The Soul Marked Mother

Chapter 1 - Mother Magic

She had six children, six unruly, disruptive, trouble-making children, but she had raised them right. Her eldest, Fate, did as she was meant to, she creates her tapestry and makes sure a string is never out of place. Her second eldest, Time, flows constantly never going where she is not meant to be and never stopping. Time's following of gods, the Aetas, make sure to keep every dimension, world, and timeline that flows from Time's fingers where it is meant to be while she moves.

Her twins' Mischief and Choas, the unruliest of the bunch, don't have a following of people to do their work. They go where they are meant to be in person, Choas arrives at every war with a bloodthirsty smile on his face and skips through the bodies. He lounges near every argument, laughs at overwhelmed mothers, dances in the rain of thunderstorms, and basks in every shout of his name whether a curse or a passing mention. Mischief follows laughter like he is desperate to hear every second of it. He grins like a loon when a child enters their rebellious stage, giggles in joy at every prank pulled, jumps in happiness at every game played, and feels bliss at every calling of his name weather the breathless laughter of a mother or the stern tone of a teacher.

Life watches over every soul that she lets Renovare, the goddess of life anew, set upon the earth, she watches the life Fate has planned for them play out. Sometimes if Death dislikes the life Fate gave them or if he was saddened enough by their life, he will send them back up so she can give the soul to Iterum, the god of life given again, to be reincarnated or if their death wasn't too traumatic and their life salvageable, he will allow one of Iterum's necromancers to bring them back. But most of the time she will pass them to her brother and he will keep them permanently.

Death watches every soul that Cursor, the god whom delivers every soul, brings to the realm of the dead. He judges them based off of the life they lived and then he chooses whether he will allow Pax, the god of peaceful death, to take him Beati Terras, the blessed lands. Or if he will let Ira, the god of wrathful death, take them, Maledictus Terris, the cursed lands.

So, as she said she raised six children and she raised them well, but she wouldn't let her name only be known for raising her children. So, she created the Mages. Well technically she didn't make them first she couldn't have there was no way she could adapt the current body used by man. Their bodies were made to fight foreign presences in the body, to randomly add magic to one would ultimately kill them. She had to adapt them, too slowly evolve their bodies to be able to both house and use magic.

Hence, she made the magical creatures completely new beings made solely of magic no blood of the magic-less in them. On her daughter's advice, Fate, she made thirty–one different creatures all female, all human-looking and when they were finished... she cursed them. It was not out of malicious intent, you must believe her, she was their maker, their mother, she would never wish the fate she was giving these young women and the families on anyone, but it was for the best. Her goal was to make a new breed of humans fit to carry magic, that was the purpose of her creatures.

It was safer to weave a curse into their blood, one that would later be named the Maledictus Curse, one that would let them freely change into their creature until they reached the age of thirty. Once the sunsets on their thirtieth birthday they would forever remain in their creatures' body, but she wasn't cruel. She would not leave them with memories to torture them with something they could not have, she would have them slowly lose themselves to their natural instincts instead. She would have made them all like this but Fate asked for the Fae to remain so she could pass information through visions to them to help life down there and she couldn't deny her when she asked so sweetly.

Then Time asked for the Nymphs to stay she needed entertainment the mischievous nymphs would surely give her that and she gave in. Life asked to keep the fairies 'to lighten up the gloomy world' she begged, so she allowed it. Death asked for the veela to remain 'but mother their firebird people' he had whined and she caved. When she had asked Mischief and Chaos if they had a request, they had frowned down at her creatures and for a moment her heart stopped. "Reward them," was the shared response her eyebrows furrowed and she frowned "Reward them," she repeated a question on her tongue and confusion in her eyes.

"You give them life made of your magic," started Chaos "But curse them from the start," Mischief continued. "You must reward them," they repeated again, and finally she understood she nodded and looked back down at her creatures. She had pushed back the release date of her creations and had gotten Fate, Time, Life, and Death to help her create the gift. She called them Soul Marks. They were names, words, or an image that either matched or was in correspondence with said person's Soul Bond.

The marks were complex magic it was a magic that attached to you from the womb and searched out for someone who would be compatible for their mate in every way possible. The mark showed up on the child's third birthday unless your soulmate had already passed, if your soulmate had already passed your mark would be present at birth. If your soulmate was born after you, the mark would heat up upon the birth of your soulmate. Upon meeting and recognizing the other as your soul bound a bond would start to form. You would know the other's location and feel a vague imprint of their emotions, the dangerous thing about the meeting bond is that if only one of you knows the other is your soulmate then only one side of the bond will activate. After the first bedding, the bond would fully form the two would be able to share magic and the emotions would become more apparent. Once the full bonding is complete the pairs life would be tied together if one died the other would follow soon after.

And when the gift was done, she gave it to all she watches as man gasped in awe as words or a picture appeared on their skin some matching their spouse, others matching a lover or a friend. She watched with a smile as they fawned over their marks so much so that when she sent her creatures down there, they were accepted with little to no fanfare quickly finding their own match.

As years, decades, and centuries passed she smiled at every match made, cried at every match lost, and jumped for joy at every birth that followed. As generations and millenniums passed, she watched as the Maledictus Cursed slowly died out only leaving their creatures and her mages. With each new mage born a whispered prayer fell from the lips of men 'May Mother Magic continue to bless the magical' and she had.