#Thought of the red string of fate and actually it's barely an au. It doesn't change much | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mx-myth · 5 months

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Okay hear me out red string of fate mlc au (rough timeline) (you only see your string(s) and who they connect to but no one else's)

(This is long as fuck actually)

Li Xiangyi who grows up in the streets with two strings. One is red and sometimes he thinks about following it to see where it leads but he never does. He meets shan gudao and eventually gets picked up by his shifu (I forgot what he calls him in the show, so) and at some point learns that the grey string tied in a bow on his opposite hand means his other zhiji hasn't been born yet.

(Lxy doesn't think anything about this until one march morning years later the string bursts into colour and unravels forward when he's training (you can fight me on this but fdb is ABSOLUTELY a spring baby born in the morning. Something about the coming of new life and the dawn of a new day and how that's what he symbolises). Because of the mostly-romantic connotations of strings he's guilt-ridden over his zhiji being a decade (or thereabouts? I don't remember the actual age gap in the show) younger than him before he forcibly puts it out of his mind)

Fast-forward to when he meets qiao wanmian. They become close friends and basically everyone thinks they're fated. But a-mian sits him down to quietly tell him that she has no string, none at all, that they really aren't fated and never will be. And lxy, who, in the nights he lies awake, still is guilty about being ten years older than his youngest zhiji (he doesn't know whether his other one is older or younger than him, the string was already red by the time he was old enough to retain memories), lies and says he doesn't have a string either. But he wants to court her because he loves her. That part, at least, is true: li xiangyi loves qiao wanmian.

And then he starts the sigu sect and eventually meets di feisheng. Their first meeting is only in passing but they lock eyes and lxy sees not only the moment when it registers that they're zhiji but also the moment when dfs sees that he's walking arm in arm with a-mian. They both walk away none the wiser to each other's identities.

It's only when they meet for the first time as di-mengzhu, leader of the jinyuan alliance, and as li xiangyi, the number one swordsman in the jianghu, and cross swords does lxy truly realise what this means. Their string spools out between their bodies, fluttering away between their swords, as he realises that he and this zhiji of his are on opposite sides. That their string is the only thing that connects them across their unfathomable chasm.

(It isn't. Lxy doesn't know it but dfs admires his swordsmanship. Dfs thinks they have a lot in common via neili and fighting techniques and their devotion to their crafts but he thinks that lxy knows this. He doesn't say anything about it because he assumes that lxy knows this and also because it's common knowledge he and qiao wanmian are going to get married. So lxy never knows)

Afterwards lxy becomes consumed with red strings of fate. He obsessively starts searching for stories where the zhiji turn out to be enemies. He finds almost nothing (most of what he finds is enemies to friends, or worse, enemies to (friends to) lovers, and all of it he throws out in disgust) and in his frenzy he begins neglecting his relationship with a-mian.

The ultimate betrayal comes when lxy learns that dfs killed shan gudao. A-Mian just recently broke up with him and that combined with his zhiji killing his shixiong is what does it. It spells the beginning of the spiral of li xiangyi.

Switch to di feisheng. He'd thought they had an understanding and sigu sect and the jinyuan alliance were approaching peace talks but suddenly lxy is killing his members left and right. He has no idea what this is about until jiao liqiao congratulations him on killing shan gudao. He grunts in confusion but everyone talks it to mean he did it. So dfs just had to roll with it.

There's nothing he can do about it. Dfs sends people to investigate sgd's death and trains. There is a real and oncoming war soon and so he issues a challenge to duel lxy on the eastern sea.

(The war comes anyway)

(Di Feisheng loses something on that ship anyway)

He spends the next ten years while he's in seclusion recovering thinking about it. About lxy, the bright, brilliant zhiji who was never his. About the fact that he killed his own zhiji. About the moment when, as he sank into the water, he'd closed his eyes and thought that following his zhiji to the underworld wouldn't be so bad.

Execpt that li xiangyi isn't dead. His string isn't white, is still as red as the robes he wore, and it still leads somewhere he doesn't know. Dfs takes a sort of pride in this. Of course lxy wouldn't die in their duel. Of course he's strong enough to come out of it alive.

He doesn't really think about his xiao-zhiji at all, except when he touches that string and wonders if lxy is also connected to this person. He wants to meet them someday to test their skills, to take them to meet lxy. In seclusion dfs makes that deal with himself - he'll make his zhiji meet, and then he'll leave them with each other, because for all he knows, li xiangyi still hates him.

(I picture it going dfs > lxy/llh > fdb age-wise, with dfs only being a some months older than lxy/llh. But neither of them know that because of their childhood circumstances)

He leaves seclusion with this goal in mind.

And then he figures out - as a six-year-old, no less - that his zhiji have already met each other. That they've been traveling in tandem for months and have been solving cases. That li xiangyi is for some reason li lianhua (he knows why. The first thing jiao liqiao had said to him was congratulations on killing li xiangyi). That this stupid naïve little puppy named fang duobing is his xiao-zhiji.

Llh treats fdb kindly. He's mischievous and he teases fdb about inconsequential little things and dfs burns, because he still remembers lxy vividly wanting to kill him. He burns because this is side of him he's never seen and he burns because his xiao-zhiji is already used to this and he burns because he wants that too.

Whether he forgets that after he writes li lianhua's name on his hand doesn't matter then.

Switch to fang duobing. He's really fucking annoyed by the fact that no one is telling him anything. He's been traveling with llh for months, but despite the fact that they both know they're zhiji he won't talk about it. He won't even answer any questions about that kid.

Fdb isn't an idiot. His strings have been red ever since the day he was born. No way is some kid not even half his height his zhiji. The math doesn't work out.

(This is terrible, llh thinks. Of course he knows dfs has been alive because his string never turned white. Of course he recognized that little face as dfs' before he even saw the string connecting them. Of course he realised what was up as soon as fdb started pestering him about that kid and whether or not he has another string. Of course he knows dfs must've clocked it too.)

Fdb is severely skeptical when the Iron Head Slave or whatever llh claimed he was shows up and llh tells him they're old friends. But he's delighted to meet his other zhiji formally - right up until the point when they have their first chopstick battle over the food. At that point he becomes exasperated, and then he becomes ready to throw down once they begin arguing over who gets the guest bed.

(Fdb believes in respecting your elders but dfs is showing him absolutely no respect so guess what? He can sleep on the floor. Not even his handsome looks will help him win the fight)

(They end up squished together on the bed, both of them fuming because llh told then to just share)

(He and dfs never talk about their string, but they both observe enough to be able to tell that they're both connected to llh. They don't talk about this either, but sometimes llh will do something especially stupid or crazy or clever and they'll Look At Each Other)

(And then they can't about it, because A-Fei is learning from scratch)

But then he learns that A-Fei (who used to correct him when he playfully called llh da-ge, saying that he was er-ge and that fdb should be calling him da-ge, and fdb had gotten so tired of him and llh fighting with their eyes that he just straight-up called him gege with his most shit-eatting grin, to which dfs stared at him before dragging him outside to beat his ass) (who, after he lost his memories, would sleep in the bed with him with their backs against each other, and fdb loved feeling like his zhiji thought he could watch his back, and even if A-Fei was a stupid early riser and his half of the bed was always cold when he woke up it meant that he could always smell breakfast cooking downstairs) (who, after all, fdb felt like he was finally understanding) is actually di feisheng, villain of the jianghu, he feels like everything they'd had together was built on lies. He asks llh if he knew, if he knew that his (their, their zhiji, but llh still won't talk about it) zhiji was dfs, and then he has to go on with the knowledge that he was the only one kept in the dark.

And then when he learns that li lianhua was li xiangyi all along it really dawns on him then. His zhiji have known each other for years (and everyone thought they had killed each other on the eastern sea, and something about that is so wrong that fdb can't even think about it) and never told him the truth. They said that they were friends (llh said that) and that they knew each other for years (llh said that) and everything he knows about them is based on lies of omission and half-truths (that llh told him). He's torn and he's hurt and he's angry, angry at himself and everyone else.

(If he had known though, would things have stayed the same? Would he have laughed the same way if he knew the man he was wrestling in the dirt with was dfs, would he have still made the same suggestions on how to improve in cooking if he knew the man making the food was li xiangyi?)

(it isn't until li lianhua/li xiangyi are gone, though, that he realises that dfs was used by llh in the same way that he was)

Except that when li lianhua dies, there's two people who have to look at a red string that's supposed to be white.

(Switch to li lianhua. He crawls back from the underworld but what does he have left? The strings on his fingers are red, red like happiness, and aren't those two better off without him anyway? He's finally burned all the bridges of all of his relationships. It's time that he start over again.)

(Except that he stumbles upon the Lotus Tower anyway. He stumbles upon Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing and even as he asks them why they still even want him, he's crying, reaching for them, and there's tears on all their faces.)

#I don't even need to fic this anymore. This is a fic #Not how my writing brain works anyway. But the idea is free for anyone to use!#mlc #mysterious lotus casebook #difanghua #difang #fanghua #di feisheng #li lianhua #li xiangyi #fang duobing #feihua #liansanjiao #lian hua lou #mlc brainrot is real #ao3 #Thought of the red string of fate and actually it's barely an au. It doesn't change much #But what is changes means everything

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yakuzacanons · 9 months

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I don't know if you're into soulmate AUs but I'm a big sucker for them, they make my brain go brrr sooo, can I request some general headcanons of the boys with a soulmate? Like, how they find their soulmate, how they feel about sharing such a strong connection with someone etc? Can be any soulmate trope you thing suits them best, I ain't picky. (Like, name on wrist, first words they say to each other etc.) :3

Anon this is such a big brain idea, I also go brrrrrrrr. Also I wanna say some of the boys will have different tropes than others, a few might be similar but it's gonna be a mixed bag. I'm also operating under the assumption that everyone in this AU knows and/or is fine with the whole soultmate thing as I imagine it would be kind of ingrained in the culture if that makes sense. So this has more or less ended up as how they find their soulmate/how they react to finding them. I hope that works. Otherwise, headcanons below the cut as always. Had a lotta fun with this one!

Kazuma Kiryu: Matching Scars

Honestly, Kiryu probably has a multitude of scars from...all the stuff he's been through. However, there's one he has on his wrist that he's had basically his whole life. He doesn't really give it much thought until you point it out and say "Hey, that looks just like mine!" before you both realize what it means and the two of you look at each other say at the same time "...OH!" while pointing at each other, like the Spider-Man meme.

Majima Goro: Holding Hands

This is especially wacky because Majima knows how the soulmate thing works but does NOT know that it has to be bare skin to bare skin contact. Basically, his stupid ass is running around the entire time with gloves on, thus getting in the way of him actually finding his soulmate. He'll probably complain about it casually to you one day, to which you look at him rather dumbfounded and say "You know it only works if you take those gloves off, right?" to which he says "Ehh?! Whatcha talkin' about?!". He'll then immediately take off his gloves and hold his hand up to yours to test it out only to realize immediately that you are in fact right. He will then become extremely excited, probably babbling nonsense half of the time and hugging you gleefully.

Saejima Taiga: Name On Wrist

Probably the most neutral about the soulmate thing out of all the boys, not because he doesn't believe in it but because he's never really had time for romance. He's more on the shy side so he won't go pestering everyone he meets that potentially matches the name. You'll probably mention it FIRST and casually mention his name by saying "Mine says 'Saejima Taiga'... never met anyone with a name like that though." to which he will just stare blankly at you, mouth open in shock. Eventually, he'll muster up the courage to respond with "Well, ya won't believe what my name is." while chuckling.

Akiyama Shun: Red String Of Fate

Total romantic sap and loves the whole soulmate thing. Spends a bit more time than he'd admit pining about who his soulmate might be. In his AU, soulmates are found by the red string of fate, a popular tale about being connected to your soulmate by an invisible red string. However, in this AU, your soulmate can actually see your red string if you get into close proximity with them. Akiyama isn't shy so the second he sees the string pop up and can see it's connected to you, he'll run up to you and introduce himself. Think very "Call Me Maybe" type of meet-cute.

Tanimura Masayoshi: Hot And Cold

Similar to the red string of fate, except that this time it is measured by tempurature. Tanimura can tell how far or close he is to you based on how hot or cold he feels, cold being far away and hot being nearby. It's a struggle for him since whenever he does feel warm, he can't always pursue the lead due to being busy with his job. Most likely, he'll accidentally bump into you in the street and suddenly feel incredibly warm and cozy, to which he'll quickly turn around to speak to you, saying something like "Did you feel that just now?".

Ryuji Goda: Revealed In Dreams

Honestly doesn't give a hoot about the soulmate thing. To him, romance will happen whenever it happens. A lot of other people his age when hew as younger started having dreams that revealed hints about their soulmate but Ryuji is a late bloomer, so the whole soulmate thing got pushed further and further into the back of his mind. He'll wake up in a cold sweat one night after finally having the dream, the details of your face burned into his mind. Unlike some of the other boys, he likely already knows you, probably as a childhood friend, and he'll definitely have a moment of "The whole time... they was right in fronta me?!".

Nishikiyama Akira: Matching Birthmarks

Similar to Kiryu's concept, except this appears more like a mole than a scar. They are rather small so it's not something you'd notice as obviously as the scar concept for Kiryu. They also have to line up completely perfectly so Nishiki is prone to meeting people that he thinks might be his soulmate and get excited only to realize they're not. When he does meet his soulmate, his mark will disappear and he'll get rather frantic wondering who out of all the people he met recently was in fact the one that caused this. At some point, he'll mention it by saying "The weirdest thing happened the other night, my mark just disappeared on its own." and you'll respond with "Hey, mine too, that's weird." before the truth finally hits you both. Truthfully, he and Kiryu are both a little dense like that sometimes. Nishiki will be so happy to know you, he might cry a little out of happiness.

Daigo Dojima: First Words

Unlike the other concepts, in this AU people won't know ahead of time what will confirm who their soulmate is. It's something that happens in the moment, a sudden realization. That honestly makes Daigo kind of nervous, since his life has to be carefully calculated given his line of work. The words itself don't have to have particular meaning either, which only makes it more complicated. The second you speak to him for the first time, he feels chills down his spine. He'll ask you to repeat yourself, eyes wide with nervousness, the both of you completely shocked that by some chance, some divine intervention, the two of you ended up in the same room.

Mine Yoshitaka: Dreams Of A Past Life

Believes in making his own destiny which only makes meeting his soulmate feel more impactful, somehow. Mine is so used to going against the tide that meeting you just kind of brings him to his knees. He'll see flashes of the two of you in your past life in his dreams but he won't go out of his way to really dedicate much of it to memory. The first time he meets you, he'll think you look familiar but can't really pinpoint why and he'll dismiss it. The more the feeling nags at him, the more he starts to think maybe there's something more to this. It's only when he asks if you recognize him too that it finally clicks and he understands this is where he's meant to be.

#yakuza #yakuza headcanons #yakuza imagines #ryu ga gotoku #ryu ga gotoku headcanons #ryu ga gotoku imagines #goro majima #majima megaphone moment #kiryu kazuma #majima goro #akira nishikiyama #akiyama shun #ryuji goda #masayoshi tanimura #saejima taiga #mine yoshitaka #daigo dojima #imagines #headcanons

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synthetickitsune · 1 year

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Saw this and thought of an angsty soulmate!au (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

Kanghyun and his s/o are bestfriends from diaper days. They've been inseparable since then so eventually their relationship blossomed into a romantic one as they grew up. But in this world, soulmates exit and you’ll be able to see a red sting attached on your pinkies once you interact with them for the first time. Sadly, they’re not each other’s soulmates if you base it on this. Still, they both thought what they had was much more special. Much stronger and real than destiny and fate. They always felt like god just forgot to tie the red strings on each of their pinkies before sending them down on earth because they really do have a special bond. Not until kanghyun met his soulmate. S/o noticed that he was drifting far from her despite being with him physically everyday. It turns out it was because of his soulmate who he couldn’t seem to ignore and get out of his mind. S/o now doesn't know if she should fight for her happiness... or his happiness. “Maybe we are soulmates, not just in the sense we want it to be. Hopefully in the next life?” T n T

Oh! this is not a request btw~ please feel free to write about this (and hurt me in every way possible) if it tingled something in your inspiration bank~ but if it didn’t, please don't feel the need to force yourself to write about it! Much love ♡

Oh, anon, I love you... What do you mean if it didn't - I love pain, this is just what I needed 🥲

(Tbh my first thought was immediately to sprinkle some hanahaki on top too because why not? Just imagine the shock (but not really) as the s/o starts coughing up the petals. It's just getting worse each day and it starts to hurt - but what's more painful: the actual, physical pain of the blossoms in s/o's chest or how easy it's to hide the condition from Hyungu in the rare and brief moments they spend together? At least the s/o can wonder about how to deal with the situations instead of how fate did them so wrong. And maybe Hyungu will once notice, and maybe it's going to be too late then to do anything, the s/o having procrastinated too much, unable to even consider no longer feelings anything towards Hyungu. Or maybe they get rid of the flowers and their feelings and they both spend the rest of their lives with their soulmates, only briefly passing each other on the street with pained smiles that don't meet their eyes and wondering what could've been ♡)

But I couldn't just not write anything about this, I really do love you~

“Maybe we are soulmates, not just in the sense we want it to be. Hopefully in the next life?”

You’re surprised by how steady and strong your voice sounds despite having screamed it raw in the previous couple days. You nudge the pebble at your feet with the tip of your shoe, anything just to avoid looking at him or your hands, kept behind your back, and your pinkie devoid of the red string that you know hangs from Hyungu’s.

His stammers of no-s barely register in your brain. They don’t matter anyway. What can they change? What can his feelings change in the face of destiny? And it’s not like they’re as strong as they used to be…

“Look at me,” he pleads, his body sagging as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. It’s like you’re children again. When you close your eyes and hold your breath, you can almost persuade yourself you’re five again and Hyungu’s pulled a little too hard on your hair without meaning to and ripped out a couple of them. Maybe you’re just still unaware that they’ll grow back and what’s breaking your heart is choosing between going bald and losing Hyungu. But you need to breathe. You need to see.

So you do, meeting his tearful gaze. You want to hold him, be held by him, and you know you can do that. Only it somehow doesn’t feel right, knowing he belongs to someone else on a much deeper, purer level. You don’t wanna taint that bond with your unrequited feelings.

“Don’t say that like it’s a goodbye,” his voice drops and you almost wish the wind would drown it out, “It’s a promise, right?”

He roughly rubs the tears away from his eyes and cheeks. You wish you could cry, you feel the tears burn in your eyes but they just won’t come out. It’d be more merciful if he stayed quiet. If he just stopped seeing you altogether. It’d hurt, but not as much as it hurt watching him first become distant, then go day, then days without seeing him. Or as much as it hurts now - waiting for him to make time for you, try to act like he always used to for a couple hours, and then disappear again. You squeeze your own hand.

“You’ve already abandoned me, Hyungu,” you say gently, and there’s no resentment, no anger, just resignation, “I know I can’t understand. It’s no one's fault, it’s just how things are meant to be. But it hurts.” You take a shaky breath before you continue.

“This is where I’m drawing a line. I can’t go on like this, not now,” you sigh. Maybe you were wrong about the crying? “Let’s meet again later - later. When we’re both more settled. When… If… you can be yourself without your soulmate, just for a while.”

He shakes his head, reaching for you and this time you’re too weak not to fall into his arms.

“I’d never abandon you,” he sniffs, “It’ll be just like when we had to go to different camps, right? Like when you had to go to stay with grandma for two weeks? When we meet, it’ll be like nothing changed. We’ll still be best friends and we’ll talk like we’ve never parted, right?”

You don’t want to hear the begging undertones in his voice. You don’t want the hope. You want him to be right.

#💌 non nons~#onewe #kanghyun #onewe reactions #onewe scenarios #onewe imagines #kanghyun angst #onewe angst #onewe x reader #kanghyun x reader #drabble #angst

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advisortotheadvisor · 3 years

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For @grimmtober day 27: favorite au! soulmate au, because I am a basic bitch. kind of a red string of fate thing, where a visible (though not tangible) string connect you to your soulmate. but like the fun kind where ppl have multiple soulmates, lots of platonic soulmates, and the nature of your relationship is determined but what color ur string is. i wanted it to be more...idk cohesive but im bad at deadlines so non-linear drabbles it is!

The color of Sabrina's bond with Puck fluctuated a lot. On the days where he was less annoying and borderline nice, it glowed a cheerful buttercup yellow. On the days where he dropped buckets of gristle on her and swapped her toothpaste out for industrial-strength glue, it edged toward a darker violet. Most of the time though, it remained the snowy white of a soulbond that was new, of a relationship that had yet to be fully defined.

And for a while, she could live with that. Was it annoying that one of rudest, most disgusting people she had ever had the displeasure of meeting was one of her soulmates? Yeah, obviously. But it wasn't like you chose your soulmates, and a sort of quasi-frenemy was acceptable. She was a little too busy dealing with the fact that fairytales were real and that there were a million and one dangers to protect Daphne from and that somewhere out there were her parents, just waiting to be rescued, to really worry about the fact that the greasy kid her grandma took in was her soulmate.

And then he kissed her.

That stupid, grubby fairy had the nerve to kiss her and worse, it was good. It wasn't like anything she had planned for her first kiss to be, but it was still amazing in ways she couldn't- didn't know how to describe. But it wasn't until she was outside of his room, trying to calm her breathing that she noticed their soulbond.

It had turned a soft, rosy pink. It wasn’t the electric pink of couples still in their honeymoon phase, or the deep red of lovers who knew each other inside out. It was just a simple light pink, barely a shade more colorful than their usual white.

It still made her cheeks burn furiously because this was proof, this was proof of what had just happened, proof that there was maybe the slimmest chance that her and Puck could have non-platonic feelings for each other. God, she could imagine the teasing from Daphne now. It wasn’t fair; some stupid string of light got to decide how she felt about someone?

She waited until the pink faded into their usual white before going downstairs and tried to pretend that nothing happened.

Sometimes, she was almost successful.

Sabrina had never actually seen a soulbond Snap. Well, not in person. You saw it all the time in movies and books and the telenovelas her mom used to watch, where the protagonist would drop to their knees in agony at a piece of their soul snapping off, overcome with anguish and heartbreak as they realized that their soulmate was dead. She'd assumed they just amped it up for the drama, like when gossip magazines pretended that even the slightest bit of Fading between a couple meant that they were destined for divorce.

Unfortunately, Sabrina could now confirm that those shows were Definitely Not Exaggerating how it felt for a bond to Snap.

The Jabberwocky tore off Puck's wings and amid the awful sound and the buzzing in her head from the wand of Merlin, she felt their bond strain. It tugged and tore at something inside her and hurt, it was the worst pain she’d ever felt, despite not being physical in any sense.

But it doesn't snap. It was thin and taut but it was unbroken and that was all that mattered. Puck was injured but he was alive. He was alive, he was alive, he was alive. It was a mantra she repeated to herself as Mr. Canis showed up to take care of the Jabberwocky (and suddenly the fact that him and Granny Relda's bond had yet to snap made much more sense) and as they pieced together the Vorpal blade and all the way to New York City.

He was alive, she thought, staring at their glowing white bond in the darkness of the hotel room.

And she’d be damned if she let anything change that.

She was surprised, a little bit, when they came home from Faerie and saw the new glowing bond on Uncle Jake's wrist. It started as a faint pink, but as months passed it grew into a deep magenta, despite the disapproval of Briar's fairy godmothers. When the war broke out, their bond was edging toward red as Jake fingered the ring in his pocket.

So it really came as no surprise that Jake wanted to lead a one-man rescue to save her but then-

The dragons. Holy hell, the dragons.

Sabrina dodged dragon's fire and narrowly avoided the mob outside Briar's house and none of it was as terrifying as when one of the dragons slammed Briar into a tree. Her heart jumped in her throat as she watched the bond between Briar and Jake.

It wavered. It thinned.

It did not break.

The Wolf didn't have any soulmates; she guessed it was a little hard to form soul-reshaping bonds with people when you were chewing on their intestines. It was a stark contrast to Mr. Canis, as well as a kind of litmus test on how Wolf-y he was feeling that day. His own bonds tended to fade when the Wolf was closer to the forefront.

By the time Heart and Nottingham arrested him, his once golden bond with Granny was constantly flickering and thin as spider's silk. The jagged, torn edge of a snapped red bond (an exact twin to the one on Granny Relda's wrist) wasn't faring much better

(And even though she knew it was rude, she couldn't help but wonder about the red one, about who used to be on the other end.

Soulbonds didn't show up very well on cameras, but still, whenever she saw Grandpa Basil and Mr. Canis in the same picture, she could swear the string connecting them had the faintest hint of red.)

Then again, though, Sabrina wasn't in any position to judge; her own bonds had been a little tenuous lately. Her emerald green bond with Daphne was starting to flicker at the edges and sometimes it felt like the only thing they had in common was their last name. Even Daphne's bond with Puck was brighter!

But it was fine. She would fix it, she told herself as she slipped the key off her sleeping sister's neck.

It would be fine. It had to be.

A kiss from a soulmate. Not necessarily a romantic soulmate, or even a kiss on the lips, but those were the requirements to break her parent's sleeping curse. Which, perhaps, might have been fortunate if they were any other couple on Earth.

“But they don't have any other soulmates!” Sabrina lamented when Jake broke the news. Nobody really knew why some parents formed soulbonds with their kids and some didn't, but right now Sabrina wished for more than anything else in the world that there was a bright blue bond connecting her to her parents. But everyone knew you couldn't form one-sided bonds, and trying to make a soulmate out of your unconscious parents was as one-sided as it got.

“Right,” Jake said. “But, I think someone with a faded soulbond will work in a pinch.”

“Did you and Dad use to have a sibling bond?” Daphne asked, practically bursting with excitement.

“Nope. But I have someone else in mind,” Jake said with a smile too brittle to be genuine.

Enter Goldilocks.

Well, actually, enter the search for Goldilocks. She moved from country to country like- well, like a woman trapped in one town for hundreds of years being chased by a murderous thug. So, you know, a little hard to track down.

Once she refused to help, Sabrina wasn't expecting her to come back with three bears in tow, to trap herself in a town on the brink of war, all for a man who she wasn't even soulmates with anymore.

(Though Sabrina swore that, for a second as Goldilocks pressed her lips against Henry's, that the faintest glimmer of a soulbond appeared between them.)

“Our bond,” Charming said distantly, staring at the bright red soulbond connecting him to Snow. He didn't seem to be handling this news well, though, in all fairness, Sabrina didn't think many people would take the fact their very existence was manipulated and rewritten to suit someone else's needs. Bunny raised an eyebrow, silently urging him to continue. For someone who's mostly deeply hidden secret was brought to the light in the worst possible way, she seemed to be rather calm. “It's- after all these years, even after I remarried again and again, it still hasn't faded. That's because of you, isn't it?”

Snow looked down at their bond, mildly horrified. Sabrina felt the same way. Soulbonds…they were personal, okay? They were a part of you, they tugged at your soul and tied it to other people and literally changed you. And the idea of manipulating those bonds to suit your own needs, even if it was for a good cause…well, even though Sabrina had never put as much weight on soulbonds as Daphne did, the idea still made her sick to her stomach.

“Is this even real?” Charming asked. He tried to sound indignant, angry, but he mostly came off as lost.

“I don't know,” Bunny replied. “All I know is that it's what I wanted.”

Charming left and even though Sabrina still couldn't really stand the man, she didn’t blame him.

The kazoo (oh, excuse her, Horn of the North Wind. Such a pretentious name) apparently had side effects. Because it wouldn't be an overpowered super weapon without some crappy side effects.

It wiped out soulbonds, for some reason. It didn't cause them to snap, or to fade. It was just like they had never existed in the first place. Granny and Uncle Jake had some theories about how the kazoo messed with your soul itself, about how it voided soulbonds because they were tied to an idea of self that no longer existed. Or something to that effect. Magic theory kind of went over her head, though she did remember Uncle Jake's use of the phrase “factory reset.” It seemed like an accurate description.

Her own bonds had been spared because they had been formed before the Big Bad Wolf had gotten into her. Mr. Canis and Red on the other hand…

“How am I supposed to miss people I don't even remember?” Red asked. The two of them were curled into a hidden alcove in Granny Relda's newly rebuilt house. Red's fingers brushed over her bonds, one blue, one yellow, and one white. The last one led directly to Sabrina's own wrist.

“I don't know,” Sabrina answered honestly. All the people she's ever missed she's remembered all too well. “But I don't think that means you shouldn't. I mean, they were your family.”

“Yeah.” Red's shoulders hunched a little higher. “I just…I wish that the kazoo hadn't taken my last connection to them.”

Sabrina remembered that, remembered the blue and green bonds circling Red's wrist before…well just before. They'd both ended in jagged edges rather than people.

“Yeah.” A pause. “Magic is a crapshoot.”

It was the wrong thing to say, Sabrina knew it, but she'd never been good at sympathy, at softness. But Red giggled anyway and the world seemed to slow as gradually, their bond changed in hue.

#sisters grimm #grimmtober #me starting this: ohohoh puckabrina time #me finishing thid: whats that? IT'S AMBIGOUS REDBRINA WITH A STEEL CHAIR #but anywaaays i think i made it obvious in text what color soulbond is which relationship but if not heres a color guide #pink/red = romantic relationship #yellow = friends #green = siblings #blue = parents/child or mentor/mentee #purple = enemies #the darker a bond is the stronger the relationship #mine #my writing

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