Siro
A child of the street. Fatherless. His mother torn away from the very thing called life.
Siro was an orphan. Living on the streets, stealing food scraps from the garbage thrown out in the streets, he championed the younger orphans often undertaking stupid stunts that bordered on insanity. The others on the street were ever whispering that he was insane, that he was mad, addled in the head. And he took that as a badge of honor with a smile on his face. Addled in the head was he? So be it. That would be his name. Siro Adler.
But one day it all changed. He had picked up a book a young spoiled boy had thrown away. The boy couldn't have been much older than Siro; but he was bigger, fatter - the epitome of a spoiled child who had never had any needs unmet. Siro on the other hand was a scrawny imp of a rascal who had long forgotten his age. But he was barely a teenager - he knew that at the very least. The fat boy had complained that the book didn't have pictures. How could it have been a cool book with elves and dwarves without pictures he had said. But to Siro it was an unimaginable treasure.
Aileen had taught him to read and read well. She had taken care of him from as long as he could remember. She wouldnt talk much about her past - but she knew so much about so many things. He never had a real mother. The one person that had even come close was now gone too. To something as harmless as a cold. And thus he took care of the younger kids. This was the least he could do to honor her.
But now he had another book to read. The Legends of Illyriad. Another to add to the six he already owned. He couldn't wait but he was going to eat the lunch he had collected first.
....As the Great Battle wore on, Lan Larosh presented itself an image of a war-ravaged desolate wasteland...
when had he started reading the book? He couldn't remember ever opening the book. Had he even finished the lukewarm broth and bread he had gathered for lunch? And as he became absorbed in the book fervently throwing himself into the world of Illyriad and the reconstruction that followed the battle, he could almost see himself a knight in the great lands of Illyriad, an orphan warrior helping the poor and looking after the homeless. Suddenly a white flash knocked poor Siro back and the last fledgling thought as he slipped away from consciousness was the dim hope that no one would steal his new book.
As Siro slowly regained consciousness and tried to get a grasp of the pounding he could feel in his head, he noticed that the ground was softer, wetter but it still felt warmer. As he shook himself off the ground he could not believe his eyes. He was somewhere else - somewhere that looked eerily like the lands of Illyriad he had dreamt of. Could this be real? Could his wish have come true? Could he have somehow waken up in a land far away that he had read about in a book - a land that shouldn't even exist? Or was he knocked out in a corner in a coma and dreaming up all this.
Ever since that day he would wake up, make a quiet wish praying that he was still in Illiriad. Years had gone past. He was a knight now, a ruler of a small and beloved hamlet that he could call his own. But he never forgot his past...