A Malicious Act

CY 705; Blue Sea Moon 16
In one’s dying breath, should they choose to sacrifice all hope in an afterlife, the fading can choose to curse an individual. If they have a wrath deep within their heart great enough to produce such virulent anguish, the dying can produce what’s known only by very few as a soul curse. The soul curse is an act of magic that can be performed by any individual with enough hatred in their heart - hatred so intense that it coalesces into magical energy powerful enough to infect the Great Weave itself.
A young boy - Dimitri, yes, that was his name - was once playing in the woods with his older cousin Edelgard. He was a lively child, azure eyes filled with wonder at the great wide world. Dimitri would always carry around a particular object, almost to the extent that onlookers found it odd - a stuffed lion, worn from years of his affection. Dimitri and Edelgard were both plausible heirs to Iacchus Argentum’s foremost house, House Heleyra, and enjoyed a life of great comfort and luxury amidst the continent’s strife.
Near their manor in southern Sakha was a grove of gorgeous peach trees in early summer’s full bloom. Centered amidst this copse stood a beautiful pond, crystal clear and deceptively deep. Edelgard and Dimitri, as they frequently did, ventured out to this grove of peach trees for a day of outdoor merrymaking. Upon their arrival, something was off; Edelgard wasn’t acting as she normally would. “Gods, Dimitri, why do you always carry that stupid thing around with you?” she asked, an ired expression contorting her thin lips. “Don’t you think you should learn to be away from that lion?”
“Leave Mr. Dedue alone! He just wants to play too!” whined the young boy, clearly angry that someone would insult his best friend in such a way. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Dedue?”
Edelgard, noting Dimitri’s sudden moment of distraction, advanced quickly towards the boy and snatched the lion out of his hands. “If Mr. Dedue wants to play, then how about he goes swimming?” She hurled the lion as far as she could into the center of the crystal clear pond, where the stuffed creature began to float on the surface.
Dimitri let out a loud wail at this abrupt theft. He balled up his tiny fists and began throwing them at Edelgard. In between sobs, he asked “How could you do this?”
His cousin felt a strange notion of malice toward Dimitri at that moment.
Although he was younger than her, House Heleyra had never prioritized the possible female heir over the male for the role of High Marquis. She could easily make this look like an accident - her lips contorted into a slight smile as the young boy’s fists continued beating at her side. “Wouldn’t Mr. Dedue really appreciate it if you rescued him?”
His tears began to cease slightly; he wiped them with his sleeve and nodded at Edelgard. “I suppose he would...”
“Then go save him!”
“Okay!” exclaimed Dimitri. He lept into the water and after but a few weak strokes, his feet could no longer touch the ground.
“Wait, Edie!” His head began bobbing up and down, above and below the surface. “I... can’t... make...”
Before Dimitri’s head submerged beneath the water for the final time, he would whisper one thing to himself as he came to realize his fate. “Make her hurt.”
Soon, the grove would grow silent and still.
Edelgard would return to the house and put on a deceptively panicked face as she burst through the front door, fake tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Dimitri, I... I think he drowned! Someone! Anyone! Go help him!”
Before long, the entire manor’s staff would rush to the grove to go rescue the child. By then, it was far too late - and there wasn’t a cleric with the power to resurrect for hundreds of miles. The family would sob and grieve, and Edelgard would return to her room with a twisted sense of contentment.
Edelgard would awaken the following morning in agony, Her skin, once unblemished as white clouds, now cracked and broken. As she sat up in her bed, her jet-black hair had turned the color of silver and began falling out in clumps into her thick bedding. She would race to the mirror to stare at her reflection - only to see eyes of dull gray where her violet irises once were.
The last living heir to House Heleyra would perish within the year, all attempts at curing Edelgard of her affliction ending in utter failure. In their desire to continue the bloodline, the High Marquis and his wife would sire one final child - a youth named Claude. He would go on to end the patriarchal tradition of the House, allowing for many female High Marquesses in the future. Edelgard’s legacy would be forgotten: Dimitri’s dying anger not only poisoned her body, but the world’s perception of her.
A soul curse damns the vengeful to an eternity of ennui, but in return, it invokes some of the most powerful magic within the multiverse: suffering in all facets imaginable.
As it’s currently understood, a soul curse can only be passed from mortal to mortal, with one exception. If an individual so chooses, they can barter their soul with the Poisoned Mother herself to amplify the invocation. Whispers say that their spirit will be bound forever to her service deep within her Palace among some of the most twisted and evil creatures throughout the multiverse, but souls who choose this path are likely twisted unto themselves. By acquiring the assistance of the Poisoned Mother, the soul curse knows only the bounds of a god - immortals beneath the level of true divinity can be corrupted by the soul curse, but only one has ever been defiled to this degree - [UNOFFICIALLY REDACTED].

---

This text was discovered by Loki in the ruins of Yaldabaoth sen Sehaska, CY 1679.

Type

Manuscript, Historical