Jeevan Ka Shahar, capitol city of the Ganda Phool kingdom. The huge city spans as far as the eye can see, great temples and breathtaking palaces, small houses in all coulours, as if strewn by a giant, litering the streets. Spice and sand in the air as merchants shout thier offers to the sea of peolpe wading through the dirty roads, an old beggar bowing in gratitude as a passerby throws thier practiclly eaten apple at him, a street magican juggling balls of fire for an audiance, a blue skinned 2 meter tall man haggling with a hazel furred beast man, trying to tell the Rakshsa that his fish is going bad and should sell to him cheap yet the merchant insist the fish was cought earlier today. The exchange goes on and on until they are both happy, the brown furred rat man smililing as his feet take him to the river.

Ganges, the divine river the flowes through the kindom snaking its way past plains mountains and valleys, cutting the city in twain by the middle, great bridges connecting the two parts, and finnaly it becomes one with Badee Neelee the grand sea covering Jeevan Ka Shahars south shore. Ganges the river of life and death ,of filth and purity were mothers give birth and loved ones scatter the ashes of their lost ones. The afternoon sun making its murky waters sparkle with farylike radiance, women cleaning clothes, children laughing and playing in it and a red short haired drunken dogman empties his lunch a bit uppstreams.

In a small muddy town square close to the river and a merchant road a man is fettered by his head and hands in a wodden shackle, pleading to the guards around him.

- "Please you have to let me go". The black clad guard simply looks down with dissdain adjusting his blood red sash, his companion sets up the guillotine like contraptions around the mans wrists.

-"I-i-it was only a bit of food i have a family to f-feed" The man stems forth, his panicked eyes darting over the little plaza, to the gurds and his wrists and discouloured bit of sand beneath him were his sweat has pooled. His gaze scaning the square for anything and nothing, but the only thing he sees is a small gathering of people milling about, women men, young and old, beast human and rakshsa, all here to see his torment hungry eyes whishing for it.

-"P-PLEASE" he screams in despiration, spit flying out between rotting teeth as the little guillotines descend on his wrists. Skin flesh bone flesh skin nothing stopping the blades untill finnaly wood, a soft thuck is heard all tough drowned out by the milk curdeling scream of the thief.

At the same time as the cuillotine starts its descent 6 shadows sprint forward as if set loose by a bow, sprinting for were the hands will fall. Children looking to be around 10 and of different ancesrty. Of the 6 children one was in a clear lead, a beastboy with matted turqoise fur becoming fainter and almost a dim white at the stomatch and front, sharp pointy ears and an almost human looking face if not for the feral grin with curved teeth, almost looking like there were too many of them in the boys maw. A big bushy darkblue tail swishing left and right with every step.  A filthy exscuse of cloth for pants and a thin short line along his fur from the right side of his stomach to his back were the fruit vendor had slashed him some years ago. Bright yellow irises loocked on to the thief´s right hand as he snatched it out of the air right before it hit the ground, quickly runnig away from the other children as the fought over the left hand. Two ran after him intent on taking the hand from him yet the quikly gave up when he scaled a wall and ran along the roof.

Ilaayachee was smiling to him self as he ran across the rooftops of the city the thief´s hand in tight embrace, his stomach groweling and ribs clearly visible, it had been a few day since he ate anything more than a few bugs and that strange scorpion. He shaked his head at the memory, he had puked his guts out for a day and forced himself to lick it up again to have any semblance of energy. He started moving faster as he got closer to his "home", the "home" on top of a roof on a house right next to the river and one of the many bridges, the house was a sun bleached red color with a flat roof were noone ever went, as he spied the planks and cloth walls and roof of his beloved little shack he sprinted the las few houses.

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-"I´M HOME" Ilaaychee said loudly as he shoved the purple and yellow rag that served as the door, a well known sceent greeting him.

-"HAiii, ILAAY DON`T SCARE ME LIKE THAT" another boy said, taking deep breaths as he calmed down.

-"Sorry Chidiyon, did not mean to scare you....okey I kinda did but anyway look, I got food", Chidiyon turns around to stare skepticaly in Ilaay eyes, or atleast one eye stares as there is only a black hole and some burnt skin were Chidiyons right eye should be. Unlike Ilaayacheen whom is the result of a union between a wolfish beast woman prostitue and a Rakshsa guardsman Chidiyon was a human, with pale pinkish skin and a crown of blonde fuzzy hair the same as his mother`s. In Jaaven Ka Shahar merchants from all over the world gather, from the Jade kingdoms of the east to the Horsemen and Cross worshipers to the west, from the Frozen north and the Sun kingdoms in the south and they brought all kinds of merchandise, even slaves. 

Chidiyon`s mother had been a pregnant slave brought from some western kingdom and whom his father is no body knows. She was bought by an old merchant and his wife who took pity on her, she worked as a maid and were treated well untill a gang of robbers and thiefs broke in one dark night, glitteringsteel crimsonblood and bright flames licking his skin still paints Chidiyons nightmares. His right shoulder and eye, his leftcalf and foot are coverd in ugly burns and scarred flesh but he soildiers on, it is what he promised himself, always forward. 

His clear blue eye starring in to ilaay´s bright yellow, then down to the pale severed hand, the stump bloddy and a dark stain on his freind´s chest were he held it, he finnaly shrugs and says

-"Better than nothing, witch is what we had yesterday, I will purify some more water while you skin it" with an afirmative nod from Ilaay they started their tasks, Ilaay grabbing their only knife starting a little fire and set to flay the dinner while Chidiyon went down to the river with a bukled bronze bowl and up on the roof again with suprising agillty, nothinh like Ilaay but certanly impressive. Then Chidiyon did something that Ilaay could not do, no matter how many times he tried, he took another bowl put his hands over both shut his eye and concentrated. A heart beat then two and on the third beat a clear little stream started rising from the bowl with the dirty water and in to the empty bowl. Magic, a way to purify the muddy water to more pleasant state.

Chidiyon was a mage, not a very good one but he was improving, they had payed a street wizard, whom made small dragons of water fly and do tricks in the air, to teach him it had costed a gold ringthay had found but it was worth it. Chidiyon could now purify water and shoot little water bullets at people it was not much but it was a lot more than what other orphans could do in the city of Jeevan. 

As Ilaay finished skining the hand he put it over the their little fire, he could eat it his share now if he wanted to but Chidiyon could not stomach raw meat so he grilled it. With the stench of burning flesh filling the air the boys turned to the horizon where the sun was setting, one of them looking squeemish from the scent while the other almost started to drool they tought about their mother`s, one picturing her smile on a sunnday berfore turning to her blood and innards splattering the floor in a burning night a silent prayer to Kali ,the goddes of death and vengance, that the murderers would not go unpunished he would get strong and then....and then....he could not finish the line of tought before he was silently sobbing.

As Ilaayaschee notices his friend dragging his knees up to his face and arms around them he tinks back to his own mother. A dark room rags everywhere the scent of sweat and sickness in thier little house. His mother was sweating so much her fur looked drenchend, mumbeling unintellegible words with no meaning. He could never forget the smell of that room, the smell of dying, the smell of the rags the sweat he had tried to get of her the yellow white pus that was leaking from from her, the shit , the piss and tears and semen from hear work and the smell of the medicine that was  supposed to work and the panic the he felt. He remebered how he stood at the stone stepps leading down to Ganges crying, the black and gray ashes of his mother getting blown in to his face as he watched his mother body burn. The old lady in orange drab behind him holding a steady hand on his shoulder, she took care of alot of orphans as long as you stole and gave her some of the goods, it was there he met Chidiyon. It was good for a while but eventually they wanted to do more, it had been 3 years since then and now he was 12.

As he streched for his half of the hand he did not send a silent prayer to some god, he looked as the last rays of the sun went down. With a good view, a crying freind and at least a little bit of food in his stomach Ilaayacheee said to him self:

-"Happy brithday me".