Soulbound

His parents were soulmates.

Ren remembers their tattoos clearly, as important as his mother's face or his father's voice; he remembers the sheep on his mother's palm, baaing silently as she tried to reassure him.

He remembers his father carrying him with short breaths, and more than the blood on his face or the smoke around them, it had been the eagle on his shoulder that had hit Ren the most. Limp, motionless; lifeless. Broken.

Sometimes, at night, when he has to keep watch, he wonders if his own soulmate had died in Kuroyuri, too.

He doesn't let himself dwell too much on it, though. He has other priorities during the day; find food, find shelter, survive.

He's bad at that. The whole surviving thing. His feet get tender when he walks for too long and he never seems to spot a solid enough roof when rain threatens to come. The change is too sudden and too violent, from home-cooked meals to moldy bread, from warm beds to cold bridges.

At least, Nora is here.

Nora is far better than him. She's faster, sneakier, more resistant to pain and cold. She doesn't hesitate where he cringes, his parent's voices ringing in his ears Don't eat that, Lie, it's dirty. Don't do that, Lie, that's stealing.

Nora doesn't seem to really understand the concepts of right or wrong. Or maybe she's just a long way past caring. But if Nora knows anything, it's promises. "We'll keep each other's safe." she whispers to him, handing over a full -full!- apple. "Follow. This way is safer."

Ren doesn't know for how long she's been doing this. He does ask, eventually, but she cannot answer. Nora is better than him in many regards, but she is terrible at everything else. Being human, she's terrible at it; she trips over her tongue and mixes up speech and ignores the most basic things in the world.

Granted, she doesn't seem to need them either. But Nora has been keeping him alive, has been teaching him how to live. The only thing Ren has to offer back is his culture and his knowledge, so he does.

Nora doesn't really seem to see the point, at first. But she's curious. Curious and hungry. At the beginning she simply listens, eyes wide, to whatever crosses Ren's mind- old legends, recipes, how to read, how to count. Ren wonders, a couple times, if he's being annoying, but when he stops she grabs his hand and stares at him until he picks his story back up.

A few days later she starts asking questions.

She fumbles with words and never uses the proper volume and sometimes Ren can't fish any meaning in a sea of approximate grammar, but she's speaking and it's the most friendly voice Ren has ever heard ever since the Incident.

"What's pancakes? What's write here? What's year?"

It occurs to Ren that his stories might be the most meaningful conversation she's had with anyone in a long, long time.

He explains at the best of his abilities. She asks more questions. They talk. They speak. They talk some more.

Ren finds that it's a little like breaking a dam. Nora speaks up more and more often, until eventually her voice rises whenever they're safe. And sure, sometimes she loses track of her thoughts and sometimes she repeats herself and Ren thinks people aren't supposed to speak like that, but himself can follow so he doesn't mind. She gets better with practice too, finally getting a hang on verbs and tenses. Ren has never felt prouder.

They talk and speak and joke, and laugh, right there in the sewers with two years worth of dirt under their nails. It's music to Ren's ears.

"What's a soulmate?" She asks one day. It's the one thing Ren never brought up, partly because it's hard to know what's common knowledge and what's Nora lacking, partly because the word still reminds him of the crippled eagle on his father's skin. The word is plastered on every ad in town though, so he doesn't have to think too hard about where she could have heard that.

"It's the person you're fated to be with."

Nora stares, blinks, once, twice, and speaks up.

"What."

Destiny, Ren has learned, is one of those concepts Nora doesn't quite understand. If she was predetermined to live this long, she'd told him, why did she have to fight so hard? How has she been so close to death so many times? If anything, she'd been destined to die, but has been too stubborn too.

Ren's father would have scowled at these kind of words, but Ren has to admit she does have a point. If things are set in stone, then at the very least the finest details are still up to him.

"It's the person who makes your tattoo move." Ren explains, stabbing a finger on her ankle for emphasis. It's a bird of some sort, but he's not nearly knowledgeable enough to tell what specie. "It's the person linked to you by it."

"Huh." Nora doesn't sound impressed. "And what does a soulmate, like... do? I mean... technically? What's the point?"

"They're supposed to be..." Ren pauses and frowns. How did his mother explain again? "Your... perfect match? Someone you can always rely on. That one person who gets you, even the weird feelings you can't word out."

"Oh. Oooooh." And there it is- that little spark in her eyes when she's learned something new. "So, like us?"

Ren wants to point out that the snake on his own skin has yet to love, that it doesn't quite work this way.

He says nothing.

He knows no words, to describe what they are. Best friends sounds too tame; partners not intense enough.

He loves her. That's a fact. He needs her. Not because she keeps him alive- he has learned, since, to find his own food, to climb on trees. He needs her like one need heat, like one need a home. Nora is the reason he keeps moving forward, his inspiration to become the best person he can be despite the circumstances.

"...Yeah. Like us." He says eventually. So fate didn't choose her. He did nonetheless.

They're twelve. At least, Ren is twelve, because he still remembers his birth year and he came across a calendar in the store. Nora doesn't know how old she is, but Ren supposes she can't be much older than him.

They're twelve, and it has been years since Ren has slept anywhere other than a cave or a tree, when Nora comes to him with a paper in her hands and guilt on her face.

"I'm going to hunter school."

Ren's blood freezes in his veins.

"They provide- well basically everything!" she explains. "Food, shelter, you name it- you can even earn some money later on, with like, missions and stuff!"

Of course they do. There is only one possible ending to hunter school. There is only one possible ending to being a hunter. They have to make a certain and painful death worthwhile somehow.

"I can handle it." Nora says, noticing the worry in his frown. "You know me, I'm tough!"

She really is. Ren has even seen her hurt adults once or twice, badly enough that they had time to run away.

(He sees his father screaming, bow in hand, as smoke and shadows surround him. Being tough is not enough.)

Softly, Nora sets a palm on his hand. She's rough by nature, rough skin and rough actions, rarely ever bothering with things like subtlety or delicacy. But she is always gentle with him. He has seen her snap bones and displays as if they were weak tree branches, but Ren has never once been afraid that she would use her strength against him.

"If you don't want to come with me, I'll understand."

She's trying, she's trying really hard to be brave, Ren can tell. She doesn't want him to leave. But at the same time, and the realization settles coldly in his bones, she means it; if he decided to leave, she would let him.

"I'll send you money," she continues. "You could build a good life around- maybe find a baker who could hire you? I'll write you everyday. Unless you don't want me too! I totally understand! You've done so much for me already."

She's being genuine. She really thinks- she's really considering the chance that maybe he wants to cut all ties with her-

And it hits Ren, that he could. If he wanted to, he really could- come back to the life he was supposed to have before his parents died. He could abandon every single Kuroyuri reminders he has and slips into the skin of a normal, honorable person. He could. He could.

It dawns on him, that this. This moment, this instant, this second, right there. This choice Nora is offering, this chance she's giving him, is the most important decision Ren will ever do. Kuroyuri has been beyond his control. What his life will be from now on- it all depends on what he decides, right now.

He grabs her wrists and holds firmly. Refusing to let her go.

"I'm coming with you."

He wants to tell her. He wants to tell her how much she means to him. He wants to tell her that he would rather be homeless with her than under a roof without her. He wants to tell her that she's done so much for him already, he owes her so much already.
He wants to tell her that he loves her, simply. She's family. She's home. She's everything he has and the only thing he wants.

Maybe it's because of how long she's been without a proper vocabulary, but Nora has a way to jump on the first words she find that describe what she's feeling, as disjointed as the result is. Ren has the opposite problem; he cannot speak unless he already has a clear plan in his head of how to say it. He has so much to say, so much to convey, and Ren has no idea how to fit that in a single sentence.

So he doesn't.

He wraps his fingers around Nora's ankle, around the still bird sleeping on her skin, and he closes his eyes.

Ren doesn't know much about souls, aside from old fairy tales he's started to forget. But he figures if he tries really hard, if he wants it really hard, maybe Nora can catch a glimpse of it.

Ren closes his eyes, and he focuses. His hold is firm on her, unwilling to let go. He doesn't know what destiny has in story for him, if there is one at all. But Ren knows this: He chooses her. Whatever the universe says, he wants her in his life. He chooses her.

Nora gasps.

Her hand closes on his shoulder, right above his snake. Her nails dig painfully in his skin, and Ren wants to wince, except-

Warmth.

Home.

Love.

Ren feels full and whole and so very human, so much more than human, bigger than his bones and his teeth. It's you. It's me. I'm with you and you're with me.

Under his fingers, the skin stirs.

"Ren?" Water runs from his shoulder down his arm, a faint unnoticeable pressure tickling his skin. "Ren!"

His eyes snap open.

Nora is staring at his wrist, face halfway between wonder and fear.

His snake is staring back.

Oh. It wasn't water.

"Re-EN!" Her voice suddenly gains an octave, and Nora's leg kicks up in surprise, narrowly avoiding him. A flash of black ink flies under her pants legs, vanishing from view.

This can't be happening. Logically speaking. Ren ignores a lot of things, but at least this is something he knows: tattoos start moving upon meeting their soulmates. Not at random, not five years after spending every single day with them. This whole situation is, plainly, impossible.

Nora's bird trots off her sleeve, comfortably nesting as close as possible to his own mark.

"Ren?" Nora calls again. The initial shock seems to have passed, replaced by curiosity and that slight frown she has when she's unsure if she sohuld be worried yet. "What is going on?"

This shouldn't be possible. Fate didn't choose her.

...

But he did.

"We're soulmates." Ren says. Which might be inaccurate, because soulmates don't choose each other, but he knows Nora isn't a sticker for exact definitions anyway.

"Oh." Slowly, his snake closes its eyes, as if it were sleeping. It's a strange sensation; his tattoo isn't moving anymore, but he can still feel it like a armband under his hairs, breathing calmly. Experimentally, Nora pokes her bird. "Took them long enough to catch on."

They fill their forms to apply to combat school together, even though their handwritings are shaky and messy from years without a pen, and the new tingle of their tattoos make for easy distractions. Ren isn't worried about being rejected, though; the world cruelly needs new hunters, he's learned the hard way.

"I need a last name." Nora tells him. "Pick one for me?"

Ren thinks long and hard. About Nora, and himself, and the tattoos connecting them.

They say they pick who live or die in battle. His mother's voice is blurry, but the bedtime story is not. Mostly because he could tell Nora about one but not the other.They come with ravens or swans to bring the dead to their gods.

Ren is sure the bird is neither raven nor swan, but it has feathers and wings all the same. Nora is no death reaper, but she did pick him to live.

"Valkyrie." he says. "Nora Valkyrie."

She smiles. Her teeth are crooked and her face dirty. It's the brightest thing he's ever seen.

"I like the sound of that."