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((Just world building of where Galbatorix comes from. You don't have to read it.))
A world spun, separated from others by nothing more then the thickness of a shadow. A hard world, teeming with life and orbiting a kind, nurturing star.
Lowris-Takara was pulled from his mothers womb by the hard, calloused hands of an elven midwife. Elman-Sira cut the umbilical that tied them together with the naked bade she slept beside. The only words she ever said to him was in a voice drawn with pain from her birthing "And you'll pay a heavy price in blood to take anything else from me."
The elf carried the newborn Valheru away, and handed it over to the catlike Melnibornian steward, who took the child from the mountain hall to the world outside.
The steward knew his duty. No Valheru lived without a struggle from the very beginning. It was the way things would always be, and none of them would dare defy their mistress even if so inclined. The figure carried the babe, which had not uttered so much as a sound, even a tiny gurgle, since birth. The infant was already aware, a tiny thing but not without power.
The Steward, after careful consideration, brought him to the left of a cliff and left him there, totally exposed, unclothed and uncovered, facing the rising sun.
The infant regarded it's surroundings, names and concepts growing with each passing second. A scavenger came sniffing around the infant, wondering if it was food, and with a scream of rage the newborn beat the life out of it with it's tiny clenched fists.
Evening and night came, and freezing cold replaced scorching heat. A creature flew above, searching for food on broad, leathery wings. Seeing the child below it swooped down, and was suddenly called upon by the infant.
Lowris-Takara saw the enormous bat, and knew it was his to command. In primative images and communication without words, it ordered the mammal to land, then to hunt.
The bat returned with a wolf cub within minutes, three times the infant dragonlords size, which it tore to shreds, giving the scraps to the baby. As it was for every Valheru, it's first meal was raw, bloody flesh.
That night, the bat wrapped it's wings around the infant, keeping it warm and safe, as it would for it's own young. By the next night, there were six such bats caring for the baby.
The Valheru grew quickly. Within the span o that first winter, the child could run down a deer, kill it with it's mind or tear it apart with it' hands, and eat the carcass raw, unless it chose to cook it with it's magic, an intrinsic part that it already understood better then all but the greatest wizards.
Other minds would occasionally touch the infants, but it would instinctively hide, knowing through racial memory that it's own kind were the ones to be feared above all others, until he was strong and brutal enough to carve out a place of his own in their society.
Knowing this, he began to seek out challenges. His first came on the winds of the night, when is bats found another child, Ashen-Shugar, lord of eagles. The two struggled for hours, straining against one another, but it was finally Ashen-Shugar who prevailed, throwing the other from the side of the mountain to fall broken onto the rocks below. By the time the sun rose, Lowris-Takara was already healed, his body as good as new. But he'd learned a valuable lesson.
He continued seeking out opponents, he hunted youths, and met no more defeats. Soon seven had fallen before him. He grew in strength and power, taking the name 'Lord of Shadow Keep,' and flew with his bats to hunt. He tamed the first of the mighty dragons he would ride, and took a hall and servants for his own.
For years he grew in stature, until he was considered amongst the mightiest of his race.
He huntd and took sport with Melnibornian women, and occasionally mated with his own kind when when the heat came upon her and lust overrode his primal instincts to do battle. Of these offspring, some twenty or so survived, the first one producing Gita-Tisna, and most of the rest from mating with her. Matters of relationship meant nothing to the Valheru, save as points of reference.
Occasionally, he raided across the heavens with his brethren when the rage grew impossible to contain, like a thing of mindless want. He knew the universe, and it trembled at his thunder. Occasionally he would bring his lesser servants with him, and from that spread the elves and dragons to many corners of the multiverse, taking new servants when a race intrigued or interested him.
Other star spanning races challenged the Valheru, and reaped what they sowed, total extinction, their secrets lost with them. In all the multitudes of universes, the Valheru reigned supreme, above all others.
For Lowris-Takara worshiped no one, feared nothing, and lived by no laws or code of conduct.