An ounce of love
Henry (Christiano's original name) was the only child of Harry and Georgina . They used to live in a small village named Asta in the kingdom of Frestia. In Frestia only noble and imperial family members can have a surname. Being a mere commoner, Henry and his parents had no surname.
When Georgina was only fourteen years old she got married to Harry , because of financial issues. Her family was extremely poor , so they were not able to give any dowry during the marriage. At first, Harry behaved like a kind gentlemen. He told them , that he only wants her and money means nothing to him . But as the days passed , he started abusing her . Every time they used to engage in a fight, he cursed her in the name of her family. Three years passed by, but she was not able to conceive. With the passing time his behaviour with her started to degrade more and more. He used to come home late at night, and sometimes he did not even bother to return back to home.
Finally when she turned eighteen , she conceived a baby. For the past few weeks she was feeling nausea so she went to a doctor. When the doctor told her that she was pregnant she could not hold back her tears . When she was about to cross the bridge to return home, she could not believe her eyes. Her husband, for whom she sacrificed her own happiness and tolerated each and everything, was embracing another woman. She wanted to run back to him then and there and ask him what was going on but she could not move her legs. As if her legs were frozen. 'I must be imagining things. Yes , that's right.' , she muttered and took another path to return back to her home. That night she told him that she was pregnant. He showed neither happiness nor sadness in his face. He just told "Ok" and return back to his bed.
After that incident, she found repeated evidence of another woman. Even on the day of her labour, at that moment when she needed him the most, he was not beside her. After his arrival, heartbroken, Georgina with her newly born son in her arms, finally asked him, " Are you seeing another woman ?". He smirked and took him from her arms, " So what ? Just stay in your limits." That day she cried till she fall asleep.
Years went by. Henry was now six years old. Every night , he used to hear screams as his drunk father used to beat his mother. The lady with whom his father used to fool around took all his money and fled away so he used to vent all his anger on his mother. Marks of violence were always found by Henry on her body.
From the beginning , he could never see any kind of affection in his mother's eyes. She was like a living dead body. He wanted to stop their regular fighting and wanted to get acknowledgment from his mother. He thought that if he studies hard then everything will turn back into normal . He used to borrow books from his neighbours as he was too poor to buy books.
One day , after borrowing some books when he return back to his home, he saw a dead body hanging from the ceiling. It was Georgina's body. That day he felt like his whole world was crumbling down into pieces. The dream he saw before his eyes was shattered into pieces. He was nine years old at the time of her death.
After Georgina died, Harry started drinking more achohol . Now, Henry became the object to vent his anger. When, Harry used to beat him, he used to purse his lips and call the name of God with the hope that that oneday everything will change back into normal. One day, some deliquents berged into his home. They stabbed his father on his stomach. The sight of blood started oozing out from his father's body made Henry feel dizzy. He wanted to escape but before he could do that the deliquents put him into a sac by force and took them to their quaters. After reaching there he found out that , Harry in the game of rummy lost everything , including him. He could not believe their words. How can a father bet his own son's life ? But then again, he never performed the duties of a father.
Henry was very handsome. His soft black hair which resembles the black night sky and his peridot like eyes which were very rare to find, added to his beauty. As he was very handsome they did not kill him. The deliquents there used to whip him and prick on his body , whenever they feel to. At first he resisted and used to struggle when they approached him with nails and whips but with passing time , he accepted his fate. Slowly his pale body became like a painting of blood and scars . He lost his last will to live.
On the day of his thirteen birthday be suddenly felt a upsurge of power in his body. He was feeling as if his half of his body was on fire while the other half was freezing cold. He screamed with all his might. He was not able to bear that extreme pain. His hands and legs which were cuffed broke open as he started struggling to move with pain. He started destryoing everything that came in his sight. One by one he killed all the people who were on that quater that day. Even though he wanted to stop , he was not able to stop this unknown power. The blood of the people he killed was lingering on his hand, frightened him. He ran towards the forest. " Why am I still alive ? I want to dieee" , he started screaming as he burst into tears. While running he found a small lake . Without giving a second thought he leaped into it.
When he was deep inside the lake and started loosing his consciousness , he found a sight of a faint image of a hand coming to rescue him. 'Are you a God ? Is it the end'. He then fainted. The next time he opened his eyes he saw that he was in the tower of wizards. The one who saved him was Christiana, a female wizard .
"Why did you save me ? " , he asked her.
"Why won't I ? Life is precious.", she smiled and stroke his hair. "What is your name ? ", she asked.
He kept silence. He did not want to tell the name his father gave him.
His silence gave her answer. "If you don't have any name then how about the name Christiano?"
From that day he became Christiano.
After that he got to know the power upsurge he felt earlier was actually mana power. Originally , mana upsurge occurs by the age of seven , but if someone posses a large amount of mana, the upsurge can delay which can cause incidents like his.
He then started learning wizardry with Christiana. It was as if he got a new reason to live. While learning wizardry one day Lalisa coughed blood. "What is it ? What has happened to you ? Let's quickly call a doctor !" , he told her with worriful eyes. She then told him that she was actually having a disease named Manadian . Manadian is a disease which occurs when the threads carrying mana gets intertwined among each other. It is medically impossible to cure it. Only a wizard with healing power can cure it. If left uncured, it can kill a human being within some years. Christiana was actually in the last stage of Manadian. When he heard this , he became determined to learn the healing technique to save her. She was the only light in his world of darkness. He could no more loose any more people close to him. He started working hard day and night to quickly learn it. The day he learnt the complete technique he quickly rush back to her chamber. "Just wait a bit and then you will be completely fine."
But it was too late. In the middle of the process she told him, " Listen Christiano, I do not have much time remaining in my hand. Living without a cause is same as being dead. After I die, find a reason to live and protect that person with all your might. " With a smile on her face, she died in his lap. Tears started rolling down his cheeks. That day, it rained cats and dogs in Frestia. ( The English-language idiom "raining cats and dogs" is used to describe particularly heavy rain.)
He was seventeen when Christiana died. After her death, he became pretty much alone. The regret of not being able to save her, made him hide the fact of his healing ability. He shut himself in the walls of the tower and started suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder. Years after, when he was twenty five years old, Robin (one of the wizards of the tower) turned him cat. He did it only to cheer him up as he always used to avoid others. The day when he met Anne and saw her healing power, he was astonished. It was the first time he saw someone other than him with such amount of mana power. At first he only wanted to stay with her out of curiousity but slowly the curiosity turned into something else. He turned into a human in the sixth day of his arrival but he hid this fact from others and continued to stay in the castle in the form of cat. He did not want to leave her. He wanted to know the reason of his uneasiness in the name of returning back to the tower.
To be continued ~