Jaya Ballard's History
Earning her name as a not-so-humble task mage and as an acquaintance of Jodah, the pyromancer Jaya Ballard witnessed many of the momentous events on Terisiare during the Ice Age. After she became a planeswalker, her mastery of fire magic inspired the practice of many monks and mercenaries on many planes. Jaya is known as Mother Luti by the monks of the Keral Keep in Regatha. This profile deals with only her Post-Mending history. Anything before the Mending is covered
here.
Sixty years after the mending, Jaya is still very much alive. When
Jace Beleren travelled to Dominaria to meet his friends of the Gatewatch, he found
Gideon travelling on a skyship with the old pyromancer.
Chandra had found her on Regatha, where she had posed as the elder Mother Luti, the matriarch of Keral Keep. After she helped defeat Belzenlok, Jaya agreed to help the Gatewatch in the fight against
Nicol Bolas. She didn't take the oath, jokingly stating that she was "not a joiner".
Jaya traveled with the Gatewatch to Ravnica for the final confrontation with Bolas, and immediately became trapped there due to Bolas's use of the Immortal Sun. Alongside many other planeswalkers and Ravnicans, she fought against the Eternals of Bolas' Dreadhorde.
During the invasion, the trapped planeswalkers got together with Ravnican leaders to strategize. At Jace's recommendation, they decided to split up into teams to focus on specific tasks. Jace, Jaya,
Teferi, and
Vivien volunteered to assassinate
Liliana. When they found her, Teferi warped time around her, slowing her ability to react, defend herself, or strike back at her attackers. This allowed Jaya and Vivien to badly wound her with fire, arrows, and animal spirits, although the Onakke spirits in Liliana's Chain Veil protected her. Nonetheless, they almost succeeded, but Bolas stepped in and saved Liliana by destroying the buildings they were standing on. Fortunately, Teferi saved himself and the other three planeswalkers by slowing their falls.
Jaya survived the battle and was present during the Planewide Celebration that followed. At the behest of Samut, she and Chandra cremated the bodies of the now-inactive Eternals.
To protect Chandra from more grief in a direct confrontation with her former friend Liliana, Jaya secretly tracked Liliana to Dominaria and agreed to escort
Kaya, Teyo and Rat to the necromancer's exact location.
In 4562 AR, Jaya attended a peace summit between the Keldons and New Benalia at Oyster Bay to end hostilities in the Ice Rime Hills. The summit was interrupted when the planeswalkers Karn and Teferi revealed the threat of a New Phyrexian invasion and several of the Benalish knights were revealed as Phyrexian sleeper agents. After travelling with the other planeswalkers and Stenn to Argivia, she helped fight off the Phyrexians.
Jaya traveled to Aerona, where she met with Ajani and Danitha Capashen to ask Llanowar and Benalia for help. She fought a compleated Ertai and Aron Capashen before Radha arrived to rescue the fighters from a Phyrexian dreadnought. She was killed by a compleated Ajani Goldmane at the Battle of the Mana Rig due to a combination of shock and exhaustion after a long battle. Jodah would build a monument for her after the battle in his grief consisting of four white pyramids, each containing the memories of those close to her, and an ever-burning flame.
