The Legend of the Weeping Willow Tree

Long ago, in a village near a grand forest, there lived a little girl named Lira. She was the daughter of a humble weaver and possessed an extraordinary gift. From birth, she had been touched by the Weave, and was quite adept at magic at a despite young age of three. Her mother often said Lira’s magic would one day grow as vast as the sky itself, but for now, she was just a child with a heart as big as the forest beyond the village.
Lira’s mother, however, was not well. She had fallen ill with a mysterious sickness that no healer could cure. Day by day, her strength waned, and the light in her eyes dimmed. Lira couldn’t bear to watch her mother fade away. Desperate to save her, the little girl turned to the only place that still held hope—the great willow tree that stood at the edge of the village.
The willow was an ancient thing, its long branches trailing into a pool of still water. It was said that the tree had been there since the beginning of time, its roots intertwined with the very fabric of magic itself. The village elders warned that the tree was not to be touched, for its power was old and unpredictable, but Lira was too young to understand the dangers. She only knew she had to save her mother.
One night, when the moon hung low in the sky, Lira crept from her home and made her way to the willow. Beneath its vast canopy, she knelt and whispered her plea. Her small hands grasped the base of the tree, its bark smooth and cold beneath her fingers. "Please," she begged, "heal my mother."
As her tears met the pool, the willow seemed to respond. Its branches swayed gently, and the water at its roots began to shimmer. A soft light bloomed beneath the tree, and from its bark, a single pale flower emerged, a delicate blossom like none Lira had ever seen before. Hopeful, she plucked the flower and carried it home, laying it on her mother’s chest as she slept.
By morning, her mother was healed. Lira had done it, she had saved her. But in the days that followed, something terrible began to happen.
Children throughout the village—those with the same spark of magic that Lira carried—fell ill. It began with quiet sobbing in the night, their tiny bodies wracked with pain. Then came the blood. Red tears streaked their faces, and their eyes burned as if the Weave itself was unraveling within them. No one could explain it. The disease spread quickly among the young, sparing only those whose magic had not yet awakened within them.
Lira, terrified and confused, returned to the willow tree. Its once-vibrant leaves had begun to wither, and where she had touched it, the bark had cracked and bled with dark sap. The flower she had taken, it seemed, had not been a gift, but a curse—a curse born from her innocent wish, but twisted by the ancient and wild power of the willow.
The disease, now known as Weeping Willow Disease, began to spread far beyond Lira’s village. It moved from place to place with no rhyme or reason, striking the youngest and most magical of children. No one knew how it was contracted, and no healer could stop it. The only common thread was that all who suffered from it had been touched by the Weave, their magic too fragile, too new to resist the curse.
In her grief, Lira disappeared into the forest. Some say she returned to the willow, hoping to undo what she had done, but she was never seen again. Others whisper that her spirit lingers near the tree, weeping for the children who suffer because of her wish. The willow itself still stands, its roots deep in the earth, spreading unseen beneath the world, carrying with it the quiet curse of the Weeping Willow Disease.
And though it is rare, the disease still strikes today, mostly in children under the age of three. The conditions of how it spreads remain unclear, but every child that cries tears of blood weeps for the price of a selfish wish, paying for the love that once led a desperate little girl to curse the world, binding them to her sorrow for all eternity.
It is said that Lira’s mother still lives, now a cleric who spends her days seeking redemption for the curse her daughter unleashed. Though healed, she carries the weight of countless souls, forever haunted by the knowledge that her life was bought at the cost of so many others.