Chapter Text
"When I first met you, I remembered you from a hundred different dreams,
and there you were for me to love all over again for the very first time."
-Atticus
Dear Soulmate,
I think I met you last night.
Caitlyn was ten years old when she first met her soulmate.
Well, maybe met was not exactly the right wording.
You were in my dream,
and I am not sure that you were there at all,
but…
In order to meet someone, you had to actually see them. Introductions had to be made, names exchanged, hands shaken. Meeting someone meant seeing them in person, knowing what they looked like, holding eye contact.
If Caitlyn had truly met her soulmate, she would have been awake.
I kept seeing someone in the corners of my vision.
Was it you?
Were you there too?
Her parents had explained what soulmates were when she was young. Caitlyn had developed an obsession with fairy tale romances while she was still a small child. She had devoured every book she could get her hands on that contained princesses and knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, forbidden romances, curses that could only be broken with true love’s kiss, anything and everything romantic.
When her mother and father had told her about soulmates, and informed her that she had one of her own, Caitlyn had become a little obsessed with the idea. Someone out in the world was destined to be hers, her other half, her very own true love. Every wish she made on a star, every birthday candle blown out, all her luck was poured into finding her very own Prince Charming.
By the time she was eight years old, Caitlyn had learned that a prince was never going to be her knight in shining armor.
That hardly mattered, however. Soulmates could be anyone, and Caitlyn knew that her destined person was going to be absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeous… whoever she was.
My name is Caitlyn.
I do not know your name,
Not yet at least,
But I hope that someday I will learn it.
The first time it happened, the first time she had the dream, Caitlyn had been so startled that she woke herself up.
Did you dream of it too?
The tree on the hill,
Surrounded by wildflowers?
She had had the same dream for weeks. Every night, when she closed her eyes, she would open them to the same setting. There was a willow tree with long, leafy branches that swayed in the wind on top of a high hill that overlooked a small valley. It was beautiful. The air was sweet-smelling from the blooming wildflowers that spread out in all directions. As the weeks went on, Caitlyn had explored further down the hill until she reached a creek that she could not cross and determined that she had reached as far as she could go.
Not once had she come across another person.
To say that she was disappointed was… an understatement.
I don’t know if you are real.
I have yet to see you in my dreams,
But I can feel that we are supposed to meet.
Hopefully, soon, we will.
Until then,
I will keep wishing for you.
Sincerely,
C.K.
P.S. I wanted to sign this with “Love,” but that would be silly,
You cannot be in love with a dream, can you?
The dreams happened for months. It was consistent with the same setting each and every night, unchanging. Caitlyn would fall asleep and find herself sitting in the shade of the willow tree, where she would wait all night for something to happen. Nothing ever did, and after nearly half a year of having the same consecutive, uneventful dreams, Cailyn was beyond bored.
If there was one thing that was important to know about Caitlyn, it was that when she put her mind to something, she became stubborn as hell.
“When will I meet my soulmate?” Caitlyn had suddenly asked her parents one evening during dinner.
The sudden shock of her question made her father choke on his tea while her mother simply stared at her as if she had asked something far more risque. She was potentially more upset at Caitlyn’s outburst than her question.
“Where on Earth is that coming from, Caitlyn?” Her father had asked once he recovered from his sputtering.
Caitlyn cleared her throat and sat up. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, back straight, and head held high like her mother had taught her to sit. “I keep having the same dream every single night, but I have not seen anyone else. I am starting to believe I might never.”
Her parents exchanged concerned glances towards each other from across the dinner table. The rise of her mother’s right eyebrow spoke volumes more than her words ever could. Her mother was always much more expressive with her face than she was with her language.
“The same dream, dear?” Her mother asked. Her tone was slow and careful.
Caitlyn could barely understand the hidden meaning hiding behind the simple question she was asked. What she did understand was that she had completely thrown her parents for a loop, confusing them with her outburst. “You told me that I would one day find my soulmate in my dreams, and that would be how I knew who they were. Father and you met in your dreams, didn't you?”
The dining room had lapsed in a thick silence, forcing Caitlyn to shift anxiously in her chair as she noticed the tension she had caused. Both her parents kept their gazes on each other, silently having a weighted conversation that she was not privy to. She hated being kept out of the loop. She wanted to be a part of the conversation just as badly as she wanted an answer to her question.
Her father was the first to break the silence. “Caitlyn, are you positive it is the same dream you are having?”
The youngest Kiramman let out an exasperated sigh. She shoved her dinner plate away from her place and crossed her arms with a frown scrawled across her face. “Of course I am positive!” she answered sharply. She had thought that her answer had been clear the first time. “I have been writing about it in my diary almost all year. I can show you if you want proof.”
Her mother cleared her throat delicately yet with enough intention that Caitlyn understood the subtle scolding she was receiving. “I believe the reason we ask is because you are not supposed to meet your soulmate directly in your dreams.” When Caitlyn’s face stayed contorted into a scowl, her mother sighed and took a sip of her tea. Her blue eyes, the same as her daughter’s, drifted to her husband’s with an expectant eyebrow raised.
He took the cue with a slight stutter. “E-exactly. When I saw your mother, it was in different dreams, and we never interacted directly.”
“Then how did you know that she was your soulmate?” Caitlyn asked quickly. “Were there other people in your dreams? How could you have been sure who was your soulmate and who was not?”
“Ah, well,” her father glanced at her mother, and his ears turned pink, “I suppose I just knew.”
The smile on her mother’s face was a small one, which piqued Caitlyn’s interest even further. Her mother only ever smiled that sweetly at her father; there was something gentle and genuine that made her whole face radiate a soft glow that she gave no one else. “For me, it was that there was this strange person who always kept telling me terrible jokes no matter the type of dream I was having. I could be having the worst nightmare, and there he would be, trying to make me laugh despite it all.”
“You hate jokes,” Caitlyn commented.
Her mother hummed and sipped her tea but did not say anything else.
Realizing that she was not going to learn more, Caitlyn shook her head quickly and huffed. “Hold on, does this mean that you met in different dreams? As in, they changed every night?”
“That is correct,” her father answered as her mother nodded silently. “You say that you are having the same dream?”
“Yes!” Caitlyn confirmed for a third time. She was starting to regret asking in the first place. She had not known her parents would fail to understand her predicament. They were usually clever and all-knowing, always picking up on everything happening to their daughter. They could read her like a book. Why was it now that she was asking for advice on the only thing she cared about that they were suddenly clueless?
It was obvious that they either had no idea how to answer her question or were wanting to keep her in the dark. Either way, Caitlyn was frustrated and growing irritated with their lack of response.
“Are you telling me I am having this repetitive dream for no reason?” Her shoulders slumped down, the disappointment setting in hard. There was a weighted pain in her chest that she was not ready for.
Her father reached his hand across the table and gently took his daughters. His fingers squeezed tight, trying to comfort or reassure her. His eyes were soft, smile kind, while he looked at her. “You will meet her, my dear. Give it time. You are still very young.”
Except Caitlyn did not want to wait. She wanted to be in love.
Dear Soulmate,
Where are you?
Years passed as Caitlyn waited for her dreams to change.
They never did.
She eventually gave up looking forward to her dreams. They only brought her resentment and disappointment. Her mood dropped until she felt like a zombie walking around in a lifeless body. People told her that she was too young to be this resigned, but she hardly cared. The looks of worry she received from her governess and her father did make her feel a little bad about her mood, but then she would fall asleep again to be met with a flowering field alone, and the empty feeling would set back in.
The letters Caitlyn would once write to her soulmate were abandoned, along with her diary. After a particularly bad night, after a frustrating week of tutoring and traveling, she had a whole meltdown in her bedroom. She had taken the diary and the letters in her hands and nearly thrown them into the fireplace in the corner of her room. Her whole body had violently shaken with anxious hopelessness as she raised her arms to toss the little book into the flames. She sobbed and screamed and cursed herself for being soulmateless. It was all she wanted, and as far as she was concerned, she was never going to meet hers.
She was so sure that she was going to destroy the letters and all her hopes of having true love. Her heart had felt broken for a stranger she had yet to meet. All the other girls around her age were discovering theirs already. While Caitlyn was not out to society yet, she had to sit around tea shops with the others and listen as they waxed poetic about the handsome men and lovely women that visited them while they slept. She was forced to smile politely and feign ignorance while she knew all too well that her dreams were different from theirs. She had the same dream every single night for years, where she sat alone on a stupid hill and waited.
And waited.
And waited!
What stopped her at the last moment, she will never know. Her arms had pulled back, ready to toss the letters away, when she finally collapsed and refused to let go of them. Her knees had hit the wooden floor painfully, but she hardly felt the bruises form on her legs as she clutched the only proof that she could have a soulmate to her chest and cried until she fell asleep next to the fire.
Dear Soulmate,
Give me a sign.
I’m not ready to give up yet.
Caitlyn was sixteen years old when she finally met her soulmate.
Well, maybe met still was not exactly the right wording.
Dear Soulmate,
I think I met you last night.
You were in my dream,
and I heard you this time.
In order to have met someone, you had to see them, meet their gaze, recognize that they were real. Meeting someone required conversation, understanding, a connection formed.
Caitlyn did not see her soulmate.
…But she was there.
The dream was like all the others. Caitlyn had closed her eyes in the real world and opened them to her secret, personal hell on the other side. The breeze was stronger today than normal but not unpleasant. Giant, white, fluffy clouds sailed across the vast, deep blue sky, casting great shadows over the rolling valley.
There had not been any sign of her soulmate once again.
In order to wait the night out, Caitlyn climbed to the top of the willow tree and perched herself on the highest branch that could hold her. Her hands kept busy weaving the willow branches into crowns and necklaces as her eyes scanned the sky and picked out shapes in the clouds.
She was unsure if she had been up in her tree for minutes or hours, but she was completely unprepared for the way her dream would change.
There was a call on the wind, a voice picked up by the breeze. At first, Caitlyn ignored it. She had heard fake voices before. It was her bored mind playing tricks on her, cruelly sparking hope where there should not have been any.
However, then she heard the call again, louder and clearer this time.
Slowly, Caitlyn sat up from her perch. As still as a statue, she waited again.
And it happened again.
And again.
And again.
On the wind, distantly, Caitlyn heard it.
You had said,
“I’m here.
I’m ready to meet you.
Where are you?”
I am ready too.
Soon.
Yours,
Caitlyn