Unexpected Inspiration - Short Stories

"Soul-Marks"

It would help if anyone ever went by their real name. 

(I always wanted to write a soulmate AU, so this is it! The prompt I used involved having their soulmate's names tattooed on their body. It starts off angsty, but the rest of this isn't, I promise. It does, however, contain the necessary amount of cheesiness for an AU.)

Etri loved nightfall because in the dark he didn't need his weaving to make himself invisible. Sitting atop the wagon-home of his best friend in the middle of the night, he was as good as hidden in the shadow of the chimney pipe. Right now Etri wanted to be invisible. His heart shouldn't be aching with regret and jealousy. He'd known this was going to happen ever since he learned what the marks meant. His brother had found his mate.

He pressed his lips together and rolled up his sleeve, safe in the knowledge that no one could possibly see his arm while he sat in his personal haunt. He trailed his fingertips over the dark celestial symbols that stood stark and taunting against his pale skin. Both Etri and Sol had one black marking on their forearms for as far back as they could remember. They had assumed these were birthmarks because when they'd asked their friends, no one else had anything like it or knew why they did. Even the priests and priestesses had expressed puzzlement before disciplining them for asking about the bodies of others.

Then one day a second mark appeared under the first, but only on Etri's arm. He remembered this clearly because it was the week he was admitted for training as an apprentice. This time he told no one except his brother. With Montglacian custom of keeping skin covered, no one else was likely to notice. Yet it was another Montglacian custom that destroyed Etri's future.

The moon and constellation were tattooed in the customary place on his arm to brand Etri's devotion to the god of shadow. Not even a week after the second mark had appeared, it was covered. Sol had kept his own weaving a secret; not to keep his mark visible, although this was the fortunate side effect, but to keep himself from being sent to the sanctuary of light and away from his brother.

It wasn't until they fled Montglace that they learned these marks of strange script were words. It wasn't until they entered Concordia that they learned these words were names. And it wasn't until later that they realized what the names represented. By the time Etri learned Concordian, too much time had passed. He couldn't remember what his soul-marks had looked like in order to translate them.

All Etri knew was that he would have been loved by two people despite his past and everything he was. Now he would never find them. The markings of a discarded mythos covered the markings that would have given him a new purpose. He was an anomaly here and an exile there. Etri wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes. Here on the roof where no one could see, he expressed the emotion his upbringing forced him to hide. So much of his life was hidden...

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It was quiet and dark inside Blythe's wagon, but Adair still couldn't sleep. An uneasy feeling nagged at him and he couldn't get comfortable on the thin mattress on the hard wood floor. Fluffing the pillow didn't help. Neither did counting sheep. Playing back the events of the day usually worked like a defense mechanism against the boredom of repetition and knocked him right out. Tonight it was useless.

He rolled over to his back and grimaced at the vocal complaints of the cat who had been sleeping on his legs. He murmured an apology and reached out to sooth her, but she was out of reach. When he heard the curtain of Blythe's bunk rustle, he knew the cat had found a more peaceful bed partner. "You're supposed to be my cat," he muttered.