Here’s some more flavor fiction about my Mage LARP character. This was originally posted on 30 Jun 2006.
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Matthew ran his hands through his hair – now cut much closer to his skull. He put his hat back on, and looked at the therapist’s door. Waiting for his appointment always made him nervous, but today was the worst. Today, he had been assigned the task of telling her what he wanted. Simple thing, right? Answer the question, “What do you want?”

He had been born, effectively, that night that the patterns of Matthew “Math” Smith and Samuel McNally had merged. They had assembled themselves, leaving behind bits of the teenage Math, and filling in gaps left by Samuel’s death. He wasn’t either of them any more; he was a whole person on his own. It had taken weeks of appointments to get to that seemingly simple conclusion, and once he had gotten there, the voices of Math and Samuel that he’d heard in moments of stress or tension had faded away. The therapist had been worth her fees in this alone, but all was not said and done. Oh, no. He led a life that was far too melodramatic for that to be the end of fucked up his mind was.

Even so, he had taken strengths from reaching that point. Math had never really been a Hollower. He had been taken in, and had returned their loyalty, but their bickering and posturing and cattiness had never sat right. No matter how well he fit into goth culture, Math had defined himself far more in regard to his nerdiness than any actual romantic qualities. Oh, sure, he’d risked his life daily in the lion’s den, as he’d spied on Iteration X, but he’d done it simply because that was the only way that he’d known how to contribute. Truth be told, the structure, money, coffee, and benefits of being in the system had been something that he’d really liked. After all that had happened to him and his friends, recently, if he were still Math, there was a very good chance… no, a certainty that he would have chosen the safety of the Technocracy over the constant peril of being a Hollower in Detroit. There was too much danger, too much pain, and too much fear.

The only factor that might have kept Math out of the Big T’s ranks was Lori. She had spied on It.X, as he had. She had been in his building, and had developed this… crush on Math that just wasn’t explainable. She was smarter than him, stronger than him, and faster than him. The only thing that he had seemed to have that she lacked was a remorse when it came to killing. Until recently, anyway. Maybe that’s why she’d disappeared on him.

Samuel, well, he’d die long before he’d ever join the Technocracy. Or the Traditions, for that matter. He was from a long line of mystics. His family had taught its children, through many generations, to Awaken, much like many Traditions did with their Acolytes. His wife had been an Orphan; she’d popped without training or tutors, and had burned herself out in the process. She had been a beautiful, brilliant woman. We had wanted children since the wedding. Something was wrong; no matter how much we tried, we couldn’t get pregnant. The universe heard us, though, and it wasn’t long after we purchased our first house that children – those who were in need of help, both conventional and mystical – began to find us. Many were abused, homeless, or hungry. So many had felt driven from the homes of their birth. It took only two years for us to have so many children on our hands that we needed to hire help of the Awakened variety. It was a natural progression to establishing the first orphanage. And each time that we moved, leaving a fully functional orphanage behind us, it would start all over again. My calling, my… Samuel’s job in the world was handed to him on a silver platter. Even through the Technocracy attacks and Tradition recruitment drives – there was little difference – his children were kept safe, and allowed to come to whatever the universe had in store for them in a place that was home.

Then Samuel came to Detroit, and the miraculous happened. Without medicine and without magic, they were going to have a baby. A little girl, whose sleeping Avatar was as brilliant and fiery as her mother’s. They raised her, after building a house on top of a curious Shallowing into the world of the dead. In all the time that Samuel raised his little girl, no local children came knocking on the door. Oh, he wondered if it was because of the Shallowing, or Iteration X, and sometimes he felt a bit guilty for those that surely needed his help, but at his core, he was simply grateful for Susie. This was a sign, he would often say to himself. This was a sign that Detroit was different. It would be foolish, still, to reach out to the Tradition chantries. Neither the Choristers nor the Euthanatoi would do anything but meddle, as far as Samuel was concerned. The Hollowers were an option, but with Lori among one of their cliques, well… she hadn’t seen him since she’d left the orphanage out east, and she was seemingly clueless about her look-alike who was living in her old room.

Samuel had decided to reach out as a sleeper would. He tried to use his money and influence, not to mention his reputation as a philanthropist, to slowly fight those that were far more evil than the Technocracy – the Sabbat and the Black Spiral Dancers. Detroit didn’t end up being as different as Samuel had hoped, and he’d been killed for his trouble. As had his wife. Susie would have been dead, too, if it wasn’t for Soundwave, Lori, Lisa, and Math showing up and trying to help. After that, his memories were only from Math until their patterns had been joined. He had stumbled and flailed while trying to reach that perceived platform of “fatherhood” that he so worshipped in Susie’s memories of Samuel. He had never felt that what had been inside him had been enough. And that feeling of inadequacy had found its way into his current incarnation, so to speak.

The Technocracy, Iteration X if he were naming names, plowed through the meager defenses that had surrounded the orphanage. They had immediately and successfully disabled everyone in the house, and had rounded them up. They had placed some sort of mind control device on his head and forced him to shoot his best friend in the face; though somehow Soundwave had escaped. They had forced him to shoot Susie as well, though he couldn’t remember any blood, only a flash of light. The two boys, though. He had definitely splattered -their- brains all over the wall. And then he had done the same to Joy. He had blacked out, then. When he had come to, the blood had been gone. The gore had been cleaned up. The bodies had been disposed of. All of his computers and devices had been taken, including the time machine. He had been left. He hadn’t been important enough to take for interrogation, or to be killed with his family.

Lori had been important to them. As had Luna. That’s why they’d put that implant in him – the one that had never been there in the first place. So, they’d left him there, more alone than he’d ever been, and waited for him to contact the last person that he really cared about. He’d remarked to the therapist about the irony involved in feeling so very stereotypically sorry for himself, and claiming not to be a Hollower. And even though he’d rebuilt a rig that would make a Virtual Adept proud, and even though he had been visited by Lori in the night, and even though she had helped train him to shoot, he still felt a wall between them.

The therapist had asked him tough questions. Did he still love Lori? Had he really been in love, or had it been infatuation? What attachment did he have any more to the orphanage? Was he fit to guard the Shallowing in the cellar? Was he fit to guard the new node at the church? Why had he craved the blood of that Nephandus? Why was his only regret not seeing the man Gilguled before he pulled the trigger? Why did he still desire to end life?

What did he want?

Tough questions. While they had worked through his desire for revenge, and had established that there was no need to be a lonely martyr to protect whoever might love him, he was still unsure as to what he really wanted. Math would have wanted to go back to the way things had been before Midas showed his face in Detroit. Or, he’d want to chase down Soundwave. Or, he’d want to lose himself in Lori. All, when it came down to it, escapes from the world around him. Samuel would want to rebuild. He’d want to bring in a new staff, open the doors publicly, and seal off the Shallowing. He would want to do everything that was within his power to keep both orphanage and church safe. He would want to be a father again.

But what was it that he wanted?

He wanted to be calm again. He wanted to not flip out every time one of them went off and risked their life doing something incredibly stupid and dangerous. He wanted to care, but be able to let go. He wanted to help people, but still be assured in himself enough to not live in fear. He wanted to take the time to get to know who he really was.

“Mr. McNally?” He looked up and met the eyes of his therapist’s secretary. “She’s ready to see you now.”

He nodded and stood up. He opened the door to his therapist’s office, and sat down in his usual chair. He let himself relax as she asked the inevitable question.

“So, Matthew, what do you want?”