Disclaimer: I own nothing except Hadara, Jadzia, Abrienda, Syra, Arnaia, and Emerara. Everything else belongs to Christopher Paolini.

Chapter IV: Hadara

I am, by nature, a loner. I never had a real home. Well, I suppose I must have had a home for the first four years of my life. We lived in a town near the desert I was named for.

My parents were killed by desert raiders when I was four and our village believed orphans to be bad luck, so I have been on my own for eleven years since, traveling through mountains and plains, working for food when I could and stealing when I could not.

One year, when I was fifteen, my travels took me to the great city of Dras-Leona. Arriving near dark, I did not enter the city, preferring to remain by the mighty Leona Lake outside. I watched the people entering and leaving the city, wondering if any of them might let me enter their service for a while. I decided they wouldn't.

In the morning I decided to go swimming. It was one of my favorite pastimes, and one I did not get to do often. As I walked towards the lake, I stubbed my toe on a stone that was perched in the mud, almost waiting for me. If I had any humor left in me, I might have thought it had been sent from the heavens. But my travels had hardened me.

I glared at the stone, almost not noticing how beautiful it was. The stone was a light sea green, so pale as to almost be white. Playing with a strand of my jet black hair, I picked the stone up; marveling at the way the light seemed to bounce off it. It squeaked.

I jumped, startled, and tossed the stone into the air, where it landed in the shallows of Leona Lake. Wading out to it, I cradled it in my arms, almost dropping it again when it started to rattle furiously. Then it cracked, and a pale blue-green dragon rested in my arms.

As soon as it made contact with my skin, I felt a blinding pain and dropped the dragonling. When the pain receded, there was a silver patch on my palm. I glared at the dragon.

"You need a name, don't you?" it wriggled happily in my hand. "All right then, your name is . . ." I searched my brain. I finally decided to name it after my mother. "Your name is Emerara."

The dragon looked as if it agreed with the name. Then I felt something in my head. The voice was soothing.

Hadara, it said. Hadara.

"No, that's my name," I said, realizing that Emerara must be talking to me. "Your name is Emerara. Are you male or female?"

Female.

I put my hands on my hips and stared at the dark mountain next to the city, particularly forbidding on this grey morning.

Emerara hissed. Traitors!

I turned to see what she was hissing so angrily about, and suddenly felt an evil presence. I immediately put an arrow to my bow as two black-cloaked figures approached me. "What do you want?" I called.

"We want . . . you," they hissed.

I loosed my arrow, but the creatures ducked and it fell harmlessly into the lake. The taller thing hurled a dagger at me, which caught in my hair and sent me tumbling backwards. I hit my head on a surprisingly hard and sharp fragment of Emerara's shell. The world darkened and I fell to the ground, unconscious.