Editing Campaign:Enfolding Ice/Marr Arjuna (section)

== Arjuna's Story ==
[[Image:Marr Arjuna.jpg|right|thumb|Marr Arjuna]]
=== Before Exaltation ===
Arjuna was born a slave to House Ferem, the ruling House of Cherak. Looking back, he remembers little of his parents; as a slave, he was separated from them, and while they worked the fields he, as a child, was a domestic slave. In time, as he grew into young manhood, he was moved to the fields beyond the city walls, where he harvested grain. His natural physical strength marked him out to his overseers as a good worker; his natural intelligence and personal magnetism drew other slaves to him, and it was not long before he organized an escape from the plantation fields.

It failed. He would have been put to death, were it not for net loss in profit such an act would incur; rather, the Ferem contrived to sell Arjuna and the other rebellious slaves, without telling the purchasers of the slaves' unbridled nature. At the time, Ferem was host to a young Tepet Adava and his retinue; Ferem sold Arjuna and several others to Adava as "strong workers, who could make good aides on the field of battle... carrying messages, and the like." For whatever reason, Adava agreed, and took the slaves with him back to the Blessed Isle.

Most of the slaves were made into domestic servants or workers; Arjuna, however, was kept attached to Adava as his personal aid, to run messages and the like. In the small skirmishes Adava and his retinue were dispatched to deal with, Arjuna quickly proved himself capable in combat. Tepet Adava saw that the youth would better serve the Realm, and himself, as a soldier, not a messenger boy. From that day on, Adava trained Arjuna in personal combat; knowledge of how to defend himself lead to a thirst for combat on a larger scale, and the context in which it happened - history, geography, language, art - and soon Adava was a tutor for the boy in all things.

As the years passed, Arjuna accompanied Adava wherever he traveled, calling the Terrestrial Exalted "General." Arjuna was with the general when the orders were handed down to quell the barbarian uprising in the North, the one led by the Anathema, the Bull of the North.

=== Exaltation ===
Arjuna helped lead one of Tepet Adava's legions into battle as a fang-lieutenant, though he could also be found regularly in the tactical tent, commenting on the battle plans of the Terrestrial Exalted there. He was tolerated only because Adava accepted him, and his advice.

In the final battle against the Bull, Tepet's legions were met with an overwhelming force - greater numbers, superior tactics, and something... something Arjuna could not put his finger on. At the head if his fang with a Terrestrial talon-captain at his side, it was a miracle he survived; when the Terrestrial was struck down by an arrow from above and did not rise, it was inevitably that his talon broke and ran.

Arjuna refused to allow defeat - not for himself, not for his talon and not for Adava - and he rallied the talon, taking the banner from a fallen standard-bearer and shouting for the men to press forward and attack. Were it not for Arjuna's considerable skills, he would likely have been slaughtered then; yet he did not die. Instead, he felt more alive than ever. His blood moved through his body with a strength and, it seemed, a ''purpose.'' The armor felt lighter, and as he drew his sword and fought, holding the banner of the Realm over his head, he felt as though nothing could stop him - no man, no army, no Anathema. The talon rallied behind him and fought it's way through the barbarian horde, Arjuna at it's head. Eventually, they were upon the panoply of the Bull himself.

It didn't last very long. The Bull stepped forward, and knocked an arrow. At first, the world was all light and silence; then, there was darkness.

=== Post-Exaltation ===
Why did the Bull allow Arjuna to live? In the days since his Exaltation, that question has come to him again and again, unanswered. He awoke, days later, amongst the dead on the battlefield. His men - his legion, all the legions - had either fallen there, or scattered to the winds. Arjuna searched the snows for anyone still alive, but found that those who had not died from their wounds had died in the night, in the cold.

The battle had been a killing field, a suicide mission. Why? Why would the Realm send its best warriors to die? More questions that Arjuna could not answer, at least, not yet. Now, he seeks the answers. To Arjuna, he really ''did'' die on that day; when he awoke, he was someone else, a blank slate, free. Arjuna spent the next few months traveling the North, battling the Fae and whatever monsters threatened the tundra-cities and those who walked the roads. He observed that life in the North, in an endless winter, under siege at all times, was riddled with opportunities for exploitation and dishonor, and that there were plenty of people who took advantage of those opportunities. Arjuna set himself to remedying that, and found himself toppling petty warlords and bandits. Still, wherever he walked, whatever wrongs he righted, nothing seemed to really ''change.''

Arjuna realized that the corruption and weakness that had driven the Realm to sacrifice the Tepet legions had infected the North as well and, in all likelihood, all of Creation. He had a new life, one that, up to that point, had been devoid of any true reason. As he walked West, where the Realm joined with the North, Arjuna set himself his first true task of his new life: to carve the corruption and weakness out of the North, out of the Realm, and make it strong enough to stand against its enemies. To Creation from itself.

=== Appearance ===

Arjuna is relatively young for an officer of the Realm, in his mid-to-late 20s. His skin is dark, as are his eyes and his hair, which is generally kept in dreadlocks and bound back. His eyes are slightly larger than average, lending him a trustworthy, if innocent look. He is exceptionally fit; one might say he is near the peak of human perfection. His movements are quick and decisive - he never stutters, never stumbles, and never hesitates.