Pair (of) Ankh(s)

Soulmates. They exist.

People are born with a mark on their skin, somewhere on their body, and someone else has the exact same mark. It was common to have a symbol on your skin, often a combination of what represented each of the two partners.

Nico had a mark, like everyone else. A cross with a circle on top of the horizontal line, an Ankh, Annabeth had called it. She said it was Egyptian and that it meant Eternal Life, (she couldn't resist researching it when she saw it the first time). The mark was completely black, standing out on his pale skin. It was placed on his chest, a few centimetres below his left clavicle. It had been there for as long as he could remember, so he paid it no mind. However, everybody else seemed interested in it, soulmates in general, and were all fairly disappointed at the fact that no-one at camp adorned the same symbol as him. Nico thought nothing of it, not feeling the constant need to search for his soulmate.

Percy and Annabeth had been easy enough, their symbol an owl's head encased in waves. The symbol was placed on their lower ribs, just below the right side of their chest.

Jason and Piper's was a heart with electricity surrounding it, placed on the skin behind their left ear. (Piper had gushed over Nico's mark when she'd seen it, talking about how prominent it was and how close it was to his heart. Apparently, the closer to the heart the mark is placed, the more destined the soulmates are, and since Nico's was practically on top of his heart, he was special, or something).

Some of their friends had suddenly lost their mark, meaning that their soulmate had died. When that happened, they usually closed themselves away and got depressed. Some got over it, some did not. (Nico remembered Percy telling him about how Silena reacted when Beckendorf died, the iron heart on her neck disappearing.)

There was a saying, that the bond could withstand death, if the person was reborn. This, however, was not definite, and it was extremely unlikely that this would ever happen. A person's life would be too short for the other to be reborn in their lifetime. In case it did happen, the person would be so old, that they would die shortly after, if they hadn't already given up living after their soulmate died.

Annabeth had told Nico that even gods could have soulmates, often other gods, but sometimes humans, this was very rare, and there had been only two known cases of this; one was Zevs and a mortal woman (whom Hera had unceremoniously destroyed after she found out), and Artemis and a mortal man (he had died in battle, and many suspected that Artemis' loss had made her swear not to have any lover).

Nico found the interest in marks to be slightly irritating. He thought of the mark as something private, his hand, more often than not, creeping up to rest protectively over the Ankh on his chest. He preferred not to think about his potential soulmate, rather choosing to focus on his everyday chores.

That was until he met Anubis.

---

Nico met Anubis completely by coincident one day in April, the air turning warmer and bees buzzing all around.

The son of Hades had been interrogating a spirit in a graveyard in London, when he heard a calm voice say: "It would be wiser to offer them something in return for information."

Nico noticed that the spirit in front of him bowed to whoever was standing behind him. He turned around, his hand instinctively pulling his sword. The fact that he hadn't sensed anyone approaching made him raise his guard.

When he looked at Anubis, he honestly thought he was a spirit, the feeling of death so strong it almost overwhelmed his senses. The boy seemed to be around his age, but there also seemed to be something timeless about him; his aura radiating wisdom and age. He was dressed in black skinny jeans, like Nico, a black shirt, also like Nico, and a leather jacket, which (gasp!) Nico also wore (it was his old aviator jacket, but it's made out of leather so it counts). The guy had black hair, a bit shorter than the demigod's and his eyes were dark brown, like melted chocolate.