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Not everyone was born with a soulmate mark, but everyone was born with a soulmate.
The weave of magic worked in strange ways; hell, you weren't necessarily born with a soulmate, but multiple. It honestly wasn't that uncommon to see; there were plenty with platonic soulmates, and sometimes someone would have a familiar soulmate.
Soulmate marks were small symbols placed on your chest, between your breasts, right over your heart. They change when you touch your soulmate for the first time, colour filling in the barely noticeable crevice of the mark indented into skin. No two marks are the same unless they shared the same person. The mark is a reflection of the soul after all.
Natsu Dragneel was born with a single mark on his chest. It was strange and shaped vaguely like a cat stretching out in a sort of wavy way. He never learned what his parents suspected before he died. And when he woke up again, he had a second mark on his chest. On the lower right edge of his heart was a blackened ankh; it matched the mark in the centre of his brother's chest. The mark on his brother glowed like embers in the dark, a call of fire, of safety, of warmth. In contrast, the mark on his chest seemed to suck all light into it, a swirling void of nothing and death.
He kept the two marks, nothing changing, nothing moving. Until the day he awoke without his dad next to him and his brother scrubbed from his memories. There, he had three more marks on his chest, touching his first mark. The first was what could only be frost on glass, ice reaching out with loving hands. The second was an amalgamous form that resembled a shield, a sword, and a dragon, somehow looking like neither and all of them at once. And the last one was a cluster of stardust, shaped vaguely in the likeness of a key.
Natsu found himself tracing the marks, all dull and lifeless, a promise of who he was bound to by magic beyond him.
They looked so alive next to the ankh carved into his chest…
The old man who found him looked at Natsu with a cocked head before smiling at the marks on his chest before leading him towards Fairy Tail. Natsu didn't know why, but the old man was amused by them.
His first impression of the guild was that it was loud, loud in a language he didn't understand. But what Natsu did understand was the tone some boy around his age held. Natsu didn't pay attention to how his marks matched some of his, only taking passive note of how one of his marks was lit up before fists made contact. And as their fighting came to an end, another mark on the black-haired teen’s chest lit up like embers, and he pulled Natsu’s shirt to the side to look at the frostbitten spot on his chest, which glowed with a grey-blue colour that could only match a frost-cold day. How this rude-ass kid was his soulmate, Natsu didn't understand.
Natsu watched as his face twisted as he called over a red-headed girl and had her lightly hit Natsu in turn, and watched as another mark on his chest lit up scarlet.
It was hard to separate them since, even if the three of them weren't really friends, they weren't really strangers.
Gray was born with three marks on his chest; he wasn't old enough to remember the fourth one joining the others. Only ever knew that fate had lined up four people to share his life with him. A flame that seemed to change into a weird shape, a blob that appeared to be a mix of a sword, shield, and something else, a bundle of stars in the shape of a key, and a cat in a weird, curved shape.
It sure didn't feel that way when that demon destroyed his home, not when he was left almost completely alone in the world and sought out the strongest mage he could find to teach him magic strong enough to kill that demon in turn.
Ur and Lyon were weird; Ur’s chest only had a single mark, left dull and black. Her skin marred by the death of her other. Lyon, on the other hand, was like her, with a single mark on his chest, but instead of his other part being dead and gone, his mark was grey like his own.
Gray didn't know if he was sad or happy that Lyon didn't share a mark with him.
He knew he was happy that he didn't, as he left to kill Deliora, as he failed to kill the demon and watched his master lose her life to trap the thing causing him so much anguish. As he left to join a guild, and came across Fairy Tail.
The guild was strange; most people he knew before only had one or two marks on their chest, opposed to his four, but the guild had countless people with multiple marks on their chests. It was nice not to feel alone in that venture anymore.
He remembered the day Erza joined the guild, her scarlet hair hiding her face as she walked up to Gramps. She barely talked, hiding away in a corner all on her own. As he grew, he did learn to cringe at how he first treated her, watching as she did everything in her power to avoid him, not to touch him—stopping his pestering for fights every time with a sword instead of a fist. Until that day when he found her by the water, seeing her cry made his insides twist and turn with something he couldn't name now, even if he tried.
All he knew was that he hated to see a girl cry, and he offered his hand out for her to take to bring her back to the guild.
His chest lit up scarlet as the weird smudge of a shape on his chest resided.
They returned back to the guild, earning pointed smiles and gossip from their guildmates about his lit-up chest. Jests that were all in good fun; after all, it was always nice when someone found a soulmate for the first time.
Erza was born with two marks on her chest: a flame that seemed to melt into a dragon, a cat in a curved shape, frost on a window, and a cluster of stars in the vague shape of a key.
She didn't have a parent to coo at the marks on her body, only the adults in the orphanage to explain to the kids her age what the marks on their bodies meant. Truthfully, she didn't put much thought into them while in her home village. The thought of who was on the other end of the marks was pointless as she grew.
In the tower, it was another story.
Her, Simon, Jellal, Shô, Wally, and Millianna would sit around Grandpa Rob as he told them about what their soulmate marks meant, how it was a promise from the universe that there was at least one person out there waiting for them, hoping and praying they would be strong despite the tower. The six of them would look at the old man’s chest, see his own mark blackened out, and watch as his face would grow long with a melancholy smile when asked about his life as a wizard.
They told themselves they wouldn't ask about his soulmate, not wanting to sadden the only adult around them who cared.
At one point, she wished Jellal were her soulmate. The two of them made up dreams of grandeur about what they would do when they got out of the hell of the cults making.
She was glad he wasn't after that day. Because she didn’t know what she would have done if he were as he threatened everyone and threw her out. That pain would have been too much for her to handle.
The guild was loud and lively, the opposite of the tower as a whole. Master Makarov was… nice. Not completely what she expected from Grandpa Rob's stories, but enough to be the same person in essence. Settling in was another thing, especially when that boy—Gray, kept pestering her. She didn't know what to think; three of the marks on his chest matched hers, she thought, but after it all, the thought of touching another frightened her. Until he offered his hand out to her as she watched the one unfamiliar mark on his body light up the same colour as her hair.
He became a reminder that there was light at the end of the tunnel, and later, Natsu joined that light in her life too.
Lucy was born with four marks on her chest. A flame, frost, a misshapen sword and shield, and a cat.
Growing up, she would look to her mother, see the two glowing marks on her chest, and ask questions about her own marks. Lucy's mother would smile, tell her the wonders of having a soulmate, before looking at the marks on her chest and saying, “One of them means great things for your future, Lucy.” She would ask her what mark her mother meant that for, only to earn a laugh and her mother's hand ruffling her hair. “Good things come with time, my little star. If I told you what I thought now, it might not come true.”
But good things didn't come—couldn't come with time. Not while Lucy watched her mother wither away; the two marks on her chest, the one she shared with her father, and the other one that looked like a goat and a fish, flickered as her mother's soul waned. She didn't have the heart to ask her mother what she meant before she died.
Watching her father fade while still breathing hurt even more; it was as if she didn't matter to him anymore. Maybe it was because she looked so much like her mom, but Lucy didn't care. She just wanted her dad back. Running away became the best thing she ever did.
Lucy didn't know; she didn't notice the change on Natsu's chest and didn't pay attention as she changed into the only nice dress she had on her. It wasn't until he took her hand in his for the first time that she noticed he had all four soulmate marks lit up and how three of those marks matched her own.
That night, as Happy and Natsu slept, she lifted her shirt to look at her own marks. The flame glowed with embers in the low light of the night.
Natsu brought her home, to the guild, where her chest lit up blue-gray as she watched Gray touch her; the mark on his chest, the one that looked like stars and a key, lit up gold as they touched. Not that Grey took notice of the fighting. A few weeks later, after the cat mark on her chest lit up amber, she shook Erza's hand. Lucy would check her chest and find the last mark lit up.
Running away was the best thing she ever did.
Loke wasn't created with a soulmate mark; no spirit was. Their king—their creator—didn't know if they even could have one.
That unasked question was answered one hundred years after the last spirit was made to fill the void in the key. A mark appeared on an Orion's chest, and dread filled the hearts of every spirit. It was a scary thing to know you could be bound to a mortal; human lives are so short after all. Humans kept their marks throughout life; did that mean that they would be left with marks to remind them of their loss for the rest of time?
That too was answered with time.
As it turned out, spirits would lose old soulmate marks as time passed after they faded into darkness. Leo grew to expect new marks as time passed, moving on from the love he held for them as the marks disappeared.
One moment, he blinked, and his chest grew a new mark. A flame that seemed to grow into a dragon. Quiet the soul to have as dragons ravaged the humans of Earthland. But as quick as the mark appeared on his chest, it went from a blank grey to dead black. That—hurt. He didn’t even have the chance to meet this new person who claimed his soul. It wasn't fair to the human who was now dead so soon after being born.
It was a shame, but the mark faded after fifty years, and Leo learned to get over it.
Until one day it came back.
Soulmate marks didn't do that; no two souls ever have the same mark, similar maybe, but never the /same/. He spent ages looking at that mark on his chest, trying to find any differences from his last mark, only to come up with nothing. It was exactly the same. Something had to be wrong; Ankhseram didn't let their dead go; they kept them safe in the afterlife, in the golden fields.
It stayed in his mind as time passed; surely one day he would blink, and it would be gone. A fluke in a system he didn't know the mechanisms of how it worked. But one year became two, became five, became ten, until a normal human's lifespan came and went with no change from the mark on his chest. Something had happened, and Leo had no idea what it could have been. So he stopped paying attention to the marks on his chest until one day three new ones seemed to appear on his body at once. One mark to four—what a wonderful thing that could be.
He didn’t pay much mind to those new marks, fearing that they would disappear and leave him with the strange, never-ending mark on his body.
That was until he signed a contract with Karen, and then things changed for him. He was so happy for the marks on his chest, a silent whisper that he had something to look forward to beyond the awful wizard he was bound to for a time. Aries didn't have that hope, so he had to be that for them both.
He never meant to kill Karen, though. He didn’t mean to. But pleading as much as he did, the king did not listen, casting him out and closing his gate, leaving him to die on Earthland. Leo couldn't die; when were his soulmates born? If they were still young children, how heartbreaking would that be to lose their other now? How much time had passed while he was ignoring the years on Earthland?
Fairy Tail would become his resting place, and he wasn't ready for it. So, of course, that guild led him to three of the four souls connected to him. Natsu, Gray, and Erza took him in with open arms to their small circle of care. Maybe it would be okay if he were to pass away; they had one another to care for, and they would be fine after he was gone.
Then Lucy joined the guild; Natsu dragged her along, his hand in hers with a smile on his face. Loke noticed that the last mark on his chest was lit up gold. She was a Celestial wizard; she would know what it meant after he was gone. All celestial wizards would feel the breaking of his gate after he was gone.
— ₊˚.· ☾ ·⁺₊ —
It was a warm spring day, and Natsu, Gray, Lucy, Erza, and Loke were lounging under the sun beside the lake behind Magnolia. Lucy and Gray were discussing a book Lucy had forced him to read with her as Natsu and Erza soaked up the sunlight.
“You know.” Loke said, a smile on his face as he drew the attention of his four partners. “You guys might not have been my first choice, but you're definitely my last.” He mumbled.
“Loke, you’re going to outlive us; you shouldn’t say that.” Gray responded, looking down at the book in his hand.
“But I don't think I will ever love any others as I do you four. I haven't before, after all.” He tilted his head. “Besides, who else would challenge a king to save one spirit’s life but you?”
It was a fond memory. He had broken down crying one night after a job the four of them had gone on, confessing about his soon-to-be death and how he was a Celestial Spirit.
Never before had four humans combined their magic, each one of them touching one another before forcing open his gate and sought an audience with the King himself. Each one of them was chewing him out for his ‘foolish ruling.’ In turn, the king overruled Loke’s sentence, saying that he now had to live off the ruling bound to the four mortals that tried to save him. They were idiots who somehow saved his life, and he was so grateful to have them in his life.