Mateo

Mateo is a young vetehi of a rather peculiar circumstance. 

When he was just a toddler he was caught in a fishing net and brought to a local fish market to be sold. The fish monger believed perhaps a rich person might come along wanting to buy the young vetehi as a delicacy or trophy. However, the man who did purchase Mateo was more interested in keeping him alive and well. Mateo was purchased by a scientist who would from that day on act as a father figure to him...

The scientist cared  for a raised Mateo as if he were his own son. He had initially lost his wife and child to a plague which had swept the land some time back, and due to this loss became very lonely and just a bit overprotective. Given Mateo's young age at the time he was purchased, he remembers little of the events which transpired and the scientist keeps him content by feigning ignorance as to what he is, and simply leaving it as he rescued the vetehi from potentially being butchered in a meat market.

Mateo himself is extremely naive and sheltered, living in a large basement aquarium and laboratory that appears to have housed other large marine life such a dolphins or even smaller varieties of whale at some point. Since he knows little of his roots,or what vetehi are in general, he is more than content with his simple life and regards the old scientist as family since he taught him everything that he knows and educated him on the world around him.

Mateo's hobbies include reading fiction, especially fairytales, and playing the occasional game of chess with the scientist; otherwise he is happy to swim about in his giant tank and daydream. When not in his giant tank such as during meals or when playing games/reading he stays inside of a large bathtub full of water- (the scientist will sometimes jokingly refer to him as a 'bathtub mermaid'). The only times Mateo is truly fussy or grouchy is when it comes to the matter of meals... He prefers to have fish and chicken, but given he is at the mercy of what the old scientist offers, sometimes dinner meat entail beef or pork (which he despises most of all)...