Lotus and Allium:Said Background

Background for Saïd Mechkar, Power of Perfection

Saïd followed his mom from Algeria to France, in search for his father, and running from intolerance. In lieu of an eldorado, they found more hardships and bigotry. Saïd's mom, Soumia, was soon submerged by the work she needed to afford the rent, her son's education and other utilities, leaving her no time or ressources for her original goals.

From his mom's example, Saïd worked harder than anyone else at school to earn acceptance. After all if nothing he did had faults, no one could point to these faults. In a way, this worked for him: his hard work let him into a good high school, an even better prep school and eventually to L'école Polytechnique. In a way, this destroyed him: he repressed his feelings to the point they barely registered anymore, and faked most of those he needed to fit in people's expectations.

At Polytechnique, he used his newly perfected charms to endear himself to the successful kids, and integrate various old boys networks, and put it to use to start his company. During his last year there, he discovered that the few feelings he could not keep down would flood him, break down the wall, and take control of him. First when he fell in love with the school director's daughter; then, when she got married. Despite years spent pleasing her and her family, they never got past their prejudice. So, when an obscure clerk named Henry Vernouillet, seemed interested in her, and she seemed to like him, her father arranged an express wedding.

For five years, Saïd burned every favor he was owed and every bit of influence he'd gained, to ruin Henry's work, get him in compromising situations, make him a bitter drunk whom Hélène couldn't stay with.

And as he successed, about to take steps to regain Hélène, he was enNobled.

The new perspective this brought Saïd broke his mind. Getting a seemingly limitless power led his hubris to take control and fulfil as many power trips as possible.

First, he anchored his love to “preserve” her. Then, his rival to “teach” him. He then moved on, organizing a hostile take over on the financial group that was about to buy his company, and again to a physical attack of their headquarters (the incident involved dozens humans, some died, and the small city where this happened disappeared and few remember it).

The escalation went on and on, including attacks against figures of authority (and oppression, in Saïd’s mind), such as the police, until Saïd realized that what he really wanted was to punish daddy.

François de Roche Dieu wasn’t the easy target Saïd had feared. An active and powerful excrucean agent, he was able to first evade, then resist his son’s assault for seven weeks. Each year taught Saïd a different lesson, until his broken mind was mended, and he realized the consequences of his actions.

The first week, François taught Saïd about his humanity, what Saïd had lost, and how it made him who he was. The second week, the father taught his son about his divinity, what Saïd had gained, how it made him more than he could dreams. The third week was a lesson in aspirations, dreams and hope, how it drive us from our humanity toward our divinity, and how it can crush us. And thus, the fourth week was a lesson in pain: pain inflicted and pain endured. The fifth week was a lesson of faith, how it is all that subsists when pain has taken everything else away. The sixth week, Saïd received a lesson in tolerance and acceptance, not only of others, but of yourself.

Noone knows how the conflict with his father ended, what was taught the seventh week, or who (if anyone) won. Some suspect Saïd to have turned coat, or to have been replaced, some say he killed his father, some say he just left, dropping the ball in the middle of a fight. Today, Saïd is back to his old, unassuming ways. He doesn't think of perfection as something he controls or reigns over, but as something he must attain, therefore he tries hard, really hard to be perfect, to conform to anyone's idea of perfection. On the other hand, he is mortally afraid to lose it again, and go back rampaging, so he overthinks everything (and given how much he's developped his mind, overthinking can take a long time) and questions himself a lot.

His aura is therefore not as impressive as it should be, and even his servant question him openly sometimes. On the other hand, he's developed his ability to blend in, and to be the person people most expect to an almost unheard of level.