The Demon King And The Hero (Part One)

Chapter Five: Shion's Memories

Chapter Five: Shion's Memories

The embarrassment from the night before still lingered when she awoke, and although they had cleaned the room, Shion could still smell the pungent scent of the mess she'd made.

With it came thoughts of her mother, thoughts of the past.

And as much as she wished not to remember, there was no stopping the torrent of bad memories.  They floated around in her head as she lay in bed as she tried to suppress them.

Her mother had not been a warm woman. In fact Shion could barely recall a point in time when her mother had actually hugged her or held her close.

She supposed her mother had treated her somewhat kindly, at least before Eldis' prophecy, but for most of Shion's early life, the memories of her mother consisted of nothing but coldness and a continuous loop of being drunk.

It didn't help that Shion supposedly resembled her father, though she only vaguely recalled what the man looked like. He'd had hair paler than hers and vivid blue eyes, that she did remember. She remembered being held in his arms as he sung her a lullaby, his face proud and loving.

She remembered liking him alot, but being unsure of who he was. He was rarely around and completely disappeared when she was barely four winters old.

She didn't know his name, neither his first nor his last. Her parents had never married and she'd been born a bastard who took her mother's maiden name as her own.

It wasn't a name she used much, and she never quite felt attached to it. Chrisna, her mother, had been the daughter of a wealthy merchant family and when Shion was conceived, had been disowned. Because of that, the two of them lived far from her hometown and rarely met anyone worth giving their names to.

Truthfully, Shion had not known of her mothers past until Ashthran had adopted her. Part of her had finally understood why her mother had been the way she was.

She didn't excuse it, but at least she understood.

Chrisna Dysidia life had been ideal until she'd met Shion's father, and from there everything slowly but surely got worse. It was often, as her mother enjoyed telling her, Shion's fault. Countless times her mother had told her, usually in a drunken stupor, that she wished Shion had never been born. Countless times she'd been beat black and blue as her mother raged at her for existing. 

And in a way Shion had always blamed herself for her mother's unhappiness. If she hadn't been born. If she hadn't been the chosen one. If Shion never existed maybe the world would have been different. Maybe her mother wouldn't have drunk herself to death. Maybe her mother would have happily married some handsome man and had other children while enjoying the luxuries of her station in life.

But then she realized if it wasn't her, it would have been someone else. Someone else would have received Eldis' prophecy, someone else would have been destined to go to the Demon King. Who knew if they would have followed the same path as she did. 

And honestly, the thought of burdening someone else with such a thing terrified her.

It really did.

                          ~~~~~~~~~~~

Nemis slowly tried to slink away from Lord Errias, but found his situation inescapable. He did not hate the man, but found himself dying on the inside as Errias droned on and on about trivial things. 

"-and she has expressed interest, so what do you say, your Majesty?"

Nemis felt his side being jabbed and quickly feigned interested. He glared at Mao, the perpetrator, and then gazed at Marquis.