Archive of Our Own ^beta

a linked path, now torn

we will find each other, love

just wait a bit more

Luke knows to not believe in soulmates. 

He is barely seven when he hears the story that made him have such beliefs.

His father tells it to him by hearth, eyes warm with adoration as he strung together a story about the first two humans who walked the world.

How they share their soul, their mind, and body.

"No human can share bodies!"

His father would laugh, wise and old as he said, “But they were not human either.”

His father continued. The two humans walked the earth, in total and complete adoration in each other's embraces. They trekked lands with dust as tiny as the eye could see, sunk their feet into white sand that melted, dipped their fingers in fresh wet grass as they danced around each other happily.

Their bodies were stitched together with loose red string, their heartbeats together as one. Devotion and passion bled through between them, and they were so, so happy. They were so happy and content in fact– that they didn't need the same gods who had created them. 

If his father's eyes were red with soft, warm adoration a few seconds ago, it was now red with hot, flaming anger. 

His father's face was grim. 

It would darken further as he spoke bitterly of the gods.

"The gods split those two in half," his father mutters. His face contorts to one alike of a beast–he is human, but Luke thinks otherwise. He thinks he is looking at a beast that has possessed his father, and that it will maul his tiny figure.

He feels afraid, just for the tiniest bit.

His father continues. The gods laughed at their creations suffering, cries of anguish the only reply the two humans could give. Their feet forcefully bring them farther and farther, until the distance between them is as far as a lifetime of oceans to cover.

His father paints all the gods as demons. Opposite of the loving visage they had donned. And Luke was sure that his father wanted him to feel the same way.

What Luke's father says next sends an unfamiliar rattle through his bones.

His mother was a god, 

And she left his father.

"My son, I want you to remember this." His father would say, those sunken cheekbones and wrinkled hands scrambling for purchase in his son's feeble, little shoulders. Luke could see the deep rooted heartache from his father's eyes, and he brings up a hand to pat his father's hand. 

It's a feeble attempt at comforting him, but he supposes his father appreciates it by the way that he smiles at him wistfully.

"Don't ever find your other half." 

Luke continues to hear that every day and night, for the next ten years of his life. 

His father doesn't believe in soulmates. 

He loved a god, and she bore a child for him. 

He thought that his soul would be tangled with hers perfectly, a ring snug in her finger as he smiled, he grinned and cried. He thought that their child was enough proof that the creator could, and would perhaps love their creation.

The disappointment tears through his father's chest, and he is left with broken parts to pick up again. 

The goddess left him in pieces, but not before leaving a piece of her into the child she left him with.

So, Luke did not believe in soulmates.

He does so, even when he yearns for one–how he envies the mortals he sees, somehow reunited. Their strings are so tangible, proudly strong, twisting and thinning but never snapping.

He thinks that it's best for his father, who only has him– his son– left.

Luke is twelve when he meets Rosa by the forest. 

He had been playing with the other kids in the kingdom when he had accidentally strayed too far into the outskirts. The thick shrubs and tall pine and acacia trees almost made it hard for him to find his way back. Instead of listening to rationality–that he should retrace his steps back, he instead decides to aimlessly wander through the now huge forest, crickets silent and only birds chirping heard from the distance—in the hopes that someone will find him.

He feels no fear, but he does worry for the other children that may get in trouble if he isn't found any sooner. 

Wandering deeper, he stops in front of a small place by the clearing. He admires the clear skies, the birds flying over him as the leaves swayed, having its personal dance with the wind. He inhales the faint scent of pine, and then something fragrant and floral.

As much as the sudden fragrance tempts him to follow it, he sees a body of water. A small stream, but a stream nonetheless. 

His father's advice rings in his ears.

If you are ever lost, always follow the river. It will guide you back home better than any map a human has drawn.

So Luke sprints towards the source, feet quick and nimble. The crunch of leaves beneath his heel sound only for a moment, before it is overshadowed by the sounds of his tiny intakes of breath, and another step made by his feet.

He was always the strongest, the fastest, the best swimmer, and unanimously decided as the most savage fighter—

Now that he mulls on it as he runs towards the trail of the river, he really is the best at everything.

When he got to the bank, he was barely even out of breath. With soft pants escaping his nose, he strolled on over to the edge of the dirt. He peers over the river to see how long it travelled.

"Um, hello?" 

Luke whipped his head to the side, bare feet digging into the wet dirt turned to mud beneath his feet and he flinched. His eyes frantic as he tried to scour for the source of the sudden voice.

"Geez, I didn't know boys were so easy to scare." It replied, now with a tone he was sure that was accompanied with a sly smile. Luke could feel his brows furrow before he turned his head to the left. And there, he saw her. 

By the other side of the bank was a girl, dressed in a long, white matrona, dangling her feet off the side of the ledge. There was a flower crown on the top of her head, the fragrant now much sweeter and stronger. In her hand was a makeshift fishing rod, fashioned out of a large branch and rope. She waved it around in the water below as she beamed at the young boy playfully.

"It's been a while before you even noticed." She snickers, as she tugs the string of the rod upwards. "I was beginning to think you were blind."

Luke's face flushed red in embarrassment. He quickly averted his face away from the stranger, hoping that someone hadn't seen how his cheeks puffed and his ears slowly became red, too. With an irritated and stern voice he asked the other girl on the other side, 

"Who are you?" 

Even without looking, Luke was sure that the girl was smiling. 

"I'm Rosa!" She said gleefully. Luke craned his neck back towards her. Rosa had a mole at the top right corner of her lip, and he noticed the noticeable dimple from both of her cheeks as she grinned at him.

Oh, and that cute small gap between her teeth. Luke beamed his own smile to her. "I'm Luke." 

He watched as Rosa's eyes widened, mouth left hanging ajar as she stared at him in absolute awe. 

“You’re the prince!” She exclaimed, accidentally dropping her fishing rod in the river. She quickly got up and yelled. “My rod!”

Luke doesn't even think twice to jump into the river. 

He hops down the somehow shallow waters, waist down submerged. He quickly maneuvered his way to the rod that floated adrift not too far, and holds it quickly in one fell swoop. He raises it in the air victoriously. Like it was some sort of trophy to Rosa. The girl's eyes widened.

“Your highness!” Rosa cries, pulling up the hem of her matrona and stepping into the water. Luke spits out a bit of the salty liquid, making a face while doing so. He looked at Rosa, waist-deep in the river and waddling to him as her hands sprayed more droplets of water onto him.

"Why did you do that?!" She scolded, "I could have gotten it for myself!" 

Luke, for some reason, can't help the grin that makes its way on his face. He doesn't bother holding back the singular, loudest guffaw he lets out in a long time, either. 

“H-hey!” Rosa stammers this time, her rosy cheeks somehow becoming even redder as he watches Luke's giggling figure. Luke couldn’t help the rising laugh that bubbled in his throat. He released a loud, high pitched laugh. Rosa stared at him in confusion, but slowly a smile began to form on her own face. Soon after, she was laughing alongside Dream. Their chortles ring about the forest in disarrayed harmony.

Luke was kneeling over in laughter with this stranger in the middle of a river holding nothing but their own wet garments and a fishing rod. 

It feels almost like fate. 

Once their booming laughter died down, and they managed to lift themselves back onto the dewy grass. Drying their legs and feet, Rosa whines about having her matrona stained from their impromptu swimming, and how her mother will scold her once she steps foot back on her little abode. 

"I never knew the prince of the kingdom was such a dullard." She mumbles under her breath, fussing with the dirt stains on her clothes. 

Luke turned to her, and with a playful grin he said; “You know I can have you executed for saying such a thing.”

Her eyes flickered with fear. She instantly took a step backward from Luke.

“Woah–, it was a joke.” He stammered, holding his hands up in mock surrender. Rosa's breath wavered, her chest falling with a loud exhale.

She chuckled airly, something strange stuck in her throat, “Not a very funny joke, that’s what.” 

Luke wheezed, the sound coming out easily from his lips. He laid on the dewy viridian grass beneath their feet with a content smile, the gentle summer breeze making him shiver. The afternoon sun lightly caresses their faces, warmth seeping through the longer they both bask in it. Rosa is not too far from him–she lets her feet dig into the grass, leaning against a tree.

Luke watched the river with mild interest, mind more interested in the wiggling cod. They were far too heavy for Rosa's feeble makeshift rod to catch.

He smiles at her. "Hey, maybe I should teach you how to fish." 

She turned to him. First appalled, maybe because the prince of the kingdom was offering her a chance to fish with him. Or maybe it’s the fact that this stranger invited her in the first place. 

Then she smiled, and it was as warm as the sunlight that hit their backs.

“I would like that.” 

"Prince Luke!" Voice called out from the woods, echoing past the tall acacia trees. Luke shot up from his previous position, mud, dirt, and water caking his fine robes and staining his supple skin. He hears the bushes rustle, and decides it's time for him to go. 

Luke turned to Rosa with a sad smile. His heart ached to leave a sanctuary he wanted to stay on for a little longer.

"I'll be back." He whispered.

Rosa beamed, "You better!"

And so, Luke ran through the pine, followed the river back to where he found the trail first. Leaves and sticks rattled under his footsteps. He was smiling when he got back to the palace guards who looked beyond mortified the moment that they laid eyes on the purple patches on Luke's skin, coupled with the dirt that stained his clothes.

He was still smiling when he was ushered to his worrying father who scolded him for running away.

He wore a certain smile ever since that day.

He is sixteen, no, turning seventeen when he first kisses Rosa.

This time, he kisses her under the endless sky. They are sheltered by a lone willow tree. The summer sun blazed through the sky, as they sought comfort under its lovely shadows. The calming sounds of birds chirping and crickets creaking echoed throughout the forest.

"Happy birthday, Rosa." Luke breathed slowly as he leaned in next to her, their bodies slick with sweat thanks to the sun's heat. 

Rosa laughs. "I didn't think you'd remember." Another giggle escaped her lips, the same one that Luke loved so dearly when they were kids. "Normally, any mundane thing you knew, you'd instantly forget."

Luke scoffed, almost offended. "Your birthday is not a mundane thing. It's the day you were born."

"And anyone else can have the same birthday as me, Luke."

"They're not you, Rosa."

The woman's giggles were heard throughout the forest.

"The day I was born doesn’t uphold the same amount of value as yours,” she says wistfully.

Luke will be honest– he didn't know what he was doing. All his quick wit, and sheer perseverance would not get him through such a thing this time around. No battle strategy, formations and stances could teach him how to hold Rosa tenderly, to sing to her wholeheartedly– no lesson taught in the walls of the library could ever prepare him for something like love.

He must learn it for himself, to learn how it is to fall for someone so deeply that climbing back up is pointless. He must learn how it feels like to offer a piece of him that will forever be lost if ever Rosa decides to let go of him.

He prays she never does, and pray he does more.

He wants to learn love, 

And that first starts with Rosa.

"You're so stupid."

Rosa didn't intend to be rude, not with the way her lips curled into a wide smile and the soft, tender tone bleeding into her voice. By then, empty insults became terms of endearment. Luke was sinking deeper and deeper.

The only way he would ever know of love is the way Rosa smiles under the shade of the willow tree. How her laughs mix with birds chirping in the wind. Her eyes sparkle with the flicker of a flame, the light of his world.

Luke does not heed his father's warnings. He does not listen to the lesson from a man who has always worn his tender heart on his sleeve. The only way that Luke would learn his lesson of heartbreak was from him, and his time with the goddess. It was his mistake, not Luke's. 

"You are the best thing to be born." He would whisper softly near Rosa's neck. Their noses would brush while he held her cheek softly, sharing the same air. 

Rosa would laugh while melting into the touch, "The sun brings out your freckles."

Luke's palms rested on hers, and now he could officially say he held the world.

“Happy birthday.” He whispered, leaning in to kiss Rosa.

Luke still has his doubts of soulmates and destiny. But when he kisses her, when he feels his lips on her, he is convinced he believes. He believes this is all real, this is tangible, and this is pure.

It's too messy and probably has too much teeth for their own good, but it's a kiss nonetheless. It's a kiss he shares with Rosa, and that's all he really cares about. He's letting down the walls his father built up for him, letting Rosa see all the cracks, the holes, the rough texture– all the imperfections, how messy and unclean and how unworthy he really feels. He's scared that once she sees him for who he really is, she will leave. She will leave him– like his mother did to his father.

No, she won't.

Rosa parts first, panting heavily as she rests her forehead against Luke's. She smiles lopsidedly. Then, she lets out a little laugh. And Luke knows right then that he has no reason to be scared anymore.

Luke smiles. 

"Oh, I have something for… um, you." He says while standing up abruptly and going behind the tree they leaned on. Rosa sits there confused until her lover comes back with a long object wrapped in thick cloth.

"What's this?" Rosa asks, pointing to the mysterious object. Luke doesn't explain, he just smiles excitedly as Rosa begins to unfurl the cloth. Rosa rolls her eyes while doing so, and with a few movements, she gently unwraps the veiled object. 

Luke had actually gotten Rosa a better fishing rod. 

Luke is twenty three when there is a declaration of war.

Rosa holds his hand anxiously, and he kisses her hand. He knows his lover is nervous, not for him, but for herself. Her hands shake, not because of the war, but for him. Luke knows.

"My love, I will live." 

Rosa only stares at him, glassy olive eyes trying to commit every minute detail of his entire being. Luke huffs, hugging her tightly. 

His love cries. His heart hurts. There are no words needed to be said, not when everything seems to be set in stone already.

"My love, I will come back to you safe and sound."

Even as the chanting outside grows louder, the two cannot hear anything save for their own heartbeat, their own breath, unspoken words both stuck in their throat.

"I will not lose, my love."

Rosa curls into his embrace tighter. 

"You won't."

"Do you promise to not leave me?" 

Rosa breaks away from the hug to look at him, feigning a face of hurt, even when her cheeks are stained with her tears. "How dare you!" 

Luke does not budge. He is serious, and Rosa sighs. 

"I won't leave you ever, my prince."

That's all Luke needs to hear before he crashes his lips into hers again, imprinting it in his memory. 

Fate, I beg you to pardon us. 

Luke is twenty four when he holds a dying Rosa in his arms.

"N-No, Rosa, please. Stay with me." Luke sobs, throat sore and raw from sobbing and screaming. 

He is kneeling in a barren land of flesh and bone combined. With the blood of men he murdered for his kingdom, staining his armor and clothes. There's a gashing wound on the entire left of his body, scarlet liquid slowly trickling like a broken faucet. He doesn't even feel it, not when the only pain he can feel now is the one he sees when Rosa is in his arms, bruised and broken in his embrace. 

He's on his knees begging, it's something he has never done in his entire life– but for Rosa.

"D-Don't close your eyes, love, I'll stop the b-bleeding–" He shouts hysterically, trying to apply pressure on the multiple slashes on Rosa's body. But her blood is like water– it seeps to the ground, stains both their flesh, it stains the earth beneath them, forming a pool.

It hurts, Rosa thinks. Can't.

"P-please…" He stammers, breath stuck in his throat. He can't stop the barrage of tears that drip down to his chin like waterfalls. "Love, s-stay awake. Please."

Rosa slowly cranes her head to the side. Her usually bright olive eyes bleak. She looks haggard, rightfully so.

She manages Luke a weak, pained smile. 

"R-Rosa." Luke says hoarsely. He cups his face with her bloodied hand.

"Luke," She manages, before coughing into his fist. Luke scrambles, he doesn't want his lover to be in pain for what he grimly assumes to be– the last moments of his lover's life.

He can't accept that. 

"Rosa, love, please just stay with me." Luke croaks, he's losing strength from all this crying. "Don't leave." 

Rosa doesn’t say she’ll be staying, nor can she promise it. She wouldn't want to bid Luke farewell with false promises. So, she stares into the foggy, coral eyes of the man she holds so dearly. They look as bright as the day she first saw them, only the childlike wonder is now gone, and all she can see is a broken-shriveled man. Hardened and calloused by war and grief as he leans over her body. The warmth is still there, but it is the flaming hot grief of a dead man walking and not that of a bright, ambitious man.

She can feel the way Luke's hands shake and tremble effortlessly. How his sobs and coughs wrack his entire body. He cradles her close, hoping to steal the last bit of warmth that she has. 

She tries to memorize each and every bit of him. His silk, messily parted honey brown hair that's matted with both ash and blood. His freckles, that have stood out so proudly, covered in soot. His small pendant with her name etched on it resting on his collarbones, the place where she used to fall asleep in the nights where it was too cold to even nap with a blanket. She whispers words of comfort into his ear, they don't lead anywhere, yes, she knows, but it gives him the solace he needs in his time of mourning.

Luke has given all of the broken, unlikeable parts of himself to her, and he would give her more if she so asked.

With a pained breath and a soft whisper, she mutters for what may be the last time;

“My beloved, we will meet again someday.”

The hand on Luke's cheek falls limp and falls onto the dry soil. 

“Rosa?”

The body he holds does not respond.

" My love. " He gasps, he can't breathe. The gunpowder and smoke fill his lungs, all the scent of war he intakes. Rosa's blood is still warm on his hands, dripping quietly through the cracks and crevices of his fingers. He can't believe it. 

He wishes not to believe it. 

He doesn't want to believe that Rosa is gone, that her body lays unmoving in his arms. That the blood that stains his hands isn't his own, but hers. He doesn't want to believe that the gods have torn Rosa's soul apart, that it has been given to Hades. He doesn't want to believe in soulmates, because if he does–

He is admitting that his lover is dead. 

They took her. 

Blinding anger takes over him fast. He is the son of a god. He will not be chained by mortal limitations.

He screams, no matter how raspy his throat becomes. How his ministrations act like sandpaper rubbing against his vocal cords. He screams, and the ocean parts. The ground around them cracks, turns to a sinking hole, every human around them falling and crumbling. He screamed with such vigor that the world nearly crumbled to his feet.

He cried with such determination, screams the name of the only god he knows. His mother, who knows she will answer.

It hurts, but nothing will compare to the pain of losing the other half of his soul. His wounds still drip blood steadily. Her body feels cold.

They have taken the only thing that matters to him. 

He cries, on his knees, nothing but a dead man who is forced to live. 

And then she descends.

The heaven's clouds part, and all chaos comes to a halt. Her steps are light as a poorly hidden face of mild disgust overtakes her graceful visage. A halo shines over her, but Luke can care less. He does not care for her, nor does he care for himself.

Luke stares at her with perilous anger as she steps on the ground with her blood, and she still smiles. She still smiles, heeding no attention to the woman laid limp in his arms.

“My child,” She says daintily, “You called my name?”

She dares to smile, she dares to not acknowledge his fallen love.

“Bring him back.” Luke chokes back tears, every word he says sets his throat on fire.

The look on her divine features was pitiful, as she stared at the woman of half his own son's flesh and bone. “There is no way to bring her back."

He curses at her, uncaring of the consequences she could lash out at him. He had nothing to lose if he had lost everything. "You're a god, find a way." 

She smiled at him sadly. "I am a god, but I am no almighty being. No one can come back from the dead." 

He thinks back to the river bank. The warm sunlight hitting their feeble bodies as the water is washed by them. He thinks back to the woman whose teeth gap showed every time she smiled and the careless way she laughed. He thinks back to the willow tree, where he had his first kiss.

“Then I see no reason to live any longer.”

For the first time, the goddess frowned. “My son, the value of your life is so much more than this… girl.” 

Luke felt the anger rise in him, eye twitching, nails almost digging into his lover's stiff flesh, she had the audacity to undermine Rosa. The way she stared at his lover like a worthless piece of trash. An object to be discarded. The earth shook beneath him.

"Her life is as worthy as mine and beyond." He whispers, laughing bitterly at how cold his beloved feels. His tears feel as hot as the scalding sun that shines on him compared to what little heat is left of her.

"Why am I here if she is not?"

Luke selfishly believed that she would be here for as long as she could. He believed so foolishly that he would finally be the one to defy the world, that he found his other half without being separated. Now he cries, he has found his soulmate, but the gods have not been pleased. So they tied her to a place Luke cannot reach, in the far reaches of purgatory where he cannot journey to.

They cut the string that connected them together. He all resents them.

He still had so many things to do with her. There were so many conversations they had to pick up where they left off on, she needed to still teach him how to knit, he still needed to craft her a pair of golden earrings she wanted, she still needed to get better at fishing, he promised that he would teach her how to catch more fish—

Luke almost chokes at his own blood, sputtering. There is only pain, pain, pain. Why hadn't they done those things when she was still here? Why did Luke only remember all these things when Rosa was gone now? All the possibilities they had were taken away the moment Rosa's hand went limp.

The goddess watched her only child, clinging onto the body of a woman with half the blood of his own. Sobbing and screaming as he yelled at her to do the impossible. It was almost pitiful, and she would be lying if it didn't touch something deep forgotten in her bones.

It racked at her memory, too. Ah, this is how his dear father begged for me to come back, too.

She breathes quietly, setting away those humanly thoughts. "If that is what you want, then I shall not stop you." Her angelic voice dips as she kneels to the bloodied soil beneath their feet. "However, I will give you a long lasting chance to take another path." 

Luke stares at her silently, hope gleaming in those coral eyes.

"This woman you hold dear for life cannot come back, but a piece of her shall reform and live in another era."

"What?" He asks breathlessly, like a guilty man who has been given one more chance at redemption.

"She will be reborn– just like you. Again, and again, and again."

Now, he understood the weight of her words.

“I can go down to Hades, and ask for her soul to be sent to the Elysium. There, she will be reborn.” She lifted her dainty hand to gently stroke Rosa's cheek, quick and soft like the flap of a butterfly’s wing. She turned to Luke, now both of them were kneeling on ruin and ash.

“I will assure you of your happy ending.”

Luke knew about the process of rebirth. “That means her memory would be wiped.”

“I can make an exception for you, my son.” The goddess says, “But for her? She will need to find her way to you.”

"And what if she doesn't ? What if I never see her again?" He blurts, filled with newfound hope and fear. He’s verging on insanity, he’ll take any way to see Rosa again. He’d storm through the Fields of Asphodel himself, and face death head-on if he had to. No life in paradise was worth the lack of his lover.

Her life's worth to him wasn't something to lightly put on a scale.

His mother smiled at him.

“If you are truly soulmates, then you would find each other even through death.” 

The soft, motherly look in her eyes was odd for Luke. For years he had grown up without it. You could never have a goddess and a mother at the same time, that’s just how it worked for them.

Duty over family, his father whispered to him back then before he'd tuck the blanket over his son. 

She was never there for the times he had needed her, it had only been now that she heeded his call– where the final chapter was slowly writing itself to completion. 

She lifted her hand to his bloodied cheek. It was still warm. 

"My child, rest now."

Blood oozed from the gash in his side, his and Rosa's mixing with each other. His eyelids felt heavy, and his body leaned awkwardly to the side. He felt his mother’s arms hold his forearms, as she gently glided him onto her lap. There he laid, holding Rosa in his arms as he spent his last moments with his mother. 

They were tragic. Their story had not yet found its end.

“I’ll see you soon, my love.” 

Death had been cruel to them in this one.

fate keeps us apart

my love, i will find you now

again, and again. 

It's 1350 when Luke is about to be executed. 

It was supposed to be a simple heist– a quick grab of some cash and dazzling jewelry from some white man. He wasn't supposed to be shackled in the filthiest of cells with his impending death date ironed on his arm.

It hurt– but he bit his lip. Nothing could compare to the pain he felt that day.

He scoffed, pulling at the chains which held him captive. It was his own idiocy that got him here really, he wasn’t careful enough. The sound of the window breaking was enough to alert the owner of his presence. Now the next thing he knows, he is whisked away to a dungeon under the castle.

He lays his head down on the concrete, this life sucks. Born into poverty with nothing more than nimble hands and quick thinking to get him through it all. He had survived off nothing but sheer will- and now he was going to get executed for it. At the back of his mind, he considers this to be a painless end compared to his very first.

He hadn’t even met Rosa yet.

That’s until,

“Comfortable, prisoner?”

A bitter warmth seeps through his veins. Luke looks over to the side, there outside of the corridor is Rosa. Decked in the comfortable clothes of a prison guard, there is a heavy, sheathed sword secured in his belt.

His beloved is a man in this day and age. Even then, that does not deter him from loving her. It is still Rosa, they are still Luke's beloved. Even when society bars them from being together, Luke does not care. 

How can he care about mortal rules when it had done the same thing, all too many years ago already?

Luke rolls his eyes. "As comfortable as I can get," He scoffs, clinking the shackles that hold him bound together. He tries to make his words sound cold, but it's Rosa. He couldn't even yell at her even if he wanted to.

Rosa laughs. "I know you." 

Luke's heartbeat begins to thump. Could it be? He feels his heart jump to his throat. He clamors to try and find the right words to say. What could he say? What would he even say? There was nothing in the world to describe the feeling of finding someone you thought that was already long gone. Luke was left speechless.

"Y-You do?" 

Luke wants to smack himself for how vulnerable he sounds. 

Rosa nods, a smug smirk gracing his features. She looks so different in this form, Luke muses, but even then, he still loves Rosa in all the forms she must undertake. It is their soul he desires, and only their soul.

Rosa nods. "You're the notorious thief that comes and steals from royalty."

Luke's heart sinks back to his stomach. He wants to throw it up, wants the bile to rise to his throat, but he just sits there, wounded a thousand times over. He lets out a frustrated groan, the pain of false hope washing over his entire being.

"My men have been hunting you for years." He says nonchalantly. "You're hard to catch." 

I paid for our love with my soul's worth. You caught my heart and took it away with you when you perished in my arms. Luke replies in his head, because his beloved won't understand now, and definitely not any other timeline that they are both reborn in.

Luke catches Rosa's gaze. His gaze is cold, even as the light peeks through the cells. Rosa's eyes are hollowed– dull olive green, jaded and lackluster from his time of serving the King. 

In this life, Luke is a criminal and Rosa is a guard.

Luke stays quiet- refusing to talk to Rosa, or if that’s really his name in this life. His eyes avert back to the floor. He refuses to meet Rosa's blank gaze.

“I see how it is, quiet huh.”

Rosa sits down cross legged, and stern. Luke only throws him a stare. 

"I don't think you deserve execution."

Luke's head tilts like an owl in... wild confusion. His mouth hangs agape as the fellow man stared at him before chuckling, pressing his crossed arms into his chest. 

Luke shouldn't even be opening his mouth, talking to Rosa, but here he is. He glances at the glinting silver tag– it reads out in bold letters: R., WATSON. 

Ah. So her first name is now her last. Luke makes a mental note of that, even if he already knows at least a thousand names that Rosa has already gone through.

He snaps back to reality with how his Rosa– no, Watson, coughs loudly.

Luke sighs. "You do know that I'm on death row. Why's that?" 

Watson withdraws a cigarette stick from his breast pocket, and lights it up. He puts it to his lips, and smoke puffs out. Luke tries his hardest to not cringe at the smell. Watson makes a funny face at him, and Luke gives up, coughing.

Watson continues. "You're a good man, really. You only steal from those who reap the efforts of the less fortunate." He says, before blowing into the cigarette again. "No good man deserves a death like you do."

Luke hums, contemplating on the gravity of Watson's words. "In the eyes of the law, I'm sinful."

Watson pauses on smoking, brows furrowed. He raises an eyebrow at Luke, who doesn't bother elaborating. "In my eyes, the law does not favor anyone. It is the people who do."

Ah, Luke admires the irony of it all. His beloved in their first life shared together, Rosa had always loved law. Upholding justice, delivering rightful punishment to those who needed to atone for their sins. He would sneak her into the royal libraries, searching for books related to law, even promising her a place in the high court once he rose to power.

It was only a promise. 

Luke turns to Watson, who only stares at him with an intensity he can't quantify. "Even then, the ones who uphold the law are no one else but us," He pauses, shifting closer to the door of his cell, "And the law deems robbery a crime. It does not care for the intent, only the action done."

Watson hums. "Mm, good point. But if we use your argument…" 

The guard presses the cigarette stick into the ground, halting the fire from completely burning the end, before tossing it in an ashtray situated beside him. Luke only holds his breath. 

"Then the ones in power are far more sinful than you are. Their crimes might as well be as long as their list of potential family heirs."

Even when it hurts, Luke laughs. This was another thing he loved about Rosa. So argumentative, smart, and reasonable. Never to bow down, always standing on her own two feet. He remembered the first time he had been defeated in front of everyone– not in battle, not in strategy, but in… a debate. 

Luke doesn't remember the contents– something about giving lower citizens a raise with how the nation flourished, if it was worth the resources put into beings that the higher circles deemed "useless". He didn't support that side of the nation– he was only picked to defend the higher circles, while she stepped up to the challenge. Rosa won it splendidly, giving her a chance at higher education and inevitably giving the lower class citizens a better life in just less than twenty minutes. 

Luke is amazed at how many times he falls over again and again for one person.

He coughs, reminding himself to not be too sentimental. Those are all in the past, he thinks. 

"You're right. Although there's nothing we can do now, right?"

Watson sneers. Ah, the irony of it all. Luke thinks to himself. Luke is filth, and Watson is worthy. Back then, Rosa was the one considered filthy– and Luke, worthy. 

"Indeed. We're under a tyrant's rule, after all." Watson says, laughing bitterly at their shared predicament.

"If they heard you say that, he'd execute you with me." Luke chuckles, and even in the terrible atmosphere, Watson manages a grin. It brings a smile to Luke's dirt covered face.

“You know I can have you executed for saying such a thing.”

Luke thinks back to the river he and Rosa first met on. Maybe this reincarnation of his beloved would be the one to heal his bleeding heart, even when death looms over him just as it did to her all those years ago.

"Then you would probably keep it a secret, would you?" Watson pulls a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Luke laughs softly. 

There's a mischievous glint in the thief's eyes, "I don't recall being close enough to keep your secrets."

A grin creeps at Watson's face. "I declare you now close with me then."

Watson holds his pinky out, and Luke tries his best to not scrunch his nose at the smell. The man notices though, and he switches to his other hand. Luke looks at him, surprised for a moment, then slowly smiles. 

"Pinky promises? The royal guard is such a child." He teases, and Watson only rolls his eyes. Luke chortles, before laughing even when his voice echoes throughout the hallway of the underground prison, his last moments of happiness for everyone to hear. In a place as cold as a prison, his laughter brings warmth, even for a day.

After a moment of near hysterics, Luke entwines his pinky with Watson.

The guard looks at Luke with mild amusement.

"I swear to not have your head chopped off, good sir." Luke does a mock salute, smiling. The guard rolls his eyes, saluting back.

They let go of their pinkies. 

"I'll try to get you pardoned," Watson suddenly says.

Luke can only hope. There's so much he wants to do in this life.

"Well, I'll leave myself in your capable hands then."

The guard frequents the prison from that day onwards.

He delivers him food, water, and even leisure items like playing cards and chess. His visits become longer. The other guards don't bat an eye anymore. They've gotten used to the sight of their most senior officer conversing with the prisoner at the end of the hallway of the prison cell. They've learned that questioning their senior would only result in doing ten laps in the field under the scorching heat of the sun. They all grew wary of the convict at the end of the prison cells who had their captain wrapped around his little pinky finger.

Most of the time, when you wander the halls of the dungeon, you’ll hear laughter bounce from the walls. Now, you’ll see the head guard walk out with a smile so big on his face it could reflect the sun. Now, whenever anyone tries to talk to a prisoner in the end of the cell, he’ll either spit on you and just stay quiet. To anyone else, the head guard is some sort of miracle worker. Being able to tame such a wield, uncontrollable beast like… prisoner Luke (they had learned his name later on thanks to the captain's bantering) is a feat by itself.

Sometimes, you’ll hear the head guard in the king’s courtroom. How he pleads with the monarch for prisoner Luke's atonement. Every single time, he walks out with a sullen look on his face, as he ignores everyone around him and runs to the dungeons.

Everyone knows that glint in their captain's eyes. Even when he stated it was just friendship, everyone else knew otherwise.

If Watson wasn't treasured by the royal family, then he would no doubt be rotting in some corn field having his insides pecked by crows. His kind of love was an unforgivable sin.

A dirty, filthy sinner Watson had become.

Everyone just doesn't question their captain anymore. They keep silent.

Not until the day of the execution.

He sits, the same position he was in when they first talked, both on the same level on the dirty concrete.

He looks at Luke, with a solemn expression, and Luke already knows what he’s going to say.

“I couldn’t grant you atonement.” He hisses as if those words themselves hurt him.

Luke nods. The moment he got into the cell, he knew he would not be able to escape fate's clutches. He's anticipated enough of his past life' deaths that a single one compared to thousands of lives lived is… nothing. A mere counter, Luke thinks, and it's a number that never stops going up.

In those lives, he's never learned. A dead man should learn from his mistakes, and yet he fails every single time. That is why he still lives, he still wants to find Rosa, to be reunited with her.

Luke nods. This is enough. 

"I'm… I'm sorry." Watson stutters out. The amount of times he has said sorry is comparable to that of how many lives he's probably lived by now. "That sick bastard doesn't want to open his eyes." 

Luke hums, mildly amused by the way his (oblivious) lover cusses out the higher ups. 

Watson looks at him agitated.

"Do you not care?" Watson mutters. "You'll be dying." 

I know, Luke thinks. I know all too well. He breathes. But I got to see you again.

"I already accepted it. But… thank you." 

"For what?" 

"For being here with me." You've always been here. "Even if it's only now." You've been here my entire life. Luke falls silent. He whispers those spoken words, hoping that the dread that creeps at his veins does not show through his already shaky voice. He doesn't want his beloved to carry any more ghosts in his back.

Watson looks at him with an intensity barely familiar to him now. He bites his lips, and with a heavy sigh– he speaks with the softest of a whisper.

"In another life, I wish we could meet sooner."

Luke smiles. He wishes for that for every single night of his life. He longed for these hands, entwined with his. He longed to have her lips on his, for their bodies to be caught in a crossfire, for their souls to twist over this mess called love. He longs for them to finally breathe the same fresh air with no death looming over them.

"I wish for that, too." 

There's something so sickening about this tragedy that it causes a deep, harbored resentment within Luke. 

This is enough. 

This is enough.

The loud rings of the church bell suddenly echo in the distance. It's the signal for Luke's execution, his final moments are being spent with Watson. His Rosa in this era, this time.

Watson looks at him, with the most broken expression, his eyes threaten to leak tears, and his lip trembles ever so slightly. Luke has the chance to actually say goodbye to him this time.

“No-- No I-I can get you out.” He sputters, clutching loose straws. “I can get you out of here I-I can--”

Luke silences him with a kiss from the bars of his cell. It does the job, and Watson goes quiet.

It's nothing like their very first shared kiss. It's not soft or sweet. It's raw, all too consuming. He can feel Watson's tears run down and taint his own face. Luke feels the passion to stay, and just burn in sins. Luke thinks it's better than the previous one he had–but really, any kiss from his lover is always worth keeping.

"Don't fight anymore,"

The sounds of guards shuffling to their feet quickly alert them. Their weapons clink against the concrete. Luke can taste death in his fingertips.

"Goodbye, Watson."

The guards finally stop in front of his cell. They all stare at him expectantly. Armed to the teeth with spears and shields, they most likely think he would resist. Luke only smiles. He stands with no assistance from others, and walks to the walking shield around him. Not to protect himself, but the people around him. 

As they begin to march, Watson rushes to his feet. He tries to push through in a desperate attempt to reach out to Luke. There's screaming and begging, but he persists. He claws his way through his comrades, in a final desperate attempt to reach out to Luke's all too quickly fading figure. 

"Don't leave—" 

Luke has already left to face death again.

He's under a guillotine this time– thank the gods for that. He thanks it for being both fast and lethal this time. 

He looks out to the crowd that gathered to watch his beheading. They look almost sorrowful, the children that he fed on hidden street corners are there. Crying as they hold each other tightly. Luke can at least manage the weakest of smiles. He was there for those who needed someone, before his demise.

He catches the gaze of Watson, who only cries quietly, who stands behind his men with noticeably tear-stained cheeks.

In this life, the sides have switched. 

He sucks in his final breath as the guillotine handle is winded slowly but surely. Apparently, Watson had requested it to be as sharp as possible– not wanting Luke to suffer a painful, blunt and dragged out beheading.

He lifts his gaze one more time to Watson, and smiles. Watson only mutters something.

"Goodbye."

Luke may have committed atrocities too far gone that Rosa can't save him, but he smiles nonetheless. He was scraping what little he had left of his morality, but at least, Watson was there to see it. He was there to question, there to see him as something beyond your run-of-the-mill robber. This time, in this life, Rosa would be the one watching the love of his life die in front of his eyes. 

The world would shatter on Rosa– Watson's end for this lifetime.

Luke knows the pain and grief all too well. The greatest grief is to be left by the one whom you love in this cruel earth.

This is e–. 

It's never enough.

He lets out a silent curse, foolishly hoping that his mother would come and descend again.

As he mutters his final goodbye, 

The guillotine drops. 

love, i'll keep chasing

even as my feet give out

we have a lifetime

It's the battle of 1812 where Luke and Rosa never meet. 

It's nothing complicated. It just ends that way. 

He's running through fields and trenches, dodging grenades and that one piece of shrapnel. He has no time for love. His life is nothing more but a forced testament to his country– a glorified hell on earth for Luke. If he had the chance, Luke would definitely travel to the other side of the world in hopes of finding Rosa again.

But now is not the time. It's the familiar smell of soil and rusty bloodshed. 

Sometimes, as he sits in front of the campfire with his battalion, he thinks of a sweet, comfortable life with the person that has haunted his life for so long. He talks about her to his men, painting a pretty picture of his lover back at home– a brunette with olive green eyes who has a voice as soft as their mother's lullaby. They speak of memories on those nights, and Luke always shares them all. 

Sometimes, when the heights peak, they walk home with half as many men that they started with on the battlefield. . He thinks about him, he tells stories of their adventures- ancient Greece, the roman empire to the dark ages. His men would laugh and down a pint, he was known as one to weave such vivid tales. Always in such explicit detail. As if he was there, like he lived through those difficult and perilous times.

He’s a symbol of frayed hope for men with no future ahead of them. They always listen to his stories, grimacing at their always dark ends. Silence washes over them, contemplating at the end. Sometimes, his men think that he's reincarnated so many times, that his ability to tell stories is the mere proof they all need. 

Luke only laughs, but still. 

Luke wishes the stories didn’t all end the same way.

On the days they trek through burning sun, they sing songs to ignore the pain. Luke leads, with old Alexandrian symphonies he sung from his past lives. Even in an array of mismatched harmonies, it's the closest to home that he can get. 

And on that day, he does his duty. He kills, and sullies his hands. He kills innocent people for the sake of a newfound, fragile democracy. Luke hates those days immensely. 

He especially hates the day where he guns down a spy who betrayed them– point blank in the head, one with hair the shade of chocolate and eyes the same shade as emerald.

Luke hates war, and who it made him out to be.

Luke and Rosa never met properly in that life.

how much more do i

soil my hands, waste these chances

of life, death– as one?

Luke is born again in 1861. 

Adopted to a family with 11 children, he was the twelfth child with nine sisters and one brother. With loving siblings and a comfortable life provided by his father, he can't ask for anything else. 

Is what he would say– if he didn't have his eyes opened to the predicament his country was in.

His citizens beg, they all weep, to be free from the clutches of the Spanish.

"Hijo, paumanhin man kung ako ay nakaabala sa iyong gawain. Nais ko lang malaman kung ikaw ba ay may pupuntahan?" (My son, I apologize if I have interrupted something you were doing. I only wish to know– is there somewhere you will travel to?) His father asks, cane in hand as he scoots over. Luke smiles at his father. This time, he is loving, he does not hate such things as soulmates. He is not jaded, but he is not cruel.

His father in this era is not one he resents. He loves him with all the years he's ever lived in his life.

"Opo. Nais kong lumuwas papuntang ibang bansa." (Yes. I wish to travel to another country.) He faces his father, and guides him gently to the end of his room, where his table lay dormant with his study notes. Luke isn't named Luke in this life– he's named José Mercado Rizal. A writer, an ophthalmologist, and many more that he can barely keep up with even his own talents.

Luke knows too much– he may as well put it to good use. His father only stares at him, worried. He is a man who has seen the horrors of siding with the rebellion movement– the bloodshed, the betrayal, how people easily switched from one side to another with just a handsome sum of cash. 

His father really just wanted him to marry a girl, to settle down on a simple and quiet life as they enjoyed their place in the hierarchy. He was near the top of the despicable racial pyramid that the Spaniards had brought over. He was a child considered Tornatras which he would later learn was an archaic description for someone of mixed ancestry from Spanish, Filipino, and Chinese.

Luke's head spun. He thought that the Spaniards wouldn't be like the white Americans that enslaved the people in the South. History is bound to repeat mistakes, his mind whispers to him, and he ignores how it is a direct jab to him.

His father sits on the rocking chair, looking outside the balcony of his room. "Anak, hindi ko na ba maiiba ang iyong desisyon?" (Son, can I not change your decision anymore?) His father sighs, gaze still transfixed on the world outside them. The horizon starts to brighten again, the sunset already strikingly beautiful. Luke sees the vast ocean, in the distance, the forefront designed with beautiful trees and leaves that sway with the wind.

Luke wonders if Rosa would enjoy this. A silent life in a house as large as his. Would she beg for him to go outside and fish just like she used to, or would she stay inside to finally teach him how to knit?

Promises, they're all promises. It hurts, it rips away at his throat, but he doesn't let it stop him. Maybe, he will meet Rosa. Maybe, he will finally stop having to defy fate. He is a dead man with an ambition left to achieve, and she is his only solace.

Luke turns to his father, baggage already being prepared on his bed. He smiles wistfully, "Patawarin niyo ako, itay. Hindi ko kayang mabuhay nang matiwasay habang ang iba'y hindi man lang makatuntong sa kanilang ikalimang kaarawan." (I'm sorry, Dad. I cannot live peacefully when others cannot even live to their fifth birthday.) He whispers, holding his father's hands in a feeble attempt to comfort him. 

He wishes to do his father better in his next life– he promises to do it again, and again, and again.

"Mahal na mahal kita, anak. Palagi mo iyang tandaan at itatak ito sa isip mo." (I love you dearly, son. Always remember that and imprint it on your mind.) His father says, and he nods, engulfing him in one big hug.

I love you too, father.

Luke, age 35, is walking towards what seems to be death for him again.

He is a man considered a rebel, one that goes against the rule of the Spanish. En route from Cuba to Spain, the Spanish Army had detained him in Barcelona, then sent back to Manila to stand trial. He could feel the Katipunan slowly build its forces up, and now had been the time to strike back after centuries of oppression.

He supposes he's lucky in this life– chained but not disrespected, to be tried properly, and not just rotting underground in those same old prison cells. He laughs at it all, even when the soldiers stare at him. 

They do not chain him, they do not demean him. He was barely guarded, and no one dared to lay a hand on him. And so, he'd comply. 

Death isn't the end. It never will be.

"El Tribunal Militar declara culpable a José Rizal por los delitos de rebelión, sedición y concierto para delinquir." (The Military Court finds José Rizal guilty of rebellion, sedition and conspiracy.)

The judge is– of course– his oblivious lover. She stares at him unapologetically, and there are no words needed to be said. He stares at her, then bows. She doesn't look his way.

Ah. It's here. I can see death drawing out their scythe.

The soldiers quickly get him to rise to his feet, and he begins his march to impending death. He wonders if he can go on any longer. It has been century after century, chasing for his love. When he thinks the strings finally entwine, someone is there to break it. 

Maybe his father was right, just once. Maybe he should have listened to the man that wore his heart on his sleeve, for the reason that you could not if you hadn't put heart over mind.

Maybe he really was a fool, and he stupidly followed his father's footsteps. He was stubborn, hard headed, persistent. All the traits that Rosa admired was the reason he had his downfall. 

He's digging his own grave, but it only keeps getting deeper.

Luke thinks– just maybe, in his future lives, he'll finally learn how to stop. 

But in this life… I fear not. 

A line of soldiers with guns surround him, and his pulse is checked. The church bells ring in the distance, the citizens dare not to interfere. Maybe, in another life, he will die another martyr. Perhaps he will be one of the many victims of war at first hand. Maybe he will put his robbery to use again, or use his hand to sully it again.

Maybe he will be born into the military again. Maybe he'll be a politician. A farmer. A royal. A soldier. Maybe he will be born sickly in the next life. Maybe he will be the one dying first. Maybe Rosa dies next. 

Maybe he will be saving lives. Perhaps, he can save his beloved's life even just once. Even if mortal bounds will separate him from her again.

It's all a cycle that he can't stop repeating. He's had his one foot in his grave– and he'll see to it that he puts two in his final life.

No. I'll find her again.

Again, and again, and again, and—

The soldiers raise their guns, all pointing to him. They all look at him with nothing but the eyes of men who have been hardened by war, and made bitter by death.

He doesn't have it in him to resent them all. Not when they have children to feed and families to protect. He closes his eyes.

"Fuego!"

"Consummatum est."

It's never going to finish.

what is our ending?

yellowed pages, kept letters

now are forgotten

i shall stop, and live

and leave you be, even when

it hurts to let go

It's the 21st century, and Luke finally surrenders to his fate.

He sits on his desk, with Peanut on his shoulder, chirping happily as he feeds him his favorite food from his open palm. In front of him is his computer screen glowing with the loading screen of his favorite game– Overwatch.

Things have gotten… quieter ever since Luke gave up. 

It's not… giving up, completely– it's just… he doesn't go to hell and back for her anymore.

Luke's not exaggerating when he says he travelled the world all over and back again. He's not kidding when he says he has been waiting for several millennia, scouring earth for something that is fleeting. Even when his heart gets torn apart like wolves feasting on a fresh piece of meat, even when the bile in his throat rises every time he sees Rosa– just… just to see if she remembers.

She never does. 

"If you are truly soulmates, then you would find each other even through death."

Was there even some mythical string that tethered their hearts together? Was there even any semblance that their hearts were once one? How could he even be for certain, what if he was just chasing the lie of a neglectful mother, trying to redeem herself at her child’s weakest moment? What if he had been so enticed by the idea of perfect halves, that he hadn't thought about how easy it was to deform such perfections, to render it all useless, all futile and—

When those questions get too loud for him, he decides to end his life.

And even then, he wakes with the actions on his previous life.

It's a cycle Luke repeats. The only retribution he has left for himself, that somehow– just maybe, the gods will be kinder to them in the next life. 

They never will be, but Luke keeps holding on.

He really should have heeded his father's warning from all those years ago.

"You must never find your other half."

Maybe humans understood humans more, after all. He was not a child of a god– he is as human as he can get, and his father only looked out for him. He never had ill intent, and his father never was the one to be coating his words with sweet little white lies. Maybe his father didn't want his son to be like him. Alone and waiting, with nothing more but memories to hold onto. 

Luke is made of memories.

Because the thoughts in Luke's head would whisper to him. I feel like living life just a little bit more, just a little bit more passionately than I have ever been able to before. Yes, she’s the only human in the world who's worth the effort.

She has been worth everything— the memories, the pain, the endurance, and everything I have to offer to her. I want to learn all the things she wanted me to teach. I want to learn all the things I wanted to teach her.

Luke has lived a thousand lives, worn a thousand faces, spoken to thousands of people, learned thousands of things, and died a thousand times again.

He has found a way to love Rosa thousands of times over.

Maybe that’s the problem.

He leans back in his recliner chair, and lets Peanut rest on his shoulder, who has gone considerablt quiet, as if he is reading his master's thoughts. He pats its head, and it only chirps a little. He sees messages coming from Vyn, Artem, and Marius– and a single message from Rosa. 

She will always find a way to haunt him, even after death. In one way or another, she would crawl to him and make herself known.

He whispers a prayer, one that he hopes the gods will hear for once. Sometimes, he thinks his mother had died along with her on that very day.

He closes his eyes.

"If you're listening—" Luke pauses. He wants to make this final prayer worth his sacrifice.

"I know you're listening. Please. Make it stop. I'm… I'm finally done." 

There is silence. Maybe, he hopes, this life, the gods actually fucking hear him. He's gone through so much– for once, he just wants to live. Even if the gods cursed him with a terminal illness in this life, he'll see to it that he lives his three years peacefully. He just wants to fucking stop.

It's time to stop. He's sacrificed enough. He's lived enough. He's seen enough. He's remembered enough. He has learned his lesson, for once.

"Maybe we're not soulmates."

There's a lonely pause. His house seems so empty for something that is decorated with lively lights and colors. It is cold, even when the summer sun shines down on him. It's… incomplete, even when it should be just him and Peanut in here.

He finally learns to accept. Giving up on Rosa didn't mean he didn't love her enough–it was just… time to stop hoping for something that would never come. He knew that she would scold him, for refusing to let go of whatever figment she had left for Luke to treasure.

Somewhere up the heavens, with a magical, long running river, a woman sits beside it. She finally smiles, and lets out a long, well heaved sigh.

Luke can feel it– the last bits of his godhood finally fading away. It stirs relief in his heart.

He's free. 

On his desk, his phone begins to vibrate. Without looking at the contact, he absentmindedly answers and puts it flat against his ear.

"Hello?"

A firm laughter rises. It's something that Luke is all far too familiar with. It instantly brought a smile to his face.

"You promised me that you'd teach me how to fish, is the offer still available?"

Luke doesn't believe in soulmates, because they aren't real. 

There is nothing set in stone by fate except life and death.

But to love someone? 

You choose. 

And he chooses Rosa again, and again, and again.