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Early legends say humans once stood tall with two heads, four eyes, eight limbs, and most importantly: two hearts. It is told in the tales that ancient forces found themselves jealous of mankind, who were so complete amongst their plural beings, and so these beings of old tore humans from one another, cascading us into a torment like no other, it is said this was the downfall of all humankind. But it is also said that fate looked upon mankind with mercy, and so with her pen dipped in fresh ink she spent the rest of eternity marking each person born with a sign that they would not forever be as alone as they sometimes felt.
Of course fate wouldn’t make figuring out who that person was easy, for decades could go by before one heard the words saturated on their skin repeated back to themselves, but it was common knowledge that the phrase one had inked upon their skin since birth was bound to be the most meaningful thing one could have said to them. It would be a spoken truth that couldn’t be faked, and that would turn the black ink from a solemn black into a cascade of brilliant color.
Jayce Talis spent his youth in wonder of what could prompt the words inscribed onto the flesh of his forearm. He spent longful nights tracing the outline of them and imagining what voice would suit them as they were spoken into existence. He struggled to comprehend what they could mean. In all possibilities only you can show me this.
Such confusion over the meaning would follow Jayce throughout most of his life. But there were other great mysteries to solve, and Jayce was a fierce believer that when the time came, he would know.
Viktor was very young when he began covering his soulmark, not out of shame for what was written on his skin, but out of preservation of its meaning to him. All it took was one mean older under city kid to kick Viktor’s cane from his arms leaving him scared on the water's edge with the words “Your soulmarked has to be a liar Viktor, cause you’re not beautiful. You’re broken.”
Words of children, too young to really know what was being said, yet the fear of them being right wedged a doubt between Viktor and the words of his soulmate. High necked collars became a regular fashion for Viktor as he grew, keeping the dark lace of words along his collar bones from prying eyes. It was only in the dark glow of candles in the late night that Vikor would allow himself the indulgence of fantasy, where he would trace the words meant for him with his fingers and imagine someone looking upon him and finding what others had missed completely.
It wouldn’t last too long though, for the longer he stared at the words, there is beauty in imperfections, they made you who you are– the more sour the words would feel in his mouth. He lost the meaning behind the words as he grew, only lingering on the earlier half of the phrase, the recognition that he was as imperfect as that blurred memory of a childhood bully pointed out, and the idea of someone who was meant for him seeing such a truth was a painful thought. And so as the years sped by, the less light that fell onto Viktor’s collarbones, until eventually the only time they saw beyond his shirt collars was in the cold dark of nightly showers. A pity, and a needed pain to propel Viktor straight into the path of the man he was destined for.
There was a taboo in society for dulled out grey soulmarks, for such sights meant that one’s soulmarked was taken from this life before they could say the words fated on the skin. This thought was what lingered on Jayce’s mind as he stood on the precipice, his feet inches from the fall. A note sat carefully curated for his mother, steps away, but his soulmarked would only carry with them dull greyed words, and a future without Jayce. But wouldn’t that be better than a life tied to someone who created something as dangerous as Hextech?
Jayce couldn’t bare the thought, and so he inched forward a little ways more. The silence of his bitter end was broken by a soft thud of footsteps and a similar softness of voice. “Am I interrupting?”