Chapter Text
There was still debate among scientists of when exactly the first soul marks appeared on human skin. They decorated paintings of artists like Botticelli and Michelangelo, concealed themselves on stained glass of gothic churches, could even be found engraved on monuments and sculptures dated from the Roman times, and when a wall painting in a cave from Neolithic period had been discovered, people were led to believe the soul marks might have been here for as long as the human species.
But an even greater debate was left unsettled for the longest time. The one that bewildered the minds of Galen, Hippocrates, Archimedes, each with their own theory, all the way to Rosalind Franklin, Karl Landsteiner, Gregor Mendel, Marie Curie, each with their own experiments, and any other who had ever considered the subject.
Not a single person could explain how an emotional bond between soulmates formed.
They all understood the basic principles of it. Two people, or as it existed in legends and in myths, more than two people, shared the same mark on their skin; one that appeared as each of them came of age. Eventually, or even before the mark, there would be an emotional bond, the more important one, because soul marks only revealed the match, while the emotional bond was the reason for it. It connected soulmates, made them share their emotions, depending on how powerful their connection was; the intensity of it as a soft echo in one’s mind, or as if they were just one piece of a whole, sensing their soulmate’s feelings as much as their own. For some it appeared as soon as the mark, for others it came much later, and some people swore they could feel slight twinges of their soulmate’s emotions long before the mark.
It was not until 1953 that the question gained a new perspective.
The idea that everything in the human body, from physical appearance to functional aspects was regulated by strands of nucleotides perfectly aligned in a double helix placed in almost every cell, made scientists think that the answer to soul marks must be hidden in the DNA. So, they started sequencing, replicating, analysing, slowly understanding the mechanism.
The urgency of the matter increased in the 1960s with the sexual revolution. For it was that liberation of human nature that directed the course and led investors into genomics research, hoping to ease themselves of the pain that their soulmates were inflicting to them every time they shared their body with another.
Even though there were many worthy scientists doing their best work and expanding the knowledge, ultimately, it took an accident, as it always does with great discoveries, when an overly exhausted student mislabelled the test tubes and revealed the gene for soulmates.
Over the years, humankind improved and learned more and more about the mystery that were soulmates and soul marks. They even managed to explain the emotional bond, within some limits. It is now known that there are various levels of soul bonds, depending on the gene, variating from Level 1 to 10, determining the depth of the connection. It all depended on rare mutations, for most people had Levels 4 to 7 bonds, but if there was a deletion or a duplication of nucleotides, the bond would either lower or rise its Level. That understanding made it possible for brilliant scientists to develop the Dampener, a device that would, when placed on a person’s wrist, block the connection emerging from soulmates. It could numb even the most dominant of connections.
And Penelope Featherington was most grateful for it because her soulmate was a man whore.
Perhaps that was unfair; he was simply a vindictive asshole.
She had known that for a fact ever since she was eighteen.
She became aware of it in the most tragic way, one that to this day haunted her nightmares and soiled her daydreams, constantly reminding her how she had thought all her wishes were within her grasp before they got taken away. For she had believed she would be one of the lucky ones, knowing only love and contentment; a lifetime of happiness with no pain, sure of it with teenage naivety and all-too-high expectations set up for the world.
Penelope learned the hard way how punishing life could be and how little mercy destiny had for kind and innocent souls. She realised quickly those two often conspired together to see how much it would take for gentle people to break, how far they could push the limits to destroy all good in them, twisting those souls in their own servants of cruelty, ones that will soon take others down the darkest paths with them.
She was not proud of it, but eventually she gave in.
She tried; she really did. For a while.
Ever since the day she collapsed in pain, feeling like her heartstrings were rupturing one by one, making her heart unable to pump blood into her aorta, leaving her body deprived of oxygen until every cell felt like it was dying, and her lungs filled with fluid until she was drowning on air.
All she could have done was to scream out in agony, hit the floor with her knees, and wrap her arms around her chest protectively, because she felt as if her ribs might crack, one by one.
When it was over, she prayed it was a once-in-a lifetime kind of torment, but then it happened the next day. And the one after that. And the one after that. It kept happening repeatedly, until she realised this pain was now hers to hold unwillingly for the rest of her days.
Penelope had never intended to wear a Dampener, hoping to live her life feeling her soulmate each moment, with a constant bond of love that would feel as glorious as the soul mark decorating her back looked like. But that choice was taken from her.
Ultimately, she came to terms with that.
She still felt twinges of emotions from his side, and she tried to let her connection run free and reach him at times. But he rarely answered; it felt as if she was circling around a cage, feeling something was inside, begging to be released, but with no way for her to enter or free it. The only time he would open the door and let his end of the connection out was to let her feel pain, making her quickly retreat into her own cage, hiding away from him.
Hence, a vindictive arsehole.
So, she did not try as much. Their bond was numbed, but Penelope was also cursed with a mutation in her genome, because of course she was, making her bond a highest Level 10, and with that too powerful for the Dampener to fully block out. That meant she could still feel him, at times, when his emotions were particularly intense, not fully, just a glance into what he was like, but enough to allow her to be aware of how much anger, resentment, repugnance, apathy her soulmate felt for her.
He hated her.
It was alright.
She hated him just as much.
Therefore, she caused him pain, too.
Very much intentionally.