Ahzidal was born to his mother, Roux, the youngest of her three boys. He had two older brothers, Gaul, and Cenric. The three of them were inseparable, doing everything together. Ahzidal never really knew who his father was, but he didn't mind it all that much, as Gaul and Cenric didn't seem to have ones either. His mom was very attentive and loving to him growing up. However, his happiness was not meant to last.

When he was about four months old, he and his brothers were playing in the Free lands when they were ambushed by a group of stallions. Ahzidal was taken away by these stallions while his brothers tried to fight them off. They failed and Ahzidal was taken to a remote, desolate place outside of Wild Equines. Ahzidal lived in a cave for many, many months while one of the stallions trained him - a colossal figure with a scar on the side of his face. He trained Ahzidal on how to fight, how to survive in the desolate wastes, how to navigate in darkness. He also abused Ahzidal ruthlessly, beating him when the colt was less than perfect on his training. Ahzidal had a nursing mare during this time to feed him, but she offered no comfort as she never spoke - he didn't find out until later that it was because her tongue had been ripped out.

As he grew older and no longer needed the nursing mare, the stallion slaughtered her and feasted on her corpse in front of Ahzidal. When he was a year old, Ahzidal's training escalated further and he was used as an assassin, killing targets that the stallion told him to. Ahzidal thought it was foolishness, forcing a yearling to be an assassin. It often took him weeks at a time, as he had to cross the unforgiving desert and make it back and provide proof of his success. His first target had merely laughed him off, and Ahzidal left him alone. The second target he managed to attack, but she got away easily. With each of these failures, the stallion became more and more frustrated. Eventually, the stallion came with him during his missions to show him how the job was done. It was during this time that Ahzidal realized that he could never run away, because the stallion always had him followed. One particular target was a young stallion, barely over two years old. The stallion held him down and forced Ahzidal to kill him. That night, Ahzidal woke up screaming from nightmares of the pool of blood, of the sound of breaking bones. The stallion used this trauma to break him further, telling him that he was a monster now, that there was no turning back, that he might as well just accept it.

It still took a long time, but eventually Ahzidal suppressed a part of himself to do the killings. He got better at them. More often than not, the targets still got away, but he slowly got better. He shut himself down, forced himself to like the sounds, the feelings, the way his body moved when he fought. He was more and more tempted to run away, but he knew it was pointless. And besides, who would want him now? Eventually, he tried to make himself take pride in his killings by taking souvenirs - usually ears. He made himself look at them and remember what he'd done. However, no matter how much he tried to force himself to like this life, he couldn't. He still wanted to go home and to see his family.

One day, shortly after Ahzidal's second birthday, the stallion brought home a mare for him named May. He expected Ahzidal to be taken with her, as she was quite a beauty, but Ahzidal was not interested. In fact, he wanted the stallion to let her go immediately. The stallion attacked him for this and May got away. Ahzidal fought him off and though he wanted to kill him, he could not overpower the much larger stallion. What he did manage to do, however, was take a trophy and in a cruel twist of irony, he managed to take one of the stallion's ears as a prize. Clutching it in his jaws, Ahzidal fled across the desert and eventually found his way back to Wild Equines, though as a very different man.

The first land he stops at is the Free land of Crystal Pools where he meets a mare named Mystic Shadows. He finds out that she was also an assassin just like he was. After a conversation with her, he abandons the ear that he got from the stallion. He has a bit of an identity crisis afterward, trying to figure out if he's truly a monster because of what he's done. He decides to try to find a place to live and enters Warrior's Rest, lead by a mare named Xena. She welcomes him and he settles in to his new home, content with the place he's chosen. He spends a lot of time exploring the various trails in the mountains. A few months later, Xena calls them all into a herd meeting. They have a brief discussion where he meets more members of the herd. However, the herd doesn't last long afterward as Xena disappears and the herd disbands. Ahzidal finds himself wandering back to the Free lands, frankly devastated that his first attempt at normalcy has failed. During this time, he meets a mare named Dark On Me in Crystal Pools. The two of them have a conversation before he continues on.

Months later, after barely speaking to anyone, he meets another mare in the Bachelor Lands named Bedelia. Despite being a Dark mare, she expresses sympathy for him when he tells her how he was taken from his family at a young age. She tells him she'll keep an eye out for them for him. He is very surprised at this.