Chapter Text
Everyone has heard of soulmates, everyone has heard of the red string, everyone dreams of finding the one. One day, when the time is right you will pulled towards them, a red string will stretch out from their ring finger to your own. They could be anyone, the stranger you saw briefly on the street last week, a co-worker you never really paid attention to, even an old friend you've known since birth.
Soulmates were pretty common, but it wasn't unusual not to have one. There are people who've decided that they'd rather choose their own partners, they didn't care what the universe thinks. Most follow the string and lead happy and loving lives.
For Kaveh Soulmates were beautiful. A person meant for you, deemed to be your other half by the universe itself. He couldn't think of anything better. From the moment he learned about soulmates he knew he would dream of it until he found it. As a child he would ask his parents to tell him the story of their string, he'd sit enthralled listening to his father tell him how he'd been dragged across half of the House of Daena towards Kaveh's mother, resulting in him dropping his pile of books on a poor Amurta student who'd turned out to be Kaveh's mother's best friend or His mother telling him about the 2 weeks they'd spent together, learning about each other and begining to fall in love.
Things were happy then. Kaveh's mother would smile at his father over 6 year old Kaveh's head, reminiscing about their day of fate. Kaveh would watch them work and they'd smile brightly at him when he made a good contribution. His father would pat his head and say 'Good job Kaveh, you're a real architect ' and Kaveh would ask 'Just like you?' and His father would say 'just like me'.
Things hadn't been happy forever though. His father had brought home that flyer about the Interdarshan Championship and Kaveh had sent him to his death. Afterwards things were silent in Kaveh's home. Or at least in the daylight hours, Kaveh could hear his mother crying night after night, heaving heartwrenching sobs as she mourned her husband and soulmate.
A year later she had packed up and moved to Fontaine. Apparently she felt a pull in her, telling her to leave, go to Fontaine. Kaveh didn't get it at the time, but he did once he heard she was getting married. She'd found another soulmate, the universe had given her another chance at Love. It had pulled her away from all she knew and gifted her with happiness once more.
Kaveh's belief in soulmates wasn't as strong after he heard about her second marriage. How could one have 2 soulmates? One only found after the death of another, did that mean the first was not a true soulmate? Kaveh found it sad, as though the Universe was simply doling out a replacement for his father for his mother. But he still believed though... that one day he'd find his soulmate, he still dreamed.
He just... didn't believe in it as strongly as before.