The soulbond snaps into place the moment they meet. Suletta Mercury’s world explodes into colours and light and the greyscale girl at the centre of it all stares at her in a kind of horror, and that is that.
There’s a mark on the outside of her forearm when she takes her spacesuit off, a name scrawled in thin neat handwriting. Miorine Rembran. Suletta traces a finger over it with a mixture of delight and fear, sure she’s going to mess it all up somehow. She usually does.
\
“We can’t — we can’t do this,” Miorine says, sitting with her legs swinging over the lip of Aerial’s hand, “if people know we’re —” she gestures between them, “ — you know.”
(Is she blushing?)
“I don’t follow,” Suletta says truthfully, kneeling down to sit beside her. Something about Miorine makes her want to be close to her all the time, want to press up beside her and hold her hand and —
Miorine makes a frustrated noise. “We can’t be engaged — you can’t be the Holder — if people know we’re soulmates.”
“... Why? Wouldn’t that be really romantic?”
She flushes, turning sharply away from Suletta to face the training field, shoulders hitching up to her ears. “It doesn’t matter if it’s romantic or not. If people know we’re — fated to be together, they’ll lose interest in the duelling game. It takes all the fairness out of it.”
“I don’t know, that sounds pretty good to me —”
“And my father will kill me.”
“Ah.”
A pause. “I’m supposed to be regularly… surveying my options. Talking to different people in the running.”
Suletta tilts her head to the side. She’s going somewhere with this, feeling it out along the way, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen Miorine so shy before.
“The problem is, I really don’t want to do that.”
She scrunches up her nose. “Oh, please don’t say you have to go on dates with Guel.”
Miorine snorts. “Something like that.”
“I am so sorry.”
Another pause, this one almost pained. Suletta leans over until her chin is resting on Miorine’s shoulder, only half as close to her as she wishes she could be. Maybe it’s just a side effect of the soulmate bond, the wanting. “I suspect my father would lighten up on that front if he knew I was connected to you in — some other way.”
She speaks so haltingly, like she’s afraid Suletta will get up and run away if she pushes too far. There’s something behind her voice, now, but Suletta would rather die than push, so she sits neatly and listens with her head on Miorine’s shoulder, and aches with want.
When she speaks again, her voice is soft. Hesitant. “If I made him think we were dating, maybe —”
Suletta jumps in her seat. “Wh— dating?”
“Dating,” Miorine repeats, suddenly firm. “If it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable.”
“No, no, I —” she sits upright, ducking her head to avoid Miorine’s searching gaze. “I don’t mind. That sounds — that would be okay with me, Ms Miorine. If it’ll help you out.”
“It would,” she says decisively.
And that’s that.
//
She meets Miorine’s father exactly once, on the day of his one and only yearly visit to the school. Suletta stands awkwardly next to her with their hands intertwined and gives him a shaky bow when he pauses in front of her, and when she and Miorine are sitting next to each other at a dinner in one of the school board’s huge and echoing dining rooms she successfully manages to avoid meeting his eyes for the full two hours.
The Holder jacket does, of course, hide her soulmark, and Miorine’s jacket conceals hers, too.
She zones out through most of the stilted conversations that pass over the dining table, joining back in only when Miorine nudges her gently. She manages to avoid committing some kind of Asticassian social faux pas that would have seen her confined to Earth House for a week for fear of being shunned. And — in what she considers to be the biggest victory of the night — she doesn’t even squeak too loudly when Miorine stands on her tiptoes and kisses her goodbye right in front of Delling Rembran, the richest man in the universe.
FILL: TEAM CATRADORA
words: 706
ship: suletta mercury/miorine rembran
The soulbond snaps into place the moment they meet. Suletta Mercury’s world explodes into colours and light and the greyscale girl at the centre of it all stares at her in a kind of horror, and that is that.
There’s a mark on the outside of her forearm when she takes her spacesuit off, a name scrawled in thin neat handwriting. Miorine Rembran. Suletta traces a finger over it with a mixture of delight and fear, sure she’s going to mess it all up somehow. She usually does.
\
“We can’t — we can’t do this,” Miorine says, sitting with her legs swinging over the lip of Aerial’s hand, “if people know we’re —” she gestures between them, “ — you know.”
(Is she blushing?)
“I don’t follow,” Suletta says truthfully, kneeling down to sit beside her. Something about Miorine makes her want to be close to her all the time, want to press up beside her and hold her hand and —
Miorine makes a frustrated noise. “We can’t be engaged — you can’t be the Holder — if people know we’re soulmates.”
“... Why? Wouldn’t that be really romantic?”
She flushes, turning sharply away from Suletta to face the training field, shoulders hitching up to her ears. “It doesn’t matter if it’s romantic or not. If people know we’re — fated to be together, they’ll lose interest in the duelling game. It takes all the fairness out of it.”
“I don’t know, that sounds pretty good to me —”
“And my father will kill me.”
“Ah.”
A pause. “I’m supposed to be regularly… surveying my options. Talking to different people in the running.”
Suletta tilts her head to the side. She’s going somewhere with this, feeling it out along the way, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen Miorine so shy before.
“The problem is, I really don’t want to do that.”
She scrunches up her nose. “Oh, please don’t say you have to go on dates with Guel.”
Miorine snorts. “Something like that.”
“I am so sorry.”
Another pause, this one almost pained. Suletta leans over until her chin is resting on Miorine’s shoulder, only half as close to her as she wishes she could be. Maybe it’s just a side effect of the soulmate bond, the wanting. “I suspect my father would lighten up on that front if he knew I was connected to you in — some other way.”
She speaks so haltingly, like she’s afraid Suletta will get up and run away if she pushes too far. There’s something behind her voice, now, but Suletta would rather die than push, so she sits neatly and listens with her head on Miorine’s shoulder, and aches with want.
When she speaks again, her voice is soft. Hesitant. “If I made him think we were dating, maybe —”
Suletta jumps in her seat. “Wh— dating?”
“Dating,” Miorine repeats, suddenly firm. “If it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable.”
“No, no, I —” she sits upright, ducking her head to avoid Miorine’s searching gaze. “I don’t mind. That sounds — that would be okay with me, Ms Miorine. If it’ll help you out.”
“It would,” she says decisively.
And that’s that.
//
She meets Miorine’s father exactly once, on the day of his one and only yearly visit to the school. Suletta stands awkwardly next to her with their hands intertwined and gives him a shaky bow when he pauses in front of her, and when she and Miorine are sitting next to each other at a dinner in one of the school board’s huge and echoing dining rooms she successfully manages to avoid meeting his eyes for the full two hours.
The Holder jacket does, of course, hide her soulmark, and Miorine’s jacket conceals hers, too.
She zones out through most of the stilted conversations that pass over the dining table, joining back in only when Miorine nudges her gently. She manages to avoid committing some kind of Asticassian social faux pas that would have seen her confined to Earth House for a week for fear of being shunned. And — in what she considers to be the biggest victory of the night — she doesn’t even squeak too loudly when Miorine stands on her tiptoes and kisses her goodbye right in front of Delling Rembran, the richest man in the universe.