Chapter 1
When Allen's born it's with beautiful red and gold on his collarbone, small on his sticky new-born skin and the lines not yet curled together like they'll grow to be.
"Oh," His mother says the first time she sees it properly while cradling him close.
"That's not a name, is it?"
And it's not.
It's hard to tell what it is yet – what it will come to be – but it's easy to see that it's not a name in this language nor any other.
"He's starting off difficult already," His father agrees with a sigh, pushing his glasses up his nose so that the words like ink on the back of his wrist catch the light, spelling
Dalia
in beautiful dainty purple in the same way the little inscription on his wife's neck says
Bruno
.
"My precious boy," his mother sighs against his fluffy infant head as she rocks him in her arms.
"You're going to give us a world of trouble."
Allen blinks at her blankly and coos, grabbing with chubby fingers at her blouse.
His mother smiles at him and rubs one slender finger along the shapeless lines on his skin like she could will them to resolve themselves.
"Bruno," she says absently to her husband.
"Still, don't you think his Mark will grow to be quite beautiful?
I've never seen one in colors like that before.
"
"Well," he ponders as he leans forward to smooth a hand along his son's fat cheek.
"They say those without names grow up to be blessed."
And that is how Allen comes into the world; in red and gold and ready to be blessed.
.
They say it can take up to a decade for someone's Mark to become clear, but Allen's more or less flows itself together a week before his ninth birthday; a string of royal colors flush on his skin that makes everybody he surrounds himself with curious.
"Don't complain Allen," His mother scolds the first time Allen asks for something to keep it covered with.
"You're unique, there's no shame in that."
"You don't understand," he says awkwardly, rubbing at it with a finger.
"I'm not
ashamed
of it.
It's just...
I don't like people staring at it all the time.
I mean, it means I belong to someone, right?
It doesn't feel right to share it like that."
His mother pauses in the middle of folding the washing and stares at him for a moment, her wide hazel eyes reflected back at her in the face of her son.
Allen hesitates for a moment.
"What's wrong?
Did I say something weird again?"
His mother blinks and shakes her head, like waking from a daze.
"No, that's not it." She places the dress of his sister's she'd been folding back into the basket and crouches so she's at his own eye level, folding her skirts neatly into her knees.
"It's just that I forget you're growing up so fast."
"Mom," Allen says awkwardly and his face goes nearly as red as his hair.
"It's no big deal."
"No, no," She says, rubbing a thumb along Allen's cheek that is still fluff with baby fat and smiling at the way he wrinkles up his face at her.
"You're not wrong.
If you don't want other people to see it, that's your right.
It's just a pity.
It's very lovely to look at."
Allen frowns at that and moves to slap one hand over the crest.
"It's weird," he almost snaps.
"It feels like everybody else has a name
but
me."
"Allen," his mother sighs, exasperated but patient because it's not the first time they've had this conversation since Allen was old enough to understand about Marks and Soulmates.
"Everybody's Mark is different, okay?
And they say having one without a name is a sign of good fortune."
"It's weird," Allen insists.
"I have a picture and a word but no name."
His mother pauses.
"What do you mean a word?" She asks.
Allen shuffles a little where he stands like a guilty child and casts his gaze everywhere but at her.
"Allen," she repeats.
"What do you mean a word?"
Allen bites his lip before sighing and tugging his shirt collar a little to the side to show his mother the Mark just past the curve of his shoulder.
"It's been like this for a while," he says.
"I can't read it.
I don't know what it means."
It's been a while since Dalia had looked at her son's Mark in earnest.
Allen was long past the age where she needed to help him change or wrestle him into the bathtub, and although he was admittedly clumsy and a little bit off-kilter on his own feet, he was also fiercely self-driven and independent.
His Mark was as she remembered it from the last time she'd gotten a close look – although heaven knows how long ago that was – but it was clearer now, much more woven together in its intricate red and gold, but it was the scrawl of barely legible writing beneath it that attracted her attention.
It was wrapped so tightly along the symbol on his skin it was almost impossible to notice it unless one was looking for it.
"Oh," she breathes in surprise, tracing along it with a fingernail as she tries to sound out the foreign hiss of the letters.
"What is it?" Allen asks as his mother huffs out sounds.
"It's part of your Mark," she says after a moment, giving up and pulling back so she could drag Allen's shirt closed again.
"I haven't seen one in a good long while.
They're not so common these days."