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In a world full of crests and nobility the very last thing the people of Fodlan needed was something such as the soulmate system. They were somewhat simple, well as simple as waking up one day to realise once blank skin was filled with an image. They were beautiful, mostly. Sometimes they were ugly and strange, but to call them anything but divine messages from the goddess herself to most of the church going folk gave you an eye of confusion and little else. So it became part of its own system, the few things that allowed the common folk to even dream of standing side by side with the nobles.
Even in a system dedicated to them the soul marks seemed to sprout to anyone, with no reason and with no warning. However they hurt, they hurt a lot when they were first burned on the skin. Some would say they occurred when the other half had gone through the most awful experiences of life, as if their soul was retreating into the other's body. Well when a pair of nobles burned together in a riot and a pair of soul marks that were not once there were found on the charred bodies well. It was hard to argue with that fact was it not?
So it was a curse, yet a simple to many curse the soulmate marks. The appearance while it brought together tore apart families and hopes of dreams. Though for the young orange haired girl the idea of soul marks belonged in fairy tales her father would whisper to her around the fire. If she was honest she did see her father and mother talk about other instances of soul marks, the ones were the Nobel so angry they were deemed to be fit for a commoner tore out their throat as punishment. There was a shame to be seemed to be suited for someone with no crest after all.
Most soul marks occurred during the ages of fifteen higher, the amount of people joining the ranks of soldiers at that age made the rates make sense. The horrors of war spared no one sure, but how could one avoid death and hatred when war was something you got dressed for an walked to yourself? So when she woke up one day when she was eleven she was not ready for the pain. Her skin hissed with resistance as it peeled and bleed heavily. There was little the house could do to ease her pain, the sweat dripping down her face nearly took with it all the hydration she had. How was she to eat if she could only gasp in pain?
Though her father did not seem to care, the night as she passed out he left. Out the back and without stirring another sole her father Gustave seemingly thought he was not needed. The dripping wet doll she clung to her body as she slept that night didn’t do anything but it surely became her last memory of him left for years. While it took time to heal the bleeding stopped, the skin eased and even some freckles dotted around where the skin changed in pigment.
It was beautiful, the suave symbol of the sword. While she had not spent too much time pouring over the books in her fathers room about weapons the sword looked other wordly, one fit for a crest. That eased her, well somewhat. The following week shook her mother, the woman holding it together for Annette’s sake. There had been a killing, no well a regicide of the highest order. There was no king, there were traitors in the Duscar people and they were surely almost all killed.
When she was healing a month after her mother still helped her dress her mark , the night air bothered the thing as she slept for some reason. It felt too tingly if she slept with it open.
“Did my soulmate die there?” she had asked.
The older woman said nothing, didn’t seem to react at all to her question as if she had not asked one at all. She barely reacted like she had Annette had said anything at all. But the young girl looking off into the night realized long before she had asked such a thing that she would not get an answer. As much as she had loved her mother she did not seem to like answering the questions Annette had for her.
So she left behind the idea that she would get her answer, pouring her soul into her research to get into Garrech moch she would find her father. It wouldn’t matter that she had gotten her mark that night, nor that such a horrific event had happened. Her father had left her alone that night, that man had abandoned her mother who looked like half a person clinging to her mark still as fresh as the first time the young orange girl had seen it. So she poured all she had into finding the man who left. She didn’t need to chase possibly two ghosts.
Consuming as much Four-Spice Blend tea as the school she went to allowed over time she found herself learning to use a sword. Though she deterred herself there was a sort of ease with wielding a blade, a satication she hadn’t felt with doing another activity. So she got somewhat okay, the tutor there told her if she had little magic she might survive if she were to use it. Well not having any plans she kept her practice to herself after a while.
Getting into the blue lions made sense because of her upbringing, the fellow citizens of the Holy Kingdom of Fargeuos were nice when she met them at her old school. But well, here there were mostly nice. However, looking at the man shooting daggers at the future king Felix wasn’t the kind of man she ever dared to have to be near. So gruff and tough she felt as if though she maybe did walk into the wrong house...But Mercie would tease her, saying how fond she looked at the man.
One day they sat in the classroom, the professor was trying to teach them about magic skills. However it was stalled when Sylvain was showing off a mark that looked remarkably like the holy royal families crest.
Oh.
It had been a while since she had seen another soul mark of someone else’s, the school she went to before they had kept their marks hidden. But well, if anyone were to brag it would be Sylvain even if this was the first time he had done it. The blonde who sat next to him looked rather embarrassed yet not overly annoyed. They had surely gotten their mark at roughly the same time, or perhaps it was recent for Dimitri… The memory of the recent memory to stop the uprising from Sylvain’s memory was fresh.
“Soul marks are useless don’t brag for such a thing” Felix says this rather tiredly. Perhaps he had seen this showing of Sylvain's before.
“It just sounds like you’re jealous ya know, being jealous won’t get you yours” retorting the red head didn’t seem to be mean but rather like he was willing to explain this again if need be.
“Soul marks are useless, a symbol of a loyalty that exists between two people can’t appear on skin. It’s stupid” scoffing Felix looked away so she couldn’t read his expression.
It hurt, it hurt a lot to hear him say such a thing. It was like her soul and the other part of the one she took in cried too deep to be heard but anyone but her own heart. Trying to keep a level face she doesn’t notice when the man who so often glared daggers looked at her so wistfully. Felix didn’t need a soulmate and it didn’t matter to her, she could live knowing.
One day she sees his sword, one that was so other worldly and glowed with a crest.
Oh. Oh. so it would seem she was cursed with a soul who did not want a soulmate.
Over the years she tried not to let this get her down. No she sang her songs in secret and she on the rare off occasion where he went onto weekly battles volunteered to stay home to clean. But well, the sword that swung in the practice room helped make her feel more free. There was little freedom when he stayed at Garrech Moch, they bumped into each other. Or he bumped into her moments of singing quite often.
He enjoyed them, she thought but dismissed. The amount of times he happened to visit the place she went to could not be that much of a coincidence surely… But it had to be, she couldn’t let her heart be set on another man who could leave her once he knew all about her. To lose someone so close again would surely kill her.
No amount of planning can truly save her however, no matter how much she tries to keep her class together she cannot stop a civil conflict between the continent. The moon that set on the last night of their class together felt colder than it had ever. So clear and beautiful it felt like a mockery of the loneliness to come. In the chaos she lost him, her father and Felix. Her whole class which had become part of her family was gone and she was alone.
Dimitri and Dedue were surely dead, Mercie had to leave and so did the rest of them. Back home with her mother she tried to clean, to help calm her mother in the horrible mess of the world. But she couldn’t she couldn’t. One day she collapsed, as she baked to practice she fell to the floor and sobbed. Louder and with more force than any sobs she lost what was in her stomach as she lay on the floor. The local healer called it an emotional fit, the emotions of the last week had been haboured too long.
Waking up the morning after her tears had dried felt like she had breathed for the first time in so long. Like she was living under a mask for her life and it was lifted. Her need to wield a blade rose, her aching for the moon led her to dancing with the sword in the sheith at night. There was so much loss let she felt so whole in those night time balls for one.
Over the years she changes, she has to. Her hair grows and she doesn’t want to bind it down any longer. Her hair is not the only change as she feels the loneliness grow back yet she feels connected as well.
The day she sees her family once again they are saving Dimitri, a once shell of himself still alive. Sylvain kisses him, kisses eyes that cry no tears yet show so much sadness she feels it too. So that day they go around to help the blond that needed them so she doesn’t think about why Felix stares at her so much. Nor the soft songs he hums under his breath.
A chilly night she swings her sword around, it’s chilly and while not as chilly as the Holy Kingdom of Fargues she feels her sword's actions as comfortably warm. As if a fire had been lit inside her stomach she breathed a heated breath. The eyes that land on her are familiar and it feels like she is being welcomed home.
“I see you are still practising your sword skills alone. You have improved your technique, i’m impressed” saying this Felix is walking closer, and closer. And he is next to him and the feeling of heat has reached every part of her body.
“I-thank you the time away helped me” it feels like a half lie. In the time away she had improved and learned herself so well but. Next to him, more than ever she feels more alive than she has ever been.
His fingers brush up her arm until they are touching where her mark would be under her clothing. As if he can feel the part that connects her to him, he groans with a content smile. Unknowingly she is brushing her way up his arm, to a body she had never dared to touch before. Yet she does, willingly and needily. Even though his arm is so heated it’s where her fingers stop that feels like the core.
“Felix, what does this mean”
“It means. You know” still as half gruff his voice feels soothing so out of control.
Whatever is under his shirt she wants to kiss, to ease that heat with her mouth and let him know it’s okay. Whatever was underneath it is okay. Though no words come out she knows it to be true.
“You owe me some songs you know, I think there was more to that cleaning song…” saying this he sounds distant from his own words as he looks at her arm.
“I’ll sing them all for you I promise”.