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Soulmates, the word was not new to me, my mother taught me about them when I was younger. They are a rarity to find, and you never know for certain if you’ve found yours. Everyone has a soulmate, yes, but the reason you never know is their heart beats in time with yours perfectly. Sure, two peoples hearts may beat at 68bpm (beats per minute), but its entirely impossible to know if that 68bpm is in perfect sync. The beats may not line up, or one person may be 68.1bpm and another may be 68.2bpm. Even such a minuscule difference can tear a couple apart, so most witches ignore their existence. We just don’t have the technology to assure such things.
I’ve always hoped that I find mine, I know logically I probably won’t. I was told I had an overactive imagination as a child for this hope, but I couldn’t help it. Something in me told me I would meet my mate someday, someone who would love all parts of me. Someone who wouldn’t say they had feelings for me whilst engaged to another woman.
Sure Abigail may tease me, but I can tell it is out of love, and I can tell that she doesn’t want to just settle down with anyone, so I know she can at least somewhat relate to my dislike of the handfasting and its mediatory status. Raelle wasn’t interested for other reasons. And so, the tradition of our unit breaking every rule in the book but still somehow managing to be the favorite continues, or at least I hope it does.
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The doll house was terrifying, what was even more terrifying was the implications of what this new unlocked ability meant. First Abigail and Raelle are lab rats, then just Raelle, and I spoke up about my ability. I’m sure once the lab is open my testing will begin
Weeks pass, and I’m not summoned, and honestly it is surprising. Everyone seems very pleased with my progress in war college, but I almost feel like I’m cheating.
I’m not even trying, I can just see the answers, the only real thing I have to try for is mothertongue and with only one subject to study for I seemingly have a lot of free time on my hands. Sure, I am tutoring Penny, but she is a quick study and she will be ready for basic months before it arrives.
What I am truly interested in is the small tendrils of magic that flow from the heart of everyone I see, each one pulsing, reaching out for something. It didn’t take me long to deduce that it is the magic that controls soulmate heartbeats. What keeps me so confused is that I can’t see my own. I refuse to believe that this means I do not have a soulmate. That would be a slap in the face that I could not handle.
Seeing people’s heart rate isn’t all that it is cracked up to be either. It is supremely awkward to see Abigails after she returns from saying goodbye to Adil. Her magic is strong and the tendril is pulsing much faster and harder than it was when she left. I decide not to mention this to her, I don’t want to upset her, when it is clear that Adil must leave. What is even more concerning is that Raelle’s is almost clear. I don’t know what that means. The beating of the tendril is perfectly healthy so I know her heart is healthy, but something is up with her soulmate connection, I just don’t know what yet.
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After my latest episode as Abigail has come to call them I can’t help but storm into Alders office. I am livid and I can’t understand that the same caring woman who came to check on me after I was de-biddied is the same woman who seemingly murdered people who had already surrendered. I try to keep a level head considering this, I really do, after all I only saw a short snippet of a conversation, but it seemed really damning.
I throw the doors to her office open without a single knock. This is so breaking protocol but I cannot bring myself to care. I have to know. The biddies are hissing but I don’t care. Im addressing this, and I'm addressing this now.
“No more lies. Who is Nicte Batan?” Alder inhales sharply dropping her glass of wine onto the once pristine wooden floor of her office.
The biddies quickly close the door behind her and hiss once more. Im disillusioned to them, I was one of them once, and I know that not a single one of them chose to hiss. Alder steps around her desk and I just now notice that her hair is mostly down save for one braid, I note that she looks gorgeous right now, but now is not the time to be dazzled out of being angry so I shove that thought aside.
“How did you know that name, who told you? What do you know?” Alder seems concerned, in fact if I didn’t know better I’d say that she was panicking.
“I’ve been having visions of the past. Your past. First it was in a jungle and we were being attacked by giant millipedes and I woke up with stings on my stomach, that first vision happen the very night you checked on me. I saw Nicte use off-canon magic. I can see magic like I could in the doll house. I was showing Penny around and I saw a photo that Nicte was magically scrubbed from. Then I pass out at the ceremony in Bellweather hall and see Nicte calling your heart black as a building was burning. I could hear people screaming. What did you do? You cannot half truth you way out of this one General. Who. Is. She. And why does she not exist anymore.” I am physically trembling when I finish.
Multiple times during this Alder flinches. Clearly I have caught her in a vulnerable state, and off guard. Maybe this means that I will get a true answer out of her.
“I wasn’t aware that my past was afflicting you so. It seems our bond runs deeper than I feared” I don’t even give her the chance to finish that statement.
“Our bond? Our bond? I just told you I know that you’ve committed war crimes and you’re worried about our bond? Don’t deflect this. Answer me.” I have gone from trembling to vibrating.
Alder steadies herself with a breath, clearly trying to keep calm since I could not. “Tally, I am not sure what to tell you. I will not lie to you and say that you are dreaming. Nicte Batan existed, I made massive mistakes in the way that I handled her work and it ended with some of my daughters dead. My misjudgment lead to the Spree being created which has lead to the death of hundreds of thousands. I feel guilt over it every single day. I am not a pretty person Tally. If I recall correctly, right before we deployed before you saved me, you expressed how little you had come to trust me. Your entire unit has not been known to be my largest fan. I have made mistakes, many of them, but it was never with malicious intent. I have always strived to keep our kind safe.”
In that moment I become aware of everything, I can suddenly breath again. I wonder idly if magic is calming me down but I don’t see any, until I do. Alder’s tendril has extended across the room, I’ve never seen one so long before and I assume it is just because she is so much older than everyone else. Then I see it. The biddies connect with Alder’s, but not in a head on way, each is to the side of her tendril. Alder’s tendril is pointing directly at me, until it extends and it connects to my heart, almost as if it is my tendril.
Wait! I can see my own tendril, it just seamlessly connects to Alders in the same way the biddies do, except mine is head-on. I take just a second too long to process before I realize.
Oh my goddess. Sarah Alder is my soulmate.
Im fighting with my soulmate.
Im fighting with my soulmate over war crimes.
“General I don’t fell too -“ and everything turns black.
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I awake in the infirmary bed next to Abigail, she is sleeping soundly and Raelle is curled around her. Alder is pacing the room speaking to
Izadora about wether or not my visions can be turned off. I listen for a few moments and come to realize this was only for my health since they have left physical wounds before, not because alder wants to hide anything from her.
I decide to let my consciousness be known so I rollover and groan just a bit. Both women race to my side. Izadora already making all kinds of magic above me to check my health. More interestingly, Alder is immediately at my side holding my hands. I haven’t even told her about our connection. I reflect on our recent bond and I realize that Alder has treated me differently since our return. For the first time I realize that the feelings for her I had been struggling with recently might be reciprocated, and that was a scary though. Then I realize the reason I was so hurt by my last vision, I love her, and that is an even scarier thought.
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For the next two weeks I try to avoid Alder at all costs, which typically wouldn’t be that hard. Alder, however, seems hell bent on seeing me. One day I wake up feeling like I was hit by a truck and I decide to have my unit inform my professors that I am ill and will be absent. That wasn’t a fully thought out plan though, because at around lunchtime Alder shows up to my dorm with food in hand, it s a sweet gesture but its the last thing I want right now. I decide letting her in is the best course of action considering I’m starving, and we have to face this eventually. I decide to say something before she can.
“Hello general. Thank you for the lunch, genuinely, but I am very ill and I wouldn’t want the highest general we have out of service in a time like this.” I take the lunch from her hands and try to close the door on her but she catches the door and has no problem pushing it back open even with me still trying to close it.
“Tally we need to talk.” Her voice is stern, it is very clear she isn’t leaving here until everything is resolved.
“Look, General, I won’t tell anybody what I know, secrets keep and all of that. Now can we let this go? I don’t feel well and I’m starving.” I hope I don’t sound as exasperated as I feel, but I have never been good at hiding my feelings.
“No, Tally. We are talking about what you’ve seen and that final.” She sits on Raelle’s bed and I chuckle to myself thinking about what her reaction would be to seeing that.
“Okay, go on.” I open the meal to find what seems to be a home cooked meal. Nice touch.
“What you saw with Nicte was a massive mistake. The off-canon work you saw is the precursor to work the spree use in their balloons, but what you saw was the first cell of the Spree burning alive from their use of trying to replicate the work Nicte had used. See, the first cell of the Spree came from the soldiers the were there in the jungle, the battle that you saw, and witnessed the power that that off-canon work held. I saw the danger in it, and forbade those soldiers, including Nicte from looking into that work again due to its dangers. For the most part, the agreed. A select few did not. Very quickly I found those who had disobeyed orders and I was going to punish them fairly for that, until I found that they had created an uprising group, one that believed that the army was corrupt, that I was corrupt and power hungry. They had plans to kill me, and place themselves in charge. I had them held in cells until the law was made clear on how to handle such deeds. Before I could stop them, my at that time second in command burned them, and ironic death. Nicte of course found the scene before I did. Like you, she assumed I issued the orders. She left the army and disappeared. My second in command was sentenced to life in prison for her insurrection. Nicte was mandated to be wiped from any history by the Hague, as well as any other soldiers who died in that fire.” Alder looked at me, her eyes pleading with me to believe her. I never thought the general was even capable of feeling such an emotion.
“Thats horrible, why not set the record straight now? That must have been at least 60 years ago.” I can’t help but believe her. What advantage does she have to lie. Whether or not it was a misunderstanding, it still happened. I could still do loads of damage with this knowledge.
“Nicte passed away years ago, and I thought it was best to let her rest. I also do not want attention brought upon Nicte, I do not wish her to go down in history as a villain, I loved her once, and she loved me.” The jealousy I felt hearing that took me by surprise, and it must have been written on my face. “Tally? I thought with Raelle being in you coven and growing up in a matrifocal society that you wouldn’t hold such a bias.” Yup, it was definitely written on my face.
“No! That’s not! I’m not! It isn’t!” I stop to take a breath. “It isn’t your attraction to women that upset me. Upset isn’t even the correct word to use.”
“Tally, what do you mean?” Alder looked dumbfounded.
“I was jealous.” I say sheepishly. I steel myself with another breath. “I have feelings for you. I have, pretty much since I re-gained my youth.”
Alder moves to sit next to me. She places a hand on my back. I steel myself ready for the rejection that I know is coming.
“Oh, Tally,” Alder’s hand cups my face, and in that moment, I let myself have hope. I glance down, and the proof that she is meant to be mine is right there, beating quickly, but as one.”you are a wonderful girl, and powerful witch. Anyone you set your sights on would be lucky to have you. The feelings are reciprocated, but I didn’t let you have your youth back just for you to come running back into my arms.”
I panic, and before I can stop myself, I'm blurting out, “You’re my soulmate! I’m meant to runt to your arms!” Almost as if I live in a cartoon, both my hands fly to my mouth.
Alder opens and closes her mouth a few times before she finally finds words to fill the silence. “How can you know for sure? Tally there isn’t a test for these things, and we know there is a bond from you becoming a biddy, how are you certain that it is us?”
“Because I can literally see it. I told you I can see magic. I can see incomplete soulmate connections on everyone, except myself, and when we enter the same room I can finally see mine, and ours connect, head on. Its different from your biddies because I can see that bond too. Theirs connects to the side to you, never head on. We are meant for each other General.” Both our heads snap at the sound of glass shattering. Izadora has dropped afternoon tea.
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to intrude! I just heard you were ill and wanted to check and make sure that it wasn’t related to the fall you took a couple weeks ago. Congratulations you two, I will be seeing myself out.” Izadora quickly closes the door behind her, leaving the mess she made in her rush to leave.
Alder chuckles and cleans up what she can. She empties everything into our trash can. “Tally?”
I stand, “Yes?”
“Come here.”
I walk to her and play with my hands when I arrive. She lifts my chin so I meet her gaze and she kisses me. I don’t know how to describe how right it feels. Our lips slot perfectly together. Her hand migrates to my jaw and her thumb strokes my cheek. Her other arm wraps around my waist while both my arms rest on her shoulders. The kiss is chaste and warm.
“Oh, and please, call me Sarah.”