Shipwreck Survivor? Castaway?
Son of a Mermaid? Visitor from another planet?
The product of a union between an idealistic father, a UNHCR contractor who happened to be a Dreamspeaker shaman, and an equally idealistic Greenpeace activist mother (who was in addition a Child of Gaia ragabash), Mikkelus grew up in a house where social consciousness and a heart for others was a way of life. That the subtle healing abilities he had been born with were overlooked for much of his young life might seem odd until taking into account his home environment; the more active healing abilities of his father and mother far overshadowed his involuntary efforts.
As he had never been trained in the use of his empathic healing ability, or rather, disengaging the ability, it remains an involuntary reflex to distress or injury due to his Caretaker nature; he knows that if he's not careful, he gets hurt around people, but has no idea why or how. Communicating via the Babel Touch, too, seems perfectly normal to him; when he takes someone's hand to communicate, he's either understood... or not.
Born on the Spring Equinox of '92, Mikkelus has seen little of the world outside a POW camp since 1999 when he was separated from his parents. He remembers nothing about his past. While being held in the facility, he had been subjected to a repeated cycle of memory blocks by his captors which were then eroded by the dream-sendings of people trying to find and free him. This resulted in a fear of sleeping, and sleep deprivation caused a major mental breakdown, a panic induced flight from the camp, and the attack which cost him his voice in an unfortunately public incident in Bordestang. Upon recapture, as per standard operating procedures when dealing with a proven unstable element, the camp staff wiped his mind and personality, replaced them with a baseline maintenance template, and isolated him as a blank slate pending further instructions. (Good biological templates don't come cheap!)
A gangly young male Caucasian, Mikkelus appears to be about 15, give or take a year. At six feet tall and only 125 pounds, he stands equally slim chance of landing a job as either a jockey or heavyweight boxer any time soon, though his loosely fitting clothes go a long way toward masking just how thin he really is.
Casual observation reveals that he seems quite sensitive to the world around him when he's not zoning out. Further observation suggests he may zone out because of extreme sensitivity. Bright light, loud noises, and tumultuous crowds seem to unsettle Mikkelus, causing him distress and discomfort. Strong emotions either draw or repel him, depending on the emotion in question; while being repelled from anger seems perfectly normal, curiously, he is drawn towards sorrow, trying to comfort even complete strangers until their mood improves or shifts to anger and drives him away.
Mikkelus remembers nothing of his parents, his extended family, his childhood, or anything he experienced in the POW camp. Since the events that precipitated the end of the Ascension Wars, his father presumably remains somewhere beyond the Gauntlet. His mother remains in custody as a biological oddity, transferred in 2005 to a facility in the vicinity of Krakow. He has uncles scattered across the globe and beyond, but neither he nor they have any knowledge of the other.
To the Federation of Scientists, Mikkelus is little more than a sample identified as much by number (MCMXCVII) as by name, a somewhat valuable bargaining tool to hold over his parents should the need arise. However, with his parents no longer under direct surveillance and his father a fugitive out beyond the gauntlet, his effectiveness as a tool with which to assure their cooperation is limited. No memory of his parents further reduced his value and made him susceptible to cutbacks and divestitures. For the right price, he's a healthy host body into which a different mind and personality can be projected as dictated economic incentives or by mission requirements.
Placed into sensory deprivation in 2010 to prevent contamination, his baseline personality became self-aware (and adversely affected by bright lights, loud noises, and too much stimulation). Being locked inside one's own mind and body offers a certain familiarity, and from awareness and familiarity comes control; understandably, he developed this self-awareness into control over his body processes, the only thing he could change in isolation..
A combination of politics and budget cuts in the wake of the European financial crisis and forced the Bordestang POW camp to close. To the victors went all equipment and biological assets to be transferred . The ship on which he and the other biological assets were being transported collided with a Greenpeace icebreaker in a dense fog and sank. Mikkelus floated in the lifeboat for over a week in a near-catatonic state before getting tossed out, then drifted for days before washing up on shore of Ireland. Lacking anything like official papers, any coherent memories of how he ended up in the water, where he was going or where he came from, or even how long he drifted prior to washing ashore, the best clue as to his identity comes from the POW jumpsuit, where 'Mikkelus MCMXCVII' had been neatly stenciled over his right breast pocket. .