"Born from the solace of humanity, a girl wandered the Graveyard of the Afterlife, searching for someone who was left alive."
— Anita, the Lady of the Afterlife
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The Lady of the Grave was granted the status of deity in recent history, roughly one hundred years ago during the war between the Final Empire and the nation of Shuria. As souls began to collect in the other realm, the Arbiters of the Afterlife began to find it difficult to transfer each passing incarnation through the Planes.
The Afterlife was going through a war of its own—a war of succession. As Baphamut disappeared into the Ethereal East, he left the Gates of Outer World wide open for any Arbiter who maintained enough judgement and wisdom to take hold of the bars of succession. It was then the Plains of Asphodel erupted into panic; the souls wandering the Outer Planes becoming caught in a fierce battle between death and undeath.
Anita Lukewell, a young Empyrean who was slain during the Conquest of Erguestae, had recently arrived in the Plains of Asphodel due to rising conflicts in the Dead Court. With no Arbiter present to judge, souls of good and evil were left free to roam the plains in an endless search. The lucky few would find the Gates of the Outer World, and stand in-line to request a favor from the King of the Afterlife. Little did they know, however, that Baphamut was long gone. It was said the line stretched for several thousand miles, and lasted for a period of no less than five centuries.
Confused, worried, and starving for answers, the naturally inquisitive Anita made her way around the Outer Gates and into the Forest of All Knowledge, seeking answers to the questions that plagued her so. In the forest, she met an old woman, a sorceress by the name of Yaba. It was here that Anita realized something horrifying—the Afterlife had been invaded by the deceased spirits of the Disordained, a group of hags who had wrought havoc on the world during the Collapse. Yaba was one of those hags—the oldest of the Disordained, and a woman who needed no introduction. Baba Yaga.
After coming to her conclusion and realizing that the old woman's mannerisms were nothing but tricks to cause Anita to let her guard down, she attempted to flee, but soon found the task impossible. In the Forest of All Knowledge, Baba Yaga had decades to set-up an intricate Personal Territory that stretched for miles and miles. No matter how much Anita ran, she only found more dead space.
Becoming cornered in the thicket part of the forest, Anita discovered a small box. Pandora's Box, an artifact said to hold all the world's secrets. And all the world's evil.
Without a second thought, Anita grasped the box. Lining it with a thin, silver thread that she had discovered attached to the dying bark of a Witchwood tree. Spooling it into the small gap of the lock, the thread had enough tensile strength that with it, alongside a discarded twig, she was able to pick the lock and tie the end of the string to one of the false gates within the lock body.
Swinging the small chest over a tree, Anita went to work, using all her skills built up from her time as a seamstress to make the a trap of the finest caliber; a trap that could trick even the omnipotent Baba Yaga.
A small thread of wire, attached to a tree branch, which was in turn attached to a tree trunk, which finally ended with the one thing Baba Yaga could not pass up.
The heart of a young girl.
Depiction
Anita manifests as she did in life; a young girl with unkempt black hair and violet eyes. She dons the school uniform of her academy back in the Final Empire, although that is one of the few things that reflects her old self.
After the opening of Pandora's Box so close in proximity to her, the evil energies that escaped the coffer made their way into her body. She is now a body split into three parts: two parts Anita, and one part namesake. Pandora, the Lady of Evil.
It is this connection that gives Anita her legitimacy as a deity, and her claim to the dual-title heritage that is Lady and Lord of the Afterlife.
Enemies
Anita has historically never gotten along with her fellow Lord of the Afterlife, Soul, as both of their ideals arrive at opposite ends of the spectrum. Nearly incompatible in their ideologies, they often enter public discourse in the Hall of Arisen, with Soul's ground generally standing firmer despite his unpopularity. Discrimination against mortals, after all, is a well-known fact in the hall. Even against a one-third divinity.
Commandments of Anita:
- Do not let sleeping dogs lie. Ignoring the inevitable will bring destruction onto our realm.
- Respect the dead and see them to the afterlife. Become a path that can light up their future.
- All creatures deserve empathy. Even the undead. We should not take them on in a path of righteous glory, but respect them as a sentient race.