7. FATE

Everyone is born with a soulmate. 

Theory: Due to human's greed causing war, female feticide, and other events causing unnecessary deaths, Fate has no choice but to recover the lost pieces of souls. The more and more existence of Multiples and Soulos are considered to be an evidence of this. But it is still a wonder why Fate can't grant non-soulmates with children. Perhaps, it can lessen Fate's dilemma.

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Daun is on a flower field. She can smell its fragrance in the air. Each stalk swaying through the light breeze as if dancing in waltz. It's pristine. She is giggling and singing. Her voice soft as she is singing a lullaby. In her arms a bundle of a chubby joy cooing as if wanting to sing with her.

"Love… isn't she so adorable?" A soft voice sweetly asks. He is sitting beside her, one hand caressing the little bundle's cheeks, the other caressing her back. She proceeds on singing the lullaby when another voice coos towards another baby in his arms. His voice deep and sultry. The other baby in his arms is much identical with the one with her. She nods and giggles more.

Daun's heart is so warm with happiness. So, content watching the man as he dances the baby in his arms, and feeling the arms of the other circling and continuously caressing her, sending shivers to her spine. She cannot clearly see their faces but she knows they are more to them than they appear to be. She cannot help noticing a mark at the back of the upper thighs of the man swaying the other baby in front of her. It's glowing gold, twinkling like a gold dust. It's glow seeps through the white cloth of the shorts he's wearing.

"Daun… Daun…" She nods and looks up towards his dragon eyes…

Daun wakes up and the dream is once again pushed behind her consciousness.

The sun is already high up on the sky. Daun has nothing scheduled today. The autumn breeze makes the day perfect for any endeavors and so she decides to go to the park and paint. She walks around bringing her sketch pad, trudging along the red bricks of the park. Wherever she looks, she sees each blissed face with their soulmates. Some have found theirs already. Almost everyone has a hand or two to hold on. Some are embracing, some are giggling by the bench tickling each other, some are feeding each other on the mat spread with all their picnic goodies. It's seldom seeing people walking alone. Daun sometimes pretends that she is one of those love sick couples and her sketchpad is her fated. 

She finds a spot and decides to start drawing.

She engulfs herself with the love sick giggles and blissful happiness on the air while she busily sketches. She is so focused that all the people around are but blurs of happy shadows moving and dancing on the background, just like leaves on the forest rustling along the gentle breeze of autumn. Each stroke of her pencil is her only reality.

She is sketching a scenery far from what is happening on the park. Instead, she illustrates on the shapes of the smiles, the crinkling of the eyes as they smile with happiness. The page of the sketchpad slowly shows people happily singing and laughing on the grass… her consciousness somehow tells her that happiness is in her grasp. She desperately vividly sketches the laugh lines, the muscles as the person on the sketch launches to catch another for more giggles and laughs… she can hear the melodic baritone timbre and the squeal, and the cheers…

The lead snapped.

She stops. She breathes deeply.

She doesn't realize how she was holding her breath, so entranced of what she was doing. She sighs. Another episode. Just like any other time. Her brain is having these hallucinations of happiness and belongingness… just like when she sleeps… she dreams of strangers that somehow cares for her… that worries for her… that loves her.

She chuckles… "love?" Brows raise as she looks on the sketch.

Soulmates are real… that's what makes this world turn around. Everyone trusts that Fate gives everyone their destined someone. And when it fails some lonely soul, they become helpless and hopeless. There are few who commit suicide after confirming that they are Soulo or when Fate took their soulmate early leaving them alone. For many, being fated is their purpose and when Fate fails them, they consider themselves useless.

The father that Daun knew was the same. He had lived his life miserably after the death of his wife, whose health deteriorated after a month of childbirth. He was beating himself with so much work. He neglected her, his child, until that happened on her sixth birthday. The time when she realized that he is not her real father. That her father was a Soulo and her mother being seventeen, had mistakenly fell in love on him. So… it turned out, Daun is an abomination... a fruit of forbidden relationship. That is why the father that she once knew had this deep hatred on her.

That's what she had known. What else there could be?

Children like Daun were not supposed to live. She is one of the rarest of the rare - a child of non-soulmates who lived and still living. Her mother knew what birthing her entailed. In exchange she sacrificed her health. Her mother believed that Daun should not bare the punishment of her mistakes.

Daun were very miserable after knowing it, but with the constant visit to her therapist and with the help of Nana and Hannah, everything now is bearable. Sometimes she feels guilty for being born. Nana made her realize that she doesn't have to wallow herself with sorrow and she has to honor her mother's wish. Her husband honored it, but he could not just help himself being angry whenever he saw Daun. That was why she was left neglected, and sometimes emotionally abused.

When Daun turned eighteen, she decided to live away from him and free him from her. Without any house maids to do the cooking and laundry, or the comfort of her former home, living alone was very difficult. Daun tried to learn everything, from doing the house works to earning a living. She was not short of money however. Though not his blood child, he has no choice but to give her allowance enough to live by. Her mother also left her with all her inheritance and the annual dividends from the different companies that she has shares.  However, these riches are just left piling up in the bank, untouched. She decided to let go, so she refused to still depend on him... or to anyone who had given her pain. She is living by through her patrons who loves and supports her with her masterpieces. 

She stands up and starts walking towards home with a mind on how to finish one of the paintings that she has yet to post to sell on her website.

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