For years he had had no name and for years he had been left alone, kept only alive thanks to the harsh mercy of his father. For blood was all that had mattered to the old and cruel emperor, and the killing of his own flesh and blood would only further sour the views of the people.

Inferior is what he was seen as. A creature, too. One that was useless, unfit for the thone, and only ever referred to as an 'it.'

Shunned by his father and his acolyte's, neglected, the boy's poor health was seen to by one of those enslaved by his father. Dathan had been the slave's name, and the slave's position within the confines of the kingdom had afforded him enough autonomy that he had been able to tend to the boy enough to keep him alive, and to teach him how to survive in the harsh environment that the kingdom resided in.

Beyond that, though, the slave's position had also been enough to give the boy the opportunity to walk.

Despite that the boy had been powerless to truly do anything, even as he grew from a boy into a man. The shunned heir found little means of escaping this too throughout the years he lived in the kingdom. That is, until one day, one of his father's apprentices arrived. Few people visited the kingdom, you see, and the arrival of this apprentice meant there was now an opportunity to escape when they left.

Which was an opportunity the shunned heir could not dismiss.

Enlisting the help of the slave, Dathan, the heir managed to finally escape from the shadow that was the emperor and his kingdom. In doing so, he was also able to finally strip himself of his identity, and once he did the once-shunned chose to take upon the name of the one that had taken care of him since he'd been less than a boy.

Thus the shunned heir, the creature of the emperor, became known as Dathan himselff. Shunning the emperor in return, despite that mutual rejection from both of them, Dathan's father viewed this as an unforgivable betrayal to himself, and that once his son was found, he would be punished accordingly.