Santa Paula (Saint)
| ||||
| Other names | Layla Verion, La Reina de la Vida y la Muerte | |||
| Affiliation | Patron of Penn ar Bed, Death, Life, Fate | |||
| Symbols | Skull, Sun crown, Cup of blood, Silver staff | |||
| Countries | Penn ar Bed, Crown Colony of Calbion | |||
| Holy Places | The Cave (location unknown), La Ciudadela (residence) | |||
| Worshipers | Approximately 2 million | |||
Santa Paula is a saint. She is the incarnation of Layla Verion following her death in a cave in northern Apollonia and resurrection into eternal life. Santa Paula is the main focus of a religious movement and cult on the island of Penn ar Bed, where the devotees also regard her as the Queen of the island. The two revelations of Santa Paula from the Cave of Death are combined into an esoteric and philosophical text that is the foundational document of the cult of Santa Paula.
First Life
Santa Paula was born Layla Nefeteri Maliana Verion. She came to Goldshire as a young girl to be educated at the courts of Lunaris and Suthergold. As the daughter of the Jacob Darylion-Verion, who was an Imperial Minister, Steward and later Kaiser of Shireroth, she enjoyed several privileges and her career advanced rapidly, with Layla being named Countess of Crowsilver after the disappearance of the previous count, Ryker the Short. At a long interval after the flight of Daniyal Sikander Dravot and Liv Djupvik, reputedly after discovering that their lives had been cursed by the malevolent magics bound up in the blade of the Sword of Vengeance... or else to escape prosecution for a monumental tax avoidance fraud involving the ESB Group, Layla was appointed Khanum of Cabbagefall, a position of great power in the Kingdom.
Only a few weeks after her appointment, Queen Noor of Goldshire was brutally assassinated by her own son, after which Layla assumed the government of the Kingdom. Layla's Elfinshi blood made her look not much older than 20 and she is considered one of the most beautiful women in the country. However, she has never married and refused all her suitors. She did give birth to two children, Eki and Lyanna, who were fathered by one of her Courtisans. She later officially acknowledged these daughters, to the great displeasure of het nephew Ludovic, after which they became members of the Verion family.
Second Life
Following the collapse of Crowsilver, Layla disappeared for years. During this time, she took refuge in a cave on the other side of the Wall of Aegir in Northern Crowsilver. This cave, as it turned out, was a magical sanctuary that transcended life and death. As she remained in the Cave for over thirty years, Layla herself transcended into a new person, having died in a metaphysical sense. Santa Paula (Santa for being purified and holy, Paula for being small and humiliated by death itself) rose from the cave and found her self on the top of la Montaña del Renacimiento, the highest point of the island of . Here, Santa Paula established a small sanctuary. Over time, the people from the island came to visit her and constructed La Ciudadela. The people of Penn ar Bed started to follow Santa Paula, being the only person to conquer death, and her cult overtook the island rapidly. In Penn ar Bed, Santa Paula is also known as La Reina de la Vida y la Muerte, or simply La Reina.
Revelations from the Cave
There exist two revelations from the Cave, one from the first year of Santa Paula's death in the Cave, and a second that details her experience, transformation and final defeat of death.
First Revelation from the Cave
Drizzling water, cold, and the wind, wherever she went, her guard in a prison of nature.
The Cave is not a place of desperate sorrow, not even a place of enclosed contemplation or innate loneliness. Although it is all these things, it is much more than that. It is a life lived in a day, it is a day lived over a lifetime.
For the Woman, it was as natural as it was to breath. She had subjected herself to the shackles of the Cave, not for herself but for her people. It was the only way. To atone for the imperfections of the world she lived in, had shaped. And when they had come, the unspeakable horrors of the temptation of the hearts of men, she had understood. It was not given to many to see like she had seen. The stories were disregarded, laughed away.
But the Woman had grasped the meaning of the tales of darkness. She knew that the horror couldn't be fought with steel or fire. Not even with the cunning of mankind. Not even with the blessing of the Gods, not even with the magic of the earth. It was impossible to fight something that was bound to exist, that was a balance of the existence of the entire world. They have called it many things. Daemons, evil, greed, madness, sin, hell or Sinidur. But what it was, was much more elementary than a word or a description. Something that man had named, man could destroy. But this, this couldn't be destroyed, only accepted.
So here she was. The Cave was the journey of the Woman who had come to realise the truth of the universe. And she was ready to accept it. The Cave was a prison, yes, but it was also the door to her ascension. They wouldn't realise, not now and not ever. But she would, and she would keep her people safe. For ever.
Second Revelation from the Cave
To die on one self is the transition to eternity. For many centuries, it has been thought that death is a physical transition. A person lives, breaths, exists until the cloak of death transforms what once was a man or woman into a lump of flesh. Very well this may be the way of almost all men.
It has occurred to me that death however is not irrevocably a physical transformation. The Cave has shown me that this is merely an illusion. The real meaning of death is an entrance into eternal life. Oh sure, that too may not seem like a profound thought, but I will assure you that it is. You may think that I am speaking like the peddlers of religion, or the preachers who talk about the afterlife without having seen it. We have given many names to these ideas. Some Nazrene, some Catologian, some Zurvanist. I will assure you however that the eternal life of which I speak is not even remotely like the unimaginative stories of religion, which merely serve to enslave the downtrodden and deprived. The eternal life of which I speak is lived, because I live it.
Verily, I died and was dead, but now I live and I shall live for ever. Because it was in the darkness of the Cave that I was thrown back at myself. I entered the Cave as a mortal. I once was a woman of stature, exalted over a people, almost at the level of a goddess. The Cave however taught me that I was nothing. Who was to call me a goddess if they know that my self was plagued by anxiety, was haunted by the fear of my past, was desecrated by sin and was stained by my inability to break the chains of the flesh? It was in the darkness of the Cave, where there was no light, that I saw for the first time my true self. The darkness became a mirror, and the mirror spoke to me and transformed me. Nobody can look into the mirror of darkness without seeing yourself naked as on the day you were born. And when the darkness looks back into the soul, who would not shiver? The judgement of priests, yes even of gods, they fade away compared to the judgement of the darkness.
In the Cave I died. Slowly, the darkness of the Cave took away the life that was left in me. I have told you of the woman who entered the Cave. It took thirty years, and then that woman was no more. In went a proud woman of stature, high above the nations. After thirty years, out of the Cave walked a death woman, the smallest of them all. Small, Paula, trampled by the weight of an eternal gaze of darkness. But death does not kill, death cleanses. The true death that cleanses the soul of all mortality will transform irrevocably. Death can no longer kill me, for I am death. Blessed be the Cave that took my life, blessed be the darkness that took my mortal flesh, blessed be death that granted me life, blessed be the nations of Micras, for I have returned from the death. No, not I. For I has died with my flesh. Santa Paula must I be, for there is nothing that makes holy like death, and there is nothing that makes small like dying. For this, I will remain her until the day that the continents crumble and the sea shall rise. When the sun shall no longer shine its light over the face of Micras, and where the darkness shall leave its place, and shall conquer all. That will be death’s final victory. This, I speak to you, hearken the words of the one who died. Let go of your life, for in death you will find eternity.
