Chapter Text
You’ve been able to see them for a while, and you haven’t said anything to anyone, because frankly you think you might be going crazy. Maybe you should mention it to someone, though, and by ‘someone’ you mean ‘a doctor.’
You’d never really believed in the red strings of fate thing before. Sure, everyone insists it’s a thing, but… it’s just always sounded so unlikely to you. Love takes work. It takes commitment. Saying there’s someone out there already predestined to be your soulmate has always seemed to devalue a relationship to you.
(You’re actually relieved to see that not everyone has a red string).
You don’t tell your doctor. You don’t tell anyone. You spend months, then years, quietly watching other people’s strings. Sometimes (rarely) they break, which fascinates you in a morbid way. Sometimes this is because one of the two dies, which never ceases to make you flinch away, but sometimes it just… happens. There’ll be a fight, or one of the two or even both will drift apart until the string stretches and snaps. It’s weirdly comforting to you that this happens. That fates aren’t immutable.
Once, you watch three people dance delicately around each other for ages, until the string connecting two of them expands and wraps around the third and pulls the three of them together.
You don’t tell your friends. You don’t really have any friends to tell.
Sometimes you try to pull on your string, but the red threads aren’t really tangible. Because the thing is… you do kind of want to follow the thread. You’d have been happier not to have one at all, but you do, and it’s a weird one because of course it is. Nothing about you can be normal, apparently. Your string’s not normal either. It’s faint, more pink than red, which you haven’t seen even in breaking threads.
And it’s long. It stretches from your wrist up into the sky and… you’re not sure where it ends.
You’re not sure it ends.
You don’t tell your family. You don’t really have one.
You’ve never really been passionate about anything in particular, but you find yourself drawn inexorably to flight school. You're drawn to the sky (you have proof of that even if you didn't feel it.) From there you go on to your nation’s space program, because to your quiet surprise you turn out to be a natural at flying, and you pick up each new ship’s controls almost intuitively.
They fast-track you into the Explorer program. It’s short hops at first, to nearby planets, but gradually they get farther and farther out. You’re gone from dirtside from months at a time. You have friends now, you can’t not bond with your various crews when you spend months in space together, but you still feel like an outsider as you watch red threads draw crews together.
It’s more common on the space crews for the threads to expand to incorporate more people, you notice. Two of your regular teammates start out with no threads (you’ll never admit it and no one can prove it, but you look for that in your crews) but as you go on more missions, and as you settle into the same crew for each one (there are six of you now, and now you have both a family and friends), you watch as first Leo’s wrist and then Ken’s have red threads that shimmer into existence like bracelets. They move slower than any other strings you’ve seen, but they also wrap more extensively and glow a brighter red when they finally (finally) connect.
Ace still has no thread. Ace is the first one you admit to seeing the strings to. They take it in stride, and are ecstatic to hear they don't have one.
On your first mission that takes you over the line from months to years, that takes you out of your solar system altogether, Siegfried (who goes by Sig, and you don’t blame him) pulls you aside and says quietly, “I see them too.”
You stare at him, because Ace wouldn’t have told anyone, and you’ve told no one else.
“I’ve seen you looking,” Sig explains, gesturing. “I saw you watch Leo and Ken’s grow. Which I’ve never seen before, either,” he adds, and tilts his head at you as he smiles comfortingly. Sometimes you wish your thread had led you to Sig- he’s the most comforting and amicable person you’ve ever known. “I’ve only seen them since getting out to space. How long have you-?“
Since I was in my teens, you sign slowly, and you follow his gaze now as he looks to your thread. It still leads off into the distance, far out of sight. Even in space, it shows no sign of an end.
“It’s getting darker, you know,” Sig says softly. “That usually means you’re getting closer.” He must interpret your expression correctly, because he smoothly switches topics, sort of. His eyes turn hopeful. “Do you see the other ones yet?”
No, you don’t, you don’t even know what he means, and you drop your gaze to his string instead. You know it leads back dirtside. It strengthens when you return to the planet, and it frays and thins when you leave again and strains as you reach further and further out into space, and you think you both know it’s going to snap some day.
“You will,” Sig says, placing a hand on your shoulder for only a moment before withdrawing it, because he knows you well.
He’s right. It isn’t until the next mission, which is slated to be your longest mission yet, and you fight and fight and fight for your crew because like hell are you going to spend the next five years or more in space without what’s become your family. Sig is a senior enough officer to get on board right away, Ken and Leo are a little harder but don’t work well enough with any other crew to be taken from you, Hiro signs on as an engineer even though he isn’t and you’re not sure how he managed that, and Ace straight-up stows away at the last minute. You all very deliberately do not notice them until you’re far too far away from any base for anyone to retrieve Ace.
There are more strings than the red ones, and one cycle when you’re all together in the common room for downtime you see the pale blue threads that shimmer around and between all of you. Even Ace. Even you. They’re beautiful, more than the red ones, and they spark and deepen and darken even as you watch.
You have no comparison for this, so it’s your turn to corner Sig.
The curve of his mouth is nothing compared to the light in his eyes. “They turn up between families, at least the ones who are close.”
This is information you take and hold close to yourself, because it means more to you than you can express.
There are green threads for friends as well. Those are so thick between your crew that sometimes you catch strange looks as you try absently to dodge the intangible strings.
There’s an orange line between Hiro and Ace, and not even Sig knows what that’s about, because he’s never seen it anywhere else and the two are friends and family and crew but not romantic, and you eventually decide to let it alone and let it be private. You don’t need to know the answer to everything, explorer crew or not. (Well, Ace does need to, but that's just what they're like).
Command lets it be known they are not happy you all stole Ace. Command hasn’t been very fond of your crew for a while, truth be told. You’ve all long since picked up on the way your missions keep getting longer and more dangerous, but so long as you’re together on them you don’t care.
Command starts to contact you less often. They’re terse now and less interested in what you have to report, even when Ace and Leo give an exuberant report on a moon you’ve found that could be able to support human life with a minimum of work. It even has a breathable atmosphere (which is a discovery you all want to kill Leo for).
Eventually, you’re only contacted once or twice a month, and slowly that dwindles even more, and a year into the mission they cease to contact you at all.
At first you think it’s an error in the system, but both Hiro and Ace confirm there’s nothing wrong with your communications. It’s not the distance either, you’ve been farther out than this before; if you were farther into the mission that could be plausible but not at this point.
It’s when you put in at a base (one of the far ones) for extra fuel and supplies that you know for sure you’ve all been written off. The base doesn’t respond to your hails, they almost refuse to let you dock at all, they have no records of your ship or crew, and ultimately you all end up stealing as much supplies and food as you can carry before fleeing as the base opens fire on you. You left equipped for a five-year minimum mission and it’s only a little over one so you’ll be okay for a while, but this is still very bad.
You regroup on the moon (your moon?).
“We can’t stay here long,” Hiro says moodily. “We reported it. They know about it.”
Ken shrugs and leans against a rock formation, cracking open a pouch of the energy juice no one else likes. “First, they’d have to get here, and no one else knows the shortcuts we took so even if they’re coming from the nearest base it won’t be soon. Second, I’m not too sure they care. I have the impression they expect us to die out here.”
Everyone winces. Ken has never learned how not to be blunt.
“We still might,” Ace points out, and you remember that oh right, you’re all blunt.
“I might have an idea,” Sig says slowly, and meets your eyes, and then slowly leads your gaze to where your red string, still, reaches out into the distance. It’s a deeper red then the last time he pointed it out to you, and has started to shimmer the way your crew strings do.
Ace follows his gaze as well and their eyes widen.
The three of you do your best to explain to the rest of the crew, who take it with varying degrees of disbelief, but ultimately agree to the plan. Whoever or whatever your soulmate is, they’ve got to be alive, and if they’re connected to you there’s a high chance they’re somewhere livable for all of you.
You stay on the moon (Leo names it Edge, Ken names it Waypoint, and nobody else cares) long enough to hunt and scavenge more food, which Hiro promises he can test for safety, and when you leave you set a course to follow the red thread of your fate for the first time.
It isn’t a short trip. Your team grows closer, though, and you and Sig try to explain to the others about how you can see the strings, about the ones no one ever talks about that are family and friends, and even admit to the strange orange one between Ace and Hiro. The two exchange a look that seems to contain volumes, but still offer no explanation. You’re used to them by now, but the red and green and orange and blue threads seem more beautiful than before.
Sig’s thread to your old planet frays through at last. He doesn’t seem bothered, and indeed the remnants of it, instead of fading as you’re used to seeing, coil around his wrist and seem to send out searching little filaments once in a while.
It hits you that being able to see the strings of fate has actually confirmed your long-ago belief that love is nowhere near that simple.
None of the others have threads back to the planet at all, not even blue or green ones. You ask Sig, and it turns out Leo did, at the beginning; you find out after a long-ago leave he still won’t talk about they all snapped at once. Ace had once had a single blue thread, but it had gone dim and shattered apart years ago, the way you’ve seen red ones do when a partner dies. He won’t talk about Hiro’s, and Ken never had them, same as you. Now with Sig’s string gone, none of you have any more connections dirtside.
The connections you have to each other glow stronger than ever.
And so does your red thread.
It takes a long time (and no one’s really keeping track of time much anymore) but you find the planet your string has always been pulling you towards. It’s a gorgeous planet, as blue and white and green as your own had been, and scans (no, Leo, we’re scanning this time, you idiot) indicate breathable air, so you make a cautious landing on an island not too far from a smaller continent.
You end up building yourselves a comfortable camp on the island, aiming to make it as non-confrontational as possible, because the natives are curious and draw close nearly immediately. It takes some time, but eventually one glides over the water to cautiously introduce themselves.
They’re bipedal, surprisingly, but this species evolved lengthy spiked tails for balance and defense, and their feet are just as useful as their hands. Their language is largely clicks and whistles, and yours is ridiculously incompatible, but between a lot of gesturing and repetition you determine you’re on the planet Vakala and this particular Vakalan is Thawk. Ze (the language doesn’t seem to have pronouns, to Ace’s delight) retreat briefly, then come back with what turn out to be translation charms. Not chips, thankfully, you have an objection to embedding technology into your body without knowing exactly what it does, but a kind of choker that translates with no real delay.
“Your fey-lines,” is the first thing Thawk says, gesturing to them with something like awe. “I have never seen them so intense. Your kind must feel so fiercely.” His face crinkles oddly, single eye shifting from the left side to the right. Everyone save Leo manages not to stare.
Thawk looks very pointedly at your thread, then back at you, and says,”You should all remain here. Your arrival is auspicious, and we welcome you. I must fetch my kalla, but I will return. Please, live well and be safe.”
Ze leave again, and for a long time the six of you huddle close without speaking. You wish for a fire, but not all alien species take well to fire- humans have turned out to be rather strange for embracing it- and it isn’t worth the risk of alienating your new hosts. (Ken thinks this is a clever pun. Ace starts throwing rocks at him).
You’re all asleep (yes, together in a pile) when Thawk returns, this time with two other aliens. (Natives, you realise suddenly. You’re the aliens).
“This is my kalla, Aaika,” Thawk says, almost kindly, and looks at you again.
And you realise your string has snapped taut.
Turns out the Vakalan are a shape-shifting race, and Aaika is nearly human when ze throws zerself into your arms, sending you reeling. Ze’s crying, and you’re still too stunned to react, and yet you’ve just found yourself at one of the very few turning points in your life where you feel like you’re home. Your crew is the only home you’ve ever known, and this is overwhelming,
Aaika seems to sense this, and ze (she? the form ze's using is a human female, though ze kept zer tail) steps back, smiling widely and bowing. “I knew you would arrive one day! It is so good to meet you. And you brought your family along! How wonderful!”
After a very confused round of explanations, it transpires that all Vakalans can see the strings of fate (or fey-lines, as they translate between you), and their society reveres them. All of them, all configurations; they praise Ace for being strong enough within themselves not to have a red-line, they gently tease Leo and Ken for the strength of theirs, and they go positively wild over the green and blue bonds. Apparently you have some of the richest family bonds they’ve seen in a family of choice rather than relation. They laugh at the questing of Sig’s broken threads and assure him that it means he may well find another. They exclaim over the orange-line, and they say it’s so rare even on their planet that it’s practically it a myth, but their word for it refuses to translate. If you’re grasping the gist of it exactly, it’s something more complex than a friend, yet not in a familial or romantic way. You still don’t really get it.
Aaika and the third Vakalan, Maara, offer suggestions on how to make your temporary camp more permanent, and you can’t be imagining how badly they all- Thawk included- seem to want you to stay. It should be suspicious, honestly, but it’s mostly endearing. And anyway, if you did need to escape, the ship is still quite functional with plenty of fuel.
“Will you make your home here?” Aaika asks you at last, eyes glowing with what you think is hope. To your private surprise, you're really looking forward to getting to know zem. Having watched so many different people's strings snap and grow and stretch and fade has reassured you that although the strings exist they aren't a mandate.
You look around at your family, then look back at your soulmate with a smile.
The yes is unanimous.