taste your words pt. I: Percy Jackson and The Heroes of Olympus

You drool when you sleep.

It was Percy Jackson's fourth soulmark. It rested in the small of his back, the last soulmark still black and bold. Three others marked his skin, faded to the ghostly gray of the dead where they were scattered on his leg, his hip, his arm. They were barely visible, but he could still feel them burn.

I'm alone, too. Wanna be friends? died in a car accident three weeks after he met her.

Why can't you read? was around for a month and a half, but then boarded a flight to visit family in Los Angeles. The plane never came down, but the mark burnt gray that night.

Sorry, what was your name again? didn't even last a day. Percy never even learnt his name. He was two years older, and disappeared walking home from school the day Percy met him. Or so it said on the news. Percy wasn't watching, because his second to last soulmark had just turned gray, the black burning away with pain.

Sally Jackson watched with horror and silently cursed the monsters who already plagued her son. She gave him blue candy and hugs and wished with all her heart that the last soulmate would be protected. Somehow.

Somehow, Poseidon, she prayed. Please.

He didn't speak to anyone new for a month, terrified that they would be cursed with his last set of words. Percy was sure that You drool when you sleep was doomed.

In the armory?

Frank Zhang had long ago resigned himself to a life of fighting battles, one after the other. Battles like bullies, living in Canada and being bad at French, his mom dying, his grandmother beginning to wither away. Going to a Roman camp on the west coast of America.

Frank was no stranger to battles of so many kinds. The armory, he figures, must lead to yet another battle that he wouldn't want to fight.

His soulmark made no sense without any context, and he had resigned himself to that, too. It would be fine. Someday his soulmate would appear, and likely become another battle to soldier through.

Frank hated fighting. It always seemed he was on the losing end.

What are you doing? You just blew up my dining table!

Leo Valdez made an unfortunate pastime out of blowing stuff up, whether he liked it or not. His second grade science teacher thought it was hilarious. His ninth grade science teacher did not.

Science classes and accidental eruptions of flames aside, Leo didn't really try to blow stuff up. It just…sort of…happened. His soulmark (holy mackerel, he thought, who writes in, like, freaking calligraphy or whatever?) accusing him of destroying somebody's furniture was not surprising in the least.

After he figured out all the weird parent things (holy, holy, saintly mackerel), well, excuse him for upping the blowing-things-up ratio. Leo's newfound ability to not, you know, accidentally kill people while using his powers helped. He even developed a habit of channeling his fire around his soulmark, which twisted down his right arm onto his palm.

But calligraphy? Who on Earth wrote in calligraphy?

What would Leo say back?

What would she say after that?

(Spoiler: she wasn't on Earth.)

((Spoiler spoiler: she wouldn't say anything after that, because it wouldn't matter to her. Goddesses don't have soulmarks, moron.))

Hazel Levesque's soulmark crumbled into dust and fell away from her skin as she emerged from the Underworld into the land of the living. Sammy's first words to her—What was your name again?—were gone, probably forever.

When she found the new words sprawled across her leg, she told herself that it was okay. Sammy's soulmark—My name…Hazel. Are you my soulmate?—turned gray the moment she died in that cave. Sammy moved on. She hoped that Sammy moved on.

(She hoped he didn't. Just a little bit of hope. Just enough to make her feel like a monster.)

If Sammy moved on…

Hazel sighed down at her new soulmark. Do you know—uh, I'm sorry, I'm Frank, where can I get another bowstring?

Maybe…just maybe, she could too. A new life, right?

Oh no, no, you don't want me, I'm sorry, uh, I have to—

Annabeth Chase thought that soulmates were a waste of time anyway.