Personality

Näkki is mellow, relaxed, patient, optimistic, observant, playful, whimsical, lazy and fickle. Most of the time they are nice (albeit a bit passive) company, as long as you can convince them you wouldn't be a good meal. Forming a strong bond to them takes a lot of time though, as they have been used to very small social circle (if you even can call their seal pack that) and mostly taking care only of themselves. Deep down they are also very afraid of losing anyone close to them, which makes them wary of getting too attached to new people.

Appearance

Näkki is a cold water Vetehi, which means they grow and age very slowly. On top of that living in a rather small body of water and eating mainly fish for years has certainly affected their growth: despite being nearly a hundred years old young adult, they are only a bit over 3 meters long.

The coloration of Näkki is a mixture of turquoise shades and bubble-like patterns. Their hair is mainly short, except for a thin braid starting from their neck. They have only a few stones attached to their scales because they were taken from home at such a young age. A couple of "pearl strings" around their neck are made from the same material as their scale decorations.

The official traits of Näkki are:

• Arctic subtype
• Coral horns (common)
• Webbed hands (common)
• Basic back spikes & lower fins (common)
• Basic paddles (common)
• Basic tail tip with tail fins (common)
• Basic gems (common)

Life

Näkki was born in the Southern parts of Arctic ocean, somewhere close to Russian coastline. They spent the first few years of their life in a small family group of Vetehi, but soon they ended up getting caught by poachers as they were still young and inexperienced and failed to evade their nets. They were sold and transported to a Finnish aquarium, where they were kept for a while. Life in the aquarium was boring and lonely, but at least the growing Vetehi was fed well enough. They also had a chance to observe humans properly for the first time during this time period.

But then the World War II started and turned young Näkki's life upside down once again. After long negotiations they were loaded into a truck in order to move them abroad to get them farther away from the front lines of war. The trip was interrupted though, by - what else than - the war itself. A grenade exploded by the truck and damaged the vehicle as well as the container Näkki was in. The drivers had only two choices: either let the Vetehi die or drop it into the lake close by and hope the owner of the beast some day gets a chance to catch it from there. They chose the latter option, and so Näkki was released into lake Saimaa.

Näkki was once again free and the rest of the war affected their life fairly little. Their owner also was never heard of again, but Näkki did get into contact with other humans every once in a while, and from those meetings they got all of their numerous names: some called them Vellamo or Piruparka or even just Piru, but most commonly heard was Näkki, which the Vetehi liked the most, too. They tried to catch humans as well as Saimaa Ringed Seals living in the lake whenever they could, but eventually they grew more lonely than hungry. It took a couple of seal generations to completely gain their trust, but eventually Näkki was pretty much adopted into the seal community, where they live even this day. Humans who happen to meet them aren't as lucky as seals, though; those the Vetehi still sees mainly as prey.

Tidbits

• Näkki doesn't know their biological sex even themselves. They have been so long away from the company of other Vetehi that the concepts of sex and gender feel very distant and vague for them. Näkki feels it's like asking if your hair is long or short from a person who has never seen another human; they can't compare their hair to anyone else's and therefore can't really know the answer.
• Näkki takes good care of their seal buddies, releasing them from nets and attacking any human who seems to be a threat to them.

About the character

• Created in 2017.
• Näkki's origin is somewhat interesting: they belong into a closed species Vetehi, which was created by Caine, but this particular design was made by Nacarat and then I myself even modified the character a bit more to better suit my taste.
• It doesn't really matter what sort of pronouns you use of Näkki, as there aren't even gendered pronouns in the language they use.
• The original character info was: "A vetehi who prefers colder water, you can spot them jumping through the ocean." Also their name in the adoptable set was Sea Foam.