Anastasia

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Anastsia's profound innocence was impossible to aggress against by any creature.

Overview

Anastasia (Imperial \ænəˈsteɪˌʒə\) was named for her seeming invulnerability to death. Lore about Anastasia is common and accurate. She was extensively studied by historians and scholars, and was well known to Heralds, Servitors, and other Gods.

History

Anastasia was born a human girl named Evella Kingtide, in a small fishing village in Agria. While there was no prophecy of her birth, no sign of divinity, there was an unusual and profound sense of serenity that settled over the village of her birth. Animals would follow her, sick people near her recovered quickly. She never misbehaved, not out of fear or obedience, but because wrongness never occurred to her. There were many miracles that caught the attention of the Gods. When plagues struck, her village was untouched. When her village was to be attacked during The Realm War, the soldiers fell to their knees and wept. Eventually people would visit just to feel the peace of sitting beside her.

Eventually the story of the miracle child reached Ydalla, the God of Spring. Curious, Ydalla visited Anastasia and watched her play with her three closest friends: Lily, Rose, and Violet. Ydalla was so overcome by Anastasia's innocence, that she demanded the Founders take her own Divine Focus and use it to elevate the girl to godhood, even though it would mean Ydalla's death. Seemingly hesitant at first, the Founders eventually capitulated. There were too many disasters after The Shattering to worry about this unusual request from one God of Spring. And so Ydalla sacrificed herself so that the innocent girl named Evalla could ascend to be the God of Spring in Acrolon. She elevated her best friends, Lily, Rose, and Violet, to be her Exarchs.

Because no creature in the universe could bring themselves to even imagine harming Anastasia, she was one of only two Gods of Acrolon to survive The First Godswar. Due to this, the reverent gave her the name Anastasia, The Deathless.

After The Fall, the Grand Designs of Autumn and Spring seemed to stop functioning. Dead spirits would not move on and new souls would not be born. The Shard God of Autumn, Nexia, discovered the cause. But to fix it, she would need to wield the powers of both life and death, Autumn and Spring. Anastasia was not competent enough with the Grand Design of Spring to achieve the complex result. Only Nexia, a Shard God, had the necessary knowledge. However, this would require Anastasia's death, since once invested with Divine Focus, divestiture kills its wielder. Even though Anastasia agreed and was a willing sacrifice, Nexia could not bring herself to even imagine harming Anastasia due to her perfect, supernatural innocence.

In order to achieve their goals, they consulted the wisest and most powerful wizards in The Integrum to learn where Anastasia's unusual power of innocence came from. They discovered that it was a unique form of Paragon power. It had never been seen before or since, but somehow Anastasia was born with a perfect Integral quality of innocence. The greatest magical minds of The Integrum then discovered how to transfer the quality into another. It was greatly aided by the fact that Anastasia's soul had a connection to the souls of Lily, Rose, and Violet through their Divine Focuses. Using this connection, a ritual was able to channel Anastasia's Paragon of Innocence, which would become known as Anastasia's Gift into Lily, making her a Paragon of Innocence instead of Anastasia. After this, Nexia was able to, remorsefully, end Anastasia's life and bind the Divine Focus of Spring to herself, using that power to create The Crucible and repair the cycle of life and death throughout The Integrum.

Description

Anastasia had only one form: the same as she had in life. She appeared as a young human girl with dark brown skin and short curly hair. Anastasia's avatar dressed plainly, favoring things like sundresses. She often wore jewelry made of flowers. She always smiled.

Personality

Anastasia was enduringly kind and optimistic. She could not truly empathize with the suffering of others, but that did not stop her from having an endlessly positive regard.

Abilities

Aside from being a God of Spring, with all of the powers that implies, Anastasia also possessed some kind of supernatural innocence, called Anastasia's Gift. Most scholars liken it to being a Paragon of Innocence. No creature could cause her harm. Not because she was invulnerable, but because no creature, no matter how corrupt their heart, could bring themselves to imagine harm coming to Anastasia.

Exarchs

Anastasia had three exarchs:

• Lily, the White Queen.
• Rose, the Ruby Hunter.
• Violet, the Gardener.