Bishel dragons come from The Bishen Realm.

When Ida was a young girl, her family was destroyed by the undead. Her mother and sisters were turned, and her brother and father were slain and returned as zombies. Ida hid while the rest of her family was murdered, staying as silent as she could, trying not to listen to the screams of her family. When dawn came, she ran from the house, out into the winter snow that had fallen heavily overnight.

In no time at all, she found herself lost, cold, and alone.

Still, she continued to run through tangled woods, to stagger and trip, jumping at every little sound, knowing she had to find a safe haven somewhere, but not knowing where to turn for help. She couldn't trust strangers, and she couldn't return to her family, only to be killed.

She came into a clearing, at the center of which was a wrought-iron fence, encircling an acre of graves that had long-since fallen into disrepair. She felt the panic hit her again, but if there was a cemetery, there was likely a church, too. She pushed on, trying to find a track or trail to lead her to a church, and hopefully from there to people who could be trusted.

She found one as dusk was approaching. Its roof was steep, but caving in, and the steps to the heavy oak doors, warped in place, but splintered there by the bottom just enough for her to crawl in, were crumbling. It must have been a church from the Age of Wandering Kings, but it had been recently visited. There was a body lying on the steps, dead by days, clutching a smooth stone of various blue spots.

Ida touched it, wondering what she could buy with it, if she ever made her way back to civilization, to safety, and felt something brush lightly through her thoughts. She panicked, and bolted inside the church, leaving the egg - for that was what it was - alone on the stairs, to contemplate the demise of its previous keeper, and the injustice that had befallen this young girl.

Ida stayed at the church, making it her home as much as she could. She found matches on the traveller's body, and she built and kept a fire in the church, in front of the alter. She used the vestments and holy drapings for blankets, burning the Bibles first, then the twigs and branches she could drag inside.

She returned, time and again, to the egg, confused by what it could possibly be. And frightened, very frightened, when one day it began to speak to her, to tell her that all was not lost, and that they could, together, overcome this darkness in her life. That those responsible would pay, and that she should probably stop burning the holy books that still remained in the church. Because that wasn't very nice.

Ida thought that surely she must be going crazy, and again she retreated to the church, forgoing forraging for the day. No thoughts invaded her head except the ones she put there.

The egg hatched soon, and the wyrm within sought out the little girl, explained that she meant the girl no harm, that they could get through this, together. Ida was frightened, but agreed and accepted the young dragon as her bondmate, to protect and be protected by her.

They stayed the winter there, Ida and Leandra, who was named for her bravery and high sense of justice and morality, and in spring, it became time to move. Penniless and homeless, still too lost to even know where to begin, the two of them headed west every day, hiding by night. A stroke of luck opened up before them, and nothing aside from the occasional badger or owl would challenge them. They continued west every day throughout the spring, Ida telling Leandra stories of the old heroes of the Age of Wandering Kings and of fairy tales, until they reached the sea.

It wasn't the sea so much as a temperate bay, and it was far too cold to go swimming in. But there was a ferry a few miles down the shore, and there was a churchbell that tolled frequently.

Ida declared them saved. They hurried towards the ferry, only to find night closing in on them, and the two of them in open territory. She shouted for the ferry to wait as it returned to the island with the churchbells, but it did not return. Night fell as they reached the dock, Ida and Leandra, and they watched the ferry glide across the channel towards the sunset.

She sat down, then, and cried, too exhausted, too tired to try to rationalize her feelings. They had come so far, and safety seemed at last in sight, only to be yanked from them at the last possible moment. It would be foolish to return to the woods, miles away, now. Anything that was going to come get them would come. And there was nothing either one could do about it.

Little Leandra fell asleep in her lap, and Ida found herself shivvering by the sign that marked the ferry. She stared across the darkened streets, saw a pale and beautiful woman coming towards her, smiling, telling her "sweet little girl, come with me," and other soothing words. Ida felt the way she had when she looked upon her mother and sisters after they turned, when they still remained that morning. She pushed herself back further, trying to hide in front of the sign, trying to avoid this as much as possible.

She was sure they were dead as dead could be as she cowered and the woman leaned in, baring fangs like icepicks. Ida cowered, bracing her arms before her, crossing them over her head. The vampire hissed, and she withdrew. Confused, but guessing the pose had frightened off the vampire, she continued to sit like that throughout the night.

In the morning, the ferry returned, and Ida scurried aboard before anyone could demand passage fare from her. Leandra told her that they couldn't just stow away, that they had to pay their fare. But Ida knew they had no money, that she hadn't had money for months, and that they had barely scraped by living in the wilderness in the dead of winter, catching fish when they could, squirrels when they couldn't. So she refused to listen.

Leandra took things into her own hands, as it were, and went straight to the captain of the ferry, explaining to him the problem. She revealed Ida's hiding place, and the little girl, betrayed by her own best friend, started to cry. There was no way, no possible way that she could pay for the passage over. Her family was dead, and she didn't know where she was or where they were going, only that it was safer than where she'd been. She begged the captain to let her take the crossing, and bargained to work with him, until they could repay their debt.

The captain agreed, pitying the little girl, and transported them to the shore, telling them to come aboard for the mid-day run. If they were late, he'd find out, and they would be in big trouble. Never having known herself to be in 'big trouble' the way an adult would say it, Ida agreed.

She climbed the sandy shores of the island, up towards the huge castleated abbey that loomed at the top of a rocky precipice. She was awed by its size, and its beauty. She was further awed by the number of nuns who walked confidently about in their habits. She'd never seen the likes of them before, and she ran to one of them, started asking them questions, for she'd heard stories that nuns were kindly women who worshipped God above all else. Surely they could not be all that bad.

Indeed, they were not. They fed her and Leandra, and agreed to let her stay with them for a time, until they could find her family. They simply did not believe that her family had been taken by the undead. At noon, she returned to the ferry, where she scrubbed dishes for the cook, and in the afternoon, they fed her and returned her to the abbey. She continued to work on the ferry, earning no wages, for years, as well as performing menial chores to earn her keep in the abbey.

Leandra accompanied her as much as possible in her young years, helping where she could. She delighted in the work, in getting things done, in helping others, but she still burned with righteous vengence, vowing to do what she could when she was old enough to end the reign of terror that had so utterly destroyed her bondmate's happy childhood. She spent a good deal of time watching the opposite shore from the island's surf.

In time, she grew to be a terran-marine, with four strong legs and a set of webbed toes on the ends of each. As Ida grew, Leandra met with the knights and paladins of the nearby city, and she came to train with them, seeking a means by which to right the injustices she knew to be rife across the world. She grew into her faith, even as Ida continued to believe only faintly in God and any will He might or might not have across the world.

Even still, as Ida grew, she developed the powers of a witch, and came to know great healing powers. She stayed at the abbey for a while, until she turned nineteen, having spent eight years of her life there, working on the ferry and scrubbing the walls and patching up a few broken bones here and there. She left, choosing to wander the area, mending those who needed mending, healing those who needed healing, and Leandra stayed by her side, protecting those who needed protecting.

Ida grew to be a beautiful young woman, having spent most of her awkward years behind the abbey walls, and Leandra continued to strive to improve herself, knowing she was no match, not yet, for the forces she yearned to bring down. She could bide her time, just as well as they could.

Until they found, in their wandering from town to town, the injured form of a red dragon, lying at the side of the road. Ida healed him as best as she was able, and brought him back to the abbey to recover.

There, he recovered, and he explained to Leandra and Ida the path he had chosen for himself. Leandra, seeing her chance to start balancing the cosmic scales, decided to join him. He forged her armor, and together, they set out, leaving Ida to her healing, so that Leandra and Goliath could, together, start to even the playing field again. In the months together, they found a third to help them in their hunt, and together, with the help of the book, Many Years From the West, they have started in on a quest to the end of the blackness in the world.