taste your words pt II: Rogue One

Fifteen years ago.

Not every being in the galaxy had a soulmate. Even if they did, marks changed from person to person, and sometimes even match to match. Sometimes, matches were hard to identify.

Cassian never liked that he was one of the ones the Force had chosen to match with another being. He didn't prefer the idea of being irrevocably and eternally tied to someone who would have no choice in the matter. (He didn't prefer to compel someone into being tethered to him when they could have so much more.)

The words traced across Cassian's shoulder-blades meant more than the idea of his perfect soulmate. They meant that somewhere out there, someone existed who would be willing to stand by his side—though they didn't have much choice.

How could such a person even exist?

Of course, on the body of an intelligence officer, an irreproducible identifying mark wasn't exactly convenient. What if he was caught, searched? What if the handwriting was analyzed by the Empire? What if they found his soulmate, his soulmate who had never deserved this, and—

Cassian took great pains never to be caught.

Whenever he walked away from something he wished he hadn't done, he imagined that he could feel the words on his shoulders burning. How could anyone be doomed to a life wearing his mark, whatever species they were? How could the Force choose to drop the burden of his soul on anyone's shoulders?

Not just anyone.

His soulmate.

They must have been wondrous beyond belief.

Unlike him.

Cassian kept walking, and tried to forget that his soulmate was out there.

If he didn't dwell on it, didn't tell himself all the reasons he should turn away when he heard those three words, maybe he could be selfish.

Maybe he could hope.

Do you know the Force, my friend?

Baze Malbus used to know the Force. And he had taken pride in his answer when his soulmate had finally found him.

But now…no. The Force was strange and alien to him the way it had never been.

Baze Malbus did not know the Force.

When was the last time you had contact with your father?

Jyn was terrified that her soulmate was going to be an Imperial. Who else would ask her the sort of question etched across her shoulder-blades? It only made sense as an interrogation setting, where the person speaking had never met her before.

Her soulmate. An Imperial. And that burned her deep.

Jyn worked as hard as she could to be the opposite of everything the Empire stood for. She spoke her mind to the people around her, while the Empire oppressed dissension. She taught herself to stand out amid Saw's people, while the Empire hid their troops in faceless helmets. She learned to fight back, while the Empire tried to crush anyone who stood in their way.

And she did it all with a cold, effective desperation no one could understand.

When Saw left her behind, Jyn wondered just a little if he thought her soulmark condemned her along with her soulmate. Did he know? How could he know?

That burned, too.

She stopped standing out, stopped fighting back so obviously. She grew more subtle. She stopped trying to rip the Imperial flag to shreds and started looking away from it.

Jyn's soulmate would have to search hard to find her.

Once or twice, though, somewhere deep in her mind, where the bitterness hadn't quite taken root like everywhere else, she wondered what would happen if her greatest fear never came to pass. If her soulmate was someone…ordinary.

Kind.

Then she remembered who she was, and who she was trying to be, and she laughed.

Jyn Erso's soulmate could never be ordinary.

I do.

Chirrut Imwe's soulmark spoke of a being of deep faith. Chirrut had always known that, and he knew it more closely still when that being of deep faith had been realized as a man of faith nearly deeper than Chirrut could understand.

To watch that well of faith dry up…Chirrut had always felt that his own faith was solid, a full goblet. But now, out of sheer willpower, he had to make a fountain of his goblet to let others drink, as well.

And for the man who had once had a well, even a fountain was not enough.

Chirrut breathed deeply, always. His soulmate would regain his wellspring someday.

In the meantime, Chirrut let his water flourish.