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Rin told herself she didn't need anyone. She was like that; always playing the hand she was dealt, relying on skill and luck to get her where she needed to go without folding. She didn't need fate, she didn't need ink in her skin, she didn't need anyone else.
She had watched ink go so, so wrong. She watched it fail to save relationships and livelihoods. What was the point of fate if it didn't guarantee happiness?
And yet... she found herself wistful for it. In her studies, she'd drop her eyes from the teacher and gaze at her skin, wondering if this was the day something would appear, anything. A name, a picture, the beginning of a sketch from someone who'd be a part of her.
That never happened. And all around her was the evidence it wasn't worth it. Couldn't be worth it. Venka displayed hers with cheery scorn, "Whatever, he doesn't own me." Hers had been in a different language, blocky script she'd translated late at night. Just a name. Just a person who might or might not ruin her life. Rin couldn't stand the uncertainty.
With Altan, she often stared at his skin, hoping to see some hint of ink. Some sign that he was hers and she was his. He scoffed at this, "We don't need something so permanent, do we?" What was left unsaid, what was merely felt, was that this was a unidirectional feeling, that he might have her, but she could never possess him. He left his mark on her but it was not and never would be ink.
So much later, Rin saw Nezha's for the first time. It was childish letters, messy and uneven, the ink bleeding on the edges. "My brother," he'd explained, shortly, even as he covered it back up. But she knew the names of his brothers, the ones he was desperately trying to live up to. Neither of those matched that immature script, and Rin tried to hide her stricken face.
Ink couldn't save you from losing that person. Ink couldn't keep you safe for that person either. Even as she pushed her nausea down, she turned over the idea that a fated name didn't have to be love match, a sex partner, a peer. That a match could be familial was baffling to her, though she supposed there were always folk tales of especially filial children with their parents ink on them.
Rin wasn't the only person to not receive a mark. She and Kitay spoke on the subject, often after Kitay had followed research down the rabbit hole, records and descriptions of this person's mark and what the corresponding persons' looked like, interpretation of historical or famous marks... anything could set him off. "There's got to be a reason people get these. We know how height and skin and eyes are passed down, why not ink? What role does it play? Does it do anything, or is it just projected on?" He'd tug his hair and sigh, shuffling research materials around.
One night, when they were tired and sad and desperately lonely she said, "Give me your hand."
And he did.
Her will was so strong. The desire to know another person, to have perfect trust, to forge their friendship into something unbreakable, all of these things flowed out of her and into Kitay in some way she could never describe. She was going to overwrite the will of nature in ink on his skin, and in return his writ on hers. They both gasped at the feel of it, hands clenched together.
Kitay tugged his hand away to fumble at the lamp, lighting the room once more, and Rin rolled closer to be in contact with him again. She could see her mark on his neck, ink flames crawling from his pulse to his ear and up into his hair. Kitay leaned back toward her and traced his mark up her arms, a large flowing set of characters that chained together from finger tips, behind her shoulders, and down the other arm again.
They sat up to lean their heads together, to find each other's hands. They had chosen this. Rin had chosen this. Defied nature and fate to keep the best thing in her life with her, for as long as she could. And he'd bent to that will, ceded to it, loved her and held her.