Nelson Polycarp

**Nelson Polycarp** (born May 21, 21 994 PCE in Common City) and his best friend Milkella Fysheng are the protagonists of most stories set in Common City. He is a blue-and-white narwhal male with a 6.25% admixture of seal blood. He works as a chemist, geographer and oceanographer in the Oceanographic Society, where he also belongs to the elite quick reaction squad called Blue Noses, in which he serves as second-in-command to Prancer. He has a son, Kelson, even though he had scarce sexual contact with his girlfriend Angelika Kryson. They have been broken up for some time now, but keep sharing parenting duties. Nelson's family in the past used to be very rich from both parents' sides and bore many famous narwhals to the world including his namesake Admiral Nelson, but currently it is just a shadow of its former self. Nelson currently lives with his son in a small, automated underwater apartment on Salmon Lane 14, Water Houses.

### Life story

#### Childhood

Nelson Polycarp was born on May 21, 21 994 PCE to parents Arcticus and Melsonia. He was the older of two sons, his brother Relson would be born two years later. Nelson after being born did not start to display any magical skills instantly, which is very atypical for narwhals. Relson just after birth immediately showed his magical powers by telekinetically moving several small items around, but Nelson remained unmagical for the first two decades of his life and in this way became a bit of an outcast in his family. In September 21 997, he was sent by his parents into a narwhal kindergarten in the Urban Lake where they lived. However, Nelson was soon attacked by another narwhal, who bullied him for not displaying magic of any kind. The narwhal used his own magic to throw Nelson into the ceiling. Nelson then fell into a nearby glass table, leaving a gash across his cheek.

After this incident, Nelson's mother relocated him to a more further-away kindergarten dedicated to all animal species, where he did not experience any problems of this kind. In September 22 000, he started going to the Nr. 34 Primary School. It was also a school open for all animals, but because of being close to the Urban Lake most of the students were fellow marine mammals. However, Nelson quickly made friends with the walrus Blubber Stern and the dolphin Delfinka Makino. In his early teen years Nelson grew to be suspicious of others and quite introverted, he did not really have close or good relations with anyone except Blubber and Delfinka. He also hated the Winter Eve and did not understand its premise, he would never help his parents in preparing the decorations and meals. He developed a paranoia, expecting most things he encountered to go on to create negative situations. However, on at least two occasions he was very correct in his suspicions.

Once on a youth camp he refused to eat a round of fish for dinner, claiming that their smell was slightly off. As it turned out several hours later, the fish came from a heavily contaminated part of the sea and most of the camp came down with food poisoning, with a few having to be hospitalized. On his way to primary school Nelson would every day pass a large tree overlooking a neighboring street. At the sight of the tree he would immediately cross the street to the opposite sidewalk, explaining that there were a few large cracks in the tree's bark and he did not expect it to keep standing for long. Indeed it collapsed one stormy night when he was in 4th grade, resulting in the death of a passerby. Nelson graduated from his primary school in 22 006 and wanted to go to a middle school together with Blubber and Delfinka, but his parents deemed him to be lacking discipline and enrolled him at the sports-focused Nr. 53 Middle School.

In his three years at the facility, Nelson did not find himself any new close friends and would later say that other than heavily improving his physical condition through the very frequent PE lessons and sports clubs, he also learned the "art of survival". Towards the end of his third year, he was pleasantly surprised when a narwhal female from a parallel class, Angelika Kryson, turned out to have secretly been in love with him and wrote a love letter to him. In the end Nelson and Angelika became a couple, but they could not go together to their dream Science DaRaman High School, because Angelika's grades were not good enough to be accepted. Despite this Nelson decided to chase his dreams and enroll himself into that high school, which weakened the relationship with his girlfriend for the next several years.

#### High school and dream job

In the mentioned Science DaRaman High School, Nelson enrolled himself into a class with a marinistic-chemist profile, starting his education in the facility in September 22 009. He reunited with Blubber and Delfinka, and soon went on to befriend his distant cousin who was also in the same class, Cream Fysheng. A year later, Cream would introduce him to his eventual best friend, her younger sister Milkella, who was a year down. At different points of his high school education, Nelson had dates and close romantic moments with both Cream and Milkella, but never formed a serious relationship with either of them and eventually any mutual feelings of love burned out. Nelson, Blubber, Delfinka and Cream concluded their education in the Science DaRaman High School in June 22 013.

Then, in the summer of the same year all of them got accepted to work in the Oceanographic Society in Las Precipas. Nelson and Cream worked in the elixir making department, while Blubber and Delfinka were in the algae research department. However, Nelson dreamed of joining the Blue Noses, a group of "extreme scientists", who were the main face and pride of the Society. A chance appeared nearly a year later in late June 22 014, when in a very dangerous mission four out of the ten Blue Noses members were killed. Because of this not only Nelson, but also Blubber, Delfinka and Cream swore the celebratory Blue Noses Oath on July 1, 22 014 onboard the official ship of the group, SAMV Agamoat. From that point they became full-time members of the Blue Noses and would participate in all their missions together with the six surviving veterans - Prancer, Greyus, Stripe, Duck, Poler and Ash.

In the first half of July 22 016, Noses went to their most dangerous mission since Nelson's oath - an attempt to stop Sheldon Urri, who was farming dangerous algae which were pumping toxins into the sea. However, the Agamoat became beached during the approach to Urri's island and Nelson swam alone to apprehend him. However, Urri turned out to actually be a mentally unstable and highly dangerous individual. He filled the rock with the Agamoat with napalm warheads, and threatened to detonate them if Nelson not leave him alone immediately. Then Nelson pounced on Urri and a struggle began, which ended with Urri's death when he impaled himself on his own knife. For the shown heroism, Commander Goose (the CEO of the Society) promoted Nelson to second-in-command of the Noses only behind Prancer.

### Magical abilities

For a long time, Nelson could not activate his magic. Both his parents and his younger brother Relson have strong, dark-blue magic. Nelson's magic activated for the first time when he was aged 22 and it is highly possible that it was awoken by a spark from a magic crystal which he was watching on display on a subway station. Contrary to his closest family, Nelson's magic beam is of a bright green color and stronger than that of his parents and his brother. Nelson does not practice any more advanced and complicated spells, but his natural magical abilities include telekinesis on items up to the size of a tram wagon, mild mental manipulation on others and short-range teleportation.

### Personality and interests

Nelson is an introverted and quite nervous person. It is easy to lead him out of internal balance if anything does not go to the plan he'd formed in his head. He is pedantic and likes to be well prepared for everything - specifically to prevent being in the mentioned situation of something not going to the plan. However, in very critical moments, he is not a bad improviser at all. In life, he uses "cold" logic and consistent moral rules. Despite this, he is able to make huge sacrifices for his family and friends, and even his co-workers - as he showed by risking his life to stop Sheldon Urri. His interests include statistics, water sports and motorboats. More privately, he is obsessed with crisps as well as a chocolate-and-sweet-cream cake done according to the secret recipe of his late great-grandmother.