Nathaniel Fergus

[JackRose†]

Name: Nathaniel Fergus
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: Aurora
Hobbies and Interests: Poetry, hiking, camping, woodcarving, board games

Appearance: Nathaniel is six feet, three inches tall.  He is, however, thin for his height, weighing in at one hundred and fifty three pounds.  This thinness, combined with a pronounced bone structure, gives him angular features.  Nathaniel has a high forehead, a slightly protruding brow over large, wide set eyes, a narrow, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and thin, slightly pale lips.  With his ear length, shagged red hair, green eyes, and fair complexion, guessing his Hibernian ancestry is not difficult.  He also speaks softly, generally while avoiding direct eye contact unless alone with close friends.

Nathaniel has a somewhat eccentric style of dress. He generally wears hiking boots, corduroy pants, a button up shirt of navy blue or white, a suede sports jacket, and a brown felt flat cap. Out of school he is also generally carrying one of his hand carved walking sticks, most frequently one with the top carved into a goat's head.

Biography: Nathaniel was born in Washington, at the Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles to Colleen Fergus, a software programmer and native Washingtonian, and Michael Fergus, an Irish immigrant and park ranger in Olympic National Park.  When Nathaniel was two, the two were amicably divorced, as Michael Fergus came out with regards to his homosexuality. Colleen retained full custody of Nathaniel, though extensive visitation rights were agreed upon. The mother and son moved to Seattle, where Colleen had found a job with a tech startup. While his mother was a happy urbanite, enjoying the variety of culture, both high and low, to be found in the city, Michael Fergus was always more at home in rural Washington, and took Nathaniel on frequent trips to the Olympic National Park.  When Nathaniel was young, these mostly consisted of day trips and picnics, but as Nathaniel grew older the trips grew longer, until eventually the two would spend days at a stretch hiking and camping in the rain forest and mountains. Nathaniel learned from an early age how to conduct himself in the wilderness, learning to move through the forest and over relatively uneven terrain safely, to build a fire, erect a tent, avoid dangerous plants and, in a series of lessons drilled into him by his father, deal with the potentially dangerous wildlife in the region.

While Nathaniel spent more time under his mother's care than his father's, and, once he was old enough to behave himself, often accompanied his mother to the theater and ballet, he found himself closer to his father, feeling that, while out in the rainforest, he could confide in his father about anything. While he generally got along well with his mother, their conversations were much less personal, often centering around what either of them was reading at the time, or the last show they had seen.

Academically, Nathaniel was a precocious youth, reading by age three, and achieving high grades across the board in elementary school and middle school, and especially excelling in English. However, when he reached high school, he found academics becoming more challenging. This came as something of a shock to Nathaniel, since he had previously found academic pursuits easy. Unable to come to terms with this change, he reacted poorly and became uninterested in many of his classes.  However, he got on well with the school's English teachers, who were able to inspire his enthusiasm in the subject. Consequently, this was the one subject in which Nathaniel continued to apply himself and to receive high grades, even as he dropped into danger of failing the rest of his classes.

Colleen Fergus was concerned about the sudden change in her son's performance, and after personal conversations failed to prove fruitful, she even placed him in counselling. Michael, who had received no formal education after obtaining his Leaving Certificate in Ireland, was less concerned, and told Nathaniel to focus on what he enjoyed in life, even if that wasn't a path conducive to academic success.  This disagreement in philosophy led to considerable tension between Michael, Colleen, and Nathaniel.  Eventually this was resolved, with Nathaniel promising to maintain at least passing grades in all of his classes, and, with his parents' assistance, applying for an internship with the National Park Service at Yellowstone for the summer following senior year.

During the same period, Nathaniel's interest in poetry was seriously kindled.  Though he had written a few poems in middle school, inspired by his time in the mountains or a passing crush, he now viewed these as insipid and rather embarrassing. Indeed, he was uncertain of the quality even of his newer works, and, nervous about rejection, resists showing them to all but his close friends.  Though he claims this is because he is still perfecting his craft, he is in fact nervous that his current abilities will prove inadequate, and poetry, one of the easy pleasures left to him, will require considerably more effort.

With the time he was no longer dedicating to academics, Nathaniel spent even more time hiking in forest and mountains, and even took up carving walking sticks. This quickly became something of a passion for him, and he has carved a great many, as well as various other woodcarving projects.  Although he has done a few purely decorative pieces, and most of his projects are decorated, he prefers objects with at least some potential practical use.  His largest project, which he jokingly refers to as his throne, is a high backed chair carved from a fallen tree, decorated with carved images of the various wildlife of the Olympic National Park, and bearing his name and those of his parents in the Ogham alphabet.

He also developed an interest in various board games, progressing quickly from popular games such as Monopoly and Risk to more involved games such as Diplomacy and Agricola. Though in real life, Nathaniel is amiable, and averse to confrontation, generally preferring to yield the point rather than be faced with serious conflict, he tends to revel in the simulated conflict of these games, often playing quite ruthlessly.

The summer before senior year, Nathaniel and his father traveled to Ireland for two weeks.  While there, Nathaniel met Dominique Leroy, a French university student touring the British Isles in order to do research into Druidic history. The two quickly became close, Nathaniel enamored by Dominique's passion and drive to learn and Dominique enamored of Nathaniel's quiet and gentle nature. The pair's friendship soon became more, and Nathaniel embarked upon his first serious romantic relationship.

Nathaniel is something of an introvert.  This does not mean he is antisocial, and generally upon coming to a new location, is quick to seek out a group of individuals with similar interests. What it does mean is that even once he has a close group of friends, he often feels the need to be alone with his thoughts.  In Nathaniel's case, this time ideally takes place out in the woods.  He is a steadfast friend as long as he remains in contact with the group.  However, he is unwilling to put any substantial effort into remaining in contact if the circumstances which originally put them together end.  He is, for example, no longer in contact with any of his friends from middle school who were placed in other high schools.  The one exception to this general rule is Dominique, who Nathaniel regularly chats with online, and regularly exchanges physical handwritten letters with.  Though Colleen is somewhat concerned about her son's involvement with an older woman, she is reluctant to discourage it, as she has rarely seen Nathaniel put so much effort into maintaining any relationship.

Advantages: Nathaniel has considerable outdoors experience, and is quite at home in the woods.  In addition, a lifetime of hiking at varying altitudes has left him with considerable endurance.  His woodcarving experience means that he has the ability to fashion at least simple tools if provided with a blade.  Finally, he has experience in thinking strategically from his experiences in war board gaming.
Disadvantages: Nathaniel is not particularly good at interacting with those he is not already comfortable with. He is also not terribly well motivated, and is likely to abandon a course of action if it proves more difficult than he initially expected. Finally, due to his slim stature, Nathaniel possesses very little upper body strength.