Darcy woke up with a pounding melody in her head and new ink on her skin. There were images on her arm, sharp and thickly lined, all in black ink. Her soulmate seemed to have a preference for black ink, as they never wrote in anything else. At least, not as far as she saw.
This had been a common occurrence over the years. Her soulmate really liked to ink themselves, writing and drawing so frequently that she was pretty sure her soulmate would be completely inked up by the time she met them. She also didn't recognize the music in her head by any stretch of the imagination. She never did, and despite how much the songs were stuck in her mind, she could never really get a hold of the melody and the words always slipped away from her.
Darcy didn't know where her soulmate was, but she had figured out a long time ago that they did not speak English. It was rare that they wrote actual words on their skin, and when they did, she could never figure out what language it was in. She'd tried to communicate with her soulmate by writing to them on her own arm numerous times, but it became clear early on that there was a thick language barrier between them.
Once she sat up fully, she investigated the new ink on her arms. There were snow flakes and daggers, sharp shapes that she couldn't distinguish between scribbles and deliberate pictures. She wondered if her soulmate was an artist. She wondered how far away they were.
For years now, she had woken up to half remembered songs her soulmate was singing or heavily inked arms or hands. It made her wonder how long her soulmate had been awake by the time she had to stumble out of bed. Did they stay up late? Wake up early? Was there a steep time difference between them?
She didn't have too much time to contemplate it. She only had another minute of wallowing in bed before her mother was banging on the door and demanding that she get up and go to school.
Darcy was in college when her soulmate got their first tattoo. She wasn't the first to notice this. She was in a lecture when her best friend tapped her on her shoulder and whispered, "Don't look now, but you've got new ink again!"
Darcy was excited when she examined her arm, then surprised that what she saw was an actually tattoo instead of the scrawls of pen ink that usually decorated her. She had gotten used to the look of the pen ink that was a near permanent decoration for her. She was even a little proud of them, showing off her arms as often as possible, even though no one else would know that it was the work of her soulmate as opposed to her own.
She knew that not many people interacted with their soulmate this way. If they did, it was more straightforward, and everything that she and her soulmate exchanged was entirely abstract. Sometimes she wasn't even certain if her soulmate was really aware of her.
The tattoo was, to her surprise, a very stylized English script. The word "Worldbreaker" curled around her arm like a brand.
What sort of person was her soulmate that this is what they chose to mark himself with? Darcy wasn't certain what to make of it, if there was anything to make of it. Could it be a clue to finding them? Was it a message to her? Darcy had no idea, but she rather liked it nonetheless.
It was few days later that she realized it was permanent. She had expected that it would fade like everything else her soulmate wrote on their skin, but after further thought, it made sense that it would be permanent. That was how tattoos worked, after all.
It was pretty cool to walk around with a claim like world breaker on her arm. It made her feel pretty bad ass and the fact that she didn't have to suffer through the pain of having a needle agonizingly drawn over her skin was a bonus.
It was during her finals that she started talking to her soulmate. She knew that they didn't speak English, so no matter what she wrote, it was unlikely that they would understand her. She had tried this before when she was younger, many times.
It still made her feel better to write her rants in gel pen on her legs after long stretches of studying. She knew that her soulmate preferred to write on their arms, so she decided to claim legs as her space. She still didn't know if her soulmate could understand it, but they often responded by drawing images of hearts and music notes and other soothing pictures for her. Sometimes they even sang to her, though she could never precisely make out the song itself, just the melody that repeated in her head.
It was actually pretty relaxing. Writing to her soulmate was stress relieving and the songs that got stuck in her head were like lullabies that lured her into sleep.
During the spring, her soulmate started trying to locate her. At least, that's what she thought they were doing. It took her a while to figure out what her soulmate wanted when they began listing the continents on her arms. It took a week of repetition before she realized that they wanted her response. She circled her own and crossed out the others.
It wasn't until her next semester that the question of location reared it's head again. There was a list of states written out and crossed off until she singled out the one that she was in. She wondered if anything would come of it, but she wasn't really in a rush. And when she wasn't paying attention to it, time didn't drag along so slowly.
She was interning for Jane by the time the question was posed again. This time it took longer. There was a long question and answer exchange of cities, followed by a list of stores and restaurants that she assumed was meant to ask what places she frequented. The anticipation began to buzz in her stomach by that point, but she tried to sit on it.
The day she met her soulmate came more casually than she ever thought it would. She was waiting to meet Jane at a coffee shop, headphones blasting loudly on her head, notebook in hand as she wrote notes for a paper she wasn't planning to write until last minute anyway. She had pretty much tuned out the outside world, singing to herself in what she would have hoped was a quiet voice if she had been paying attention.
It was only when he sat down next her, leaning his head on her shoulder, that she realized someone was near her at all. There was a feeling of warmth that spread over her entire body and she saw the head of dark hair that was leaning against her. Once he noticed her, he smiled and turned so that she could see his "Worldbreaker" tattoo. They grinned at each other and from that point forward her soulmate was in her life.
Loki liked his soulmate as soon as he saw her. He had worried when he'd decided to look for his soulmate that he wouldn't be able to find her on his own. He really wanted to surprise them and he wouldn't be able to do that if he had to plan a more detailed meeting.
It was a thrill to see his tattoo proudly displayed on her arm. It was unlikely that anyone else would have the same tattoo in the same place. He had chosen something that was uncommon partly for that reason, and just to be on the safe side, he had the font created to match his own handwriting. It had not been easy. He had to learn English for his soulmate, which was a complicated and stupid language, he had found, and getting good enough at it that he wouldn't make a fool of himself talking to his soulmate was no easy task. He still didn't understand half the things his soulmate wrote to him, but he had to eventually write that off as a misunderstanding of colloquialism.
His soulmate was more beautiful than he had imagined. She was shapely, her face lovely and framed by a veil of dark hair, and there was a cheerfulness about her that raised his spirits.
He had a moment of hesitation, of anxiety in approaching her, but he shook it off. Loki had never spoken with his soulmate, but he had been interacting with her for his whole life. Listening to the strange, somewhat hyper songs that she sung, watching her write out her thoughts like his thighs were the pages of her diary. He couldn't say that he knew her, exactly, but she was familiar to him.
There was a song in the back of his mind now. He could see her lips moving, forming the words to a song that was drifting in and in of focus for him. He couldn't recognize it. He rarely recognized any of his soulmate's music, but that was okay. He was looking forward to hearing her strange music preferences in person.
He sat himself right beside her, amazed at her ability to so thoroughly tune out the outside world, and leaned his head on her shoulder. Warmth seemed to spread through him when they touched. He listened to her mumbled singing and let himself relax against her. The fact that she hadn't reacted to him could be because they were soulmates and his presence put her at ease, but he thought that she was a little too oblivious to her surroundings anyway. He felt very protective of his soulmate and he embraced the feeling fully.
When she finally seemed to take notice of him, he turned to display is tattoo and grinned at her widely. She smiled back at him and Loki didn't want to ever leave her side again.
Loki spoke five different languages, the last of them English, and he still felt completely bemused by half the things out of his soulmates mouth. She was a barrage of pop culture and metaphors, and Loki was quickly overwhelmed by her. He was also highly amused by her. She was energetic and friendly and he wanted very much to kiss her, though he held off for the moment. He didn't want to put his soulmate off.
"Darcy, you haven't let him get a word in." Darcy's friend, Jane, seemed to be the practical one, and Loki had enjoyed sharing looks with her as Darcy rampaged through their conversation.
"That reminds me, when did you learn English?" Darcy questioned.
"Around the time you started writing paragraphs on my thighs," He answered. "My father is a business man and my family has moved around many times for his work. English did not end up a priority for me, despite my very much wanting it to. I've had to adapt to new environments very rapidly over the years."
"How are you even here?" Darcy questioned.
"My mother decided to move out here so that I could begin running one of the smaller branches," He explained. "She is much more supportive of the idea of true love than my father, and also more supportive of me."
Darcy smiled at him. "So you'll be sticking around?"
Loki kissed her hand and met her eyes. "Nothing could convince me to leave your side when I've just met you."