Madison Reid (anathema)

A precise, driven personality, Mads seems every bit the prim and proper man you would imagine him to be. He’s polite and kind, empathetic but not to the point of taking a maudlin perspective on the world around him. He values the lives and opinions of those around him without ever sacrificing his own confidence and experience. It takes quite a bit to get on his nerves, or even worse drive him to visceral anger, but that long fuse leads to quite a disaster at its end. Stubborn and unyielding, he lets nothing get in the way of his goals, even at the expense of his own morals or good standing. For all of him he offers the world, Madison seems nothing less than admirable.

More frightening than anything else is the simple fact that this might be the truth of him. A good man, buried by the weight of decisions that none should have to make or the expectations of a dynasty. Is it not terrifying, how easily a good man can become a monster? (176 words)

Madison’s story has two beginnings: the first and lesser to Ismérie and Lawrence Reid, his parents by blood and love both. Born to the mixing of two illustrious bloodlines, he lived his childhood as many would covet. With time, wealth, and the patronage of generations, he had the finest education in both head and heart. He had little to desire, and even less to worry after. Had his life kept its track, perhaps he would have become something other than the man he is today. A languorous man of wealth, with nothing more to do than waste away his days, or a man with his head held so high that he would never see the squalor beneath his social standing. In the end, it was his father’s illness and untimely separation from his family that pushed him to use both his head and heart for the betterment of others. He chased a career in medicine not for wealth or fame, but what he considered the greater good.

Of course it could never remain as such. A kind man was of little use to the world around him. Madison's practice was still in its youth when he was sent to the Irvatian Navy, and it is there that he found his second beginning. Life as a sailor taught him little but pain: he bandaged the wounds of the dying; he was the voice telling others they would never be the same again. Each passing year wrought only pain and discomfort, and a yearning for home festered within his chest. It is here that his past has met his future. Home is not so far from him now, with his service seated behind him. The only question that remains is to whether or not he can recall the man he was before. (300 words)