Nathan

Nathan, known commonly through patronising nicknames, is an 18-year-old ranger for the New World Order. He is one of the major POV characters. He has no known siblings. Nathan was raised at Canterbury in 2201.

Appearance and Character
Nathan wears himself scruffy and unkempt, despite his access to regular clothing. This is due to his rangings, in which his clothing typically gets damaged and stops replacing them. He commonly wears a padded grey beanie that becomes worn and torn with age. His most notable clothing is a winter coat with a tactical vest, makeshift metal pauldrons, fingerless gloves, cargo trousers with knee guards and combat boots. He is clean-shaven while in Canterbury, but lets stubble grow during his time in the wild.

Nathan is habitually reserved and guarded, belying a somewhat ambitious personality through nervous sentiments and actions. He can also be prone to impulsive decisions if in a high emotional state, resulting in hindsight self-doubt and adding to his guilty conscience. He is usually gentle and compassionate, possessing a strong sense of empathy for others, which is exacerbated by his tendency to hesitate during combat situations. His most notable attribute to his personality is his profound naivety, so much so that other accents and animals are considered alien to him, along with the workings of assault rifles and other weaponry, in which he is regularly mocked for by Hamish McAllister and other members of the New World Order, including his eventual love interest, Caitlin. Nathan is said, by his mother, to strongly resemble his father in terms of his features.

He is physically fit and lean, with his daily toil at the farm playing a significant part in his athletic nature. His physical appearance is described to be his most reliable trait, being able to carry multiple weapons and a full backpack with little-to-no complaining. After a few years and numerous traumatic experiences, Nathan becomes increasingly mentally unstable and turns more violent than normal, though his problems are more in his head, with guilt blinding his judgement. After his first human kill, Nathan is horrified by his actions and starts questioning his moral compass and humanity.

History
Born in New Yorkshire at 2201, Nathan is bred at the repurposed town of Muker, named Canterbury to honour the late location. He grew to be a cheerful child and popular within the community, and took up the task of farming since his tenth year. He also has a fondness for horses due to his time grooming them for the rangers, especially with a dapple horse named Duchess, which Nathan later uses to leave Canterbury.

At some point during Nathan’s boyhood, his father joins the Canterbury Rangers. Three years before the main story and when Nathan was fifteen, his father left on a scouting expedition and never returned. Despite his mother eventually accepting his death, Nathan struggles to share her mindset and holds out hope that he is indeed still alive somewhere.

Due to his strong naivety of the outside world, Nathan possessed a certain arrogant form of bravado, believing he alone could master the wild if only he were let outside. This is noticed by Nathan’s crop-master Winona, and frequently tells him that he will not survive should he leave. Nathan continuously ignores this, believing there can be a flourishing future for humanity if the wild was tamed.