I went looking for your Aurelius lore but didn’t find anything 😫 What are they the god of? Are they god born? Plz tell me about the blorbo (so that I can more accurately draw our ocs possibly meeting) i mean who said that 🫢
I don't have everything written down atm but what the hell sure, I'll put the answers here for you anon
aurelius lore ramble
oc x canon word count: 3.8k [cw// child death, attempted suicide, domestic violence, miscarriage, cheating, murder, etc under the cut i mean hey it's the greek mythos tho is anyone surprised]
Aurelius technically first met Poseidon in a previous life, when they went by Arsinoe - it was when they were both young and kinder, more tender, meeting up under an olive tree to gaze at the stars and talk about constellations through oral tradition - with Poseidon pretending he didn't already know all these tales.
It didn't last because Arsinoe's poor family promised their hand in marriage to the king of their land in exchange for their weight in gold.
Poseidon wanted to run away with them because what was a king to a god but Arsinoe naively believed that their family would let them go if they just explained the situation - they did not, Poseidon found out from Hera that his love was gone because Hades didn't have the heart to tell him that the person he talked about with so much adoration was in the underworld.
Eventually they were born again, Aristo, to another poor family, and they married quickly to take the burden off their parents - they weren't particularly happy in their marriage but out of duty to their family they grit their teeth and endured. They fulfilled the role the best they could and more or less succeeded so they wouldn't burden their family anymore but the one thing they couldn't do was provide their husband with children no matter how hard both of them tried, everything ended without conception at all or in miscarriages.
Their husband was understanding at first but over the years he started growing impatient and bitter, by the time they were able to conceive the situation at home wasn't safe enough to bring a kid into anymore so they spent the entire pregnancy praying this one turned out just like their others because death would be safer than being at the mercy of their husband.
It doesn't and they end up carrying it to term, Aristo had to have their baby in secret and just as it's born Thanatos appears to take it to the underworld, answering their prayers.
Aristo goes back to their village and tells the other wives it was another stillbirth, they let Aristo stay with them because predictably their husband didn't take the news well. Things were scary for a while but they had their support system so things got better, two years pass though and they've travelled as far as the entrance to the underworld.
Hera feels for them but killing family goes against her domain, so she sends Aphrodite down to turn them into a sea monster before they can throw themself into the river Styx from the pain, but Aphrodite also tells Aurelius that with this form no one will be able to hurt them like their husband again so it's a small consolation.
Aristo hangs around the shores near their home for a while because they don't have anywhere else to go but have to leave after someone from the village discovers them and freaks out because there's a huge sea beast around. They get chased away but weirdly enough the seas never allow the villagers to follow them and several boats drown. It hurts to see their former friends look at them like a monster but Aristo doesn't blame them.
Several years later when Zeus and Hera get into a tiff about obligations and the work she has to do while he flounces around all day, Aristo on Zeus' whim gets turned into a god that protects the young under Hera's domain as some sort of cruel irony (Zeus is not aware of this).
Winding back time a little bit - Aristo would always come to the ocean to cry when things got particularly bad at home and Poseidon fell in love with them again from afar. He's pining bad for them and so familiar with their misery that whenever his pearl is crying the waters get rougher for everyone else around the area. His nickname in return is "Posie" because those were Arsinoe's favorite kinds of flowers.
But back to Aristo's apotheosis; they try to decline the position but Zeus being Zeus, is pushy, he's huge and imposing and even though they're a giant sea monster his presence is still massive.
Only a couple people notice Poseidon getting angrier in the background and then a few more because the waters in the fountains start to boil; the breaking point is when Zeus leans in real close and tips Aristo's chin up with one of his massive fingers, and says "don't you want to repent for those children you let die - this would be the perfect opportunity, no?"
Posie throws himself at Zeus in a blind rage and they get into a HUGE fight. Poseidon goes to Aurelius later at the little cove they've made into their lair to personally apologize for his brother, ladening them with such a heavy burden like godhood and being an ass about it the whole time too.
Aristo is wary, partially because he's a man and partially because their whole life they've known the gods to be fickle, unpredictable, and downright cruel if the winds blow in the wrong direction. They say that they don't mind, they figured the king of kings would be a little… like that (Posie snorts), but what they don't understand is why the god of the ocean would stick his neck out for a minor god like them.
Poseidon immediately gets all dodgy about the subject and he can feel Aphrodite's smug little grin burning itself into the back of his head so he makes up an excuse to leave early. He keeps coming to see them though, says it's to make sure they're getting settled nicely or keeping up with their job or anything really, if there's an excuse he can make to go see them Poseidon will.
They're getting to know each other in this new relationship but they're taking their time and Poseidon's being extra careful not to spook his pearl by coming on too strong even though by the gods he wants them so much- he wants them BAD, but they're a treasure worth waiting for so he's patient. Part of Aristo is testing him, to see if he'd turn out like their husband, but another part thinks it's cute how bashful he can get at times.
And after a way-too-long courting period that had Aphrodite pulling her hair out they finally got together, whole grown ass gods acting like scared and excited youths falling in love for the first time because that's what it felt like initially, but soon they settle into each other and it's a love nothing like this mortal has ever known.
Hell, just a few decades ago they were stuck in an abusive loveless marriage and now the god of the ocean manifests out of the tides to come kiss them if they so much as whisper that borderline saccharine nickname under their breath. After getting married they finally change their name to Aurelius, since Hades' wedding gift to the couple was gold from the earth and Aurelius adorns themself in the jewelry quite nicely.
It also comes out that the pearl tears are from Poseidon—if that wasn't obvious enough—he didn't do it on purpose, things just kind of shook out that way but he hoped that maybe they'd be able to escape if Aurelius collected enough of and sold them - it never crossed their mind, probably too embroiled in stress and turmoil to notice, but the sentiment endeared them to him all the same.
These are the golden years.
They have two children at first, Meris and Cordelia who were twins, but after an incident where Delia was tricked and forced to marry a mortal man who had Zeus' blessing (he didn't know it was Delia's hand being vied for) and Poseidon turned her into seafoam so she wouldn't have to live through that, Meris swam to the bottom of the ocean because he was furious that his own father and uncle betrayed his sister by not protecting her on the formers part and then being an active participant on the latter; Zeus wouldn't have said yes to the blessing if he knew.
Eventually they find out that Aurelius is carrying Poseidon's clutch again and even though he's overjoyed, Aurelius is terrified from all their prior experiences as a mortal and the twins, convinced that this is going to end just as tragically and that their body even in this form is cursed to be a graveyard.
Poseidon does everything he can to comfort them, ease his pearl into it and that he'd be there for every step of the way, and if they really weren't ready for it they could leave the clutch in someone else's care after they were laid until Aurelius could come around to it. Aurelius agrees and Poseidon calls on two his most devoted followers, a couple who was having trouble conceiving, to protect his children with their lives until his pearl was ready and the couple obviously agreed.
A few decades of peace passed, the couple kept the eggs hidden as promised, Poseidon and Aurelius thrived in their relationship despite the worry, but things started going awry once the clutch began to hatch. Fish started going missing from nets and people grew suspicious; one of the guppies was the culprit, but the couple couldn't blame him for being hungry.
The townspeople eventually found the clutch and threw it in the fire even as the couple begged and pleaded with them not to hurt the eggs and that these were Poseidon's children, the fish thief (Skully) was netted while his siblings burned. None of them survived the fire except for one (Andy) whose piercing cries woke his parents up.
Aurelius got there first, furious and heartbroken - they drowned the entire port town and the hatred they had for mortals was set in stone from that day on.
When they didn't know if Andy was going to make it Apollo came down with a prophecy that if they put him to sleep in a magic clam he wouldn't go back to as he was before, but he'd make a mostly full recovery with the stipulation that it would take a hundred years before he emerges. They let Skully join his brother to keep Andy company because he wouldn't leave him otherwise and closed the shell.
Aurelius and Poseidon had a massive fight in the fallout, both still hurting and saying things they didn't mean and separated after that, so Aurelius spent their time near the clam whenever they could and if not they were rotting in their lair, catatonic from the loss.
Birthrates plummeted especially in seaside towns and the ocean was impossible for mortals to cross for a good while, the babies that were born were very sickly and in worse cases turned into (smaller) sea monsters like merfolk and were actively hostile to humans. Sometimes they'd return to mortal form if their parents raised them with enough love and care, other times the parents were killed or the kid found its way into the ocean first.
It got to the point where Zeus had to put his foot down because both of them in their depressive states of grief were throwing the balance of nature out of whack.
Zeus and Poseidon got into another huge fight over the younger brother being the typical pompous insensitive bastard he was, but after Zeus told him to "just have more kids" in front of his grieving partner Posie damn near ripped his face off.
Hera went to talk to Aurelius in their lair to try and coax them out, said that she knows they're in there because gods can't die that easily, the response she gets is that Aurelius wishes this broken heart would hurry up and kill them already. Hera offers a little consolation, she can't get rid of their pain completely but she can lock away their fertility, ease the burden of having to worry about that all the time.
Aurelius agrees, they're a lot colder after this - feeling it necessary for them to kill their sentimentality if they were going to continue working. Poseidon mourned, said that they took the warmth from them but all Aurelius has to say to that was that their heart died with the clutch Secretly though, they'd continue to visit the clam and fill the the hidden underwater clearing with pearls until they emerged
It's their job to preside over every birth, so when Poseidon's bastard children start being born, Aurelius is miserable and believes he's just doing this to hurt them, they flee to Sicily after the first bastard. Poseidon isn't really but what he is doing is trying to fill the void they and those guppies left behind (it doesn't work, just hurts both of them because he feels awful after every one). Anteros curses him to feel the pain of every teardrop they cry that hits the water in his ribs, a reminder close to his heart.
When they return from Italy to find that he's still having bastard children, Aurelius kills the lovers who bore him the bastards. Aphrodite turned Nerites into a shell for being one of the rebounds and they destroyed him when they got the chance.
They both get into a huge argument on the shore that blows up into an outright screaming match in the middle of a storm with hurt feelings from every angle boiling over. Aurelius pulls away finally, says that they don't know what they expected since he's just another man. Poseidon grabs their arm as they try to leave, however, and shouts over the roar of the tides that he's their God.
He's forced to swallow his anger at the sight of them flinching away with sickening familiarity and the admission that Poseidon, their husband and the person they were supposed to confide in most, was scaring them. For a haunting moment, Poseidon sees his father reflected back at him in their eyes and his mother in their expression.
He regretfully calls out to his pearl, fury bubbling away to shame and dread but Aurelius rips their arm away and puts some distance between them; with their back turned they assert that he is the all-powerful god of the ocean, he is king of the tides, he is THE Poseidon that mortals fearfully worship far and wide - but as of now he's no longer "their" anything. Aurelius throws their wedding ring at him and disappears under the waves.
The next time Poseidon sees them in passing it's after a trip to Hephaestus and a new set of bracers conveniently over where discoloration from a bruised bone would be.
Aurelius' work puts them in close proximity with Thanatos a lot, one side arguing for an infant's life and the other for a peaceful passage to the underworld. Thanatos appeared a lot around the clam while they guarded it and they fought him time and time again for their guppies' lives, verbally or physically. He always leaves but tells Aurelius that he'll be back (he always is, and they're there to tell him to fuck off again). Thanatos appears one last time after it's been a hundred years to reap what Aurelius sowed, but the clam opens and they tell him that he can't have them because they're alive.
Aurelius ends up raising Andy and Skully in tandem with a harpy and a tigerfish mer (oomf's OCs) though, because they decide it's too dangerous around them all the time and really they're still in a lot of pain. They are these boys' parent and Poseidon is allowed to see them as he pleases, but Andy and Skully also consider Florence and Alba their moms.
After Aurelius started using a more palatable mortal form to see the people who called for their help, since one of their followers mentioned that they were quite scary and even if Aurelius reprimanded them by saying their job isn't always kind or easy, they agreed, occasionally there'd be sightings from other people.
Aurelius travelled mostly through the ocean to get somewhere and transformed on land - when they needed to go they simply jumped back into the sea.
One village in particular was having fertility issues so Aurelius had to visit multiple times over the course of a few years, a man fell in love with their mortal form but obviously could only see them when they visited. The elders warned him that Aurelius was the god that protects their young and if he did anything to anger the gods everyone would be in grave danger. Stories passed down from the clutch incident held up even throughout the decades.
The man kept it in mind but continued watching them from afar and once got his friends in on it because they didn't believe him; Aurelius shows up drop dead gorgeous, they believe him. Him and his friends also follow Aurelius a little further than the man would usually go around the outskirts of the village to the ocean and eventually see them change back into their sea monster form.
In true Greek mythos fashion they get freaked out and jumped to the conclusion that this isn't a god it's a monster tricking the people of their village and it's Up To Them™️ to put a stop to it.
Aurelius gets ambushed in mortal form but when the mob cut them open and gold spills onto the grass they realized the monumental fuckup they've committed. It's in Aureseidon's divorce era during the 100 years of waiting and far away enough from the ocean for Poseidon not to know but Hera is furious and curses the village for harming the god sent to help them. It's a close call but Hermes is ordered to bring them to Olympus to replenish.
Meris came out of hiding long enough to call his father a coward and told him about his ex's predicament, Poseidon arrived back at the mountain in a frenzy and hauled ass to his pearl like a maniac. Aurelius turns away just as he flings the doors open because they recognize his footsteps and he's too focused on the everything to notice their reflection Aphrodite's mirror.
Poseidon can't see his pearl's face when he asks why they didn't call for him and they respond that they didn't think he'd care enough, but Aurelius still sees his expression through it and it kills them. His response is pleading them that he does care, he never STOPPED caring but Aurelius tells him to stop lying to them and he must think them a fool, they were there for all his bastard children for their domain after all.
They tell Poseidon to go guard their what's left of their clutch against Thanatos if he actually wants to be helpful and Aphrodite chases him out. Says that Aurelius is in enough pain without him here making it worse, so he does and his ribs hurt the whole time.
Once they've healed up a little more, Poseidon visits their lair with little gifts and leaves them outside so he doesn't bother them too much; he makes jewelry out of the pearls that they cry because he misses them, his earrings included - if you actually stepped into their lair the bottom of it underwater is FULL of pearls.
Aurelius comes out once and tells him to stop leaving clutter around and they get into another argument, but instead of blowing up at each other and fucking off like always they get in each other's faces and start making out with all the desperation and repression that what, 70 years apart would afford a god.
Halfway through though Aurelius pulls away and asks him to stop, because they can't handle his tenderness and "I love you"s because they hurt more than anything because they feel like lies and it's revolting hearing it from him, so Poseidon's mean and rough instead.
His ribs burn but it gives his pearl an outlet to cry without guilt - Aphrodite told them about Anteros' curse at some point to gloat while they were having a little gossip sesh but instead of laughing with her Aurelius looked betrayed and disgusted and hurt when they asked if she really made them haunt Poseidon all this time - so their hatefucking arc starts.
It goes on for years because both of them are traumatized and incredibly maladaptive and can't just talk it out like grown adults (trust that Aphro IS pulling her hair out as Aurelius' bestie) but eventually the hatred dies down, they're more or less together without actually being together but neither wants to be the one to say it.
In the middle of this, their son from the clam Andreas gets tricked into giving mortals Ambrosia so he's put on trial for stealing from the gods, it's a whole thing with the gods arguing for unreasonable punishments, no punishments at all, everything in between, and Apollo nearly gets his hand bitten off for making Andy cry but eventually Andy's sentenced to serve wine to the gods on Olympus with Hebe (since he's just 8 after all) instead of much harsher ones proposed by other gods.
After the dust has settled Aurelius and Poseidon have another one of their "hatefuck" meetings even though realistically there's no actual venom between them, things go as normal but in the afterglow this time while they let Posie hold them for once, back to him, Aurelius tells him that they miss what they had. He breaks down then and there and Aurelius joins him shortly after, mourning all the pain they both suffered and how much they missed each other and regretting how they treated one another. Divorce arc over everybody they're back together now and slowly mending the relationship and 100% are going to be SO much more possessive over each other and worse yaaaayyyy 🥳🎉🎊
Additionally, the domain bestowed on Aurelius initially was just Protection of the Young, but through the years - the soaring highs and crushing lows, their sorrows and their joys - their domain changes into being the God of Protection as a whole.
Seeing their children so distressed after Kronos scared them badly enough even from within Tartarus that Zagreus had to carry them home crying, and their husband so upset from his father's meddling that they manifested a change in their fates to accommodate protecting all of them.
God of protection but notoriously tempestuous. God of protection but fickle and a trickster. God of protection who hates mortals so to directly ask for their help means the monkey's paw curls. Aurelius' domain is incredibly powerful but devotees and people who worshipped them regularly know they have to follow their God's instructions to the letter, or they'll bring destruction upon themselves that's just as devastating in scale.
Soldiers often seek their intervention before going to war but Aurelius meets their pleas with silence or outright anger at the audacity for them to ask for protection while these men carry out their violence; they do, however, still answer to the meek and vulnerable more often than not.
Aurelius says they were transformed by their hatred so now they have to shoulder the heavy burden of power, but Aphrodite leans her head on their shoulder and reminds her dear friend that love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.