Once upon a time there was a girl. She was not a princess; one could only be a princess if one's parents were a king and a queen, and the girl had no parents. She had never had parents, only the caring directors of the orphanage where she lived. And she was happy there, for the most part. Yet in her secret heart, she longed for parents, for quietly unspoken in everything that she saw or heard was the sense that without family, one was nothing. And so, at one point, she wept with longing for her parents. As she wept, a traveller came to her, mounted on a pale horse. He was neither a prince nor a king, she knew, for he wore no crown. Yet when he came to her, he gathered her up into his dark-robed arms, and she felt peace enshroud her. CHILD, THAT YOU WERE MY OWN, he said to her in a hollow, booming, gentle voice. YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW, STRONGER THAN YOU WILL EVER DREAM. NEVER LOSE THAT STRENGTH, FOR ONE DAY YOU WILL DEARLY NEED IT -- A DAY WHEN ONE WILL LOOK IN YOUR EYES, AND SEE ME COMING. IN PREPARATION FOR THAT DAY, I GIVE YOU THIS. From within the folds of his robes, he drew a sword, and placed it into her hands. "Will we ever meet again?" she asked. ONCE ONLY. I WILL COME TO YOU TO TAKE YOU TO A PLACE WHERE NO SHADOWS FALL. UNTIL THAT TIME, FARE THEE WELL. And he was gone as though he had never been. Remembering his words, though perhaps wondering if the meeting had been a dream, the girl practiced with the sword day after day as she grew up. And one bright day, she journeyed to the east, to a bright city of gleaming silver crystal, to the greatest academy in the world, to become what she had always meant to become. But was that really such a good idea? Perhaps. But then, perhaps not. But it was the idea of the girl named Calyx Empyria, and this is her story. TBC