OC SPOTLIGHT May: Nehaneru // mostly sfw

hundreds of years ago there was an elven kingdom with grand ambitions, bloated with a sense of supremacy. it was built on the backs of slaves, exploitation, and pride, with a handful of powerful families vying for control. they each followed a different god, and one of the most influential cults was that of the gatekeeper.

one night during a cult banquet, a masked stranger appeared, with blood on his hands from the guard that had tried to stop him from entering. all the elves sat in silence as he walked through the hall, stopping in front of the head priestess' throne. when she rose to question his appearance, he replied that he had come to take his rightful place. the wanderer shed his rags and revealed his true form--a massive, iridescent monster, with many eyes and many limbs. they immediately knew him from myth and folklore as nehaneru, ancient and powerful, a formidable ally ... and a terribly enemy. when he gave them the choice of worshipping him or dying at his fangs, they all fell to their knees.

a pair of eyes as deep as the ocean watched from a spherical pool in the middle of the room. they belonged the high priestess' trophy slave, a rare creature kept for decoration. but unlike everyone else they were not afraid--they were excited. they had long foreseen the arrival of this stranger, and could finally add a face to the opalescent shape in their visions.

nehaneru is a lesser god (or greater spirit) of the gatekeeper's realm. he's been around since before the creation of mortals, and fought for his master when the gatekeeper went to war against the other gods, trying to take control of all worlds. in the beginning, the gatekeeper had been the guard of the doorways between realms, but they had become obsessed with always watching over everyone and everything. it got to a point where their wish to see further and clearer led them to steal an eye from (almost) all other major deities--and the more they observed, the more dissatisfied they were with the way the ruling gods had ordered the universe. their desire to design a more perfect society ("for your own good") culminated in a war that only ended once the sun god tricked and trapped the gatekeeper in the sun itself.

while the aforementioned elven gatekeeper cult was a vehicle for powerhungry aristocrats, the gatekeeper themselves are not an 'evil' god. all gods in this world are simultaneously benevolent and malevolent in different proportions--they all need to be both worshipped and placated. despite the gatekeeper's antagonistic role in myth, they're also associated with an abundance of good and useful concepts, and worship of them is a perfectly normal part of both state and folk religion. 

in a way, the gatekeeper is more complex and paradoxical than the other deities. all major gods of this world exist in complementary pairs. as such, they have more polarised natures, which makes them powerful experts in their fields--but also limits their potential for growth and change and fully understanding things beyond their own nature. you could say they're restricted to what they were created for. the gatekeeper alone has no such partner, and as such they carry within them both duality and singularity,  individuality and multitude, coherence and contradiction, conformity and opposition. they're self-contained and multifaceted, and better than any other god they can view things from many different perspectives. among the concepts associated with the gatekeeper is endless possibility, potential, versatility, limitlessness, and unpredictable change. anything is possible when you walk the path of the gatekeeper.

this sounds like a recipe for chaos and it's true that the complexity of the gatekeeper makes them unpredictable and paradoxical. however, in their role as observer, and in reference to their desire to design a perfect society, they're also associated with the order and efficiency of beehives and anthills. they're a god of philosophy, of realising the complexity of things and the web-like threads and connections between them. insects in general are viewed as gatekeeper creatures, along with arachnids and other beings with many legs and/or eyes. anything iridescent, opalescent, or otherwise shifting in a multitude of colours is also associated with the gatekeeper, as are multi-faceted jewels and optical illusions that look different from different angles.

the spirits and lesser gods of the gatekeeper realm represent the full range of concepts associated with this god. some are obsessed with order and exactness, while others are directionless and lawless; some are highly individualistic while others are basically hiveminds; some are fiercely independent philosophers, others are slave-like drones.

nehaneru himself is the unpredictable and chaotic type. his ferocity during the war had gained him a fearsome reputation, but after the imprisonment of their god and leader he adapted to the new circumstances and embraced the chance to fully live for himself. he quickly fell in love with being his own master, completely unfettered, with no orders to follow and no responsibility to anyone beyond himself. most other spirits and gods are, at the very least, wary of him. he does whatever he wants to do at any given moment, with little regard for others. he's changeable, arbitrary, with no mission or grand purpose to fulfill beyond his own whims and pleasures. it's difficult to determine what to expect of him--it doesn't help that he's deviously clever, and even though he's not 'evil' he can certainly be violent, ruthless, and selfish.

he's a well-known character in folklore and myth, but even if you don't recognise him by name it's impossible to mistake him for anything other than a gatekeeper entity. he's covered with iridescent scales, has a multitude of eyes, and an insectoid appearance. like many gatekeeper spirits he can change form at will, whether by growing or shedding limbs or by entirely changing his appearance to mimic that of another species. this is a reflection of the gatekeeper representing both individuality and multitude--nehaneru looks like himself, but he can also look like anything else, and in so doing assume their abilities and powers. 

the appearance of nehaneru at the elven gatekeeper cult leaves them in a mixture of awe and fear, fully aware of who and what he is. the prospect of the power he could grant them thrills them, but what they don't know is that nehaneru doesn't give a shit about their elven kingdom. he just loves being an object of worship: the attention, the power, living like a king in limitless luxury and watching those little mortals running around doing his bidding. 

he's no easy god to serve. defying an order he gives or trying to deny him anything he wants is a very bad idea. for example they soon discover that if they don't bring him enough offerings of food and drink he'll just kill and eat one of the cult attendants instead, right in front of their eyes, feeding off of their horror as much as his meal. in an attempt to prevent this from happening they start offering him live sacrifices, which he eagerly devours, but being near him is never not dangerous.

in return for this worship he makes promises he has no intention of keeping, and grants monkey's paw type of gifts of power and wealth that ultimately leaves their recipients mad and ruined. nehaneru tends to have that effect on his surroundings--he distorts things, injecting chaos and unpredictability into what seemed understandable and clear-cut.

after that first night, the high priestess hid her trophy slave away, trying to keep her most prized possession secret from the god. but nehaneru goes wherever he pleases, and one night he comes upon a guarded room. the soldiers remember what happened to the last guard who tried to stop him, and dare not deny him entry. inside he's met with a ceiling that shimmers with blue light from a deep pool, and the high priestess' slave--wansa--happily comes swimming up to him. 

"you're finally here."

"you've been waiting for me?"

"all my life."

wansa is of a rare species with prophetic abilities, but they always pretended theirs were defunct so that the high priestess would not take advantage. many years earlier she had killed their parent after they had lied about a prediction, resulting in a painful defeat in battle. they also faked being mute, while in fact they can communicate telepathically and read people's thoughts. nehaneru is the first person they ever talk to. he slips into the pool, and to wansa's delight he mimics the form of one of their species, shimmering and pearlescent in the water. 

the next day, nehaneru calls the high priestess to his throne. "you have been trying to hide something from me, mortal."

she brings wansa to the spherical pool to dance, hoping it'll be enough for the god. but it's not. "they are my most prized slave." "they are not yours anymore." 

the high priestess couldn't possibly deny him, and so she bitterly resigns to offering wansa to him as a sacrifice. but rather than getting devoured, wansa becomes his personal attendant. by day they're always close to his throne, and by night they both swim together in the pool.

nehaneru doesn't know why, but he's incredibly drawn to the dancer. wansa's species was created by the goddess daiva--the only god who didn't lose an eye to the gatekeeper. you'd think that a gatekeeper spirit and a daivan creation wouldn't see eye to eye (pun intended) but instead there's a magnetic attraction between them, perhaps precisely because of their differences. daiva is a god of telling the future, of seeing what's going to happen--the gatekeeper is a god of potential, of seeing what could happen if you make it happen.

wansa couldn't be more excited to meet the spectre from their prophetic dreams. for the first time in their life they're treated like a person rather than an object, and for the first time in their life someone asks him what he wants to be and do, rather than just giving him orders. up until then they had watched the world unfurl around them, just like in their visions, following a script rather than living a life. but nehaneru brings unpredictability and choice and endless possibility into their life--it's strange and new and sometimes confusing, but thrills them to no end. 

wansa's first choice is loving nehaneru. one night in the water they kiss him, and nehaneru responds in kind. let's just say that from then on, nehaneru gives wansa plenty of things to blush about whenever they read his thoughts.

watching the unlikely romance develop fills the high priestess with spite. she'd rather see wansa dead than in the god's arms on his throne, and so she slyly suggests that ritually sacrificing such a rarity as wansa--a daivan creation, an enemy of the gatekeeper--might make the cult more powerful.

nehaneru pretends to agree, and later that night, arms wrapped around wansa in his kingly bed, tells them of the fate the elven lady has planned for them. wansa is not at all surprised.

"she intends to sacrifice your flesh and blood to me."

"the time has come, then."

wansa turns to kiss his face and admits that they've had visions of their own death many times, not knowing quite how it would happen but always coming to a point in their own timeline where everything turned into a dark void. but they also tell him that this finale, where they got to meet and love nehaneru, made them happy. "i can't see a better death than being consumed by you."

nehaneru smiles, hinting that it won't end like either wansa or the cultists think, but he doesn't elaborate. 

on the night of a lunar eclipse, the ritual begins with wansa being laid out on an altar, surrounded by chanting elves while nehaneru watches from his divine throne. a knife is sunk into their chest, and wansa--silent as ever--doesn't make a sound. blood seeps out in ribbons across the stone, and the high priestess offers their soul to nehaneru, the gatekeeper's general.

but wansa can hear nehaneru's thoughts in their mind: i won't let go of you that easily, my love. rather than their life fading away, wansa feels a surge of power. 

suddenly, the water in the spherical pool starts to overflow. it spills onto the floor, quickly pooling from inches to feet. it snuffs out the candles and lamps, bathing the hall in darkness, and the cultists soon find themselves having to swim. they call to nehaneru for help, but he's unmoving like a statue carved from mother-of-pearl, his many eyes gleaming. 

when the elves reach the walls, looking for the doors and windows, there's none to be found. they've all disappeared, strangely melted into the stonework. fear grips the cultists as the high ceiling gets closer and closer, treading water and gasping for air and slowly coming to the dreadful realisation that there's no way out. some of them cry while the water rises, others scream, or pray, or plead, but nehaneru doesn't listen. 

he only leaves his throne once the hall is entirely flooded. swimming through the water, he reaches his lover's seemingly lifeless body. at the touch of his hands, wansa's smooth scales turn from shimmering blue to opalescent black, and he opens his eyes. they kiss, surrounded by the drowned corpses of the cultists that had enslaved wansa all his life. 

rather than giving the corrupt elves what they so desired, nehaneru granted wansa--who had never asked for anything--the power to free themselves. the god asks his beloved to come with him into the unknown, and wansa realises that the dark void in his visions was never his death--merely infinite unpredictability, potential so vast he couldn't see it clearly. 

they leave the palace drowned in water and blood, with all the world and unending possibility stretched out ahead of them.

-----

nehaneru is sometimes a villain, sometimes an anti-hero, and sometimes simply a bit of a bastard. i'm a bit obsessed with him (if you couldn't already tell from all the sketches of him lately...) and honestly i'm just waiting for kubi to draw a reference picture of wansa so i can draw filth of the two of them...

hope you enjoyed the read, and i'd be happy to answer any questions about him in the comments <3

// art + nehaneru © me; wansa © kubi.