Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel is a small, wiry boy with curly brown hair and green eyes. At eleven, he has the look of someone who has not yet quite grown into his nose or cheekbones or chin or ears, but once he does their arrangement will be fairly harmonious. He has a warm, engaging smile, but this is not seen as regularly as it once was.

Nathaniel was born to a seemingly charmed life. His father, Nicholas "Nicky" Mordue, was a handsome, youngish, extravagantly charming darling of society; his mother, Cynthia, a delicately beautiful and elegant heiress. By chance, Nicholas' older brother Alexander and his wife Avery had a child in the same year, Nathaniel's cousin Sylvia, which led to the two cousins growing up almost like twins. Nathaniel grew up doted on by his mother, enchanted by his father, devoted to his cousin, and generally very happy.

Beneath the surface, however, things were less idyllic. A younger son with no responsibilities and a great deal of indulgence from his mother and resentful of his brother and wife for having inheritances, Nicholas struggled to maintain a healthy relationship. Their marriage, unsteady from almost the beginning, began to deteriorate after the birth of Nathaniel's younger brother Jeremy. Nicholas swung back and forth between periods of near-unrestrained hedonism and returning home out of guilt, usually showering his wife and sons in gifts when he returned. Cynthia retreated into her boudoir, often taking to her bed with migraines, which led to Nathaniel becoming a nervous, quiet child at home, always anxious about his mother's health. The family maintained a mostly happy front, however, until Nathaniel was nine, when Nicholas had had enough: he eloped to the tropics with his secretary, abandoning his wife and sons and cutting contact with his family.

Overnight, Nathaniel's life was turned upside down. In the tumult, he latched onto remarks made by his mother - that she needed him to be good for her, that she didn't know what she'd do without him - and became determined to always be the perfect son and head of family - to be 'strong,' unlike his 'weak' father who had run from his responsibilities.

Nathaniel did not want to come to Sonora, afraid that this would constitute abandoning his mother, but at the same time did not feel he could refuse to go when that would involve abandoning Sylvia. This conflict became readily apparent when, early in his first year, he caught a magical virus which caused unrestrained bursts of accidental magic; Nathaniel's all involved making objects scream, a manifestation of his suppressed frustration, conflict, and bubbling, deep-seated anger and grief surrounding his relationship with his father, whom he has not seen in years. His illness also led to him striking up cordial associations with individuals Sylvia might have considered less than appropriate, culminating in the time he sent Kir McLeod, scion of a family deeply involved in LGBTQIA+ issues, to let her know Nathaniel had been briefly hospitalized with a fever. On the (slightly) more proper side of things, he also formed an acquaintanceship with German student Heinrich Hexemeister, unaware that Heinrich only came to America because his parents were on trial for murder back in Germany.