dragon age soulmates headcanons bc u have many strong soulmates thoughts the world deserves to hear
(send me an AU and Iāll write 5+ headcanons about it!)
1) A soulmate is not something as simple as true love. Sometimes itās family, or best friends, or someone you meet once on the street. Sometimes thereās two, or three, or four. Perhaps more than anything else, itās a promise. That thereās someone out there who will change your life, for better or for worse, but always for forever. They say when Andraste received her first vision of the Maker, the Chant of Light wrote itself across her skin, wreathing her in song.
2) Marks can be ambiguous, and people arenāt above taking advantage of that. Zevran, like many Crows, has dozens of abstract shapes in the tattoos peppered across his body, any of which could easily be construed as something more by those who already had decided exactly what they wanted to see.
3) Some marks must be hidden. Empress Celene Valmont I hides hers as a matter of state - if it was known her soul was tied to that of her elven handmaiden, there would be revolts across Orlais. Even she doesnāt understand what binds them together though, not until Briala stands before her, between worlds, and snatches the fate of Orlais out of Celeneās hands with a single word.
4) Many Circle mages decide it is best not to wait for fate. The pool of people is sharply limited, and too unstable. Worse still if it is someone outside the Circle, to be glimpsed perhaps once if at all. They donāt want to know, because there is no answer that doesnāt lead to distraction at best, and pain and heartbreak at worst. There are many spells devised to remove āunwanted blemishesā. Some scar worse than others. It never actually changes anything, in the end.Ā
5) Even after the loss of a soulmate, life goes on. Leliana struggles to remember this, after the Conclave. Dorothea - Justinia - had saved her, given her a purpose, and a new identity. Now she is unmoored, unmade, incomplete. She goes to Valence because she can do nothing else. It takes her a long moment to understand Justiniaās last request, and longer still to follow through on it.
A year later, in the Grand Cathedral, far away, Divine Victoria ascends to the Sunburst Throne. In a villa on the edge of the Waking Sea, Leliana pours out rather too much brandy onto the rocky shore, over Sketchās objections. They toast to the fallen, and to the future. There are so many ways to be whole.
