garbagechild | 002. [Video/Action for Goldenrod-- backdated to Christmas morning]

_{[Guess who has no idea what Christmas is, and also can't read worth a damn and therefore has no idea where either of the packages he got came from?]

[THIS KID!]}

GHROOOOO!

Put your head down, Mama, show the screen machine your bow and hat!

_{[A very proud-looking Kangaskhan face pops in front of the camera-- with a long navy-blue scarf tied neatly around her neck in a bow as fancy as a pair of eight-year-old hands can manage.]

[... And there's also a big fluffy sweater on top of her head. The sleeves are pulled over her ears.]

[After everybody's gotten a great look at Mama's sweet new outfit, Wrath's head wiggles into the frame, looking even messier than in his first video, if that's even possible. ... There's another sweater with its sleeves tied around his forehead like a headband.]

[Pretty much the whole screen is dominated by their faces, but judging by the snowflakes stuck in Wrath's hair and the wool of the scarf and sweaters, they're outdoors somewhere.]}

Look! Look, see, how she's even prettier!

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No, why would I want that?

Anyway, I have other things for my arms!

_{[Which he proudly holds up for Blake to see. ... He's wearing long woolen stockings on his arms. They're big enough that they extend all the way up to his shoulders.]

[... At least he probably won't get frostbite?]}

[Blake examines the kid's face for a while, and finds it guileless.] So nobody's ever taught you sarcasm, either.

[His hand comes up to his forehead.] Those are for your...what were you, raised by wolves?

_{[NOPE. Sarcasm is more or less completely lost on Wrath, judging by the way he just sort of... TILTS HIS HEAD CURIOUSLY at the word.]

[But then he says something in total earnestness that probably sounds utterly horrifying coming from the mouth of a small child.]}

No, I was raised by a stupid lady after I died, but she didn't want me, so she tried to unraise me.

Then I came back again and I was a lot bigger.

What are wolves?

After you...

[Great. It's one of those kids. The ones who like telling stories. He's run into those at work plenty of times. His voice gets the overly gentle, patient inflection of someone who is neither of those things.]

Hey. Do you know what the difference between the truth and a lie is?

_{[Wrath blinks, seemingly surprised by what sounds to him like a totally random question.]}

Um, I think so. Doesn't everybody?

Is that what a wolf is?

_{[THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TRUTH AND A LIE? THAT... THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, MISTER, SORRY. :/]}

No, a wolf's an animal like a big dog-- [He rubs his face with his hand.] I mean, I want you to tell me what really happened, not making up stories like saying you died.

[Then again, she could just be phrasing something in a strange way. Shit, he can't leave this alone.]

When you say a lady tried to "unraise" you, what do you mean? She ditched you somewhere?

[Child abandonment, it happens.]

Edited 2015-01-10 03:27 (UTC)

Wh-- I'm not making up stories! Why would I do that?

_{[He's not mad yet. Just indignant. But if Blake continues to imply that he's lying, it's only a matter of time.]}

I have died!

I died when I was born and the lady was sad so she tried to make me alive again.

But when I got there I wasn't what she wanted so she put me back in the Gate.

_{[... Which still more or less sounds like he's describing being abandoned, which isn't untrue, but he's not quite conveying the fact that he was GIVEN BACK TO HELL after first being summoned out of it, essentially.]}

I mean are you sure this wasn't something you saw on TV?

[He tries to piece together what she's talking about. Sounds like she means one of those 'pronounced medically dead for 20 seconds and then revived' sorts of things.

Yeah, the more he untangles it, the girl has a weird way of saying things, but he can work his way around to what she means.]

"The lady..." You mean your mom.

[People not getting the kids they want isn't unheard of, either. Fucked-up world.]

And she put you in an orphanage.

[Must've been one with a big gate in front.]

_{[At that, Wrath actually bristles, that mane of wolfish but (yes, Blake) somewhat feminine hair rising almost like hackles.]}

She's not my mom! I don't have anything to do with her!

She left me in the Gate.

What's an orphanage?

_{[... A pause.]}

... And what's a tee-vee?

Woah. [Blake lifts his hands up.] Calm down, kid.

[Lousy family, then. Well it didn't sound like the Cleavers to begin with.]

An orphanage is where kids without parents go. A...

[His brow crinkles.] Jesus, kid.

[He heaves a deep sigh.] It's a magic box with pictures in it. They have them around here, too.

.... That's where kids without parents go?

_{[He looks thoughtful for a moment. Maybe that's just another name for the Gate. Because he DOESN'T have parents, and he DID go there.]

[This is going to make things 400x more complicated when Lust later tries to FIND an orphanage willing to take him.]

[But for now, Wrath just wrinkles his nose at Blake.]}

I've never seen anything like that back home.

I'm NOT telling STORIES.

Yeah, with somebody to look out for them. That's what taxes are for. Isn't that the kind of place you've been living before you got brought here? A big house?

[Blake's met more than a few people not real acquainted with technology here.] It's a modern invention. You must be from someplace old-timey. What about cars, you know those? Guns? Radios?

Look. Let's start with an easy one. What's your name, kid?

No. That's not where I was at all.

_{[... Okay, Dante technically had a big house, and he did have people looking after him... AND none of them had parents...]

[... Okay maybe THAT was an orphanage. But he's still never heard the term before!]}

I'm Wrath.

And I know about guns and cars.

_{[But nope. No TV.]}

002. [Video/Action for Goldenrod-- backdated to Christmas morning]

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