Eros Acheron Oleander (eh-rOs a-sher-on o-lee-an-dur)
Eros Acheron Oleander (a.k.a. dumb fish, fish boi)
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
He’s slender, but soft; his figure is gently cuved, like a slight hourglass. He's not muscular, and he's not necessarily thin.
Body Features
His pitch black hair falls in inky waves to just below his shoulders. His pale skin has a purplish undertone due to the fact that he's technically a corpse; when he flushes, his face becomes a deep, bruise-like purple. He is missing his left arm due to his death at the hands of Angor; all that remains of his arm is a heavily scarred, yet completely healed over nub that ends just above where his elbow used to be. Scars spiderweb down the entire left side of his body, from temple to toe; they are jagged in appearance, and are a pinkish-purple hue. He doesn't mind his appearance; while he has moments of feeling self-conscious, he generally feels comfortable with his body and his appearance.
Facial Features
His single mocha-colored eye is almond shaped, with a monolid. His facial features are sharp and slightly effeminate; his jaw is wide and angular. He has a hooked nose. His scar tears across the left half of his face; the jagged edge cuts down across the corner of his mouth. His left eye is a luminous, opaleqsue white; it glows faintly. He has no pupil or iris in that eye; his eye is formed of magic.
Identifying Characteristics
His most identifying features are his missing arm and eye, as well as the scars lacing the left side of his body.
Physical quirks
He can transform, as he is a siren. When he transforms, his tail is a deep forest green, and his fins fade to black at the edges. His fins are flowing and elegant, and add roughly four feet to his length. They resemble the fins of a halfmoon betta. He has faint scars at the base of his neck where his gills open up when underwater or when distressed. Pants and the like do not transform with him; whatever clothing he wears on his lower half gets ripped apart when he transforms.
Special abilities
He's decent with a dagger—but only if he's ambushing someone. He's useless when actual fighting is involved. His voice is very smooth and lilting. His singing is enchanting—literally.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Eros wasn’t born, but made. The spirit of the sea formed him from nothing, from magic, from the water—and, on a winter’s night, the fourth of the Niraj entered the world.
He was quickly found by the priestesses of Arethusa’s temple in Unda. While the priestesses rushed around to find him a wet nurse, he was handed off to the temple’s resident doctor, Veit Oleander—who fell utterly in love with him right away, and who refused to return him to the priestesses. When Eros was finally removed from Veit, he began to cry—and he wouldn’t stop until he was back in the doctor’s arms.
From that night on, Veit was his father.
Like the other Niraj, Eros was born “human”—though, in reality, he was never truly human. Like siren children, he needed daily exposure to the water—but, due to his lack of gills, he had to be highly supervised during this time.
Like the other Niraj, Eros’s facial features were rather nondescript when he was an infant—but, when he got older, he began to resemble his father. All Niraj adapt to look like their adoptive parents; the connection that they form with their caretakers grants them a “biological” connection through their physical appearance and other physical attributes.
When Eros was four, Sublime (the head of the Arethusan temple and one of the other two surviving Niraj) returned home and discovered that he’d been born. She demanded that the Veit return Eros to her, determined to raise Eros—and, panicking about the thought of losing his son, Veit took Eros and ran off into the night.
He went to his old friend Viatrix—who was a very grouchy old man with a soft heart for kids and with a total disgust for authority and the rich—and the captain of a passenger ship run by a crew of mercenaries. Veit begged Viatrix to take him and Eros in, revealing the few details that he could without freaking Viatrix out. Viatrix had just lost his ship’s doctor, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to help an old friend.
The Osprey set sail a few days later, and didn’t return to Unda for a few months longer than usual. When they finally did return, Veit got caught, and the priestesses demanded that he return Eros to them—and Veit finally refused.
Veit flat out told them that taking a child away from the only parent they had was a fucking awful idea—and, after days of arguing, he managed to convince them that giving Eros a relatively “normal” life was the best option for his development.
Despite Sublime’s rage following this decision, the priestessed intervened and let Veit raise his own damn kid.
Eros had a happy childhood, running around the Osprey and the world as a whole, getting into trouble, turning into a giggly little TERROR of a thief, and generally being a very talkative and excitable lil kiddo.
He was nearly murdered at twelve—and then kidnapped and tortured for two months at fourteen—when the Shrieking Tongue, an underground Undan terrorist group discovered that he was one of the Niraj and decided to try and blackmail the Arethusan temple into giving them access to government affairs. The temple refused—and Eros managed to escape on his own.
Through all of this trauma, the first person he turned to was his dad. Veit was there for him, no matter what—and when Eros drowned, Veit was just WRECKED. He was even more distraught than his lover, Oona—even though he knew that Eros was going to return to life as a siren.
When he was eighteen, he met Oona Mzia, who’d just joined the Osprey’s crew. They became fast friends—and eventually, he realized that he was in love with her. Fortunately, she was in love with him, too—a fact which Eros only doubted upon his death.
Due to the magic affecting him that night, his memory of his death was mostly missing—but the one thing that he remembered was Oona hitting him repeatedly before he went overboard. He thought that she’d murdered him—but, in reality, she’d been trying to stop him from throwing himself overboard in whatever way she could. Violence was her last resort—but it didn’t work. The magic within him was too determined to make him drown.
Eros drowned—but when he died, the spirit’s magic flooded through him, forcing his own magic to react and transform him into a siren.
The months that followed were entirely filled with fear, as he struggled to come to terms with what he had become and how violated he felt during his forced transformation. He took to wearing turtlenecks, in order to cover his gills, and he did everything in his power to avoid anything that would expose him as a siren and cause people to attack him.
Eventually, he ended up joining Crow Moonclaw on his quest to undo Gelu’s curse—and that’s when things began to get worse.
Eros is excruciatingly in touch with his emotions, and, due to his major trust issues, he’s INCREDIBLY sensitive to and aware of the emotions of everyone around him.
He gravitated to Crow, at first, due to the lack of outright violence and hostility that Crow had displayed towards him—and then his nightmares got worse due to his constant panic, and he woke up in the middle of the night with a panic attack—and, for whatever reason, Crow noticed what was happening.
He tried to help Eros, and Eros just FREAKED OUT, in return—and Crow got obsessive. He wouldn’t leave Eros alone, and that just freaked Eros out even more. Eros ran into the forest to hide—and then, gradually, over the next few days, Crow got more and more obsessive, repeatedly testing the limits of how much he could poke and prod at the issue—and doing various other things to recreate the emotions/conditions of that night until Eros finally broke down again.
When all of that finally worked, Crow expected Eros to finally give in, to finally let him help and “rescue” him to gain that friendship—but Eros lashed out at him, furious, crying, and fully aware of exactly WHAT Crow had been doing.
Crow got even more obsessive—and, now having a full-on mental breakdown, Eros grabbed the few things that he had after a fire destroyed their camp and ditched the group
He just ran, like he always does—and that’s when he finally ran into Astra. He was freaking out, and Astra immediately tried to calm him down with her song, not realizing who or what he was.
Even though they aren’t affected by the song in the way that mortals are, sirens really enjoy hearing each others’ songs—and Eros has a particularly strong reaction to hearing siren song. The sound of siren song is just instinctually reassuring to him—and when Astra tried to use her song to calm him down, recognizing a “mortal” in immense distress, he immediately reacted to her voice and calmed down enough to actually talk.
She tried to get information from him with her song, and, desperate for human interaction that wasn’t rooted in fear, Eros answered her questions in return. It was just general stuff at first—are you okay, what happened, are you travelling with anyone, do you need help finding them—and, freaking out over the thought of returning to the group, Eros accidentally replied to her with his siren song, outright refusing to return to them.
Astra immediately realized who and what he was—and, freaking out over the fact that she knew his name and the reality of what he was, Eros tried to run—until she revealed that she wasa siren, too, and that she’s been looking for HIM.
The two of them travelled together for two weeks, during which time Astra finally convinced him to try using his voice and his transformation magic—and then they reached Angor’s temple, and ran into Crow’s group, again.
After Cassiopeia Dolus inadvertently summoned the primordial demon Angor, Eros overused his own magic to try and kill the demon—and was killed when the demon found out what he was trying to do.
In that moment, the sea spirit fulfilled its vow to kill Angor, flooding Eros with its magic to give him the ability to truly kill Angor. Using that magic, Eros killed Angor—and remained dead. The spirit refused to bring him back to life, considering his destiny fulfilled—but Eros refused to die.
He remained dead for two months, fighting to return to life—and when he did, he woke up in an formerly abandoned temple, missing his arm and the vision in one eye.
Helios found him lying in the spirit’s holy fountain, freaked out a little over the fact that there was a literal siren in his house, and then lifted Eros out of the water, dried him off, and left him in a guest room.
Eros, of course, had a whole fucking panic attack over realizing that he was alive—and that his arm was gone—and, when Helios entered the room, worrying about him, trying to see if he’s okay, Eros admitted that the last time he was awake, he had his arm—and Helios immediately tackled him with a hug. Eros had another breakdown, and Helios reassured him through it all.
When Eros finally calmed down, Helios helped him walk into the kitchen, and then sat down to talk with him. Helios hesitantly mentioned that he knows that Eros is a siren, and Eros freaked out a little. Helios immediately reassured him, again—and just asked Eros not to use that magic on him. Eros admitted that he didn’t really know how to use it, and that he’d only really used it by accident—and Helios was a little anxious, but mostly okay with that.
Eros spent the next two weeks re-learning how to walk, and discovered his healing abilities after breaking a lamp. He and Helios were shocked by this, and had a discussion about Angor and his arm—and Eros rambled, trauma-dumping about being killed to end a godly dick-measuring contest. Helios worried about him, and touched his arm anxiously—and when Eros admitted having his arm touched makes him feel really weird, Helios immediately let go—and then Eros grabbed his hand, and asked him to hold the rest of him. Helios teased him for being cuddly, and Eros didn’t try to defend himself, fully admitting that he likes physical affection.
A month and a half went by; Eros began helping Helios out in the garden, and they got really close really quickly. Eros met Cornelio, and hesitantly admitted that he’s a siren when Cornelio asked about his magic. Cornelio was VERY upset to find out about this—and Helios defended Eros. When they get home, Eros asked why Helios defended him, and Helios told him that “this is what you are—this is who you are—and I don’t want you to feel like you need to apologize for that.”
Eros argued with him, and Helios got frustrated—and Eros finally revealed that he didn’t want this, that this was forced on him, that he doesn’t LIKE what he is. Helios got really anxious and fretful—and then, determined, he dragged Eros out to the beach, and told Eros to transform.
Eros freaked out a little—and Helios just insisted that “you deserve to be loved—and if you aren’t willing to give yourself that kind of love, I’ll do it for you.” Eros transformed, and Helios tugged him into the still, lagoon-like water, and just held him for the rest of the night. For the very first time, being in his siren form felt easy and RIGHT—and he just snuggled up with his boi, full of relief.
That’s the first night that they fell asleep together—and from then on, they’ve slept together every damn night.
Just a few days later, Eros revealed everything that happened with Oona—and Helios promised to never hurt him. Eros promised him that, too.
For the about a month, Helios dragged Eros out to the water nearly every day. They played around, they snuggled, they talked and talked and talked and talked—and Eros quickly grew more and more comfortable with his siren form. Helios teased him for having fun in the water, and Eros just got all fluttery emotionally, admitting that he didn’t realize that he was able to LIKE what he was. He’s all relieved, and Helios is all relieved—and then things took a turn for the worse when Eros accidentally uses his voice.
Eros was doing dishes, and started singing to himself without thinking. Helios walked in, and, entranced, he walked forwards and grabbed Eros’s wrist—and Eros, realizing what he just did, freaked out and began to cry. Eros was distraught with the fact that it felt so unconscious and natural—Helios insisted that it’s OKAY for it to feel natural—and Eros revealed that trauma of thinking that this magic was forced onto him.
Helios immediately corrected that thought, revealing to Eros that magic is just EXPRESSION, that this was always who and what he was—and that whatever the spirit did just revealed that.
This was just a huge “oh” moment for Eros. This changed everything.
A month went by, and Eros rapidly began to fall in love with what he is. Helios noticed the difference, and his heart did this fluttery thing every time he noticed just how EXCITED Eros was. Eros noticed that exact same fluttery feeling whenever Helios touched him; Eros fretted over Helios more and more with each day, trying to make sure that his boi was taking care of HIMSELF, too.
They went to a lil spring festival, and they acted all silly and romantic, without really realizing that they were acting romantic. They went on hikes together and got lost in the forest and fell asleep in a patch of sunlight. They ran around and acted dumb n soft in general—and then things get worse, again.
Helios got hit with a days-long migraine that didn’t respond to any of his pain medication. Eros stayed with him the whole time, holding him, worrying about him, genuinely freaking out—and then, when Helios started crying, quiet and defeated, he made a damn decision.
He dragged Helios into his arms, whisper-singing, kissing his face, running his hands through his hair—and Helios sobbed with relief, thanking him, just falling apart in Eros’s arms. Eros sang to him until the pain was gone, until Helios just fell unconscious due to days of total sleep-deprivation due to his migraine—and he held Helios for the rest of the night.
When Helios woke up, his headache was gone—and so was Eros. He panicked, and looked for Eros, and found him weeding the garden. Eros freaked out a little, insisting that Helios needs to go and rest—and Helios just refused, curling up around Eros.
Helios thanked Eros, and admitted that he LIKED Eros using his voice on him, saying something soft n embarrassed like “it felt like you”—and he asked Eros to do it again. Eros agreed, relief flooding through him, and he held Helios for an hour or two, just singing and playing with his hair.
Two weeks went by (this rounds up to around four and a half months total, now)—and, one night, while out in the woods, humming quietly, Eros finally tugged Helios in for a kiss. Helios got INCREDIBLY flustered, and Eros freaked out a little, worried that he did something wrong. Helios insisted that he liked the kiss, reassuring Eros, and Eros kissed his face again and again, teasing Helios until he was laughing. Helios admitted that he’s in love with Eros. Eros returned the favor. They kissed, and then fell asleep together.
Gender Identity
Eros is a cisgender man and very femme. He enjoys jewelry and dresses; he loves having his hair long; he enjoys what he enjoys without thinking twice about it.
Sexuality
Eros is bisexual, and tends to prefer men. He is also polyamorous, and is in a long-term committed relationship with Helios Lumenox and Oona Mzia.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Eros is an extremely anxious person. He’s constantly anxious about his responsibilities and his magic and his ongoing transformations and the people that he loves—and this often escalates to full-on panic attacks. He’s a total crybaby; he cries when he has and kind of overwhelming emotional reaction, no matter whether they’re good or bad.
Eros is gentle, doting, and generally extremely fretful with the people he loves. He’s not afraid of being vulnerable—and, in fact, being vulnerable with the people he loves floods him with overwhelming relief. He’s earnest and honest and very aware of his feelings—and talking about his feelings, fears, and dreams with the people he loves helps him work through those feelings in a way that nothing else does. He relies on his words; his words are his therapy.
He’s very vulnerable emotionally, too—his feelings are overwhelming, no matter what he’s feeling. His sadness is despair; his joy leaves him shaking with excitement; his fear leaves him with a full-on panic attack. He feels everything very deeply—and this fact means the world to him. His feelings matter to him—and he WANTS to feel overwhelmed by what he feels. His feelings mean the world to him—despite the fact that his feelings don’t always feel good.
When he first transformed into a siren, Eros was afraid of himself. He was afraid of his own magic, and felt guilty and disgusted using it due to the trauma of his drowning. He was afraid of getting hurt or killed due to others’ fear of him. He was afraid of what he was due to his TRAUMA—but, in reality, he worked through that trauma by falling in love with what he was and discovering that this was who he was always meant to be.
Eros loves being a siren. He loves how he feels; he loves who and what he is. He loves using his magic, and he loves the water. He loves himself fully and truly, and without fear.
He loves life.
He’s impressively bad in a fight; while he’s willing to main or kill, he doesn’t have the physical strength to overpower others in a fight, and relies on ambushing people, instead.
Though he’s fairly okay with murder, this only applies when he sees it as justified. He refuses to kill those who have no means of defending themselves, as well as those who haven’t done anything deserving of such violence.
In his mind, people who have used any form of violence against those who don’t deserve it deserve violence in return—and he has no issues with delivering justice through that violence in the name of all who have been hurt by violence, including himself.
He’s incredibly physically affectionate, and very enthusiastic, too. He’s touch-starved, despite being constantly physically affectionate with both Helios and Oona; he’s happiest when he’s being cuddled.
He’s doting to no end, and loves showering Helios and Oona in as much affection as is humanly possible.
His bond with Helios and Oona is extremely strong, as they all trust and love each other innately and fully. Though they often bicker, and, like all couples, feel frustrated with each other from time to time, they put a great deal of effort into communicating with each other, as well as being open about their emotions and desires; as a result, they rarely have significant fights.
While, naturally, most of their arguments aren’t resolved immediately, they love each other immensely, and, as such, they all work as hard as they can to reach an understanding or solve any problem that has come up between them. They respect each other on a fundamental level, and they try their best to talk about issues before they become problems. They hate fighting with each other, more than anything else, as they all can’t stand seeing each other hurt or upset in any way, particularly if it’s their fault.
Even when in the midst of an argument, they’re all but completely inseparable. They hate feeling at odds with each other, and they hate having hurt each others’ feelings. While Oona needs personal space during a fight, that’s not the case with Helios. When he and Eros are fighting, they’re constantly cuddling or holding hands or otherwise trying to comfort each other. No matter how upset they are, all three of them always want to make sure that their partners are okay; no matter the situation, they still love and care for each other on a fundamental level, and this devotion is the root of all of their interactions.
Overall, while the trio may get frustrated with each other, or worry about each other to the point of butting heads, they trust and care for each other on such a foundational level that nothing can drive any sort of wedge between them. There’s nothing that any of them want more than to be at each others’ side, and they’re both just genuinely happy to be together. Nothing can stand between them; they’re willing to fight endlessly to be with each other and to protect each other.
While they can all absolutely function separately, they hate being apart. Eros tends to feel more confident and relaxed with Helios with him; Eros tends to feel very isolated without Oona with him.
Eros gets extremely anxious when he’s separated from his lovers, as he can’t stand the thought of the two of them being in danger, or getting hurt in any way, shape, or form. He is willing to destroy everything in his path in order to protect Helios and Oona, and will do so without hesitation.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
He's an emotional WRECK—but that's how he gets people to trust him.
He's vulnerable. He laughs and jokes and puts his hand on your arm. He flirts a little, and the moment that he gets flustered, you can tell. His guard is down, with you. Eventually, you let your guard down with him. He's excitable and nervous and entirely himself—but you have no idea that he's got this hidden agenda, that he's thinking on his feet and TRYING to get close to you.
You're a part of the town guard, and he's your drinking buddy, and you laugh together, and you beat him in arm wrestling every time, and he punches you in the arm when you tease him and it's hardly even a punch, and suddenly you're staring down at your whiskey, telling him things that you swore you'd never tell a soul, and not even a week later a high-ranking commander has ordered for that one guy's execution, and you KNEW he had it coming, but you don't know how they ever found the evidence to get him locked up, and then you lock eyes with your friend and he grins at you, and you don't see him again for nearly a year.
His charisma comes from his honesty and his vulnerablitiy; his charisma comes from his ability to be a real friend to others.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Eros is in a closed polyamorous elationship with Helios Lumenox and Oona Mzia. He was in a monogamous relationship with Oona first—but, when he drowned, his memory was faulty due to the magic at work that night, and he thought that Oona had thrown him overboard. He remained in love with her—but, when he was rescued by Helios, he fell in love with him, too. When he reunited with Oona, he found out that she didn't kill him—and his feelings overwhelmed him. Eros revealed that he was fully in love with the two of them, and that his feelings weren't something that he could discard—and the three of them decided to continue forwards with a closed polyamorous relationship.
Eros is much more PHYSICALLY affectionate with Helios, and much more VERBALLY affectionate with Oona. Helios enjoys just holding him and hanging out, and Eros enjoys feeling CLOSE to him—and gets restless/anxious when he doesn’t get that kind of affection from Helios for a while, for whatever reason. Oona enjoys talking and joking when she’s with Eros, and Eros LOVES talking with her about everything under the sun for hours on end—which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love talking with Helios. Usually, when he talks to Helios, they have deep, meaningful conversations—but the difference is that he’s fine with not talking to Helios for hours at a time if they’re cuddling together but doing different things. Meanwhile, his absolute favorite thing to do with Oona is to talk to her; he can't really keep quiet around her.
His favorite thing to do with Helios while cuddling is sing to him—which kinda doesn’t allow for talking. Helios’s favorite thing to do with Eros while cuddling is work on his potions; while Eros holds him like a damn koala, Helios grinds up herbs and tests out different concoctions, aided by Eros’s voice. When Eros sings to Helios like this, he does NOT use his true song. He’s doing the siren equivalent of purring; he’s singing a melody from within him. He’s using his FUNDAMENTAL melody—which is like a musical fingerprint for a siren. Each siren has a unique fundamental melody. It’s comforting and fun and relaxing to use.
Relationships
Nicknames & Petnames
From Eros to Helios: baby, sunshine, dumbass, moron From Helios to Eros: baby, moonbeam, dumbass you dumb fish
Divine Classification
Niraj (Destined)
Alignment
Lawful Neutral
Age
24
Date of Birth
January 31st
Date of Death
October 10th, 8286 and December 31st, 8286
Circumstances of Birth
The spirit of the sea formed Eros out of its magic.
Circumstances of Death
He was overwhelmed with the spirit's magic and threw himself overboard without realizing what he was doing; after being brought back to life as a siren, he died again while trying to kill Angor
Birthplace
Unda, Alstroemeria
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Current Residence
The Arethusan Temple, Unda
Pronouns
he/him
Gender
Cisgender Male
Eyes
His right eye is a deep coffee-brown that brightens to caramel in the sunlight. His left eye is a luminous, opalesque white.
Hair
Shoulder-length, black, wavy.
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Relatively pale, cool-toned, with a purplish blush around his limbs and face that resembles bruises in hue
Height
5'8 "
Weight
148 lbs
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