and life
-
He could never love
more than he hated
Background
Born to a poor magical family, who passed on the scarse general knowledge each of them had gathered during their lives from generation to generation, Elric grew up to be resourceful and cunning with his magic. Other than being financially poor his family also consisted only of unpracticed mages as they had no means to buy advanced books for witchcraft and had no access to the high-standing magical world due to their economical status. As they did not affiliate themselves with aristocratic magical families, they had no available tutors with superior abilities to teach them and develop their magic. They dabbled in basic Witchcraft and dark magic, basically gypsy-type magical methods - curses, readings, tarot cards (readings that tended to be eerily accurate due to those with precognitive abilities in the family). They employed their resourcefulness to innovate the traditional magic they'd learned from their ancestors - The Eppsteins were the anonymous inventors of many methods in charmwork and potionsmaking. They were also a family in which the development of rare supernatural gifts wasn't uncommon (precognition, retrocognition, teleportation, control over light and anti-light, blood manipulation, etc.)
THE BLOOD BOND
In order to step up the social ladder they had to affiliate themselves with a family of high standing. The members of the Eppstein family had a history of offering themselves as 'servants' to non-magical aristocratic families, who wanted to have magic at their disposal but couldn't request the services of older, better educated mage bloodlines due to the hate the magical world still harboured towards normal humans. In exchange for their basic magical services, the Eppsteins were paid, which enabled them to afford a better education in charmwork, potionsmaking and witchcraft in general - their employers were funding their further education in exchange for having the magical knowledge the Eppsteins gained to their disposal. Throughout the years they'd struck and consecutively broken many such deals with different aristocratic families, often falling off with them due to their own dishonorable behavior. It was easy to swindle one out of their money when they didn't know a thing about what you did, but most eventually picked up on it.
Until a certain point when the Eppsteins, in desperate need of money, found themselves striking a deal without a loophole to crawl out through. To secure the deal and to make sure they would be able to have at their disposal the magic that they pay the Eppsteins to study, an aristocratic family - the Valentino family - made the Eppsteins take a vow that as long as the two bloodlines were both existent, the Eppsteins were bound to the Valentinos. The deal necessitated strong blood magic - one that would last through generations and, stuck making a choice between servitude and barely feeding themselves, the Eppsteins agreed to bind themselves eternally to the Valentinos, naming the latter 'masters' of the bond. It worked on all members of the lesser family, but the strongest bond existed between members of the Eppstein family and Valentinos born around the same time - they were unofficially deemed 'master' and 'servant'. No Eppstein could disobey a Valentino - at least not without severe consequences - members of the Eppstein family who refused to go under servitude found themselves often ailing or (in more extreme cases) dying due to the blood bond punishing them for disobedience. It was strong blood magic, which was incapable of being broken - just 'forsaken' by the master, who, after making a reverse-vow, could release their servants from the bond. The blood bond could also be 'moved' to another master so some Eppsteins found themselves sold to other high-standing families. Already aware of the things blood magic could grant them, the Valentinos were smart enough to strike such deals with other poor magical families, whose magic they had at their disposal.DISOBEDIENCEElric's father and uncle - Peter and Hugo Eppstein respectively, had been bonded from birth to two Valentino brothers. They worked under their pay and served them as the bond commanded - in every way possible. Menial work, lackeyship, magical services, rituals - anything the Valentinos desired. Their wives tended to a third Valentino, the sister of the two brothers, the two of them splitting duties between each other. Peter's wife was a witch so she did the magical work whilst Hugo's was a human woman and thus she performer more mundane tasks like maid's work and the wise.
It wasn't until Peter and Hugo's sons were born that problems began occuring - Hugo's boy was a mage and, with a human birth mother, he had turned to be a problematic pregnancy due to the woman's lack of magical core affecting the baby's growing magic. Hugo, despite being obliged to serve Franklin Theodore Valentino, the older of the two brothers, insisted on spending time helping his family, but when his unavailability increased, his master called him back into servitude. Hugo refused - he valued having a healthy son more than working in slavery. He told Franklin as much and unofficially resigned from the Valentino household.
It was hardly that easy to set oneself free of a blood bond and, as expected, it came back to haunt him. Usually Eppsteins were punished with ailments or sicknesses and Hugo was ready to make that sacrifice to raise a healthy little boy - sickness truly befell him and he fought the entire way but he did not stop fading once he had begun and his hospital bed became his death bed, two years after Charles had been born. At the time Elric had been a mere five year old standing at his uncle's bedside while Hugo made him swear to never subject himself to slavery under those men's mastership. At his age, Elric's fate had already been sealed under the servitude of a Valentino born a year before him - Frank Theodore Valentino Jr. The same year Hugo died, his son's mistress was born - Faye Thora Valentino, the second child of Hugo's master. Without even knowing her or her brother, five year old Elric already despised their existence.
The blood bond never let the Eppstein family forget about the disobedience as sickness took a toll on Charles as well, rocking his health during infancy and childhood to the point where money for medication was never enough. Hugo's widow and his son were taken in by Peter and his wife so the former could sell their house and afford medicine. Elric grew up bitter and hateful, looking after the other, more sickly boy, thinking of him as a little brother as his father treated Charles like a son. Both never forgave and never forgot.SINS OF THE FATHER
After Hugo's death things in the Eppstein family were incredibly rocky. All the respect Peter had for the Valentinos diminished and he'd reverted back to the bad habits his ancestors had developed under servitude - stealing money, taking house items and selling them, all without his master's knowledge. He considered it to be the pay he deserved for having to bear serving his brother's killer (as he saw the Valentinos as such). Though what his father did was not exemplary, Elric made sure to watch and learn, alreading harbouring enough negative opinions for the Valentinos on his own. Growing up his mother had advised him against rebelling, but Elric heeded his uncle's brainwashing deathbed ramblings more than he did his mother's advice.
He eventually volunteered to visit the Valentino estate in order to help his father in his endeavours under the guise of 'getting acquainted with his future workstation and his master' (meeting Frank Valentino, who was 14 at the time, Elric hated him upon first sight). He saw the thefts as some sort of revenge on the Valentinos, though financial means hardly mitigated Peter and Elric's anger. They wanted to do further damage to the entire family and thus Peter aimed higher, attempting to steal the two Valentino brothers' business plans.
Their company was earning a fortune, one that Peter Eppstein believed he was owed a part of and was determined to take what was his and his family's by force.
Skilled in telepathy and mind control, the man managed to put to sleep the guards in front of his master's safe room and break in undetected, or so he thought. He was caught in the process of telekinetically cracking the safe's code by his master himself and was not given a chance for redemption. The man was furious and unapologetic, with a gun in hand and no qualms about losing a servant of Peter's standing. Magic could not stop bullets and the man did not stop either until Peter was dead, laying on the floor perforated by six rounds. The blood bond did not allow the servant to bring harm upon the master, killing the perpetrator and not allowing his family closure for the crime.
Peter's death was covered up - Valentino Industries would not allow a stain of such epic proportions to linger on their reputation. Peter had died due to an accident on the job or so Elric and his family were told. The mages knew better than to believe their claims because their sixth sense did not lie and they could empathetically pick up on the untruthfulness of the statement. Elric was certain they had killed his father, if not directly then indirectly; regardless, his burning hatred for the Valentinos grew colossaly and, instead of preparing himself for servitude under Frank Jr's pay, 14 year old Elric began plotting differently. Like his father had taught him, every crime deserved punishment and God never forgot to rain holy vengeance upon those who deserved it. He had been the one chosen to continue the male heritage - the one both Hugo and Peter had made promise to not subject himself to slavery and he vowed to follow their examples, only more successfully. He was a proverbial Moses and he had the power of the ten plagues.
At 18, instead of stepping into servitude like the blood bond necessitated, he chose a different, darker route. By that time his powers had matured and developed and the years of tutorship in mind magic had paid off - he had no immaculate control over his ability but he could still employ it to extract vengeance. He only had to choose targets.
The three senior Valentinos - the two brothers and the sister had all married, two of them with spawns of their own. Men's minds were fickle and weak, more prone to vices and sin because of the societal norms that allowed them privilege to do what they wished and thus they were easier to target than women. Elric could lay ideas and beliefs into their consciousness. Their minds were half-painted canvases of wrong thoughts and Elric just had to dip his paints in the red of sinful passion and the yellow of insanity and hatred and expand the vices already existent in their heads. He did not birth sin into them, he made it come to the surface and when it did, he sat and watched the three families fall apart.
He watched a father lay a hand on his daughter, a husband kill his wife, two children at their sick mother's bedside. He saw their pain and sorrow, their furies and breakdowns; he saw them all downspirall. He watched and convinced himself that it was a deserved revenge and a necessary evil, no matter the innocent lives he had affected. God had punished innocents to make the guilty realize their mistakes and Elric himself had the right to punish as well... He was not sane anymore, not since he had refused servitude. The blood bond had slowly and cruelly laid sickness upon his mind and schizophrenia had twisted his reality. In his head he was the hero. The brother holding his shaking sister, the crying wife with a gun in hand, the girl watching her insane father behind bars - they were the villains. And they deserved to feel the pain Elric had felt.WHAT IFS
For years upon years Elric's life was centered around bringing pain unto others. He was deteriorating by the day, finding happiness only in knowing he was doing the right thing by punishing.
He fed from the odd job and a few magical services and he sold his art as well, having developed a talent for painting throughout the years. He bought himself an atelie and began hiring models - in order to kickstart his business he had to create appealing art first, before he expected to be hired to paint portraits.
Upon meeting a young and beautiful model,
Kerrigan Oliver, Elric immediatelly made her his muse. He liked painting darker, more unorthodox things, but she was just stunning and her wit enchanted him. She was a descendant of a rich magical bloodline, but had deviated from her family's business and had pursued modeling. She had the looks and the smarts but was more drawn to a life of frivolity and Elric indulged her - her rebelliousness appealed to him and his danger appealed to her. Her sunshiny personality should have clashed with his gloom, but they happened to get along like a house on fire - they balanced each other out, dulled one another's worse qualities and soon a romance bloomed between them. 
It was the first positive change in Elric's life and he made a viable effort to maintain his own happiness and hers. Most of all, he wanted to protect her from the darker, grittier parts of himself that the blood bond unearthed. He began taking his medicine, dropped all connections to his family and focused on his new career and Kerrigan... She became his sunshine. They supported one another's work - Elric refused to paint any other model but her while she promoted her modeling only with his paintings of her. Love fueled their passion for art and they would have grown into a powercouple of talent together if things had not downspiralled from then on...
It was, of course, only a matter of time before Elric's schizophrenia and his inability to distance himself from the curse began affecting their relationship. Despite Kerrigan's emotional support, Elric slipped back into his schizophrenic episodes and stopped taking medicine because he believed that he was mentally fine now. He was happy, completely detached from his past - he believed he had been cured. She had cured him, his sick mind insisted. When Kerrigan insisted otherwise he directed his anger at her. He never meant to hurt her, emotionally or physically; it just happened.
Whenever she would begin threatening to leave, he would swear up and down that he wasn't crazy, that he could get things under control and he stuck to such promises for a long while after particularly disastrous fights, but the return of his schizophrenic episodes was inevitable, which made the cycle repeat itself over and over again.
That was until Elric found out that Kerrigan was pregnant.
It was not good news for him. He completely lost it. He was physically and mentally unable to take the strain of knowing that amidst all his problems and the blood bond being latched onto him like a leech, he had also fathered a child. A child who would turn out perfectly beautiful and healthy if he wasn't its father - but he was and he remembered all too well how little Charlie had suffered until he was 18 due to the blood curse punishing him for his father's disobedience. The boy had gotten hemophilia because his dad had resigned from servitude. Elric didn't want to think what the blood bond would do to a child fathered by a man who had brought so much bad things unto the Valentinos.
He wanted to tell Kerri that, because his sunshine deserved to know how tainted he was and how that taint would be transferred to their child. But he didn't tell her - he wanted to be a father so badly and he feared her reaction to knowing what he was.
He didn't have to tell her anything for her to leave - his reaction to the news of her pregnancy and his detachment to the situation had made Kerrigan think he didn't want the child and, fed up eith his lack of devotion and stability, she left.
It was the biggest heartbreak of Elric's life and his utter breaking point. The love of his life had left with their child and he feared he'd never see them again.CUPID'S MISTAKE
His art appealed to very few due to its odd thematics but money was decent enough to keep a roof over his head - his paintings depicted human pain and depression, insanity and anger - all sharp lines and monochrome colors with a splash of red standing out in each one. They were portraits, primarily, but the eyes were never fully visible, always painted over with crimson. He painted from memory - faces from his past and his present and a boy from his future. He always dreamt of the same long dark hair and pale skin and cupid-bowed lips - a beautiful stranger whose eyes he never remembered and thus never drew. Eyes were the window to the soul and the emotions mirrored in them were what made everybody human. Elric didn't paint what he didn't believe in; he didn't paint the humanity in people.
Not until he met a pair of deep blue eyes which redefined accceptance and kindness and love and brought an inspiration, not just fot art, but also for vivaciousness in his life. He met the stranger from his dreams when he walked into his atelie and requested a portrait. Apparently the boy's rich bloodline had regal portraits done of every generation and member.
Sebastian was a young mage from an aristocratic family and he had an effortless regality around him. By such standards Elric should have hated him and, initially, he did, instinctually developing a dislike for Sebastian upon discovering his origin, but the young man was wonderfully kind under his cold exterior. Discovering one-another's true selves, they grew closer after many a day of Elric drawing his muse. Sebastian did not like the painter's initially horrid attitude towards him either, but his anger softened once he began suspecting Elric had come from a troubled past. Elric, on the other hand, despised the pity in the other's eyes and purposefully turned Sebastian's portrait into a crimson-stained mess, painting arrows piercing the man's body - Saint Sebastian, the pseudo-martyr. It fit...
To his greatest surprise the man laughed heartily upon seeing the painting and bought it 'for the 'pun'. The next day he returned with a story of his father's reaction to the portrait hanging in the halls of their home. Elric made Sebastian sit down and maintain that same smile he'd had whilst telling the story, then drew his best-selling portrait to date. For the first time in years, he drew eyes - a rich deep blue, smiling and expressive. The painting earned him a year's worth of money, a friend and a new tutor in magic.
Though the younger man initially offered his tutoring services to the low-standing mage as a rebellion against his father, who was as aristocratic as they came, him and Elric came to honestly like each other when their partnership began resulting in innovative new charms and potions - they were both intelligent and Elric's makeshift ways combined with Sebastian's knowledge of magic made for interesting new discoveries and creations. For the first time in his life Elric was discovering magic on his own terms, without feeling like he owed his knowledge to anyone and it brought meaning to his abilities - being able to use magic like this - for himself and for good - was a breath of fresh air.
As was Sebastian. Elric had never known the true capabilities of mind magic and what good it would bring, but Sebastian's touch upon his temple could silence the voices in his head and mitigate his toxic anger. He could make their realities align and show him the beauty in humanity, not just the pain and the sorrow. It opened his eyes and made him realize that the horrors he'd put the Valentinos through weren't justified, nor were they deserved. The realization hung heavy on his heart, as did the guilt of what he'd done, but he couldn't tell Sebastian for fear of not being forgiven. The man never imposed on his mind and never asked about his past, so Elric didn't feel the need to extrapolate. He'd told him his father and uncle had died in a car accident and Sebastian had never prodded further. Being the recipient of Sebastian's smile, Elric felt as though God had forgiven him and had finally brought him happiness. It was time to forget the past.THE PRESTIGE
The blood bond never let him forget, however. The magic binding him to the Valentinos constantly brought the family back into his mind and he never managed to expell the horrid memories and proceed with a nornal life, as normal as his ailment could allow. The bond couldn't let a perpetrator like Elric escape relatively unaffected.
In order to live in peace, he had to free himself from the servitude of his master - Frank Valentino Jr and to do that he had to find the man. Elric's condition was worsening - his schizophrenic episodes were almost incapable of being contained by Sebastian and the older man was becoming more aggressive by the day. He needed to set himself free and so he sought out the Valentinos under the guise of wanting to work for them again. He still harboured harsh feelings towards the family which had increased tenfold in the past year, so when the first Valentino he managed to contact was his father's past master, he was less than pleased. The man had become a right monster with a horrid personality, not for lack of Elric's magic, but regardless Elric still found himself despising the Valentino.
It didn't help that the man recognized him immediatelly as a spawn of the person who'd tried to sabotage him and immediatelly denied him any access to servitude, knowing that without being under the Valentinos' pay the blood bond would destroy Elric like it had his uncle. He explained as much to the man but he refused once more, denying him the right to have his current master forsake the bond.
Having come there on his own accord, putting himself beneath these people in order to free himself from their hold only to be shot down was unbelievably infuriating to Elric. He'd come to the Valentinos in an already bitter condition, hoping to mend his life, but only found his anger growing.
An argument broke out between the two men. The harsh words the older Valentino had said to Elric had struck a chord and the voices had flared in his head again eith renewed fervor - the schizophrenic episode the fight had sent him into was the worst one yet and before he'd realized what was happening, Elric was a fury of.screams and curses and accusations. The other man, though significantly older, could give him a run for his miney in terms of harsh words, however, fuelling his hatred and anger.
'Rat, pest, good for nothing' came from one side.
'Murderermurderermurderer!' from the other.
The room was already flaring with emotive magic and Elric's anger was steamrolling furniture and destroying various items.
In a moment of anger the Valentino admitted to the murder of Peter, screaming it at Elric without qualms and without shame, even sounding proud of his deed. He bad-mouthed the man, talking about the theft and trying to justify his crime, fearful of Elric's anger and the storm that the man was forming in the Valentino's office.
Elric had known. He had always somehow known but the confession, served so proudly, was the boiling point for him. He had never hated anyone more in his life than he had hated that man. He had never wanted anyone so dead and had never wished to have anyone not exist so much... His magic flared inside him and heeded his wish. The energy from his anger fueled his inner fire and in one singular moment of pure unadulterated fury, Elric's magical core imploded in a prestige. The place flared with light, blinding white energy.
When the light subsided Elric stood alone in the pristine clean office, furniture untouched, the room completely empty. The man was gone, not a trace left from his presence or Elric's for that matter.
He had wished the man gone and the man had disappeared...
He had erased the Valentino from existence.
Victoriously, Elric grinned at the empty room - this, yes... this was a proper revenge. He had punished all three Valentinos for what they'd done. The oldest brother shot by his wife for touching their daughter, the little sister murdered by her psychopath husband and the last one - the middle brother, Elric had released from the existence he did not deserve. The circle had been closed. The vengeance was complete.
Tired and pulsing with prestige energy, Elric had returned home to Sebastian with a wide smile despite his exhaustion and an enthusiastic skip in his step. The other man, an empath and aural expert by nature, could tell from the door that Elric's magic had been elevated and that, by proxy, it meant he had had his prestige. Elric had expected his partner to share his excitement and happiness that he'd gone through such a moment of impact like his prestige, but Sebastian wore a worried frown instead. 'You feel dark' he'd said to Elric, capable of feeling the negative thoughts and energies that had fuelled his prestige magic. Yes, Elric had to admit he'd done the deed from hatred, but it had been for good. It had been in the name of closure and deserved revenge.
Sebastian didn't seem to think so. Elric told him what he had done with a smile of happiness, but Sebastian's face had folded in horror instead. He didn't seem to be able to understand that Elric had needed to do it because the man had murdered his father - that a deed like that had necessitated revenge. 'You're delusional' Sebastian insisted through tears. He reminded Elric that his father and uncle had died in a car accident and that his schizophrenia had gotten so bad the last few days that it had twisted his rality so severely and, oh god, what had he done... He looked at Elric as though he were looking at a murderer; someone to fear and be wary of; someone to hate. Elric felt betrayed. He'd expected the other man to be able to understand and to support him like he'd done for the past two years - he'd expected to be receive acceptance, not judgement. Sebastian had betrayed him and now he was insisting that he leave. Much as Elric tried to stop him, the other man packed up and moved out the same day, leaving Elric in an empty apartment full of nostalgic paintings; paintings Elric felt pain looking at. Worst of all, he could not smile thinking of the revenge anymore - it had been done and he had gained no satisfaction from it. His life's purpose had been completed and now he felt dull, sitting in a room full of paintings of happiness. Compassionate navy eyes stared at him from the portraits but he could only remember them full of hate. So he took a knife to the painted smiles and ripped the canvases apart, carving out the eyes of every single portrait he'd done of the man. And after he'd screamed himself hoarse he laid down amongst the debris and dreamt of his past and his present, but the boy from his future was gone.ELRIC'S DAUGHTER
Years later Elric came across Kerrigan again and, with her, a 5-year old brunette girl that looked too much like him for comfort. That little girl was his daughter - Cadence Marie Oliver. Elric had feared that Kerrigan had aborted the baby or had given it away because of the toxicity of its father, but the girl was named Marie, like Elric's own mother. Kerrigan herself confirmed Cadence was Elric's child and Elric grew attached to her and her mother immediatelly. He'd never stopped loving Kerrigan, but his affection only grew when he realized that she didn't hate him despite 
what he had done to her and the life he had forced her to live. Regardless, kerrigan had excelled as a single mother despite Cadence having color blindness and a variety of allergies, no doubt results of the blood bond taking a toll on her. The little girl was perfectly healthy other than that and Elric was elated to find out she hadn't been punished with a more serious ailment.
Or so the couple assumed as they got back together. Kerrigan gave Elric another chance at being a father after seeing how Cadence significantly changed him. And she did. All of Elric's fears of the child being very sick thanks to him were mitigated. Until he was proven wrong - the blood bond had further punishment for Cadie. Due to the fact that she hadn't been in contact with her father all these years and wasn't affiliated with him despite being his daughter softened the curse on her, but now that she had established a connection with him and grew to love him, the full brunt of the curse fell on her.
She suddenly developed epilepsy. Elric was crushed to discover that his inability to break the curse or end in on the Valentino's side had affected his daughter's life as well. She was branded for servitude just like him, but for the life of him he couldn't allow the bond to ruin Cadence's future. His desire to end the curse and, as followed, the Valentino's lives, became even more prominent. Revenge became a passionate necessity of his - he had to destroy them. For what they had done to his family. Past and present. From a moral standpoint murder was unthinkable, but his sick mind twisted it in a way that made him perceive his plans as a 'justice' of sorts. Something that God had planned for the Valentinos all along. As if to make things even worse, Elric soon discovered that Sebastian - his Sebastian - had met and befriended the Valentinos and was in the process of becoming more with Elric's directly bonded master - Frank Valentino Jr. Elric felt as if that horrible family was preying on him with the intention of stealing everything he had. Or corrupting it. They'd taken the lives and happiness of his loved ones and Elric's sanity too. This all solidified the paranoia growing in him - the Valentinos existed solely to make his life a living hell.
And now they were in the process of taking his daughter away from him too. Elric grew insanely protective over Cadence - there had been cases in his family of spontaneous deaths of people who refused to obey the bond and, though Cadie was not directly connected to Elric's sins against his masters, he still feared for her and her safety. This threw Kerrigan off. He seemed to be slipping back into his violent paranoid schiozphrenic self - the one that had driven her to leave him the first time.
FAMILY TREE
The Eppstein men - primarily affected by the curse
up top - the half-brothers Peter and Hugo Eppstein*(faceclaims: Kevin Alejandro and Cillian Murphy)
bottom - their respective sons - Elric Eppstein and Charles Eppstein
The servants and their masters:
Peter Eppstein → Frank Valentino Sr
Hugo Eppstein → Stanley Valentino
Elric Eppstein → Frank Valentino Jr
Charles Eppstein → Faye Valentino
