Layla grew up sickly and sheltered. But she was never short of love from her mother, the nature goddess Shorm, who had also loved her father dearly. Yet no matter how much Shorm attempted to heal her daughter and cure her many bouts of sickness, they always seemed to return - and so, the goddess finally reasoned that it must have been a test from Actae, that the child was dealt such a poor hand in life. Cases like this had been seen before, where the progenitor deity would purposely place challenges in the way of halflings to test their worth. All anyone could hope to do in this case was wait to see whether the halfling would prevail.
Unable to go on adventures or spend time with others for long, Layla found herself bedridden for most of her early life. This was when she developed a fascination with the jalvrisong, a mental realm that all halflings had. A halfling's jalvrisong was a tangible, miniature world that resided on the spiritual plane, in the spot that would've hosted the individual's soul had they been mortals instead. There, one could be anything they wanted, having the ability to control all aspects of a tiny world that was essentially anything they imagined. This was typically used as a creative space for testing new strategies and concepts, or more commonly, used for meditation and recovery of the magical life force, kheji. Layla spent much of her life in her jalvrisong, bringing her consciousness there whenever she was stuck in bed: in there, she was healthy and able to properly use magic, from which conjured up a battleaxe named Sairas. Armed with this stalwart companion, she spent much of her free time having mock battles with creatures she had seen hunters drag back, using moves she had seen warriors in the training grounds employ. But because nothing created in the jalvrisong could be brought back into reality, she found herself hating the real world and spending more and more time away from it.
It was around her forty-first birthday when she fell into a deep coma. Shorm tried desperately to rouse her daughter, only to discover that all of Layla's kheji had been severed from her physical body. While in her jalvrisong, Layla too would quickly realise something was wrong. The landscape of it had drastically shifted against her will, from a flourishing valley to a small, silent area that only had a tower that seemed to go up forever. Aside from Sairas and her imagined physical and magical prowess, nothing seemed to be in her control anymore.
With no other option, Layla entered the tower and began climbing. In it, she encountered floors with all kinds of strange monsters she had never seen before. Normally, being hurt in the jalvrisong would result in a dull pressure in the injured area, not unlike someone pressing down on your skin. Even if one was somehow wounded here, it would only be a matter of willing the wound to go away. But things were different now. Monsters drew blood, Layla's magical stores had a limit, and everything was all too real. The thought of a real death weighing heavily on her mind for the first time in decades, Layla mustered all her determination and willpower to survive, narrowly defeating creatures intended to test her agility, wits, and endurance.
It would take three weeks in the real world, but Layla would manage to get through the hatch at the top of the tower, whereupon her being was engulfed by light. She would then wake up in the real world, back in her silent chambers. The drawn curtains, the fragrant flowers in the vase by her bedside, everything was as it should have been. The only thing that was new was the golden loop she discovered on her ankle, which she discovered could shapeshift into her now-real battleaxe, Sairas.
Once Layla recovered from her ordeal, she went straight away to visit her hometown, Clemency, to meet her father Gobivs for the first time. The two had a warm reunion and Layla, tired of the stuffy, sheltered life she had in Rehjolvnatys, lived among the mortals until Gobivs's passing twenty years later. She then returned to Rehjolvnatys to fulfill her duty to the gods. The next a hundred or so years would be spent receiving formal training in combat and magic. She would later proceed to travel across Actaera as a mercenary and wanderer, meeting future friends like Eleanor Lottbrung and Allen Hevaxej in her journeys. As of the last few decades, she has settled back down in Rehjolvnatys to support the Lumen's war efforts against the growing threat of the Vesper.