This is super AU, but has some canon moments. Basically, I picked what I wanted and went with it. Hope you enjoy!
He is five when he first asks his mother about the mark that rests on his skin. She tells him it marks him for another, and then tucks him into bed with no further explanation.
When he is older, and able to read the markings in his mother's grimoire he learns more.
The marks do mark them for another, another person, another soul in this world. A soulmate, he thinks, and scoffs.
Because he is a boy, and soulmates are silly and ridiculous, and what need does he have for one of those.
His own Mother and Father do not share a mark, although, he doesn't find this out until his father is dead.
His Mothers mark is a tooth, his sisters an arrow, Finn's a flower petal, Elijah's a scroll, Kol's an intricate star, Henrik's a leaf. Rebekah day dreams about meeting her marked, but her brothers scoff at her, silly girl dreams for a silly girl.
But when his father shouts and rages and hits, he whispers secrets to his skin, sharing his dreams and his pain, tells it all the things he wishes he could tell another.
As he approaches manhood, he forgets about this little mark, the feather that sits tucked into his elbow, because he has found a love, in Tatia, and what need does he have for another.
He no longer shares his secrets with his mark, instead he shares them into long dark hair, a pale neck, small hands. He ignores the mark that sits under his lover's hair.
The day he dies, he feels the little mark shiver and pulse, but then he is no more.
But when he wakes with a clawing hunger in his veins, and a monster that sits too close to the surface, he forgets all about the little black mark etched into his elbow, and barely thinks of it until one day, hundreds of years into his eternity, it pulses.
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The day she is born, there is a stark black mark on their baby girls skin. And they worry about the day they will have to give their baby girl away to another.
"Mommy, what does this mean?" The little girl strokes her fingers across her mother's mark, two interlacing circles. Her mother sighs down at the little five-year-old in her pink princess bed.
"I'll tell you when you're older, now go to sleep".
When she is a little older, she and Elena and Bonnie ask Grams, and she tells them a story of soul mates and pulling feelings and a bone deep knowing. Tells them everything she can about their marks, a feather on her hip for her, a pen along a rib for Elena and a poesy for Bonnie, that rests behind her ear.
She likes the idea, of another person meant solely for her, someone who will love only her, and she tells her mother this.
But her mother has been duped by the circles on her skin, has never found their match, and been broken by it. So, she tells her girl to make her own destiny, to forget about her mark.
When she talks to her father over the phone, he tells her not to forget who she is, that she cannot be held back by a little marking on her skin, that she must live her own life. Her father tells her that just because she has a mark, doesn't mean that life will agree, that she must make sure she is happy.
He doesn't tell her he has found his marked in someone other than her mother, doesn't say that he has been lucky enough to be loved for the mark, and despite it.
Instead, she whispers secrets to hers in the dark, and watches as her mother wastes her life away working.
Elena writes to her marked, these long and rambling letters that she will not share. She starts them when boys stop having cooties, and stops the day she meets Stefan Salvatore.
Bonnie doesn't have to wait to find her marked, as she has watched him grow up, she and Jeremy tell her how nice it is, to have another. To feel whole and comfort and warmth, and she feels the mark pulse, but she can't tell if it's just her heart beat or longing that causes it.
Instead, she distracts herself, lets herself forget about the mark, because damn it, she is Caroline Forbes and she refuses to let some little feather tell her how to feel.
Damon makes her feel powerful, and then so so small. She never sees his mark, or, she realises later, she did and he made her forget. Just like everything else.
The day she sees Matts arrow mark is also the day she dies.
In that little hospital room, the girl that looks like her best friend, holds a pillow over her face until she is dead.
Her new life starts with a heaving gasp, and is all blood and hunger and a deep yearning that she feels in her bones. Because now she has no heartbeat, and a monster that claws its way from the inside out.
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The day his mark came to life, he was drinking, toasting a victory that most would abhor, when he feels it, Her.
The magic wakens on his skin, dancing across the feather in a burn, a steady beat and a hot hot heat.
The glass shatters, his grip too tight in surprise, and his fist drips glass and scotch and blood. He thinks about the poor creature that will share his mark for eternity, for a moment, feels almost sorry for her. Then, as quick as the feeling came, it left, leaving him with plans and plans and an empty feeling between his ribs.
And now, almost two decades later, he feels a rip, something pulled from a place he has never thought about, a deep yawning cavern has opened in his chest, and he can hardly breath with the pain. His eyes blur and he fights to keep his knees strong. He fails, and sinks to the ground, a groan on his lips, fingers digging into carpet.
There is no way to explain the feeling of loss, this dizzy searing pain that starts in his left elbow and ends in his chest, but it doesn't end. And he knows, right down deep in his soul, it's her.
She's gone.
He isn't sure how long her curls in on himself, lying there on the floor, pain stealing his breath.
It could be minutes, or hours, or even days. But one minute the pain is there, and then it's gone. Just like it was never there. He can still feel the little pulse of his mark, the odd fluttering of magic, older than he is, across his skin, and his relief is ridiculous, because he can still feel her.
It is in that moment that he first realises how very deep she runs through his veins. He had thought he could live without her, he had, after all, made it this far.
He had thought that he could do without her, this weakness that he craves, has been craving for a thousand years.
It turns out, he cannot.
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She throws Damon through a wall when she sees him and remembers, remembers the feeling of being small and afraid and weak. But the feeling of strength makes her so happy, she laughs and it feels like a sunshine fire of victory through her veins.
This new life she has woken up to isn't all bad, she can still walk in the sun, although she hates her daylight ring. Does it have to be so ugly, Bonnie?
And she's strong now, fast. But forever seventeen, but she won't age, will forever wear this face of her in-between year.
But, she is lying to her mother, and to Matt. Sweet Matt who knows her moods better than she knows them herself sometimes.
She wakes in the middle of the night, its early on Tuesday morning, and she can feel her feather burning across the curve of her hip bone, and she can feel. Something. She's never felt this before, has never felt the jump of her mark, but realises it must be him.
Which, really, is inconvenient right now. She is trying to deal with Elena being caught up in the continuing saga of the doppelgänger (insert eye roll), and her mother and Matt being compelled to forget about what she is now, and she has so much homework it's not even funny, not to mention this dance, and she's too busy for him to show up now.
(These things don't stop her from stroking along the lines of her mark, whispering into the dark.)
On Thursday, she gets called to the boarding house for a pow-wow about their plan for the dance. She leaves school with Elena, who talks about how weird Ric has been today, but she doesn't listen, not really. She hopes that she will still have time to pick up her costume, if not she thinks she might have enough time to do it after school tomorrow. She just nods in the right places, and Elena never even notices, but this is hardly something new is it.
She barely thinks of the mark and its new movements. (It's a lie, she can't stop thinking of it.)
Stefan offers her bourbon and they sit drinking in silence for the longest time, they watch as Damon and Alaric make plans to take down this newest evil.
"What does it feel like?" She asks after Elena has taken Jeremy home for the night, her mother won't be home tonight, and she's reluctant to be in the house on her own.
Stefan lolls his head against the back of his armchair to look at her, even Damon pauses in his pacing to stare at them, Alaric removes the hand he has thrown over his face, lying on the couch opposite hers.
"What are you talking about Blondie?"
"Your marks, what do they feel like?" She stares at the ceiling, feeling her own mark pulse as if it can hear her, has been doing this for most of the day, it's almost a heartbeat across her hip, but too slow, even slower than her own dead vampire heartbeat.
Damon finishes his glass, tops it up and sits heavily next to her on the couch, the decanter tangling from his fingertips, topping up her glass.
"I felt it when she was born," Stefan says slowly, "at the exact moment her heart came to life, it moved." He sounds unsure, like even after all this time he doesn't know what has happened.
"I saw her once you know," the silence has stretched on for what feels like hours. And she knows that they're all a little drunk, can feel the spinning in her head.
"She was two I think, I saw her and it felt like fire on my neck" he gestures to the mark that sits along the back of his neck. He shrugs, "I knew then for sure, but she was still young." He stops, drinking deeply.
"Mine has never done anything since the day I found out what they were" Damon confesses quietly, his fingers reflexively touching a spot on his sternum. He drains his glass again, and doesn't say another word.
"Mine burnt the other night, I can still fell it," she pauses, watches as Alaric sits up, and Stefan's eyes have closed.
"It's never done that before" Damon is frowning and Alaric has a knowing look on his face, she hopes its because he's going to explain it to her.
"Well, generally," he starts in his patented teacher voice, "Its either when they're born, or when they come into proximity. A way of finding each other,"
Stefan agrees, and she drinks the last of her bourbon, shaking the glass at Damon for a refill.
"What does it feel like now?" she takes a deep breath, drinking a little more, tries to think of a way to explain the feeling across her hip.
"Almost like a heartbeat, a pulse, but too slow, slower than mine, even slower than theirs," she waves her glass at the brothers, slopping a little liquid over the sides.
"And what exactly is your mark?" Alaric has never asked her this before, and Damon cuts in before she has time to answer, supressed jealously in his voice.
"It's a feather"
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He feels it, her, as they get closer to the small, sleepy town of Mystic Falls, where Elijah and Finn await their siblings.
He's glad that Kol and Rebekah have stayed away while their older siblings work to break his curse. He doesn't want to share her with anyone.
He can feel the heat growing in the mark, can feel that she is closer than ever before, and he almost laughs, because of course she would be in this horrible place, where he would never willingly return to.
He settles into the house that Finn and Elijah have set up, and leaves, wandering into the night, appearing aimless, but following the heat of the mark in his elbow. He finds it, and stands in shadow outside her house and hears her strange vampire heartbeat, in sync with the fluttering across his skin, hears her whisper apologies into the still night.
He debates spiriting her out of her window, but he can't get inside the house, he has time enough, they aren't leaving just yet. He has waited a thousand years, he can wait a few more days.
He has plans after all, and one baby vampire, marked with his mark or not, is not going to interfere.
As planned, he borrows the history teachers body, observes his doppelgänger, her friends, her boyfriend.
He goes to a silly meeting, a pow wow, the blond called it, and they think of ways to take him down, actual him, not the tame history teacher version of him. Throws them off with some suggestions he knows won't kill him, learns more about their little rag tag group. The two Salvatore brothers, a new witch (Bennett or not), the doppelgänger the baby vampire and the vampire hunter history teacher.
They're drinking, an admirable past time for sure, when the blond, (he hasn't bothered to learn her name, she will most likely be dead in a few days) asks,
"What does it feel like?" from the sound of her voice, she's a little drunk, but the Salvatore brothers indulge her.
His interest is piqued when she mentions her mark burned the other night, when he had first arrived in town, just as his had.
"And what does it feel like now?" had he been in his own body, he might have called her love.
She's silent for a moment, he tracks the movement of her tongue as it swipes a drop of bourbon from her lip.
"Almost like a heartbeat, a pulse, but slow, slower than mine, even slower than theirs" an ancient heartbeat, he supplies in his head.
"And what exactly is your mark?" he almost dreads to hear the answer, but it comes from Damon instead of her.
"It's a feather"