It had been years since that accident. Kaida lived with these strange creatures called Urgals, Ra'zac and humans known as Shades. Kaida was turning four years old, tomorrow. She was completely loyal to her father, even though she hadn't met him. Her hair had grown out to be around shoulder length, and she wore a very ugly brown colored shirt and black pants. She looked dirty, but she was playing with Urgal children. They were soft and they had not grown twisted horns yet, but in time they would. She had watched four litters of Urgal children grow up. They seemed to grow so fast, and she so slow, and for the hundredth time she wondered why she hadn't grown any horns yet.

"Rivstaka." She said in her kind adopted Urgal Mother's tongue. "Why am I so ugly? Why haven't I grown horns like the others."

"eh." Rivstaka said. "You will not grow horns because you are not a horn growing Urgal like us, you my dear are something special. See how your ears form a point, you are half human, half elf."

"Don't poison her mind with such selfish stories, the king wishes to see her, now." A gruff voice of a Raz'zac echoed. It was Kuasta, a strong male Ra'zac, one of her father's best warriors. The Raz'zac gripped her arm roughly and drug her away. She was used to this rough treatment, having been raised by Urgals and Raz'zac, it was all she had learned. The best answer to the pain was to bear with it and the tormentor would eventually stop.

The Raz'zac drug her around, shoving her roughly up flights of steps and then into a large chamber, where a singular, very fancy chair sat in front of them, carved out of black marble. Sitting on the chair was a handsome man, he had long dark hair and black eyes, the same color as Kaida's own. And Kaida bowed low. "My king." She spoke in very poor English, seeing as her native tongue was Urgal. "I live to serve you."

The king stood and approached her, then lifted her by her chin, staring at her, and in a violent smack, he backhanded her across the face, hard. "You live to serve no one you little shit." He snarled. "You're my daughter and a princess, it's high time you started acting like one."

Kaida froze "WH-what are you talking about m-my lord."

He smacked her again. "You will refer to me as Father." He snarled

Kaida bowed her head. "Y-yes my l-father." She stammered

"Don't stammer." He snarled. "Durza, get in here, now."

A tall man with blood red hair entered the room, he had an aura of evil surrounding him. "Yes my lord."

"I need her ready in two years, she needs to be dignified, classy, and regal, she needs to hold herself high like a princess should, be able to sing, dance, and all that stuff a noble needs to know, and be able to perform magic, and fight with a blade, but don't turn her into a shade." Then he stalked away, leaving her to stare up at Durza with terrified wide eyes.

Durza glared at her. "Useless." He said in a growl. "Come on flesh bag, lets go."

Kaida tottered after him in the awkward way she had learned, she waddled, a lot like a penguin.

Kaida winced, this was one of her father's worse days, a small force of about ten rugged human fighters had beaten fifty or so of his urgals. He swore and cursed, and a chair went flying across the floor. Kaida watched him, standing poised in a very fancy and beautiful dress, she held herself tall, and her face held no emotion. "Get over here." He scowled at Kaida. Kaida nervously approached him, and then stood by his side, she saw his black dragon snaking by out of the corner of her eye, and glanced over, marveling at its beautiful scales. Her father stepped towards her, and punched her as hard as he could in the face. "Look at me when I talk to you." His breath smelled heavily of ale. Kaida lay on the ground, in intense pain. "Stand up!" he ordered, kicking her hard in the side.

Kaida stood, pain coursing though her body. Pain is only temporary, it is only temporary, you can push through this. She told herself.

Her father drew a massive purple tinged sword; it was set with the glyph, Restwn, which in the ancient language meant vengeance. Her father approached her and slashed, and Kaida winced, and soon she was covered in nasty cuts, and lying on the ground, her father then proceeded to kicking her violently while she was down, she tried to stand, but each time, he would simply kick her back down. So she lay, in a puddle of her own blood. She tried to cry out, but no sound would come, and her father left and returned with a whip, opening up her flawless back side, whipping it until she blacked out. The next thing she knew she smelled a horrible stench, some kind of weird salt.

"I'm not finished with you, you little shit." He pulled her head up by her hair, then smashed her face into the ground, and walked away from her. Kaida tried to get up, but the pain was too intense, her gown was torn and bloodied, and she was sure that she wasn't supposed to be seeing so much blood. And her vision was narrower than usual, as if she was going through a tunnel, and it was sort of blurry as well. She thought the beating was possible over, but when she managed to sit up, a feeling like painful fire seared down her arm, and she saw a red hot poker, with the brand people who were Galbatorix's soldiers used to mark themselves as part of his army forever. It was a sort of a jagged half circle symbol with several dots along the bottom curve.

Kaida fell to the ground again and Galbatorix called a servant in. "Get her the hell out of here, and out of my sight." He snarled angrily.

The servant lifted the little girl in his arms and carried her gently away, and Kaida faded in and out of consciousness. "He did a number on you, poor soul." The servant said after a long moment of silence.

"It is nothing more than I diserve. Pain is only temporary. One must learn to fight through it." Kaida said in a rasping painful manor.

The servant holding her felt sorrow beyond anything, here she was, a four year old girl, speaking as if she was the wisest person in the world. This poor girl had no childhood. Raised by the barbaric Urgals, then taken from them and forced into a life of a noble, where she was treated like a slave, or some form of poor livestock. He carried her to the infirmary and then spoke again as the healer set to work on her many wounds. "My name is Melrae." He noticed her dark, deep black eyes and shuddered, but then shook his head to clear it. "You're his daughter, aren't you."

"Why wasn't I born a boy." Kaida said weakly. "I am useless to him, because I wasn't born a boy."

"Nonsense." Melrae said, and Kaida got her first good look at him. He was built the opposite of her father, he was muscular and wide, and at least a whole head shorter than her father. But he had a gentle, caring look in his soft, light blue eyes. "You can be strong as a girl." He looked over to the healer, who was a young woman in white robes. "Do me a favor, Celestria, and try to teach her some healing magic, wont you?"

The woman nodded, and a small whisp of her light brown hair fell out from her hooded robe. "As soon as I'm finished healing her and she gets a good rest."

"Rest is not going to be possible." Melrae warned.

"Right." Celestria winced. Then she thought. "Okay, take a little nap until I finish healing you." She put her arm around the little girl, and muttered a strange word in

Kaida felt herself fade into a comfortable and instant sleep.

"Poor kid." Melrae sighed.

"You know, If Galbatorix found out that we are being nice to her, he will kill us." Celestria warned.

"Yeah, but someone has to do something, or she will end up a worse monster than he is." Melrae sighed.

Celestria nodded solemly, and then kissed Melrae on the cheek. "You are very brave."

Melrae flushed slightly, smiling. "As are you." Then he slid his arm around her. "Thank you for doing this, maybe, just maybe we can prevent her from going bad like her father."

Celestria nodded, and then she stopped short. "That's about all I can do for her, there are so many wounds, and I at least healed her bruised ribs, and some of the cuts on her back." She wavered weakly. "I guess I need to wake her." She paused briefly, and muttered a spell.

Kaida opened her eyes, wincing away from these two.

"No, honey, don't worry." Celestria cooed. "We wont harm you, here, I'm going to teach you to heal, so you can help yourself the next time you get hurt.

Kaida blinked. "How do I know you aren't going to kill me, or hurt me?" she asked coldly.

"If we wanted to kill you we would have done it while you slept." Melrae said calmly.

It was hard to argue with that, so Kaida dipped her head and listened to Celestria's sing song words, filled with power and the aincient language. She copied Celestria's song, beautifully echoing the healing power, and she felt her pain receding. For the first day in her life she felt a faint echo of trust.

But all good things must come to an end...

And tomorrow would be that end.