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Rolan could recall, with complete clarity, the first time someone touched the dark red handprint on his chest. He was barely a teen, not even old enough to truly understand the implication of a soulmate, when a classmate braced her hand over his heart. He remembered the way his chest tightened, how he couldn’t breathe as the taller tiefling laid her palm just slightly too left of the soulmark.
He didn’t need to look down to know it wasn’t a match. How many times had he pressed his own hand against his chest, trying to make his long, clawed fingers fit the much smaller handprint, so that he could burn the feeling into memory? Lia had said it was just fate, that the gods had someone better in store for him, but that didn’t lessen the sting – even if he wasn’t particularly fond of the girl.
He decided that romance was a fool's game, one that people like Rolan couldn’t afford to play. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself. He had a family to look after, siblings to provide for. What good would dwelling on silly fantasies of love do him? It certainly wouldn’t put food on the table or a roof over their heads.
In the back of his mind, though, in the privacy of his own thoughts, Rolan imagined what it would be like to meet the match to his soulmark. It was bittersweet, a torturous pain that he reveled in, teasing himself with pretty fantasies of who his mate may be. They always stayed fantasies, though.
But then Elturel fell into Avernus. And any hope Rolan had of ever finding his soulmate was ripped away, like the ground beneath his feet that gave way to the fiery pits of the Hells. He felt hollow, empty. Even as Elturel returned to the mortal plane, the feeling never went away.
⸻
When Tav first came into the grove, Rolan was drowning in the emptiness. It was easy to pretend it didn’t exist when the world was going to shit around them. And he had all but mastered the art of walling himself up so that any blows to his brittle heart didn’t send it careening into the abyss he felt inside.
Rolan found that he felt different around her, though. He first noticed it at the party, as he and the Elturian refugees celebrated Tav and her companion’s efforts against the goblins. The cavity in his chest seemed to shrink, if only by a little bit. But it was enough for Rolan to breathe, to take a breath he didn’t realize he so desperately needed. It made him nervous, the way she easily was able to slip through the defenses he painstakingly constructed and take hold in his mind.
For the first time since Avernus, Rolan let himself imagine what it would be like to feel her hand against his chest, slotting into place over the red mark.
⸻
These temporary highs never seemed to last long for Rolan. Amid the broken grounds of the shadow cursed lands, as Cal and Lia were ripped from his grasp, the cavern in his chest swelled. It loomed large and insidious, and Rolan felt as though if he closed his eyes hard enough, he could fall into it. He hated it, hated himself, hated feeling so utterly weak.
And when the emptiness threatened to swallow him whole, Tav was there.
She returned to Rolan what he thought was lost to him forever. If he weren’t a coward, he would have grabbed her right then and there. He would have pulled her to him and apologized for the venomous words he spit at her in anger, would have thanked her for all that she had done. He simply uttered a tiny 'thank you' and let her go on her way, trying to ignore the way his chest shifted as she left.
⸻
If Rolan were a third party, looking at his life from unaffected eyes, he perhaps would have laughed at the misfortune that plagued him at every step. It truly never seemed to end. Just as he got his footing, arriving at Baldur's Gate and securing a place for him and his siblings to stay, the rug was pulled out from under him.
At least this time, the pain he felt was physical and not deep within. At least he had bruised and marks to show for it. At least he could put a name to his tormentor: Lorroakan.
Although he did have to admit that after everything he had been through, working as the whipping boy for an egomaniacal wizard was something he could handle. Or at least see through to the end.
And Rolan fully intended to stick through his apprenticeship, to become a powerful and renowned wizard, to ensure his siblings were taken care of. He certainly didn’t expect Tav to throw herself into the mix, killing the master wizard before Rolan had even been there a tenday. Though, he probably should have expected it.
She always seemed to show up whenever he needed her most, even when he didn’t want her help. Especially when he didn’t want her help. If Rolan was religious, he may have thought her a form of divine intervention. But he hadn’t prayed since he was a child and calling her work an act of the gods seemed like an insult to Tav’s capabilities. She was Tav, nothing more and nothing less. A woman who somehow knew him and what he needed, without even knowing him.
Perhaps that’s why she appeared at Ramazith’s tower one day, dressed in her casual clothes, under the guise of checking in. Rolan had taken on the duties as master of Sorcerous Sundries, and though things were better than they had been in so very long, the emptiness still gnawed at his chest, just as vicious as ever.
She was just as glorious in her street clothes as she was in her armor, but something drew Rolan’s eye to her hand, a part of her he had never seen uncovered before, always beneath a gauntlet of some sort. On it was a pink blotch that extended over her wrist, twisting around her arm like a snake. As they caught up, he found his eyes drifting back to her hand, tracing the outline of it again and again, trying to discern its secrets.
As Tav stood to leave, it clicked.
With one long stride, Rolan closed the distance between them, grabbing her wrist over where the soft pink shape marred her skin. His pull may have been just a tad too rough, causing her to stumble forward into him. She braced herself with a hand against his chest.
He didn’t need to look down to know it was a perfect match. And by the look on Tav’s face, she didn’t either. For a long moment they stared at one another, nothing but the sounds of quickened breath between them.
Then they were smiling and laughing and Rolan decided that if he didn’t kiss her right then and there that he may actually light the whole damned tower on fire. As he clumsily pressed his lips to hers, he couldn’t feel a lick of space in his chest. Just the fullness of his racing heart.