#and opal is yong's first soulmate and half the reason he's such a mess as a parent is because he's got Issues that he's not hers

[words-writ-in-starlight]

plz tell me about nik having a soulmate

HELLO I survived calling five different people and emailing a doctor today, so I’m actually going to talk about Several Soulmates as a treat for myself.  Please be advised of spoilers for the DFZ and Heartstriker books.

Opal and Nik, they were born with their soulmarks--or, rather, Opal was born with hers, and Nik’s scribbled itself onto his chest when he was a little more than a year old.  For Opal, it’s a problem right away.  The letters scratched up her inner arm are too small for even dragon eyes to read the what are you doing back here? i heard you got sold a coffin when she’s born, but it doesn’t take reading them to know that they’re in English.  The Great Yong brushes a bare thumb down the string of letters and his hand comes away marked with brilliant blue, and decides to do his best not to notice.  Dragons don’t have writing anyway.  It’s foolish to be offended.  (He doesn’t do a great job, not noticing, and always speaks to her in Korean.)  It’s embarrassing to admit, but she doesn’t even notice when Nik Kos says her words, because Opal is too busy trying to figure out how she’s going to buy herself a new unit with basically no money.  It’s not until after the shooting that it finally clicks, and then she very thoroughly...panics herself silent.  It takes a while for her to get up the nerve to say anything.

For Nik, it isn’t a problem until the Arena.  No one gave two shits about some cast-off Underground kid’s soulmark.  But as a fighter--there isn’t a lot of literature on what happens to soulmarks, if you get the relevant body part augmented.  Nik resisted getting chest armor as long as he could, even though it was stupid, and he knows it was stupid, and he even knows it’s stupid to pretend that the elegant handwriting of how’d you hear that is ever going to cross his path, let alone give him the time of day.  Nik convinces himself it’s going to be a relief to wake up and have the writing gone, when he finally cracks and gets the armor.  (He wakes up to the words etched into the metal, as stark and black as ever, and a polite request from Rena to maybe study him a little, please.  He declines but she holds out hope.)  He’s actually seen Opal’s handwriting before he speaks to her, so he knows from the jump that she’s his soulmate--he kind of regrets such a stupid first remark, but he was just so curious after seeing months of the best Cleaner around go from misfortune to misfortune.  He decided pretty much immediately that he wasn’t good enough for her it was more trouble than it was worth, and then, of course, instantly got in over his head for her.

Marci was also born with her soulmark, part of the first generation born after the First Crash and therefore the first generation born with soulmarks, but can i help you is about the least helpful soulmark in the world.  She’s heard it a million and one times by the time she blows up her childhood home, and quashes the automatic uprush of giddy hope when the gorgeous guy with the green eyes says it.  She introduces herself back, and his eyes don’t even flicker as he takes her business card, and so Marci writes it off.  And writes it off, and writes it off, and writes it off, and--  

And dragons don’t have soulmarks.  Marci knows it, everyone knows it.  Some people say it’s because they’re incapable of feeling love--any love, parental love, platonic love, romantic love, any of the myriad different loves that forge a soulmark--but the longer she knows Julius, the less she thinks that’s the case.  Maybe dragons are just--different.  And she’s seen Julius’ handwriting now.  So--best friends.  Marci can live with that.

(Marci has a second soulmark.  It’s a bleached scar on the tips of her right fingers, like someone burned off her fingerprints with acid, and it’s always cold to the touch, and it sang through her as bright and painful as touching dry ice, when she first bound a cat-shaped death spirit.  All Merlins bear a mark from their spirits, she learns later.  This raises an interesting debate about Emily Jackson and the talon marks that always seem to appear on her artificial wrist, but that’s a separate book for Marci to write, someday.)

Julius has the dubious privilege of being one of the first dragons ever to get a soulmark.  They’re native magic, is the thing he’s learned recently.  And dragons...aren’t.  Weren’t.  But Marci fell out of the sky and he caught her and he has two silver marks on his blue scales, corresponding to handprints at the curve of his shoulders, where her bare palms scrabbled for a grip.  He is thrilled beyond words, thank you very much, and not inclined to look a gift soulmark in the mouth.  The only person whose transparent delight comes close is the Qilin, despite the fact that he is absolutely going to be in trouble with his advisors for showing up to the end of the world with a deep purple soulmark on his hand, matching the brilliant gold that wraps around Chelsie’s.

Bob is the exception to many rules.  The black chain links marching down his spine are half soulmark, half contract, and he’s had them since well before the return of magic, and he doesn’t need to admit to anyone but his lady how comforting he finds their weight.