Mateo de Leon

[Mateo]

"I could always see the image of one hopeful man, so turned by hopelessness, clear skin soon being filled with bruises . . . a bright smile whipped into a sullen frown. Free hands were filled with objects to gratify the master's will, my existence becoming a supplement to another." A forward man who seems to act based on desire for social gratification; by his demeanor, you would naturally assume him to be charismatic and humorous. That is the Mateo that most people witness, when honestly, he's not defined so simply. In terms of basic appearance, Mateo is a man of six feet and six inches in his Ethaefal Form. He is of an athletic build, with a roguish figure and fairly classy attire. His hair and eye color vary. His horns tend to face backward and point upwards, rather than wrapping around his ears or over his forehead like a circlet. He stands with a proud and calculated posture, always trying to present confidence and prestige. During the night where his Ethaefal form is diminished, he looks equally as masculine but more "muscular", slightly shorter, and with more rugged features. Due to the nature of his position, he often abuses this dual appearance of his to seem more approachable or less intimidating to potential witnesses and clients. He is also known for speaking more politely and sweetly depending on his appearance. He appears to be an adult male, and he landed on 506 AV, 8th of Winter. "You long for their approval, the smile on their face that lets you know that you did well.." Mateo has always been a conflict of extremes; an interest in manipulation, seduction, dark magics, and cults, followed by a desire for kindness and equity and an immovable fortitude to do what is good. It is due to his dual natures that he struggles in a world where he is no longer distinguished as he was before, feeling himself constantly at the mercy of his darker and more curious half. His moral conflicts are endless inside of his head. Some would even say that this sort of affliction is something that could be considered a psychological disease -- not a dual personality, but perhaps a borderline one. Mateo displays an infinite quantity of positive emotion, joy, all the luster of a star. He is exceptionally good at making people smile, empathizing with them, showing them how they are at their best. He is also quite easily capable of betraying and destroying them in a fit of anger or for fear of his own safety. He's certainly not one to make into an enemy, even if only to deal with his games. He is always playing a game. His instability is a hurricane of many faces. One thing to point out, however, is that Mateo is far from a bad person. He is . . . actually, a good man, one with an unfortunate predilection towards corrupting forces. "I am what I am." It's a simple line that people repeat -- often, and without discretion. I have always found terms like this idiotic, redundant, or self explanatory. I have then used a different term: "I am what I appear to be." Sometimes, "I am what I strive to not conceal." These words are perhaps less all-knowing, like the redundant aforementioned term, but they are also specific enough to describe a man such as myself. I would never call myself a bad person, because I am not. I suppose I would say I am no worse than anyone else in this world, though often I wonder if I should strive to be better. It's something of a game, my mind, a competition of morality between the interior and exterior. Will the real me reveal itself, although it is conniving, or will the darkness dance in the shadows where it belongs? This destructive duality between moral and amoral first began to ravage my body upon my awakening in this place . . . Mizahar. I can't imagine how it happened, but I was taken from a place of peace and thrown into chaos. Unlike the Forsaken, I do not believe I was abandoned or thrown into the ocean by my master. I am a son of Syna as I always was, but things have become complicated. Although I believe I was always a brilliant man with a kind heart, I always had an impulse that strangled me and left me somewhat detached from my God. I appeared in this world once more by the harbor of Zeltiva, and have since then adopted a life here. Originally I was taken care of by an old Svefra man named Gava-Shel, who believed it was his sacred duty to Syna to help me integrate back into this world. Since then, I have begun to broach my skills in diplomacy and managing human interactions, as well as the art of subterfuge and negotiations. This is the way I was before, to be honest, but this time -- for entirely different reasons. History with Gava: 48th of Summer, 509 AV It was a midsummer morning along the pier. The earth and every common sight was lined across the horizon far past the Labyrinth of Time. The sun was to set in an hour and rise at the break of dawn, the sky's shade being slowly painted over from pink to grey to black to grey to pink. It was an average day, honestly, in the port city of Zeltiva, and yet it was made especially important for two men: Mateo and Gava-Shel. One, Mateo, was an Ethaefal man who had been plunged into the sea some time ago and forced to swim to shore. Gava-Shel was the man who found him, naked along the sand, an old fisherman who had never before felt so touched by God. It was always a wonder by which side he was touched; by Her gracious fingers, smooth against his cheek, or His back hand, keeping him away. Ever since he had accepted Mateo into his home and his life, he had been at conflict with these two extremes, driven by fear and superstition. Before Mateo had come, Gava was a simple man with no legacy to leave behind, but a strong heart and a desire to provide for his city. He would stroll about the streets and speak to his neighbors, whether they be young boys and girls, students at the University, or elderly little strollers like himself. By the time he had taken Mateo in, the mundane life of hellos and goodbyes had already begun to take a toll on him. He was nearly eighty now, living far longer than most, though fewer than some . . . his body had begun to decay, he'd started to lose his ability to walk, everything falling apart. His fine and healthy condition and his firmly beating heart had begun to waver. He'd awake at night with the inability to breathe, he could barely stand on two feet, and he had to have the Ethaefal help him just to go to the bathroom. As time went on things grew harder, surely, more impossible every single day. What was his name? He knew. His son who had died alongside his mother, on the route to Kalea? His name slipped his mind. And what of that neighbor, the one with the rosy balcony and the six fat cats? Was she not his sweetheart back so long ago? He felt as if he forgot most things, and made some things up to play at sanity. He abandoned many dreams that he could still accomplish, though played at the impossible even as he could barely move. As his life began to fade, his reliance on the man who had blessed him and cursed him began to increase. Mateo was always with him when he was not working, always by his side waiting for a word of request. When asked why he lived like this, he'd say, because you saved me, Gava-Shel, or, You're like a father to me. It maddened him. Everything since the moment of the arrival of this sky-torn man had been so impossible to overcome. It was difficult to allow his heart to keep moving on, keep caring, keep dreaming that he could have a happy future. Instead . . . he only hoped and dreamed that he'd be let off easily, have a painless death, enjoy his final moments. And wasn't that so sad? A part of him felt that perhaps Mateo sensed that, and that was why he had always clung to his side. He felt that maybe he was his blessing. Without this man falling, would he not have succumbed to Dira years ago? Who would have given him the strength to keep staying alive? "Mateo," he broke the silence. They had been quietly staring out into the ocean, the coastline that lay beyond the rocks that secluded this city. The name was enough to say for a moment, until he reclaimed his breath. "It's time for you to move on from me," he said, gathering his strength. "Every day I feel my heart closing in. I feel the scythe of the Goddess clenching me by the neck. It will be over for me soon. I will not have you suffer the sight of my decline." He coughed into his open palms, the man beside him frowning as he held his 'father' by the back. "It was a good bout," the old man said. "I had my time with Syna and her child. I lived in the light of the sun and basked in it. I have lived a worthwhile life. Let it not become a pain near the very end." - He sat silent in a seat across from his bed where Stella, a friend of his, had been sitting. She had been asking Mateo for advice and relaying her thoughts to him on a University experiment she'd been assigned to, the two of them talking somewhat jovially about anything ranging from logical banter to their past experiences. They laughed, smiled, and sometimes closed their eyes just to bear the pain. Eventually the conversation gravitated towards a central focus: the end of Gava's life, and the fear that he would leave behind. "He's always been a wonderful man, with a beautiful soul," Stella recalled, a smile stuck on her face. "When I was a little girl, I remember losing my mother's necklace. It fell past the pier and into the water. Even though he was probably sixty-five years old back then, he plunged in and found it for me. I'll never forget him for who he was. But that's all gone now. Life burns brightly and then life washes away. You can't save him. Your expectations only hurt yourself." She stepped off the bed, ran her feet atop the wooden floor and made her way to grasp Mateo's hands. She didn't care if he wanted her to, she needed to console him. It may have been a sense of fate or it may have been intuition . . . somehow, she knew that the old man was to die today. "Sometimes I dream of a day where I'm out in the world and experiencing something new. Something beautiful. I can smile and laugh at the thought but then I think more calmly and I just see . . . him. He's sitting there, staring at me, the life fading from his eyes." He frowned, staring into the light of the lantern, avoiding the gaze of the girl so that he wouldn't feel more than he desired to. Somehow, people always weakened him. The view of their brooding gaze left him paralyzed and vulnerable. He knew that if he let himself become vulnerable now, he'd give up and would never be able to protect Gava-Shel the way he had. Even thinking as he did now, the hesitation that came with it, it all scared him. The girl caught that, and desperately sought to meet contact with the always-changing color of his eyes. When she finally got him to look at her right, she smiled faintly by the curve of her lips and sought to let him confide in her. "You want to see the world, don't you? The fires of Ivak and the frosted wastes of Morwen . . . I know how you dream of such things. And isn't that quite the alternative? You work day in and day out to sustain yourself and the old man. You've resorted to lies and secrets just to pay for a loaf of bread. We met because you were trying to convince me of some miracle powder, weren't you? I thought you were so ridiculous, but on second thought, your conviction amazed me. You would give everything you have for the sake of keeping this man from the jaws of death. Why?" The woman's gaze grew more intense. She was... trying to get to him, invade his thoughts, unveil something. He felt that look in her eyes pierce the back of his skull. He had never given himself time to answer the difficult questions. It had always been clouded in a sense of duty. He wasn't sure why anything was the way it was, only that it happened and that he'd have to endure it. He looked down, his long black bangs covering his vision. "I don't know." And yet-- "And yet you do," she said. "You've been living like this because it would hurt you too much to live any other way. You've been faced with danger in the day and starvation during the night for years, even as the divine being that you are. You're such a bright man, Mateo, and you dream of so many things. You dream of the skies and the stars, reuniting with your mother and dancing in the gardens of Paradise. More than anything, though . . . you long for the touch of another. It completes you. You long for their approval, the smile on their face that lets you know that you did well. You've made yourself into a pariah to meet this end. But by the break of dawn, Gava's life will be over, while yours will require consideration." The woman, as she spoke, had been relaxing the man's body and clearing his mind of trouble. She had rejuvenated him, made him feel for once the sort of peace he'd envisioned. That was what Mateo wanted in his heart - for Gava's last day to be one of peace. Even though she spoke such ambitious words, he couldn't find himself hesitant. Instead, only one question crossed his mind. "How do you know . . . what you do?" "It's simple," she laughed, "I'm your friend." Hours later, he found himself praying by the bedside of his dying 'father', enduring one last dream, one of miracles and happily ever-afters . . . a moment of resolution, an eternal peace. He touched the old fisherman on his brittle hands, and felt so strongly in his heart that what he finally wanted was for his son to be there with him, smiling, as he watched the world end in his eyes. And so Mateo did. He found a chair, strengthened his heart, and sat over Gava while reading a book to keep his thoughts calm. The last thing the old man ever witnessed was a joyful tear crash against the surface of a page, Mateo watching his father die and be at peace. The midsummer sun rose with the break of dawn, as if the Goddess was signifying the end of suffering and the beginning of life. Fluent Language: Common Basic Language: Kontinese Poor Language: Fratava Skill EXP Total Proficiency Leadership #10 RB # 10 Novice Law #26 SP # 26 Competent Politics # 10 SP # 10 Novice Negotiation # 9 SP # 9 Novice Intelligence # 5 SP # 5 Novice Lore of Svefra Culture Lore of Trade Laws: Zeltiva 1 Set of Clothing -Simple Shirt -Simple Pants -Simple Undergarments -Simple Cloak -Simple Boots 1 Waterskin 1 Backpack which contains: -Comb (Wood) -Brush (Wood) -Soap -Razor -Balanced Rations (1 Week’s Worth) -1 eating knife -Flint & Steel 600 Gold Mizas Heirloom: Torc (exquisite, 50gm worth), given by Gava-Shel Location: Zeltiva Residence: World's End Grotto (Inn) Purchase Cost Total Starting +100 GM 100 GM House Cash-In +500 GM 600 GM