Chapter Text
Soulmates exist in this world. Their existence permeates every root and cranny, finding its way into the way people viewed love and relationships and the logic with which they saw the world. Soulmate relationships weren’t necessarily romantic in nature – they were what the involved parties made of them. What was always set in stone, however, was the fact that soulmates were people the universe had set aside for them – people they were meant to have and to live alongside, through messages on their skin if need be, if they hadn’t had the good fortune to have already met.
Those without soulmates exist in this world, too.
Ailette knew this, even before coming into this world, because of course: Tesilid Argente was one of the few people without a soulmate. It was one of the ways in which the author tormented the poor protagonist – to be alone and loveless even in a world that promised love; and then to fall in love with the heroine despite the lack of a soulmate connection, only to be punished for it.
It was a truly lamentable existence. Ailette may have decided that she would eliminate as many of his hardships as she could, but this was beyond her abilities as a transmigrator.
Except, it turns out that the perks of being a transmigrator included introducing into the world soulmate bonds that hadn’t existed before.
In the early morning of Ailette’s 15th birthday, at the estimated time of her birth, she sits at the Rodeline’s dining table with a pen in her hand and the entire family crowded around her. Even Agnes has materialised over her mother’s shoulder, her pendant vibrating excitedly against Ailette’s shirt.
All five people hold their breaths as she writes on her arm.
Do I have a soulmate out there? My name is Ailette Rodeline
Of course, none of them expect an immediate response. It’s early morning before the sun even rises – writing on one’s arm on the hour of their birth is just a tradition, and now they’d move on with the rest of the birthday festivities.
“Congratulations, my baby!” Elthea presses a big kiss on Ailette’s forehead.
Leonard pushes a birthday cake in front of her, fifteen candles already flickering.
Ailette already knows what she would wish for. She clasps her hands together excitedly and squeezes her eyes shut.
Please, please give me a soulmate! Don’t make me be a soulmate-less person like the protagonist when I’m in a world with soulmates!
She feels an itch on her left arm. She scratches it absentmindedly as she blows out the candles
Then she remembers that soulmarks typically manifested with an itching sensation. She looks down.
And lo and behold, there it sits on her left arm in an ocean-blue script, messy and wobbly like its writer had almost dropped their pen mid-way:
It’s m e !
And then, neater and slower, as if its writer was self-conscious:
Tesilid Argente.
Tesilid discovers that he has a soulmate on a chilly November morning.
He’s getting out of bed – quietly, as always, because his day starts a couple of hours earlier than his roommates’ for his own personal training. He itches at his left arm absentmindedly, and when he brings his arm down he sees it – pink handwriting peeking out from under his long sleeve.
He springs immediately to full alert.
“I got my soulmate!” he yelps.
His roommates stir and mumble at the noise as Tesilid rifles hurriedly through his bedside table for the marker he’s kept by his side since the beginning of the year.
Ephael grumbles from his cocoon on the far end of the room. “Bhat’s dhe fuss..?”
“My soulmate!” Tesilid exclaims again, only just managing to keep his voice down.
“Your…?” Ephael repeats blearily.
Hestio, who had been slowly shuffling about in the bed in the middle, snaps wide awake. “Your soulmate!!!” he shouts. He tosses aside his blankets as he shoots upright. His blankets fly across the aisle and hit Ephael in the face.
“Get up, Ephael, Tesilid’s got his soulmate!”
By the time Hestio and Ephael join Tesilid on either side, Tesilid has already hastily scrawled his name on his arm.
“‘Ailette Rodeline’…” Hestio repeats slowly, “why does that name sound familiar?”
“Ah!” Ephael exclaims, “That’s the girl from back in the dungeon sink! That one with pink hair!”
Hestio gasps loudly. “The one Tesilid was asking Cardinal Carteleya about back then?!?”
The two of them swivel their heads to look at Tesilid.
Ephael starts snickering. “Good on you, Tesilid!” He smacks Tesilid loudly on the back. Tesilid coughs from the force.
“I can’t believe it! What luck!” Hestio hooks Tesilid round the neck and gives his head a good noogie, roughing his silver hair up into a real mess. “No, it’s not luck – it’s fate, fate! We gotta celebrate!”
Tesilid chokes around his friends enthusiastic congratulations.
“Can you– no, I mean, thank you very much, but can you please let me talk to my soulmate?” he asks meekly.
His whole face is red, and they can’t tell if it’s from Hestio accidentally choking him or from his own embarrassment. What’s clear, however, is the smile that stretches from ear to ear – the biggest and most sincere they had ever seen on him.
“Ohh, of course, of course,” Ephael says, pulling back hastily.
“Yes, yes, of course we will,” Hestio says, clearing his throat but still smiling.
They hop off the bed and head for the door.
“Well then,” they say, turning back around at the door to give Tesilid twin grins, “we’ll leave you to it. Have fun!”
They shut the door behind them, leaving Tesilid with his very red ears and fast-beating heart.
Hestio and Ephael return in an hour or so with some cleaning alcohol and spare cloth.
“You should hide this from the religious order, Tesilid,” Ephael says, uncharacteristically serious. “Sacred sheep are allowed to leave the religious order if their partner is unaffiliated, but you’re their poster boy... Who knows what they’ll do to her instead.”
“Oh, I know. I’m not letting the religious order get their hands on her," Tesilid replies.
“We know how much you and Ailette like self-sacrifice, but– wait, what?”
The two of them are stunned into silence.
“Thank you for looking out for us,” Tesilid smiles.
“Wow…” Ephael marvels, turning to Hestio with theatrically wide eyes. “Is this what love does to a person?”
“I know, right?” Hestio mirrors his expression. “I never thought the day would come that we wouldn’t have to talk Tesilid out of something.”
Tesilid snorts a little, in his head. This involves Ailette – it goes without saying that he won’t put her in any danger.
–
For the next few months, Ailette becomes the fourth secret member of their little group.
They would have been able to keep her existence a secret from the rest of the Vatican, if it hadn’t been for Tesilid’s ridiculous lovestruck smile.
It had been on his birthday the following year. Ailette had congratulated him. And, with the subtlety of a glowing neon signboard, he kept glancing at his arm with the widest grin on his usually composed face.
He had been asked about his soulmate, and the game was up — everyone now knows that the Master of the Holy Sword has a soulmate.
Quite thankfully, they already had a game plan for this. And despite his reputation – or perhaps because of it – Tesilid is a rather excellent liar. People had a tendency to just believe whatever Tesilid said, simply because it came from him.
“I’m sorry, it appears that she belongs to a nomadic family… It won’t be possible to give you a location; they’re always on the move and never know where they’ll go next.”
“Yes, her birthday is also on the 11th of July… Isn’t it such a coincidence?”
And so the Vatican fails to find both the saintess and the soulmate of the Holy Sword’s Master for more years to come.
Tesilid finds the way that Ailette writes her messages to be a little odd.
She doesn’t capitalise her "I"s or the start of her sentences, and she often neglects to put a full stop at the end. The strangest things, however, are the seemingly random symbols that sometimes litter her messages.
Ailette, I’ve been wondering for a while, but what do :) and :D mean?
huh? you don’t know? theyre smiley faces.
eyes → :) ← smiling mouth
:D ← open smiling mouth
Tesilid tilts his head sideways and squints. “Ah,” he exclaims softly.
Oh, I see them now, he writes.
Then he furrows his brows.
But why are they sideways?
A long pause. Tesilid’s skin remains blank.
Tesilid is about to get up and check for a response later, when he feels the words crawl into existence underneath his message.
..dont worry about it
Huh. Must be another one of Ailette’s many oddities, then.
The bad thing about their soulmate connection is that Ailette is always aware when he gets injured.
Tesilid doesn’t actually mind when he sees Ailette’s injuries on his own skin. Her injuries are always just small scratches and they always disappear almost instantaneously. They’re a sign that she’s training hard in both her swordplay and divine powers. And that, in turn, makes Tesilid all fuzzy inside. i became a healer to heal you! Ailette had once said. when we meet again, i’ll be strong enough to deal, heal, tank, and support. you can look forward to it! >:)
His soulmate is such a hardworking and inspiring person. Tesilid is such a lucky guy. Every time he sees the small, pink reflections of wounds bloom and fade on his skin, he thinks of her and he smiles.
Having his own wounds reflected on her skin, however, is a different story altogether.
Ailette’s injuries are signs of her growth under safe, controlled environments. Tesilid’s, however, are usually more along the lines of bruises across the span of his back from when he gets thrown against walls or flung down cliffs, and the occasional life-threatening stabs or slashes on his person. Ailette sees all of them.
The first time Tesilid gets one of these wounds after their soulmate connection had awakened, Ailette writes to him.
tes, what are all these marks? is it blood?
Tesilid has just managed to beat the dungeon boss after taking many, many hits – no thanks to his colleagues hanging around the back. The healers were now doing their rounds to heal everyone, but as usual, Tesilid appears to be the last in an invisible queue.
He feels a familiar tickle on his left forearm and pulls his sleeve back to read – and panics.
No! It’s just paint. We’re doing volunteer work right now!
Wait– Tesilid realises, that’s a terrible excuse. There’s no reason for paint to reach anywhere beyond his fingers.
since when did the Vatican let you wear shorts?
She caught on right away, as expected.
It’s an exception just for today, because it’s been so hot in Elphenhiem lately, Tesilid fibs.
He knows he'll be caught even before he finishes writing.
Tesilid Argente. It’s winter.
It is.
And you probably don’t even own a pair of shorts.
That was also true. It was something about indecency or whatever – while children were usually allowed to wear shorts, those raised by the Vatican weren’t. Tesilid has never gotten to wear shorts before.
Tesilid is almost starting to tremble with guilt, when luckily for him, Ailette moves on quickly.
i just used my divine power, did i manage to heal you?
Nope, his wounds were still there and stinging.
But Tesilid knows that Ailette is probably beside herself with worry, despite her dry and stern tone. A quick glance around tells him that most of the knight division has already been healed – he won't remain injured for long.
Yes, thanks Allie!
why’re the marks still here then
Tesilid panics again.
They’re blood smears – I can’t clean myself off right now. See, if I smear the blood the ink patch just gets bigger.
He dips his finger onto the edge of his wound and drags it across the unblemished skin beside it, hissing slightly.
He holds his breath. Blood smears existing don’t necessarily mean that their source was already gone, but he hopes that Ailette would just let it slide.
oh, i see.
Tesilid breathes a sigh of relief.
stay safe, tes. let me know when you’re back at the vatican – i’ll write you some potion recipes
Right, his soulmate was also an alchemist who could make potions that were both delicious and effective. His soulmate was so talented!
Still bleeding and hurting all over, Tesilid looks at the words on his arm and smiles.
I will :)
On rare occasions, Ailette does also project alarming wounds onto Tesilid’s skin.
Like now – the dragon boss in the Skyscraper of Suffering had just managed to stick a claw in her abdomen.
It was nothing much, really. Ailette would have healed herself immediately, except it was just much more efficient to press on with the offense and heal herself only after she won, rather than to retreat for a break and have to mount a brand new offensive later.
Ailette feels her left arm itch and pushes it to the side of her mind to focus on the battle.
The dragon crashes to the ground in a minute or so.
“Good job, Ailette!” Agnes cheers. She immediately follows up with blunt criticism. “You should’ve been able to dodge that hit, though.”
“And drag the battle on for longer?” Ailette responds, “Taking that hit got the dragon exactly where I needed it.”
The student of Agnes Azlette didn’t get hit for no good reason, after all!
“Hmmph,” Agnes says, sounding awfully pleased. “A good strategy, but not one you should count on. We’ll be doing dodging and agility practices after this, Recruit Ailette!” she shouts.
“Aww!” Ailette whines with no real heat. She sheathes Europa and collapses onto the ground and lets herself breathe.
That fight hurt had less than she expected. Adrenaline sure was a great painkiller. She puts a hand to her injury on her abdomen, and– “Huh?”
There aren’t the familiar stabs of pain from when clothes rub against open wounds.
She lifts the corner of the ripped edge of the tear in her shirt and sees a smattering of blood and gore, and underneath that: a stretch of skin painted ocean-blue. The colour of Tesilid’s handwriting, the colour of his eyes.
Ailette stares uncomprehendingly at it. Then she realises that the edges of the blue patch just about matches the hole in her shirt.
She can’t help but scream.
“That idiot!!”
Agnes yelps. “Woah, you scared me!” The necklace vibrates indignantly against Ailette’s shirt. “What happened?”
Ailette waves her hands frantically in the air. “Tesilid used the shared skill to transfer my wound onto him!”
“Look!” She lifts the flap in the shirt further and angles the wound to show Agnes.
“What shared skill?” Agnes asks, but Ailette isn’t paying her any more attention.
She snatches the pen from her inventory and hurriedly pulls back the sleeve on her left arm. And she sees Tesilid’s writing on her arm.
Allie, are you alright? What happened?
Are you safe?
Oh, so he definitely had noticed the wound.
Ailette plunges into panic. “Aaaahhhh!!!” He really did do it!
“Heal, heal, heal!”
Her skill blankets the wound area in divine power. But of course, Ailette can’t see a difference – the wound is no longer physically on her, after all, and bloodstains still show up as soulmarks even after the underlying wound has been treated. She hurriedly turns her attention to her arm again.
did the heal work?
And cold realisation suddenly hits her. Did her heals work? Had Tesilid been telling the truth about her healing skill working, the last time? Tesilid was moral to a fault and that made him prone to truthfulness, but it was not entirely out of character for him to lie for someone else’s sake.
Ailette doesn’t know. She can’t see Tesilid and ascertain the truth for herself. If only she could be with him, by his side, close enough to touch and to hold and to check on and to scold. Her heart aches and it has nowhere to go.
Tesilid’s reply forms on her arm.
It did, thanks Allie. What about y
Ailette ignores the rest of the message and turns back to her stomach. She hastily wipes off the blood with her tattered shirt and writes on the ocean-blue patch: can you see this?
Tesilid continues writing on her arm.
She writes under his message on her arm.
Tes, please answer the question.
A pause.
on your stomach , she prompts.
Still more silence. No message on her arm, no itch on her stomach.
The heals hadn’t worked. Tesilid couldn’t see her message – couldn’t even feel it form – because there was no skin for it to appear on. Underneath the blood that was reflected on Ailette’s skin was merely more flesh, not skin.
Ailette buries her face in her knees.
What bullshit was this? Defend Partner worked without any restrictions, but Heal Partner didn’t? That was the worst possible combination, considering Tesilid’s personality.
An itch on her arm interrupts Ailette’s thoughts. She lifts her head to look at it.
Sorry, Allie. I lied.
Hestio has the healing potions. I’ll get them from him soon.
Tesilid was out of potions? And he had the time to write to her, but not to heal himself first? Ailette feels her eye twitch.
She has so much she wants to ask, but time is of essence. Tesilid is bleeding out.
please hurry. let me know when you’re healed.
Okay.
Ailette spends the next indeterminate amount of time staring at her arm and wringing her hands.
She releases a huge breath of relief when Tesilid finally writes to her on the spot where they had been wounded. That wound had been big enough to kill most people in the amount of time it had taken for Tesilid to reply – but then again, Tesilid had to be built sturdier and more resilient than most people to live through what the world would put him through.
Ailette feels all the tension bleed out her body and finally breathes again.
She can’t bring herself to train anymore after that. It’s hard to find joy in the activity that almost killed your soulmate.
She spends the rest of the day on alchemy, trying to find new potion recipes which don’t require much skill, equipment, or rare ingredients.
On the night of, after Ailette has allowed herself to stew in her emotions, she writes to him about it.
tesilid, please don’t ever use Defend Partner again. especially when i’m not around to heal you.
It had been scary. She had thought that Tesilid’s life would be safe, like hers, up until the end of the tutorial period – guaranteed by the forces that be, the strength of plot armour. But their soulmate bond was not something that existed in the original plot. Ailette had not existed in the original plot, and any injuries she had that were transferred to Tesilid were not wounds that he was originally supposed to have. What if he one day transferred an injury to himself during a crucial moment in battle, or when he wasn’t near any healing options? What if he died because of that? Because of her?
Ailette’s hands shook just thinking about it.
i’m a healer. you’re not. you don’t even have competent healers around you most of the time.
A blot of blue appears underneath her message, and then nothing else – like Tesilid had taken his pen to skin, and then paused to consider his words.
Ailette waits with her breath held.
But… I won’t be able to stand it if one day you just stopped replying. I can’t just do nothing…
Ailette wants to cry. She can’t help the wibbly-wobbly smile that forms on her face even as she chokes back a wet laugh. That was her idiot, alright.
i guarantee that i’ll be perfectly safe, at least until we next meet again. you won’t have to use your ability again until then at least.
There’s a pause before Tesilid replies.
Really?
yes, really. please, just look after yourself.
And because she knows that he’s still worried, she adds, i’ll be more careful from now on, too.
Tesilid’s response comes through after a moment.
Okay, Allie. I’m sorry for worrying you.
She sighs and buries her face in the crook of her arm, squeezing her eyes momentarily shut.
i’m sorry too.
Tesilid had shattered the castle from the dungeon gate above the city of El Torino, saving the city from certain destruction. As punishment, he was now sitting in a detention room – the more pleasant name for what other countries might call a prison cell.
Hestio and Ephael had snuck in to give him food and water.
“And here,” Hestio passes Tesilid a pen and a washcloth, “for you to pass the time.”
Tesilid’s feels his face light up. He can’t help the way that he springs forward, grabbing the pen and cloth so quickly that it borders on rude.
“Aww,” Ephael teases, “look at the smile.”
Tesilid brings the back of his hand to cover the lower half of his face. “Be quiet,” he retorts. The smile is still evident in his voice.
His gaze quickly drifts away, mind already thinking about what he could write to Ailette.
Hestio gives an amused huff. “Well, we’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Make sure you eat the food!” he stage-whispers as he and Ephael sneak back out into the corridor.
(For the duration of Tesilid’s detention, Ailette spends less time than usual on training. She has much more important and fulfilling things to do, after all.)
Tesilid is heaving with exhaustion, leaning heavily onto his sword stabbed into the ground.
It was finally over, the danger in the Valley of the Heathens, but Tesilid’s mind is steadily descending into a whirling mess.
I killed pagans for the first time today, he wants to write.
It crosses Tesilid’s mind to write that on his arm, to update Ailette on his going-ons as usual.
But this time, his hand stays.
It’s not just because he’s so physically exhausted that picking up a pen would require herculean effort. For Ailette, there’s very little that he wouldn’t do. It’s because – quite simply – he does not want Ailette to know.
Tesilid’s cloak and pants are soaked to the knee with all the blood he had waded through. Blood he had spilled himself.
Tesilid knows that Ailette probably knows. It’s no secret that the religious order sees pagans as little more than animals, and that it has a policy to cull those who refuse to convert. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of work stigma bearers like Tesilid have to do, and Ailette is nothing if not smart. Tesilid had been holding off on killing pagans, all these years, but it was still an inevitability.
Still, Tesilid would rather that she know only conceptually that he killed, a vague and abstract notion, rather than have her know even the days on which Tesilid took human lives. That was a level of detail that Tesilid wanted to spare Ailette – or rather, that he wanted to spare himself the shame of. Even if it had been to stop a demon lord from entering the human realm, the price was all too much.
Limbs shaking and vision blurring, Tesilid stares at the blank expanse of his arm. He does not write on it.
Through the haze of his mind, however, he thinks he can hear her reply, wrapping around his mind like a comforting hug from behind:
you saved people today.
He wonders what her voice sounds like now, and his consciousness fades away.
Tesilid meets Ailette in person for the first time in 10 years at the Holy Sword dungeon.
He falls head over heels in love. From then on, he reads her messages in her voice – sweeter than anything he could ever imagine on his own, with a spark and vigour beyond anything he could ever express, and nestling into and warming up a small nook right under his heart.
In the spring of his 20th year, on the day before the Day of Sacrifice, Tesilid gets a strange message from Ailette.
tes – i wont be able to reply to you for a long while. i’m fine, though, so don’t worry about me
Worry and anxiety instantly washes over Tesilid, along with a wave of other emotions. Why won’t she tell him what’s going on with her? Won’t he worry less if he knows that she’s truly not doing anything dangerous? Does this mean that she is doing something she knows she can’t tell him?
But he knows that she would also have cycled through all these questions, and that this is still nonetheless the answer she had arrived at. He’ll just have to trust her. He tamps down the cocktail of emotions in his reply.
Huh? Okay, take care.
All his hesitation and uncertainty is compressed into a forced expression of cluelessness.
At night, however, he can’t resist writing her another message before he goes to bed.
Will it bother you if I still write to you, or should I stop that too?
Ailette’s reply takes only a couple of moments.
aw, of course you can write to me.
but… i won’t be able to reply. i’m sorry about that
Tesilid would take that – at least they weren’t cutting off contact altogether.
Tesilid wakes up the next day with an inexplicable nightmare fading from his memories, and his heart head throat body hurting all over with phantom pains.
He does not bother writing to Ailette about it. The sensation is so baffling that he has no idea how to put it into words anyway.
It’s four months later that Tesilid next hears from Ailette.
He’s with the Knights of Worship at the village of Greenwall. They’re on a routine dungeon expedition for an A-rank dungeon, and the entire division is rather relaxed.
The skin on his left arm itches and he smiles at the familiar sensation. There’s still quite a ways to the known location of the dungeon gate, so he eagerly pulls back his sleeve to read her message. It’s written on the inside of his forearm, right under his stigma mark.
hang in there. it’ll take a long while, but i’ll be with you as soon as i can. -ailette
His smile fades into confusion and the beginning prickles of dread and foreboding start in his gut.
Tesilid doesn’t pick up his pen to answer. He grips his sword and goes on high alert.
And the regressions begin.
hang in there. it’ll take a long while, but i’ll be with you as soon as i can. -ailette
Allie, something really weird ha–
“What are you writing on your skin for?” Vice-commander Lekto sneers.
Tesilid holds back a frown. It was common courtesy to give privacy to people writing to their soulmates, but Lekto had never extended that grace to Tesilid. Tesilid still has to be polite with him, however.
“My soulmate, sir. She just wrote me a message.”
“Soulmate? When did you get one?”
This time, Tesilid’s brows furrow. Since… years ago? Everyone knew that he had a soulmate. The Vatican had always pestered him to bring her to the religious order.
Commander Gadville cuts in, “Quit lazing off. We’re in the middle of a mission now.”
Tesilid glances back at his arm. Still no response.
“Yes, sir,” he replies.
hang in there. it’ll take a long while, but i’ll be with you as soon as i can. -ailette
Allie, are you there?
hang in there. it’ll take a long while, but i’ll be with you as soon as i can. -ailette
Allie?
Allie, please respond. Please.
Every time Tesilid wakes up in a new round, he reaches for the pen he keeps in his breast pocket, and writes on his skin. He spends hours, days, watching desperately for a reply that he never gets.
He starts to hope that he’ll see a blood-shaped patch of pink on his skin.
He feels horrible about it. It’s messed up, because it means that he’s hoping for Ailette to be injured. But at least it’ll mean she’s there – still here in the world with him, just ignoring him for some reason. (Besides, he would activate Defend Partner in a heartbeat so she wouldn’t be injured for long. (And then maybe then she’ll remember that he exists and come find him as she had promised.))
But deep down, he knows she can’t have forgotten him. The message on his arm seems geared for precisely this situation, where they can’t seem to communicate with each other. To reassure him that she’s coming, that she’s still thinking of him. She must’ve seen this coming, with the same uncanny way she knew everything else, and wrote it as a promise to meet again.
The message comforts and taunts him at the same time. it’ll take a long while , she says.
But how long will you be?
Tesilid asks and never receives a reply.
I miss you, please help me. This has been going on for too long. Please, please, please .
His skin is only ever painted with red, not pink.
The Prisoner of the Abyss never stays still for long.
His breath rattles like the chains on his body as he draws on his skin. At first lightly with his fingers, tracing the words he wants to write.
Ailette Rodeline, where are you?
Then scratching into his flesh with his nails.
I can’t see what I’m writing, but can you feel it on your skin, just like I do?
But if he ever gets an itch across his skin, the tell-tale sign of a reply forming on his skin, his senses are already overcome by his open wounds. There is no way to differentiate the soulmark forming from the existing pain he had etched onto his skin.
Decades turn into centuries into millennia.
Words turn into disjointed letters into indecipherable swirls and lines.
Tesilid Argente wakes up in Round 17 to the sound of birds chirping and sunlight streaming through the curtains.
He sits up. The white blanket on him falls and pools around his waist. Listlessly, his hand moves to the other arm and digs into it. There’s the familiar feeling of pressure and pain on his arm.
The sound of hurried footsteps come from outside the room, and a woman with pink hair bursts through the door. She rushes to his bedside and starts talking, firing off her words in rapid-fire succession. Unfortunately, her words are just indecipherable sounds and word salad to Tesilid. He can't understand her.
But he stares at her pink hair and green eyes, and the concern obvious on her face. He knows without knowing and without being able to put it into words – that she’s safety and what he’s been searching for for several thousand years.
Wordlessly, he reaches his arms out.
She meets him halfway.
In every life prior, Tesilid Argente’s first act is to reach for a pen.
In the 17th, he doesn’t need to. Ailette Rodeline is right in front of him. At last.