#the lore is still forming i just thought soley should have some major parental trauma :)

[syrcus]

I wanted to make a visual for Soley's parents so I did

Left: Árni, right: Salka

A little lore I'm strongly considering under the cut

The two of them decided very young that they were very much in love and resolved to leave the forest in order to live their lives together. They travelled a little, and as both had a fondness for the sea they naturally found themselves gravitating towards sailing jobs. Whithin a few decades, they had amassed enough wealth to acquire a ship of their own, and set about establishing their business sailing passengers and cargo between otherwise-hard-to-reach locations, eventually finding their rhythm on a route that more or less spanned the globe - they would sail from Othard, to Vylbrand, and then on to Tural, and then back again, picking up passengers, crew, and cargo (and dropping off old ones) along the way. By the time Soley was born the Torunns and their ship, the Aalto, were one of the foremost names in the business.

They'd pledged their lives to one another young, though, long before either had really learned who the other was going to become, and the stress of parenthood and the natural isolation of a seafaring life wore on them over time. Salka in particular became bitter, and angry, mostly towards her partner. Her family and crewmates saw a side of her that nobody on land ever did; cold, controlling, and sometimes violent. This energy was never directed towards her son, who only learned the truth of his mother once he was old enough to understand how one-sided his parents' "fights" were. Árni, for his part, became ever more distant from those around him, especially his son - who so resembled the woman he'd once loved, and now hated - and devoted himself entirely and wholeheartedly to the maintenance of the ship as a means of creating time by himself.

The pair of them were lost at sea, presumably having gone down with the ship, shortly before the Calamity. Soley had stayed in Tuliyollal at the recommendation of a family friend and, upon hearing the news of his family's disappearance, found that he wasn't especially sad about the loss of his emotionally unavailable father and selfish, domineering mother. He still wonders, sometimes, whether that makes him a terrible person.