even pinker, and snuffs the candle. Her soulmate’s image flickers, and right as it does, his head turns towards her, and it feels like his green eyes meet hers in a jolt of electricity.
By the time he was fifteen, Khalid had collected ten or so different silver coated mirrors, many of which were small, one of which sat on the floor in his room, and another hanging in the hall. This was amongst a million other distractions he’d grabbed, from tinkering parts to spy glasses and anything that kept him shut up in his room or an office.
Everytime he had tried a new mirror, he’d see something terrible. At this point, he wonders if his soulmate is even alive - most of the time, he had seen her as a bloodied pile of cloth with brown hair. But then, Khalid only had so much space to worry about the girl whose name he didn’t know (But was destined to love, that’s how this whole soulmate thing worked, and sometimes if he stopped experimenting, he could hear her singing despite having never heard her voice. He knew people talked of how love was an enchantment, but this was a little out there.)
Khalid didn’t have it easy. If he stopped moving, he would realize how dreadfully lonely he was. He wasn’t Almyran enough for them, and worse, he reminded them of Fodlan. The same Fodlan saw them all as uncivilized - and this, from a people that invaded them for spices they apparently didn’t use! It was cruel, and it was unjust, considering he’d never stepped foot in the place, yet.
Khalid had an idea hatching in his head, as he collected more ingredients to fiddle and fuss with.
Eventually, though, this collecting had come to an end, when he ventured to Fodlan for the first time. His uncle had died, and he demanded to go. He couldn’t bring his copper spyglass, those were banned entirely. He couldn’t bring the oil he used to grease the machines he’d made, for that was banned too. Though not banned, his mother gave him such an earful for the belladonna he’d collected, so he didn’t bring that either. He could, however, bring his pocket mirror, and he hoped it didn’t break. It was hard enough to source. He’d joked to his mother that fun must be banned in Fodlan, and she told him not to say that once he was there.
Khalid, now Claude, had learned many things very quickly. Fodlan looked like hell from his point of view - could he return to appeasing people by being funny, but in a place with running water and his spyglass? Ah well, he was suddenly thrust into the spot of being Claude von Reigan, unsure if he likes the name and unsure about all this. It was a way in, though.
Khalid was past Fodlan’s throat, a place so few like him had been (without being beheaded.)
For the first few months, he didn’t check his mirrors, instead focusing on bonding with his new Grandfather (who didn’t quite hate him, but didn’t quite know how to relate with him either. Fair enough, he supposed, putting up yet another wall between himself and those around him.) He already knew Fodlanic well enough, and started studying what his grandfather deemed “required reading” materials.
Claude had decided, very quickly, that this church was bullshit. But he didn’t say it aloud.
Instead, he skirted around it. He did not say amen at the end of prayers, but mouthed it, so no one would say a word to him. He certainly didn’t pray to Serios or Sothis, but instead his own gods. Claude was very homesick, and it made him feel a bit better. But he had to keep it secret.
Finally, one day, as they played chess, his grandfather asked, “Did your mother ever teach you about soulmates?”
“Yeah.” Claude responds, moving a piece. “We have them in Al- Back home, too. It’s not just a Fódlan tradition.” He could regale a story about the noble boys who found out they were each other’s soulmates, but then, he thinks his grandfather doesn’t care.
“Good.” They lapsed into silence, again, as Claude captured the white king. So his grandfather then tried again. “Do you know who she is?”
“No.” He moves another piece, suddenly aware of the weight of the mirror in his pocket. “My best bet is that she’s not in Fodlan.” he finds himself lying, unsure as to why.
His grandfather then sighed, and said, “Now, you must know that if she’s not of our standard-”
“Yes, I know, the family name.” Is a fool’s errand, but he keeps that part conveniently clipped. He absent mindedly grabs, and flips open, the mirror. For a moment, as he turns his head back to his grandfather, to be lectured about nobility and his obligation to ensure crested heirs, he sees a ghost of a thing with white hair, staring at him, adoringly.
It’s 2AM, Edelgard. She berates herself, a month later. You saw him once, in a mirror, and you are now letting him get in the way of your sleep. She would then sneak into the bathroom, and see, maybe, if he was looking for her too.
He never was.
Four months go by, and she’s still thinking about him. About the game he was playing - how he considered each move, and while it was silly to dwell on. She tells herself it's because she had so little else to focus on. It was planning a war that she had no choice in, or, she could daydream about the boy, and his game, and the book she remembered sitting next to him. What else could be expected of her, she’s just a teenager. Just a teenage girl, holding her bear stuffy tight to her chest, wondering when the warm, welcome feeling will pass.
Her soulmate was lonely. That was a weird thing to know, Edelgard thought. He was always around people, there always seemed to be a pair of hands or him looking at someone, but there was a lack of connection. He did not touch others, and he did not allow others to touch him. Her soulmate, who likely lived seas away and whom she would never meet, was lonely. She was too.
Another seven months, (making it a year since she first peeked into that damn mirror.) Now her time is occupied, with plans of going to Garreg Mach, of infiltrating the monastery from the inside - and how? As a student, of course. Though Arundel phrased it as the best place to “put” her, she doesn’t think he realizes the secret excitement she has for leaving. Almost a year away from her uncle, away from those who slither, away, no fear around every corner?
Edelgard doesn’t realize, yet, that the fear is now baked into her very being, and will stay there, scarred into her psyche.
No, now, she has two things that make her feel like a normal girl. Excited to go to school and excited to fall in love. If she isolated those two facts about herself, she might appear to have a nice life, cushy and happy.
Pretending, of course, she knows she’ll be playing at school and that she won’t meet her soulmate. She wraps the new cut on her forearm. Yet another present from Arundel.
For months, they just barely miss each other. Edelgard giving up and pinching out her candle just as soon as Claude begins to look for her. They see the other flicker, but assume it’s their imaginations. The brushes become less and less frequent, as they both ready for their time at the academy. Time is hurdling them forward, ever forward.
Claude is stopped on the road - the carriage ride from Deirdru to Garreg Mach taking longer than expected due to some rain. It’s a quiet inn, and his grandfather had decided to stay behind, so he had most of the time to himself. He’d caught up on some light reading, had some tea, and now, as he settled into bed, he decided he might try his soulmate, one last time.
When she flickers to life, fire is playing at the end of her fingertips, and she, too, is looking into the mirror.
Well, that solved his age old query - it seemed a magic flame worked just like a candle. Her eyes go wide, as she surely realizes the same thing he’s worked out. Claude waves, and mouths, “Hi.”
With her free hand, the girl waves back. He watches an idea spark, and she reaches past her mirror to grab something - the collar of her night dress bending with her, revealing scarring Claude is not sure he’s supposed to see.
He thinks of the bundle of cloth, the girl bleeding from within. Before he can try and say - mouth - something, she drags a pad of paper into frame, and writes. “It is nice to meet you.” He notices that her hands are gloved. Maybe her fingers get cold.
Claude laughs, out loud, and then quiets himself, realizing that there are some people who sleep at a normal hour. The two teenagers, however… He grabs his own paper, never far away, in case genius hits. “We haven’t met yet, technically,” he writes.
She rolls her eyes, and he can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking. He’d seen bits of her, and she seemed so guarded. Perhaps that was the power of this song playing in his head - she’s swaying to it, after all. “I thought you might be the type to care about technicalities.” she writes. “Should we save our names for an in person meeting, then?”
“No.” Claude shakes his head. He considers names for a moment, then, considers that they will never meet. That’s how most soulmates were. They were the ideal, the person that no one could compare to, and those who married someone else decided that it was okay, knowing they would always have this hanging, for their spouse would too. So, he writes out, “My name is Khalid.”
“I like it.” She writes back, before returning her own name, “Edelgard.”
Huh, he thinks, just like the princess of Adrestia’s name. Then, he thinks about the fact that, likely, once the little girl’s name had been announced, at least one hundred other little girls got named Edelgard. It’d happened with Khalid, after all, despite his mother’s unpopularity. Besides, what luck - bad luck, might he add - would that be? Telling the princess he’s going to be meeting tomorrow his true name.
But normal people don’t meet their soulmates, and the conversation doesn’t go much longer, for Edelgard looks up, startled, and the flame on her fingers dies. Claude doesn’t let his candle go much longer, worried about what he might see.
Having settled her things away in her dorm, and with no responsibilities until tomorrow, Edelgard had decided to roam, with a sketchbook tucked under her arms. Dimitri, the Prince of the Holy Kingdom, had tried to approach her, and she had swiftly turned away. She did not want to meet anyone, not until the silly dinner she had to attend, where their uniforms would be passed out and their duties explained by Her Shadiness, er, her holiness.
Eventually, she found the greenhouse, and decided this was a place no one would frequent. She thinks for a moment that this might be the first time in years she’s been truly alone. Hubert won’t show up until tomorrow, and in a way, the church was a safety net against those who slither, as they would only appear in disguises, and she knew who was where now. The only peace the alliance she’d been “talked” into gave her.
For one, solid hour, Edelgard does not think. She does not think of war, and she does not think of pain, or change, or growth or even Khalid. She simply breathes, sketching the flowers mindlessly. Hilariously, she finds that her back aches less and that her normal hand cramps have faded, her prosthetic finger suddenly devoid of phantom pains. Or maybe that’s just the medicine kicking in. Knowing the only people around were servants who wouldn’t approach her, she even begins to hum.
Of course, this is where it all goes wrong, because it is that same song, she heard two years ago now - two! Two years ago, when she was frail and recovering and Bernadetta had revealed something to her that could at least provide a modicum of escape. A false escape. And that, of course, led to daydreaming as she hummed, of the years after the war.
She doesn’t actually know what war is like, so her brain skips that part.
Instead, she is at the part where her uncle is gone, where she is working on improving Adrestia, where some magic piece of paper is going to solve all the ills - realistically not that simple, but this is her daydream world, that she’s built specifically for herself and no one else. And once that piece of paper goes into effect, Edelgard retires - magically, her hair is brown again and she is unscarred and she only dreams, never wakes up screaming. And she travels, until she meets him.
And in her daydream, Khalid is graceful and kind and brilliant, with a honeyed voice and a way with words. However, her daydream is completely interrupted by a different voice calling, “Hey, Princess,” as if it were her name, and she shuts her sketchbook, already sighing, already deciding that this boy who she’s not looked up at yet is going to be her worst enemy.
After all, couldn’t he respect that this might be the only freetime she gets!
A perfectly stacked house of cards crashes without a sound, much like the thought that ends right there, as she stands to face her interrupter. She swallows, dry, studying his face as if he were brand new. “Hello. I-” she’s flabbergasted, not a good look, “You must be the house leader of the Golden Deer.” She says.
Awkwardly, he nods, and dips his head, “Claude von Reigan.” He’s clearly running calculations in his head - and Edelgard is running her own, and she’s terrible at math. Claude, but last night his name was Khalid, but she’s not going to say anything, because right now, neither of them will. Instead, she looks down at her sketchbook, realizes so suddenly that she had drawn his face, and shuts it quickly.
He didn’t comment, instead saying, “And you’re the princess, Edelgard.”
She scoffs, but it comes off so false and forced that neither of them believe it. “That I am.” What do people do when they meet their soulmate? No one told her this bit - they’d given her plenty of instruction on how to trick the other house leaders into trusting her and how to scare off the new professor and how to kill, but this?
This is far too much. “How was your journey?” Is the polite thing to ask, so she asks it.
Claude, with some silly look on his face, laughs and says, “Well, it’s great, now that you’re here.”
Edelgard scoffs again, but this time it's genuine, “Really? Is that the best you’ve got?” she challenges.
“Not in the slightest.” he returns, “How about I show you over chess, after dinner?”
Edelgard ignores that the timeframe would set them breaking curfew, and instead nods her head, feeling at once both at ease and absolutely petrified, “You’re on, Claude.”