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Soulmarks were something that was a well accepted part of life. They had fluctuated in popular media with stories of taboo pairs, incompatibility, and epic love stories.
Everyone knew that a soulmark presented on the body at the time of your soulmate's birth, usually in the form of a name. People lived years without marks, and some people were born with marks.
Ryland Grace was born with his mark.
With his strange and unusual mark.
It felt taboo, the way his parents encouraged long sleeves, and when he finally began to understand why, was of course the time that all the peers in his age range were becoming invested in discovering who their soulmates were.
While others poured over yellow pages, then MySpace, Facebook, or whatever corner of the web that networking happened, Ryland researched dead languages, indigenous scripts, and runic writing.
As far as he could tell, no language past or present aligned with the sharp lines cutting around his bicep.
It was deep in a messaging board one day that he stumbled across the crazy idea; a woman’s bold post that was eventually debunked, but caused the teens fingers to go tingly with something like excitement.
“My Soulmate’s an Alien!” Read the posts title.
And Ryland Grace picked up his first books on exoplanets and speculative xenobiology the next day.
***
Eva Stratt didn’t have a soulmate. Or if she did, she’d blacked out their name upon her body to hide them from the danger that her position may put them in.
Or at least that’s what the rumors said.
It was of some surprise to Grace that she acknowledged soulmates at all, but even as her tongue rebuked the idea of a female astronaut, her cold eyes lingered on the chosen crew.
“I hear they are soulmates,” she murmurs close to Grace, cheeks looking drawn under the purple of her eye bags. She wore exhaustion well.
“Would you remove them from the mission for that?” He can’t help but ask, fingers twisting in his pockets at a loose thread, curious as always about the enigmatic woman in charge.
“No. It would be better if they went together, wouldn’t you agree?” Grace watches her and the rest of the saviors of the world descend into the ship that is their home.
Yes, it would be better to die with your soulmate, though the best would be to die naive of who your soulmate could’ve been.
Crossing his arms allows his hand to clasp at the sweater hiding his mark. Grace knew he would one day die alone.
***
Waking up with no knowledge of your name is disconcerting. No knowledge of your location, situation, or year is concerning as well.
And yet some low level ache made itself known immediately, peering into the sliver of reflective material that works as a mirror.
His body looks strangely bent and gaunt, in a way that doesn’t seem to fit.
His hair is unkept and his beard shaggy, a horrible look for him. Whoever he may be.
And his soulmark— oh. That he remembers. A gut wrenching sort of life long angst.
His soulmark with its nonsense language and no long term relationships to try and compensate for it.
***
An alien.
A real life alien.
It almost made the loneliness, the exhaustion, all consuming fear and worry, all of it worth it.
Now, this didn’t look like any sort of water based life form (take that NSF). And it was shockingly intelligent.
But communication would no doubt take some time.
When the spider made of rocks that he has deemed “Rocky” shows him it’s strange tumbler clock, it’s rough lines of text sticking out amongst shifting wheels.
Something about it wiggles a sense of familiarity within Grace. But he pushes all that down to be buried beneath his excitement.
He’s communicating with an alien!
He just might be able to die here, fulfilled just that little bit.
***
To go from the silence of outer space to the ringing musical tones and computer modulated voice of Rocky is jarring.
The Eridian is nosy, pushy, curious, and Grace has never been more happy to be around another person. Well. Thing.
They trade information on scientific achievements, the petrova line and their planet's desperate bids for salvation that has come down to just the pair of them.
It’s poetic to think about how they were connected across space and time for this moment, these plans to figure out astrophage and how to stop it.
His gaze has evaluated the strange mineral layers of Rocky’s outer shell, the colors that meld in abstract patches, the lines and scars of age, that way his hands point and grasp.
And maybe, just maybe, Grace was looking to see if there happened to be any English scribbled across this alien lifeform.
***
Of course relationships would come up at some point.
And to learn that Rocky has a mate that they’ve had for hundreds of years and they haven’t seen in so long—
Rocky of course questions Grace, and it’s easy enough to talk around. Some day he’d explain about soulmates, about marks, about his own, maybe when they weren't imminently going to need to be figuring out how to save their planets.
After, he thinks, after they’re closer to an answer he’ll ask his new alien friend to decode his soulmark, so he can die with the knowledge of who they were.
***
They blow up together because of a fucking clerical error.
Soulmates, gone in a destructive explosion that leaves a crater and nothing behind.
Made back into stardust probably before they even knew what hit them.
Grace is grateful they went together.
Stratt looks at him a little bit longer the next few days.
***
Ryland Grace is sick of almost dying.
A head injury sucks. Sucks major balls.
His arm hurts, burns that hurt are supposedly better than burns that are numb, but he wishes it was numb.
And he still doesn’t know if it was even worth the injury.
If Rocky will ever wake up.
It’s during this time that he painstakingly begins to write out the marks on his arm, realizing that he will need to fashion them into some sort of 3D shape so Rocky can read them if he wakes up.
When he wakes up.
The musical whistle of his name sounds like the birds outside his childhood window, a weak Rocky tapping on the wall of his room.
Grace likes to imagine if Rocky was human, he’d be smiling up at him in that sort of grateful sad way like in all the best action flicks.
He sits up against the glass to talk to the Eridian, wishing beyond anything that he could embrace the strange rough creature.
“You remember when we talked about Adrian and my lack of mate on Earth?” Grace broaches once he’s regaled Rocky with the tale of his injury.
“Yes, makes Grace sad to discuss, statement.” A small snort blows across the glasses that have dropped below his nose.
“It’s not exactly sadness, big guy. More like…envy. I wish I did have a mate but my situation didn’t guarantee one.”
“Explain.” He liked it when the alien got short, like a child almost in his demands.
Rolling the sleeve of his tshirt above the burn scarred flesh, Grace traces the lines that he can to give Rocky something to see for a moment.
“All humans receive marks that tell them their soulmate's name. The person that’s essentially perfect for them.” He can tell Rocky is excited even in his tiredness, leaning forward on his front legs with a shift.
Carefully Grace brings up the wire writing he has recreated, pressing it to the separating wall between them with a quiet tap.
“But mine… I think mine is in Eridian.”
The whistle the alien makes is almost like that someone would make at shocking news. It’s so human Grace giggles as he leans his head against the glass, staring down at the coppery lines from a new angle.
What if he was wrong? What if his mate just couldn’t write? Or it was a chicken scratching at dirt? Or a yet undiscovered-
“Grace stupid statement.” He jerks back. But then his brain catches up with the warm, almost embarrassed tone of Rocky’s notes.
“Grace stupid for not tell Rocky, Rocky’s name on skin.”
The buzz is in Grace’s ears. And no sound but a croak leaves his throat.
His soulmate.
His soulmate was a few hundred years older than him.
His soulmate had been trapped alone in space for all of Grace’s life.
His soulmate was a giant alien rock spider.
“Rocky,” it's strangled and he doesn’t even know what he wants to say.
He just presses his fist to the glass, sniffling at the fist bump he receives.
“Grace sad Rocky with Adrian, question?” And the alien shifts with worry, and instead of immediately blustering the alien off, the teacher considers his feelings, really delves in as he recommends his students do.
“No Rocky, I’m happy you have love. I think we were meant to meet, to save the stars together.” A warm syrupy feeling fills his limbs.
“So Grace no want to lay eggs with me, question?” And had he offended his soulmate now? Laughter is fast out of his throat, relief of the fact that Rocky was alive, that things could still be okay catching up.
And soon he’s sobbing against the glass. Leaning his head onto the space opposite where Rocky leans.
They’d just had to follow the light of a star and a thin red line to find each other.
Dr. Ryland Grace hoped he didn’t die anytime soon, he had to hangout with his soulmate and save the galaxy after all.
***
Was he really going to abandon his alien soulmate because that’s what he was supposed to do?
They had given him options after all, he knew that the Beetles could go back without him, send so much information including the things that would save them and he could instead travel with Rocky to Erid.
Grace took a day to consider it, alone as much as he could be, Rocky pretending he couldn’t hear him.
What did he have on Earth? Students and teaching that he loved, but no long term friends or partners. Not even a pet.
But an alien planet? With his alien soulmate?
It felt like the solution to the unbalanced equation that had been his life until the Astrophages entered Earth’s awareness.
Stratt at least deserved some explanation.
He’d already talked so much about Rocky, about Erid. But nowhere was his soulmark recorded.
“When you sent me up here, I know you didn’t expect I’d be going at it alone. And eventually you were right, Rocky came along and nothing would have happened without his help.” Grace thinks he catches a happy little tweet from elsewhere in the ship.
“But I think I have to actually thank you, Eva. Despite it all, how it happened and why it happened, I needed to come here. I had to be the one to meet Rocky.” Carefully he shoves up his short sleeve shirt, above the pink scarred flesh still healing, revealing the collection of black lines.
“I was born with a soulmark that was written in Eridian. I can only assume I have been the first and only person with such a thing. And Rocky, well, just so happens to be my soulmate.” A rumble as a xenonite ball of alien enters the room then, obviously wanting to show off. Preening like a peacock.
“I don’t know what awaits us on Erid. But I can’t give up this chance. Also, I was right. Non-water based lifeforms exist, and I discovered them. They better post-humously give me a Nobel prize or something for this shit.” His smile is a little wet and wide, and he reaches down to the malleable xenonite panel in Rocky’s ball. Holding hands has been a nice addition to their friendship.
Rocky has been talking about a form fitting suit he would be working on once they returned to Erid.
“I’m happy Stratt. And I hope you are, too.” With sincerity he signs off, turning to his soulmate, who reminds him right now of a pitbull in a hamster wheel for the enthusiasm pouring out of him.
“Grace made decision, question? Grace come to Erid!”
“Yes Rocky, Grace come to Erid.”
Ryland looked out upon Adrian’s beautiful green surface. He might never see the Earth's beautiful array of colors, oceans or forests. But there was so much beauty to behold in the universe.
“Rocky Grace saved stars, now Rock Grace share soul, statement.” His heart had been feeling about a thousand sizes too big for his chest, and so Grace collapses across the xenonite dodecahedron or whatever it was.
“You’ve always had a piece of me up here, Rocky, just waiting until I’d come and get it.”
“Rocky no take anything! Lies, statement.” Laughter comes easier with the decision made and the weight of the universe being saved feeling more manageable.
“But you’ve stolen my heart!” Grace continues to tease, not minding the screechy tone that Rocky gets when annoyed.
***
Malnourishment takes time to heal from.
A safe home takes time to be built.
Grace doesn’t have much awareness beyond that fact that Rocky’s always there.
And maybe there is another Eridian with him, larger and deeper in tone.
The first time that Grace gets to hug his soulmate, he’s just enjoyed a burger successfully made from his own replicated cells.
Being a hero really kicked any squeamishness out the door.
And Rocky had clattered in looking shiny and sparkly and without a ball.
His xenonite encrusted form had reached to the still weakened human form, and dragged him close.
First two arms around his waist as he crumpled forward, and then he needed up on his back, a boulder that could crush him hovering over him as his string bean arms desperately clasp around the breadth of it.
“Rocky make new suit! Grace like, question?” Of course he’s crying, he honestly doesn’t know how many years it’ll be before he cries at every kind act he’s receiving.
“I love it Rocky.”
“Your human is leaking, statement.” A deep voice interrupts, and both turn to observe the large Eridian entering, Adrian, Rocky’s mate.
“Can we keep him, question?” Rocky asks, emulating the question he’d no doubt picked up from Earth movies.
Grace’s fingers tighten further around his soulmate, knowing it probably felt like nothing upon the solid creature.
Adrian judgingly observed them both, somehow looking Grace up and down despite the lack of eyeballs.
“Your one reward for saving Erid, statement.”
With a splutter Grace realizes something that makes his heart soar.
Mates tease here too, and if he’s being teased, it probably means he’s actually accepted.
“I’m so grateful they sent you Rocky,” he finds himself saying, sighing as the Eridian helps him stand and then back to resting in his bed.
“I am more grateful the universe sent you, Friend Grace.” Adrian says, stepping up, foot tapping the ground for emphasis.
“Rocky needed his soul to return to us.”
And Grace knows just exactly what they meant. Rocky was his lifeline, his hope.
Grace doesn’t bother squeezing his marked bicep for reassurance, because now he can reach out and grasp a three clawed hand instead.
Ryland Grace had found his soulmate.
He’s just had to be sentenced to death to receive such a gift.