I once remember a time when my life was a blur. There wasn't much for me to see, to experience, to feel. All I had was my sister, Kaya, I loved Kaya, with everything I had. Sitting in that courtroom, being held down by those soldiers, is still one of the worst moments of my life.

     Years before I found myself in that arena, there was my hometown of Canicus. This village sat in the South Eastern most corner of the Kingdom of Halomtano. It small, quiet, peaceful, I enjoyed my time there especially with Kaya. We never had any parents, at least as far as I could remember, I never asked Kaya so she never told. Kaya took care of me, she was a few years older, so I didn't mind not having  a mom and dad, or really anything at all.

     I didnt realize it at the time, but Canicus was the poorest town in all of Halomtano. Something along the lines of bad trade routes and too much risk, since it did sit on the border with our unfriendly neighbors. You could never tell by the way the people acted. They were kind and simple, lived life by not their wealth but by their actions. Yet these actions were going through the motions of living in a tiny farming village. Looking back, those people had almost nothing, maybe the same pair of shoes for life, and always bread and potato as food. However no one complained. Especially Kaya and I.

     Out of all these people, we managed to be the poorest. The way we ate was by helping one of the farmers, and they would pay us in our meal for the day. That was all, we didn't have shoes, and we only got clothes because the villagers didn't find it pleasing when we walked around naked. None of the villagers would take us in, no one there had enough to take care of two orphans. But we never cared, we never wanted anything more than what we had. We still played in the rain, at the creek, Kaya taught me about the animals and plants we could find in the forest. In my later years, I learned her information to be somewhat faulty. In these times I imagined growing old in Canicus. 

     But the name Canicus, means to be born of fire.