Chapter Text
He had still been so frail in her arms, yet already he had looked so much like his father. Big for his age, with those intelligent eyes, she had always said. Those intelligent eyes like twin pools, framed by a heavy brow and high cheekbones. And he had wept into her bosom, quiet as not to wake up his baby sister.
"But, mama,” The little boy had whispered, tears still streaming down his pale face as he had stared up at her, “How will I know I have met my soulmate?” They had been talking for hours already, preparing him for bed. He hadn’t wanted to fall asleep, had said that when he slept he had nightmares. Again and again, sweet and kind as he was, all of his classmates had rejected him, denying him the soulbond he had craved. And their sneering faces and jeering laughter would follow him past sundown, and into his dreams. No boy had accepted his camaraderie, no girl had yearned for his love. His mother had seen how much it had bothered him, and she had remained helpless to his pleas.
She had smoothed down his hair, and tenderly rubbed his back, whispering to her baby boy sweet little nothings like lullabies. His father hadn’t been there to hold the boy on his knee, bouncing him up and down like when he was a little babe. It had been just the two of them, as it was most nights, during those days.
His mother had smiled down at him, a tightness in her eyes that meant little to him at that age. "You won't, at first,” She had said, stroking his head in a bid to help him fall asleep. “You will realise when you meet them, and you learned who they are, learn what the lines on your skin mean.” Her own mark had peeked out from beneath her rolled up sleeve, and the white flag that eternally waved across her forearm had already seemed so washed out. Maybe it had been the light, his bedroom’s tiny night light, but the mark had looked washed out for many years now, every time she put him to bed.
She had continued, “You will know when you realise they complete you, that you have found the other part of your soul. Until then, Misha, love everyone. Love people until you meet the one who will love you just as much. Alright?"
The young boy had smiled, wiped away his tears, and hid his yawn behind his tiny fist. "Alright, mama." He had fallen asleep, and his mother had only let the tears fall once she had left his room.
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The sun hadn’t been shining when he broke that first man’s neck. The guard’s cheek had been marred by a complete soulmark, a cuckoo hatchling in a nest of barbed wire.
The sun hadn’t been shining when he climbed his way through the snow, bloodied and stained by the footprints of hundreds of dead souls. If he concentrated enough, he could almost tell which footprints had been his, on that trek towards death half a year ago. He could almost make out his sisters’ three sets of footprints, and his mother’s too.
But not his father’s.
Never again his father’s.
There had been a twinge in his back where his own soulmark lay, and he couldn’t fathom what sort of pain his mother had to be in. He couldn’t imagine what losing a soulmate must have felt like.
And that day he had made himself a promise: that he would never feel that pain first hand.