Everyone has the mark. The place they first touch their soulmate, tattooed into their skin for all eternity. They are black, like ink spills that reached across the skin in unfamiliar patterns, until you make contact and then they burst into the most glorious of colours, magenta and violet and cream, silver and navy and cyan and brilliant white. The colours are different for every person, and they burst out from the point of first contact.

Most people wear their marks on their hands, in the form of a handshake. Others carry marks from hugs, or brushes in busy crowds, against their sides. Sometimes, people have confusing marks, that take form in black lips or stains dripping down the sides of their face. No two marks match perfectly. Even soulmates don't match perfectly, each bearing a palette of colours that conveyed something about the innermost workings of their soul.

Everyone has a mark. Some of them are well-hidden, under hair or on eyelashes, but everyone has a soulmate.

There is a chance, of course, that your soulmate is an unsavoury person. After all, being soulmates doesn't dictate how people should feel about each other. Your soulmate is someone with a great influence on your life, someone who is set to change your course entirely. One in twelve divorce cases is that of a soulmate marriage, people who got married in a shotgun wedding after assuming that their bond was romantic, only to find that they didn't like each other very much. Often, those divorces lead to one of the pairing finding their true love, someone they wouldn't have met without their soulmate, without the divorce.

Other times, a person's mark will burst into colour after someone threw the first punch, or after a bully tripped them on the playground, or a mugger stopped them in an alley.

Many people never see their soulmate at all, but arrive home to find brilliant colours where there has once been only black. Those ones often lament a future that wasn't to be, but find that their marks led them to something else- a lover, or a job opportunity, or a million other things. Sometimes, people need a touch to alter their lives, and that's what the marks provide.

Taken from the foreword of the fourth edition of Souls and their Connections, written by Belle de Villeneuve.

Jay's mark was on his shoulder. It had long since blossomed into colour, bright, fiery reds and oranges that contrasted wonderfully against his skin. An attempt at shoulder checking the guy who'd stolen a loaf of bread (oh, the irony) had evolved into finding his soulmate. He'd been terrified, of course, when he'd seen the colours blossom and looked for the boy he'd hit, only to find no one.

He'd started wearing long sleeves after that, his father's cruel laugh upon his arrival at the store echoing in his ears long after the exact moment had faded into oblivion.

The next time he'd seen his soulmate, he'd been shocked. He had long assumed that he was one of the majority- someone who never knew their soulmate (but, to be honest, he'd often wondered how that moment would set him on a different course {little did he know}). He had chased after the boy, thin and wiry and white-blond, who manipulated his way through the crowd so easily that it left Jay (for whom most people cleared a path) in the dust.

That was when he met Evie White (not her real name, of course. Most people on the Isle were at least part fae, and she wasn't stupid enough to give them her name). He bumped into her and sent her sprawling, and she'd demanded her help her up, as she was a lady and deserved better than this. She had a black mark, a thick splash at the bottom on her chin. Neither of them stopped too long to think about it.

They made a good team, both of them thieves with nothing to lose. She would charm the vendors and he'd take their goods. They would split their ill-begotten goods later, and he would take useless trinkets and she the beauty products and materials that he lifted specifically for her. They would split the food- neither of their parents fed them. His father "forgot" and her mother insisted that "everything looks good on skinny".

Evie introduced him to Mal (and wasn't that complicated- a name fake name based on a fake name) whose mark was also coloured. It was a vivid, poisonous green, and it stretched across most of her body, from the back of her head down over her neck and her back, all the way down to her feet. It had distorted over the years, she told him once, but it had originally been in the form of the first time her mother held her (it made Jay sick, thinking about it, that her mother, the mistress of all evil, was also her soulmate, but he didn't say anything. He wasn't sure he believed her anyway {one day, he caught a glimpse of Maleficent's forearms, stained the colours of red wine, and he believed everything Mal had ever told him}).

Mal was something else. She was the most fae of any of them, sharp teeth and ears and eyes like a cat's. She scared even him, sometimes, and he was half djinn.

It was the shock of his life when, one day when she and Evie were lying together in Evie's bedroom, she casually referred to Evie as 'Eva Marie'. Her given name, given to a fae.

It had terrified him, at first, that Evie could place that kind of absolute trust in Mal. He would never do it, he told himself. No matter what.

That changed, of course.

He and Mal had been exchanging kisses for a long time. It was something to do when they were bored or lonely (not that they would ever admit to feeling any such thing). And she did it with Evie, too (maybe he knew her real name, now, but he didn't trust himself to be careful with it, and so he stuck to the nickname).

But this time, there was something different about it.

Because this time, when he whispered her name, she responded with, "Aurora. Call me by my name."

Jay had felt the power of the name run though his spine, the same way Evie's had. He whispered it against her skin, against her, and hissed it when her kisses trailed lower.

"Jahd," he said, after, when she was picking up her leather pants from the other end of the bed (there wasn't much space in his room). She smiled at him, a wicked grin that sent her eyes flashing and made her pupils look like slits.

"Thank you," she said, and it made him worry, but only for a moment. He had her name, after all, her real name, and even if he didn't use it, just telling people that she was named after Sleeping Beauty would wreck her (he wouldn't release it, he knew deep down, but he told himself he would, and that was enough).

"You're welcome," he eventually replied, a rakish smirk on his face.

The next time he saw her, Mal had two new tattoos. Andsæc, one read, and the other Aldorcearu. The meanings of their names in the language of the fae, he eventually found.

He returned the favour, فجر on the inner vee of his hip, the word for dawn, the meaning of the name Aurora, and حياة on his ribs, meaning life, meaning Eva Marie.

Eva Marie had tattoos too. Spornæn and TagarætÆ, in the Old High Germanic language of her mother and Snow White.

The next time he saw his soulmate, Jay wasn't prepared for it at all. He was- of course he was- kissing Mal, because what else could Jay possibly expect. And Mal pulled away, looking like the cat that got the cream, saying, "Oh, Jahd, I was wondering when you'd get here. This is Cahal."

The lack of a shocked look on his soulmates- on Cahal's- face told Jay exactly how long he'd known Mal; because no one who'd known Mal for longer than a week was shocked when she dropped people's given names like they didn't matter.

That was just who Mal was, what she did. It threw people for a loop, sometimes, but Mal didn't take or give the names of people who didn't already have hers. It was uncharacteristic of a fae, but Mal had her own code, and she stuck to it.

Mal left after that, her smirk firmly plastered on her face.

"I- I- I don't- can't-" Jay stuttered, eyes trained on the boy he thought he'd never see again, "Uh, I'm."

"It's okay, Jahd," Cahal smiled, standing up and pulling his shirt back on- but not before Jay caught a glimpse of the blood red and pearly white imprint against his soulmate's shoulder. It sent him reeling again, because yeah, he'd known, intellectually, that this was his soulmate, but knowing it and seeing the spot where they'd first touched in colour were two very different things.

"Jay," he managed to get out, before coughing harshly, "Uh, Jay, you can call me Jay. I just- I don't use my given name much. And it's well, uh, it's just Jay."

Cahal smiled and god was it the best fucking experience of his life.

"Carlos, then. Or Cahal, I don't mind either way. But if you'd be more comfortable…" he trailed off, biting his lip, and Jay wanted to kiss him. Or kill him, that might be easier.

"So, you know Aurora?" Carlos asked, and Jay felt a thrill run down his spine at the use of a given name, just like that, from the mouth of someone other than Mal.

"I mean, yeah," Jay said, still struck by Carlos, "I mean- she asked me to meet her here."

"Never said she didn't," Carlos shrugged, picking up a tattered leather jacket and making his way over to the scaffolding that served as a staircase. He was halfway down, before Jay finally managed to get out the words that had been stuck in his throat since he'd first seen the boy.

"I'm your soulmate!"

Carlos froze, before slowly climbing back up.

"What do you mean?"

Jay didn't know how to respond, so he pulled off his shirt instead. There, bright like fire against his left shoulder, was his mark.

"It was, well, a couple years ago, now. I was walking in the street market, and most people clear outta my way, but you didn't, so I just kinda- hit you? On purpose? I'd just thought that you'd apologize and walk away, but you fuckin' ran away. And I still wore short sleeves then, so I knew, but you were long gone and like- what would I have done anyway, right? No one on the Isle cares about their soulmate." Jay shrugged. Carlos had drawn steadily closer while he spoke, and if he reached out a hand now, they'd be touching.

Jay swallowed, "I actually saw you again, you know?"

Carlos blinked in surprise, taking a half-step back.

"Yeah," he continued, licking his lips, "followed you. You lost me, but that was because I bumped into Evie. She's, uh, she's the one who introduced me to Mal."

Carlos raised an eyebrow, and Jay nodded slightly in response, "Yeah. Figured that that was your 'big impact' on my life. Didn't reckon I'd find you here, of all places, making out with her of all people."

Carlos smirked, and finally, finally. Reached out to touch him. It wasn't like a first touch, there was no mark that coloured, no real significance. But his soulmate was touching his mark again, Carlos was touching the spot that marked Jay as his, and he didn't really think he could be blamed for what happened next when he reached out and pulled Carlos into a kiss.

Less than a day later, new words appeared on Mal, Jay, and Evie.

beadurinc

جندي

skoldinõri

Auradon wasn't like the Isle. And maybe that statement would seem obvious to some, but Jay felt like it needed to be said.

The main difference was the marks.

On the Isle, people hid their marks. You were less likely to know who your soulmate was, that way because you would never see the mark colour {Jay was one of the few who had shown his mark and look at everything that had led to}.

They put makeup or clothing over coloured marks. They did everything in their power to ensure that no one knew that they'd met their soulmate.

Those who didn't were trying to prove something {Mal, wearing backless shirts to tout the vivid green, Evie, looking for her prince, Carlos, who didn't care}.

It affected Jay, too, even if he didn't like to admit it.

He started wearing tanks, again, because the pride Auradonians had for their soulmates rubbed off on him. He still didn't fit, the bright red a vivid contrast against the pastel blues and pinks and yellows that most Auradonians wore {even their blacks seemed lighter, closer to grey}.

Carlos didn't mind. He pressed kisses to the mark when they were alone, and beamed at it when they weren't.

He'd also gotten tattoos. For each of them in their own language. Dagung for Mal, Ferah for Evie, and صراع for Jay.

They'd claimed each other as their soulmates, and they loved each other for it. Loved each other even more when Chad Charming took Evie's chin in an attempt to kiss her and Jay hit him so hard he blacked out, even if Evie's mark was now deep purple and blue.

Loved each other when Audrey found the birth certificate proclaiming that Mal's name was Aurora and shouted out to the world, when they clutched Mal's hands and stroked the green lines on her spine as people threw her given name around like it was worth nothing.

They loved each other in reds and whites and greens and blues. They weren't all soulmates, but they'd intertwined themselves, and that was the greatest change their marks could have led to.