In a twisted sense, one could say Taras's early childhood was like that of any other boy growing up in Kiev in the late 1280s." Taras would correct this, noting that it was actually rather *un*like that of other children, in that he survived it.
Taras's earliest memories are of cowering under floorboards and darting between ruins in a city overrun by demonic forces. He was a victim, one of thousands, of a power struggle he couldn't even have begun to fathom. Known then as one Dmitri Kozlov, his reality consisted of hiding from demons that openly stalked the crumbling Kievan cityscape, and occasionally venturing forth to try and scavenge for food when hunger overwhelmed his fear.
One day, like many other, Dmitri was searching a local manor for anything edible. Just as he found a small collection of food, he heard a yell from behind.
"Hey!!"
As Dmitri whirled around he saw a much older boy. Dmitri's heart sank, and with a look of panic and terror Dmitri turned to run. He knew how these situations unfolded. First they yell at you for stealing 'their' food, and the chase happens. If you manage to get away, you're lucky, and you just wind up a little more tired and hungry. If they catch you they take the opportunity to "beat a lesson into you."
Dmitri ran as fast as he could, but he was no match for a kid over twice his age. The screams of "Hey!" and "Stop!" grew closer and louder, until the force of a tackle knocked him forward off his feet. Dmitri instinctively curled up into a ball to weather the coming storm...
But, after a few moments, he realized that the older boy was trying to talk to him.
"Hey, come on, I'm not gonna to hurt you. You look like you're even worse off than me. What's your name? I'm Aleksei."
After chiding Dmitri for so carelessly running openly through the streets, Aleksei took Dmitri back to the manor, easily buying Dmitri's trust with some of the very food that Dmitri was trying to steal earlier. From that day, Aleksei began looking after Dmitri as a big brother of sorts. Thusly Dmitri found (and clung for dear life to) some small source of stability in his daily life.
As an aside, Kiev was not *entirely* depopulated at this point, but there were plenty of reminders -- which Dmitri and Aleksei regularly encountered -- that underscored the city's rapidly dwindling population. Sometimes these were just indirect examples, such as tables set for a meal, or possessions partially packed. Unfortunately, though, It was also not uncommon to find more direct evidence lying on the street... charred bodies, disembodied limbs, grotesquely flayed corpses simply lying out in the open. Dmitri coped with these day-to-day horrors as best as he could, manifesting an increasingly morbid and detached sense of humor.
Unsurprisingly, the "happy" life that Dmitri and Aleksei shared was not to last. One day at the manor, as Aleksei and Dmitri had returned from a moderately successful scavenging trip, they were found by one of the many demons roaming about. At the sound of something approaching, they darted for cover. Dmitri made it, Aleksei did not. Contorted into a tiny pocket of empty space within a ruined wall, Dmitri watched in silent horror through a crack in the wall as the demon ripped a screaming Aleksei apart... turning him into one of those anonymous horrors they so often encountered elsewhere in the city.
After the demon had finished with its fun, and wandered off in search of more entertainment, Dmitri crawled out from the rubble. An astute observer might try to argue that it was Taras who emerged from the rubble. Dmitri's mind reeled as it tried to come to terms with what had just happened. This was not some nameless body on the street he was staring at. This used to be Aleksei. Was this his fault? As Dmitri stood there lost in his own thoughts, from the depths of his consciousness a realisation surfaced.
"You know, it's kinda funny in a way..."
Dmitri let out a small giggle, then another. He felt terrible about it but he laughed anyway. He laughed at Aleksei's fate. He laughed at his own helplessness. He laughed at the illusion of security he had felt here, that a stupid trick like hiding in a hole had meant that he got to live. He laughed that the demon could cause so much suffering and not even care... He laughed as he appreciated for the first time that it's all a big joke in its own way.
While his newfound outlook protected what remained of his sanity, it did not protect him from the physical needs of survival. He looked over at the supplies that he and Aleksei had foraged, intact and undisturbed. Heh. This food was as precious as life itself to Dmitri and Aleksei, but the demon didn't even care about it. Dmitri gathered up as many of the foraged supplies as he could handle. Heh. It was kind of like Aleksei had gathered him up a farewell feast. Dmitri then snuck out of the city, setting off northward. Eventually he found his way to one of the many villages lying along the northern road.
The villagers found a young child, thin and hungry, wandering on the road. They probably thought "Another refugee from the disaster at Kiev." When they asked him what his name was, he just smirked and said "Taras." [This translates to trouble, mischief]