Chapter Text
I
Aral Vorkosigan knows from a young age he is destined to have two soulmates. The silvery words of his soulmarks are painted across either side of his chest just below his collarbones. Unfortunately, they are… generic, holding little clue as to the identity of his matches. On the right is just the single-word question “Well?” On the left, “Thank you, Admiral Vorkosigan!”
He is six when he realizes that the left mark means he’s going to be an admiral someday, a revelation that thrills him for days until his brother observes that this means he’s probably going to be old before he meets that soulmate. Mother soothes his broken heart by reminding him that the Count-his-father was made a general by Emperor Dorca at age 22. Also, that his other soulmate could come along at any time. That whenever either of them appears, it will be the right time. Just as it was for her and Father.
Mother’s words are a black spiral on her forearm reading: “What do you want, girl?” Which, considering Mother was born Princess Olivia Vorbarra, was a source of great amusement to her whole family for years. And then she met the man who said them. Then Grandfather’s sense of humor, at least, had failed. Father and Grandfather fought together during the Cetagandan War but had been at loggerheads more often than not.
The Vorkosigan children have never seen their father’s words. No one talks about where they are or what they say.
II
When Aral is eleven, he discovers that one’s soulmate can die before one ever meets them. Selig and little Camille both had still-silver words when they died. For weeks after Mad Yuri’s Purge, it is this fact that he clings to, rather than the too-huge grief for his mother and siblings. Aral will remember their words until his dying day.
Two years later, when he’s given the dubious honor of the first cut to the deposed emperor, he slashes across the belly, where the madman’s silvery mark lies. He doesn’t read the words; he doesn’t want to know what the person his great-uncle never met was meant to say to him.
III
“We may not be soulmates,” Ges Vorrutyer tells him at age sixteen. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t love each other.” Aral knows it is forbidden, knows what the General-his-father would say – and do – if they’re ever caught. But he is so happy to have someone in his life again who loves him to worry too much about it.
When Aral turns twenty, Father makes his most desperate move to separate Aral from what he calls his ‘unhealthy obsession’ by marrying him to Ges’ sister. Aral’s not sure how that’s supposed to work, but Fiona is beautiful and gentle, nothing like Ges, and Father desperately needs him to provide another Vorkosigan heir. So, he does his duty by his Count and his House and takes her to wife.
She, too, has two soulmarks, silvery words winding about each hip. They discuss the fact that they are not each other’s perfect match either. Agree that they won’t stand in the way if any of their soulmates come along, so long as Fiona provides Aral with at least one son.
Aral is twenty-two when he comes home from a three-month space tour to find Fiona’s marks turned black. All his promises go out the window when Ges informs him that she’s been fucking both men for several months and she’s pregnant with a child that is not Aral’s.
He tracks down the men and slays them both in duels. Then he gets raging drunk and goes home to tell his wife. He leaves her screaming vile insults and threats at him, returning to his ship to wait for Service Security to arrest him.
ImpSec comes instead to tell him his Fiona committed suicide upon learning her soulmates killed each other fighting over her.
IV
Aral spends the next several years debauching himself with Ges. If Aral’s honest, he knows his lover is not a good man, but he treats Aral the way he feels he deserves so he just gives in to whatever Ges wants. And then his lover’s soulmark turns black, too.
Aral doesn’t ask who it is. He simply breaks everything off, pulls himself out of the hole that he’s dug himself into, and spends the next decade and a half trying to be the perfect son and soldier. He sees Ges Vorrutyer and Serg Vorbarra together often enough that he knows.
The Residence denies the rumors. Male soulmate pairs aren’t that unusual, but they aren’t legitimate, and the Emperor needs his Heir and a Spare. So Serg is married off to Kareen Vorinnis. But everyone knows why it takes years for the Royal couple to produce young Gregor.
And Aral is still alone.
V
Aral is promoted to Admiral at thirty-six and begins to excitedly await the arrival of at least one of his soulmates. He twitches every time a fellow Serviceman says: “Thank you, Admiral Vorkosigan.” But the mark stays silver. He wonders how much longer he will have to wait.
Aral pours his heart into the planning of the invasion of Komarr. It takes years and his marks do not change. He starts to worry that he might have lost both people before he ever found them.
The Solstice Massacre, and his killing of the political officer, teaches him a deeper despair. He is broken back to Captain, exiled first to Camp Permafrost, then the back of beyond on the General Vorkraft. He spends so much of the time he is not on duty crawling into a bottle that he almost forgets what it is to be sober. On one of his rare leaves, he even suggests that Father start prepping Padma to be his heir.
His father curses him and steadfastly refuses to entertain the idea.
VI
Aral’s life changes utterly when he is sent out on picket duty around the newly discovered world that Emperor Ezar is keeping as a tightly held military secret. At first, the duty is routine and boring, which Aral cannot complain of. But several months in, all hell breaks loose. A Betan ship appears and his attempt to capture their landing party gets foiled by Radnov and his idiotic mutiny. He is surprised to wake, still alive, in the aftermath of the attack hidden in some bushes.
He quickly discovers one of the Betan crew also left for dead in the mud of this godforsaken planet. He’s even more alarmed – and horrified – to realize it’s a woman. He picks up the stunner he finds lying at her side and waits.
She wakes eventually but before he can question her, she passes out again. He checks her pulse and finds it strong if fast. There’s not much he can do for her; he used his only synergine dose on himself. Still aching and a touch ill, he sits down on a log a few paces from her prone figure. The second time she wakes, she is promptly sick. When the vomiting finally subsides, he watches her with patient sympathy as she crawls to a little stream a few meters away to rinse her mouth and wash her face.
Finally, she rolls up to a seated position and croaks: “Well?”
A sudden electric shock, not actually painful but thoroughly uncomfortable, arcs across his torso. And he doesn’t have to look to know the mark on his right collarbone has turned black.