Willful - Stubborn - Courageous theme

Like his siblings before him, his musical and theatrical parents taught him the art and technique of being a silk dancer from an early age. However, unlike his brothers and sisters, Astrum's calling was ultimately in another profession; the holy and righteous path of a paladin sang his name, and he couldn't help but heed its call. From the moment he laid eyes on the clan's subdued and contained Emperors, and heard the tale of destruction that had shook the clan to its very heart, he knew what path fate was calling him down. He heard the tales of Ulli's own son training and establishing himself as a heavenly warrior and couldn't help but admire that with all his being. Slowly, the desire to don his family's celestial silks and dance diminished, as his passion and fervor for swordplay and justice grew rampantly. His parents, though worried for the safety and well-being of their son, would not forbid him from pursuing his dream, and instead redirected him to the clan's gilded matriarch so that he could train under her. Ulli, always pleased to know of the ambition and willfulness of her clan's youth, accepted him as her student immediately, and without further ado, his training began. The process was long and arduous, but not once did Astrum falter or shy away from the difficulty of the path he chose, and flourished under Ulli's rigid training regime.

After many, many months of endless mental, physical, and spiritual honing, came the final test of Ulli's training: a single Emperor would be led out and released in an abandoned, safe area, and it was his duty alone to calm it, subdue it, and successfully lead it back to its confines. As his mentor anticipated, and despite his initial fear and anxiety, he passed his final trial with flying colors, and returned to his birthclan as a celebrated celestial warrior.

With his training finally completed, he and Ulli both agreed that it was time to send him out into the world so that he could do real good; with so few tested and true paladins around, it would be a shame to keep a natural such as Astrum from traveling the land and vanquishing threats abroad. As a final farewell, just before he was sent out on his way, his teacher and parents adorned him with golden armor, gilded cloth, and a set of the luxurious silks that the dancers in his family revered so. With these last tokens of his birthclan he set out, ambition in his heart and fire in his soul.