DWILBMF (dad whom id like to be my father)
lore and exclusive extras below (family, sign language, + more) !!
LORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! may be short idk bc i am eg zausted (edit: yeah no it's hilariously long)
he's only been mentioned in lore in the past and made just a few teeny scribbly guest appearances, but it is my ABSOLUTE greatest pleasure to finally formally introduce you to aelu's father, nejr (nayer), god of the afterlife:
(pasting his current appearance again bc look at him)
below is an incredible high-effort family tree.
i forget the fire and water gods' names but they create the world on the shell of the giant world-turtle who walks in circles (why the stars spin). alongside other primordial beings, nejr is born! so in terms of the gods, he's PRETTY ancient. but he's the youngest of the primordial gods he's the baby of the family
nejr is an honest and honorable god. he happily takes the afterlife as his domain bc he likes hearing the stories of the humans who come there. their family structures are very different from god families (they don't really see each other as family tbh just, fellow gods, some having created others), and nejr realizes he'd like to have a human-like family bc it's a bit lonely down there
(also afterlife is at the bottom of the world-turtle's shell and when you die your loved ones bury you with a wooden carving of a boat so your spirit can sail out to sea and fall over the edge of the shell on a waterfall that flows into the river that cuts through the black shore of the afterlife and the guardians there help you off your boat and guide you to the gate where all the spirits drop off any other offerings to the giant crow that keeps the gate. bro is slow so you're in line for a while)
some minor goddess of something tries to, seduce nejr and he rejects her, vowing never to return up to the living world again and forbidding other gods from coming to the afterlife. this makes him lonelier but he'd rather be lonely than be wronged again. the goddess curses him to only ever speak lies, and she drinks a poison that kills their unborn child.
nejr only realizes his curse after hurting/alienating many of his subjects, and he is really reasonably upset by this?? so he creates a sign language and binds his soul to the immortal, blind crow uoca (whoa-kuh), who is able to kind of speak (it's like broken english). and when he closes his eyes he can place himself into her mind, at which time her white eyes turn black with gold pupils like his and he can see from her pov.
anyway a bit later, nejr in the height of his isolation hears that a tiny baby has turned up on the shores of the river of death. nejr's heart has always ached for little children who die too young, and he takes in the tiny baby girl (his heart melts when she holds onto his finger with her whole hand) and decides to adopt her as his own. unbeknownst to him, naeve is actually his biological daughter. this is never discovered and even if it were, nothing would change between them.
naeve (nayva) grows into a mischievous minor goddess of death omens (she has a ton of pet crows). she is grown up but likes to take the form of a little girl. nejr is happier now but is like no this isn't enough i need ANOTHER KID having kids rocks
so he goes down to the shore of the river of death and crafts a teeny baby out of black clay: he breathes divinity into it and it like poofs into a normal baby size and starts to cry. ta-da! aelu is born. him being crafted out of dark clay is why his physical features are dark like nejr and naeve, but his eyes are a deep, unnatural blue like the river of death.
so anyway nejr is very happy now, he has two happy healthy very troublesome children. then one day, nineteen 3-5 year old children appear at once on the shores of the river of death. their spirits are unsettled--they haven't been buried.
nejr knows something terrible has happened. he cannot forgive crimes against children so he decides to pay the living world a rare first and last visit. besides, he wants to give it one chance to redeem itself in his eyes, as it's been ruined in his vision for all these years and yknow the rest of his "family" lives there.
he leaves naeve in charge of the afterlife (she's actually very smart and capable dw) and takes 4 yr old aelu (eye loo??? just in case???) and uoca and one of the nineteen little spirits with him as a guide (aelu is there to keep em company). it's winter and miserable and nejr is feeling nervous about this whole thing, meanwhile aelu is curious and seems to have a connection to the living world that neither nejr nor naeve have. he and nejr end up wandering through a snowy forest...
[the following part is like disturbing so feel free to skip to the next bold bracketed part if you are uncomfortable with umm. cults and mass murder and hanging and child death/mutilation which is a common theme in some of my ocs sorry ocs]
the child's spirit leads nejr to the site of a recent cult ritual. nejr has uoca cover aelu's eyes, because the snow is covered in blood and nineteen dead, beat up children are hanging from the trees by their necks. nejr weeps, and he cuts them down and buries them all.
to his surprise and grief, there is a twentieth child. nejr cuts it down and finds that it is ALIVE--this child is the new incarnation of the local forest nymph (they die n become trees and are reborn out of the tree hollows n continue guarding the forest), and the evil humans had beat and hung it and it couldn't die. nejr names the child roan, after the color of their hair and the blood in the snow, and takes them home to the afterlife.
[YAY NEXT BOLD BRACKETED PART we press on]
basically nejr finds roan in awful shape, and he names them after the color of their hair and the blood in the snow and takes them home to the afterlife and never comes back bc it's horrific up there. also roan is a "they" rn bc nymphs are genderless and they haven't made their mind up about their gender yet (they are 3). the nineteen human children all pass on and they play happily in the afterlife as settled spirits :)
nejr takes roan home and looks after them. roan is very sick and weak (in the bad true version, he's been disfigured hence his many scars as an adult) and naeve and aelu help take care of them and cheer up nejr, who's again been disillusioned by the horrors of the living world. roan has never heard language (as most nymphs don't) and can't speak it and def doesn't have the energy to learn it, thus nejr begins to teach roan sign language!!
that's how you spell nejr <3 and though it's short, he also has a sign name that is the sign for "n" over closed eyes :)
anyway roan heals n nejr heals, and he has three kids in his palace now (he's only roan's guardian) and he's as happy as can be!! they all grow up and he grows his hair out and allows himself to take on an older appearance bc some of the spirits of elderly parents have told him about the joy of seeing their grown children and having gray hairs n knowing they've lived long, happy lives.
fun bonus aelu lore: aelu had a connection to the living world because he was born from clay, essentially part of the world-turtle himself. when he grows up he continues to be curious abt the living world, and when unsettled evil spirits begin running rampant in the living world, aelu takes up the blade of light lucis and at last becomes the semi-divine hero he was born to be, the balancer of souls.
nejr won't go back up into the living world but doesn't want aelu going on his own, so he has uoca accompany his son and watches over aelu from afar through uoca's eyes. in other incarnations where aelu is the one who finds roan, uoca is there with him (see cameos section in second drawing), and aelu is always talking to her (addressing her as "uoca" or "father" depending on who he's talking to).
also slaying evil spirits does a number on you mentally so roan's healing natural presence and also aelu's love for him help him regain his sanity. in this way, roan repays his "debt" to nejr (who would never call it a debt) by protecting his son from madness.
OTHER, FINALLY:
nejr has a voice and can groan and laugh and hum, etc. he has a hearty, full laugh. his voice is husky and low, and the kids all pile in his lap n he hums them to sleep
here's their hairstyles. roan grows out his hair and lil aelu braids it like nejr's hair, and roan gets so attached and keeps this hairstyle even after nejr changes his :) also earrings. roan wanted to match but seeing the needles made him faint :(
OKAY IM DONE THANK YOU. "this might be short" top ten lies