Shartan walked through the woods carrying his great sword upon his back, the blade straight and true until it swept into a curved point, the hilt was made from Hart horns that fell off his Hart form from when he spent over a year in the form and the guard was shaped to look like his horns see from the front. Shartan heard the sounds of fighting and a woman screaming for help, he whipped around to run towards the sound pulling sword off his back as he entered the small clearing in the trees. A dalish man was fighting a group of four bandits while a pregnant elven woman lay on the ground curling around her stomach while screaming in pain, another glance told Shartan that the elven man had already killed at least three of the bandits but from the number of wounds on his body it was clear he was alive and standing by sheer will alone.
Shartan reached the group just as the elven man finally fell taking his killer with him, the other bandits turned to deal with the new elf but before the first could even raise his weapon he was split in half from crown to groin. The other two fell from just a single swing from the man who was once the greatest sword master in the elven empire, as their bodies fell Shartan knelt by the woman and got her attention while he pulled on his magic to help ease her pain and keep her from dying until the child was born. "I am here to help." "Have you ever done this before." The woman panted "Yes my wife was a mid-wife and instead I learn as well." The woman chuckled weakly at his joking tone, the next two hours passed slowly for the both of them until the child was born at last. With a quick spell the child was clean but when Shartan looked the child he saw his soul mark contrasted sharply against the milk white skin of the child, he regretted his choice of clothing as he handed the child to the woman who was only still alive by the power of his magic at this point.
The woman looked at the child and then looked up to thank the man for letting her stay alive along enough to see her child but froze when she saw that his sleeveless vest allowed his soul mark to be displayed. "At least I know she is in good hands with you." "I will protect with all the power I possess; will you give her a name as it is not my place." "Primrose, I am sorry that you must have waited for so long for her." The woman said even as she was starting to pass despite his magic, unable to stand her dying in sadness Shartan told the woman. "I lost her less than two years ago this is the shortest time I have had to wait for her to return to me in centuries." The woman smiled and thanked him before kissing the child and saying good bye and closed her eyes and Shartan released his magic. He said a prayer over both elves and using his power buried them in the fashion of the dalish, he walked of into the woods heading to a clan of dalish who knew that he was one of the last true elves and they agreed to raise the child until she no longer to drink mothers milk then he would return to claim her.
Primrose would go on to become a traveling healer with a large black Hart following her at all times protecting her from bandits and thieves, she would give aid to any who needed it and was the gentlest of his soulmates he ever had. However, her kind heart would be her undoing when an alienage caught fire during a riot and trapped a child in a burning building she ran in to save the child but the building collapsed on top of her. Shartan did not have enough time to save her as he had been across the alienage stopping the fire from spreading but he felt the pain as she past and with the flood of power that came with it he saves the alienage and then returned to the spot where he first met her to wait again for her to return. Primrose died at the age of forty
The fastest of his soulmates was a human noble lady turned messenger in Antiva city name Dania with fire red hair, they met when she was hired to deliver a sword care package to a healer that lived outside of the city. When she arrived she found him nude from the waist up dressed in brown leather pants and plain boots cutting wood, when she saw the mark she let out a shriek causing Shartan to drop the axe but it gave him enough warning to catch the red head who leapt into his arms. They would live happily for years until after helping an old woman with her cart Dania was jumped in an back alley by a group of woman who had become jealous that Dania had become the focus of the handsome healer outside the city. When she died the woman got their wish they had the full attention of the man but by the time the last woman's scream finished echoing into the now blood soaked night they deeply regretted ever touching the woman. Dania died at the age of thirty-five.
The strongest soulmate of Shartan's was a qunari woman name Saber, she had been running from a group of Qunari who had been sent to drag he back to the qun when Shartan in his stag form charged the qunari and stomped several of them to death, when one dropped a large maul Saber grabbed it and assisted the Hart in felling the last of them. The pair would go on to found the merc group know as the Val-kos troop, Saber was a level headed woman who was silver skinned and a born leader even with her horns sheared off at the base she stood so proud she need no horns to add to her size. Saber who die at the age of forty-five when ambush attacked her group as they head back to camp, Shartan would be unable to save her as he was pinned down covering the non-combatants of the group under her orders. Saber would throw herself in front of a younger member of the group who was the sole parent for a small child, when saber died Shartan destroyed the attackers with the power give to him by her death and after insuring that the group would live on he returned to her body to the earth and then wandered the woods for the next twenty years.
All of his soulmates seemed cursed to die giving their lives for others to live, and that drove Shartan to seek his soulmate less and less with every death. Even when they did not die in that fashion they died in the service of the chantry as Templars who lost their memories and minds to lyrium only a few managed to beat it with his help but those that did died at the hands of their former brothers for consorting with a mage. Several of the soulmates had also been dalish, dwarfs or seekers the seekers he always knew them before learning anything else as he felt them fall from the fade then be restored through his mark. It soon passed to the point that Shartan would go lifetimes without actively seeking his soulmate out from the desire of not having to watch her die again, several times he had tried to die but soon found to his horror that due to his power being tied to the veil that as long as it existed he was unable to be killed and he would always heal from any wound. Thus he cursed his lot as he was now doomed to watch his love die again and again, each time it happened Shartan wept and started the hunt over again but every time it was the same. Finally, he heard rumours that Fen'harel was back and planning something at the conclave, so that is where Shartan went in hopes that he might be able to end his curse and finally give him the death he had been seeking.