Etched

I think I spent an hour staring at it when I first woke up. This curious, marvelous, joy-inducing sigil. The skin around it was smooth, the symbol a softly luminous green. A year ago, I had railed against the idea that I would be a Green, much to the amusement of my classmates. But here, now... I smiled. I smiled, and my heart buoyed.

Most people never Etched. Most people never felt what was said to be the immediate, painful ecstasy of the Etching. Most people never found their color. Most people, and I was one of them, did their best to shut away the dreams of childhood, the fables of youth, and just grow up. Most people married, had kids, and lived the best, happiest lives they could manage. I mean, the odds of finding your soulmate among the billions of people who lived on the planet were staggeringly small, right? You can't live your life with your hands out to your sides, as the saying went. Most people never learned the shape of their sigil, never knew its beauty. But I had. And I did.

I was six when I first asked my parents about Etching. They had smiled, looked at each other with what I recognize now as a wistful gaze, and told me that it was something that very few of us ever experience. I asked them if they had sigils on their arms, knowing the answer already, and my dad held up his bare arm and said, "No, no sigils here, son. But that doesn't mean that there is no love." You can love someone who is not your soulmate, and your soulmate can love someone who is not you. I knew that, but like every child who learns about the symbol, I walked around in public with my hands out to either side, hoping to touch the right person. I did that for years.

As I grew older, into my teenage years, I had to stop. At least, I had to stop being so obvious. I always found reasons to bump into strangers, to brush up against them, to reach out brush something off their clothing. I remember the looks I would get, amusement, indignation, annoyance, attraction... I also remember the day I stopped.

I was seventeen, on a train, heading back home after a week at school. I was seated when I noticed a young woman, a few years older than me, standing near the door to the next car. She wasn't near enough to the door that I could use that as a justification for brushing up against her, so I stood up and approached her. Her eyes passed over me briefly before she absently turned them back to the window.

"Excuse me," I said, placing my hand on her arm. She stiffened, her whole body going rigid. Would you like to take my seat? The words never left my mouth. She shifted to look at me, and I saw the sigil. The dead sigil. There was no light, no soft luminescence, behind the Etching. The look in her eyes, that empty listlessness, when she turned them to meet mine, has never left my memory. Tennyson was wrong.

I fled the car, and I stopped touching strangers until I could be certain they didn't have a sigil...

... and now, I would never have to scrounge for a clumsy reason to touch a stranger again. I had Etched.

"Shitballs!" I started laughing. And then I stopped.

Who was it?

I cast my memory back to the party, my thoughts a sporadic torrent of images and conclusions. I knew most of the people at the party, had grown up with them. Mary had a cousin, she touched me shyly, a blatant come on, but I had... Jim had new friends visiting for the weekend, dancing with a red haired girl. Then the new girl, dark hair, beautiful eyes, shy smile. My heart started beating faster. We had talked. Instant connection. Her laugh, oh, her laugh! I brought her a drink, but I didn't touch her hand. Deliberately. She had arched an eyebrow at me when I didn't take the obvious opportunity. We both laughed it off. We sat on the couch, inches from each other, refusing to touch...

"Move over, Lovebirds!" Nathan had called, plopping himself down on top of us.

"Gods, you're heavy!" I groaned, slipping sideways, away from her. Nathan had been my best friend since Graders. When I had learned about Etching, he was the first person I spoke to about it. He had brushed it off, being a rather self-important elder at one year my senior, and told me he wasn't going to waste time on waiting for a stupid symbol to appear on his arm. He was a good friend, the sort who always looked out for you, even if he had a temper like wildfire.