Lenard spent his days in a symphony of hums and clicks, the rhythmic pulse of the city's aetheric grid. As a Mechatronics Engineer, his hands-on work was a blend of precision and intuition, a dance between logic and the low-level magical energy that powered their world. He could feel the flow of the mana; the same way a musician could feel the vibrations of their instrument. But lately, the song had gone stale. It was just noise, just another job.
He stared at a diagnostics screen, watching the patterns of an energy conduit fluctuate. The machine, a complex assembly of gears and glowing fiber-optics, was a wonder of modern science and ancient magical principles. A few years ago, the sight would have filled him with a quiet joy. Now, it was just a problem to be solved. He was an expert at fixing things, at making complex systems run smoothly. But when he looked at his own life, he saw only a mess of broken circuits and disconnected wires.
His mind drifted, as it always did, to the past. He remembered the eager young man who believed in love, who thought life would be an elegant blueprint, perfectly drawn and executed. Life, he had learned, was a series of glitches. The rejections were like fatal errors, one after another, each one corrupting a little more of his hope. His last relationship had been the final straw, a system crash that had left him with nothing but a blank, unreadable screen.
Later that evening, the inevitable call came from his mother.
"Lenard, your father and I met another lovely young woman today. A healer's daughter, very kind. You must meet her."
The words were a hammer blow, hitting the same sore spot. He could hear the desperate hope in his mother's voice, the echo of a strict love he had finally, after countless rejections, come to understand. He knew they had done their best, two young parents trying to shield their son from the harshness they knew. Their harshness wasn't cruelty; it was a clumsy attempt to build a foundation so he wouldn't have to struggle. Their pressure was their love, their unique way of trying to save him. He had finally forgiven them for the years of emotional distance and the quiet trauma it had left behind.
But understanding didn't change the outcome. It didn't fix the man he had become.
"I can't, Mom," he said, the words feeling heavy and true. "I'm not doing that anymore."
He hung up, the silence of his apartment a welcome relief. For so long, he had felt like a passenger in his own life. But in that moment, staring at the muted cityscape, he made a decision. He would not chase a future that had only caused him pain. He would not find love in a world that had rejected him.
Instead, he would create it. He would use his life, his energy, and everything he had to give to someone who needed it. He would find a child who, like him, had been given a rough start. He would build a perfect, unbroken life for them, a world of safety and happiness.
And for the first time in a very long time, as the city's magical hum surrounded him, Lenard felt a strange, flickering sense of peace.