route_1065 | Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood.

Yes, it's me. Guttle can't open doors by himself, he doesn't have fingers. Or hands or arms. I can do my work just as easily here as in the living room.

[Lust keeps her voice quiet and neutral, and opens a notebook in her lap, her attention on that rather than Wrath. Guttle continues to roll in wild circles around his small human friend.]

_{[She's not being threatening.]

[In fact, she's being the total opposite.]

[... But she IS Lust. Lust is sneaky. She could be trying to lull him into a false sense of security. Eyes narrowing, he sits down himself, reaching out to try and absently pat Guttle every time he rolls close enough. 8( IT'S NOTHING PERSONAL ROUND BLUE FRIEND, HE JUST HAS TO KEEP AN EYE ON THE TRAITOR.]

[At this point, the others had mostly gotten Wrath to the point that-- while still not willing to renounce his loyalty to Dante-- he'd grudgingly accepted the genuine, if severely misguided, nature of their intentions. But Lust, he's still pretty sure is his enemy forever.]

[He stays silent for some time, but eventually he can't help but ask--]}

... Aren't you worried at all that I'll stop you from doing your traitor work?

_{[SHE'S SO CALM. IT'S BUGGING HIM OUT!!!]}

[Lust lifts her eyebrows and regards Wrath with a mild look.]

I can't imagine you have any great investment in stopping me writing the second half of my radio play.

[She intends to remain calm. She had been angry at him a month ago, but even in her rage she knew it wasn't his fault. By now, she doesn't care about all of that. It's worked out for the best, in the end.]

And even if for some reason you do, I can just re-write it. I know what's going to happen.

_{[Wrath has no freaking idea what a 'radio play' is, in fact those two words seem completely unrelated. So he frowns for a moment, brow furrowing as he tries to connect them in some possible way... and then gives up. There are more important questions to be asked than whatever weird traitor business she's getting up to.]

[May as well stop beating around the bush.]}

When are you going to kill me, then?

_{[Scar hadn't, but Scar also was not a Homunculus, and ALSO had not killed Wrath at any point in time before. The kid kind of had an easier time accepting HIS word for it.]}

I'm not.

[Lust flips a page in her notebook, continuing to act as though she's just discussing Pokemon traits or some other mundane subject.]

I don't kill people anymore. I don't like it. I never liked it. I only did it because I'd been told I had to and didn't know anything else. Beyond that, you're a child and a guest in my home and for those two reasons alone I wouldn't do any harm to you.

[She finally looks up at him.]

I've dealt with what anger I held toward you, Wrath. Believe it or not, it's the plain truth.

... But I ruined your alliance.

And I still belong to Master!

You--

... you not killing me doesn't make any sense!

_{[He's still really struggling to reconcile what he knows from 'home' with everything that's different here. But at least he's moved to the point of TRYING to reconcile it instead of just covering his ears and screaming a lot.]}

Ruined my...?

[Lust is puzzled a moment before it clicks. She shakes her head and folds her hands over her notebook on her lap, not moving from the steps.]

Are you talking about when Scar and I broke up over what you told him? We're back together, you didn't ruin anything. And you belong to no one. None of us do. We're no different than...Pokemon who had the misfortune of being taken by a terrible trainer.

[Lust thinks maybe she's on to something here. Possibly.]

You have a team of Pokemon. How do you treat them? You're kind to them, aren't you? You treat them like friends?

_{[... OH. WELL THEN. That is news to him!]

[He'd learned largely through listening at the basement door that Scar and Lust had broken up to begin with, but lately he hadn't been lurking at the top of the stairs like a horrible gremlin as much as he had in the beginning. SO.]

[Her likening them to Pokemon has him frowning again-- not in insult, just. Thoughtful perplexity.]}

Wh... of course I do. They ARE my friends!

_{[... Well, not DIRTY, but. :I]}

They're also living things that are different than you, but follow you and listen to you and are dependent on you for their care and happiness. They belong to you, you can treat them however you'd like. But you treat them well, because that's the right way to treat other living things. Especially living things you hold complete power over.

[Lust's attention is fully on Wrath now. She crosses her ankles and keeps her hands folded, her voice low but taking on an informative sort of tone.]

Now think about that. And then think about how our Master treated us.

_{[As much as Wrath is really not great at abstract thought, this is probably the most accessible way anyone has explained it to him thus far. "She was terrible and we can have better now" and "I won't let her get you!!" are both good, touching, genuine sentiments... but not ones that he's in much of a position to absorb the way he needs to.]

[She can probably see the cogs turning in his little head as he listens.]}

... But she was the only one who took care of us... accepted us! Of-- of course she was mean when we were bad.

That's what you do to bad things.

I'm pretty bad a lot of the time and-- and so are YOU!

Why shouldn't she treat us that way?

My Pokemon are good so of course I'm nice to them!

But we aren't bad, Wrath. We've both done bad things, but those things we've done that were truly bad...were the things she had us do. I know she told us no one else would accept us. I believed that for a very long time. But it was a lie. There were people...but she made sure we couldn't be influenced by anyone else or learn anything different.

[She's certain she's on to something now. She has to be careful, though.]

If one of your Pokemon would be happier in the wild, or with another trainer, and wanted to find that, would you hunt them down and hurt them and lock them up so they couldn't try and leave you again? If one of your Pokemon lost a battle, would you punish them because they didn't win like they're expected to? Would you use your Pokemon to hurt innocent people, and hurt them if they didn't want to do that?

--That wasn't her fault! People knew I was bad before I ever met our Master. They knew I was bad before I even knew I was bad!

_{[But the Pokemon comparisons get him to fall quiet again, and judging by the look of slowly-growing panic on his face, he's already running out of arguments to make. Because no, of course he wouldn't hurt or lock up his Pokemon! He didn't even do that to Dirty, unless you counted pulling on her ears sometimes.]

[He doesn't have an answer to that one.]}

You're not bad, Wrath. You never even knew there was such a thing as 'bad' until someone else told you. You're just ignorant, and that's hardly your fault.

[Lust sighs and rests her chin in her hands. She can tell her explanations are getting through to him, in some way.]

I didn't have any life before I was with our old Master. I believed all the same things as you, until I started to notice that the things our Master told me didn't always match up to my experiences in the world. And then I started to remember bits of my human life, and after...a series of eye opening events, I didn't want to belong to our Master anymore. I wanted to be with Scar. And I didn't run until she found out, and decided Scar would die. And you know full well what was done to me for that.

[She pauses a moment. There's much more involved, but Wrath is a child and she's attempting to be demonstrative.]

Just because I wanted to leave to be with someone else.

_{[He ceases his attempts to pet Guttle and just puts his hands on the floor, awkwardly patting it like he often does when he's anxious or thinking.]}

But-- if you hadn't tried to run, she wouldn't have done that to you!

You know what she always told us, that it was for our own good!

_{[Remembering bits of her human life... he kind of wonders what that's like. He doesn't have any of those whatsoever, outside of a dark and fleeting one of somewhere warm and safe. One that lasts only the blink of an eye.]}

Why shouldn't I have been able to leave and go where I pleased? Why was wanting my own life something worth hurting me for? It was for her own good, Wrath. So she could have a stone and continue to be immortal. She was willing to kill or hurt anyone just to have that.

[Emotion has crept into Lust's voice by now, and she's leaning forward emphatically though she stays safely on the steps.]

Can you imagine hurting something you claim to love and care for? I mean that, Wrath, try and imagine it. Something you say you love, screaming in pain and begging you to stop. It feels sick and awful, doesn't it? But it never did to her. We didn't matter to her at all, we were less than animals. Just something she could use until she was done with us. Then she just replaced us.

[Maybe it's cruel, but she's trying to drive the point home to Wrath. He isn't a bad child, he's just never been properly taught what right and wrong are. Empathy is something learned, and it's a hard thing for a homunculus to grasp at the best of times. Not without some personal experience to draw on.]

_{[When Lust leans forward, Wrath leans back. Even though she's only telling him to imagine doing it, the line between Wrath's imagination and his actual perception of reality is... very thin. He looks kind of like a dog being scolded. Sick and awful indeed. Yeah, he doesn't like the thought of hurting the ones he loves on purpose at ALL.]

[He doesn't say anything.]}

That horrible feeling you have inside right now? That's how you can know you're not bad. Bad people don't feel sick at the thought of causing pain. That's how I know I'm not bad. I once hurt someone that loved me, very badly. I killed him. Because...Master wanted him to die and when she decided that, he was dead already. But that I did that...it makes me feel sick and awful inside.

[She hasn't expected that this little session would get so deep and touch on serious subject matters, but Lust isn't going to abandon a path that looks to be a clear and helpful one. And maybe it will help Wrath come to realize she isn't the boogyman he thinks she is.]

We're not bad. She was. We were bad because we followed her lead. Now we can make whatever choice we'd like. I want to be good. And I want you to have the chance to be good, too. We all deserve that.

[Except maybe Pride.]

_{[HE HADN'T EXPECTED IT EITHER. He hadn't expected it to happen at ALL.]

[He shrinks into a crouch, evidently trying to look as small as possible. He feels guilty as hell and he doesn't even know WHY.]}

... You're trying to trick me.

_{[He has said this to her (and Envy, and Al, and Scar of all people) before, but it doesn't even sound accusing at this point. It sounds like nothing more than what it is, which is a VERY confused and unsettled child trying desperately to cling to the only things that seemed to make sense to him before.]}

No.

[Lust stays where she is and only shakes her head. She feels very tired, from the sudden emotional outpouring. And Wrath just looks miserable and frightened.]

No tricks. I'm done with that, too. I know I've done it before, but I swear to you on my humanity that I'm not now. She's the one that tricked us both. She was very, very good at it.

_{[More floor-patting. He really doesn't like having these traitorous thoughts. Not at ALL.]

[What if Master can hear those thoughts?]

[She's not HERE but that never really seemed to matter when it came to knowing when one of her servants had been misbehaving.]}

... Don't say 'was' like she's gone.

She'll come here.

You'll see.

_{[But for the first time, he doesn't bother trying to sound smug about that. Because he wants it just as little as any of them do, and he's too tired and mixed-up to make the effort to hide it anymore.]}

And so what if she does? There's no alchemy here, she can't hurt us. And our friends, our real friends, wouldn't let her. You have people that care about you very much here, Wrath.

[She slides down a single step, slowly.]

Like Ralph. I know he's your friend. He's my friend, too. Do you think that tiny, scrawny, sick little woman could stand a chance of getting anywhere near you against big, giant, strong Ralph?

--You know Ralph?

_{[He knows Lust and Envy work in Joker's circus but he didn't really think that they like... talked to anybody. Go figure.]}

[Lust nods.]

Ralph and I are good friends. We see each other regularly - we're even exercise partners. And I know he cares about you a great deal. He'd never let someone like her hurt you again. And neither would we.

_{[And for the very first time, one of the deepest darkest fears that Wrath hadn't uttered anywhere but in the confines of a literal nightmare comes out.]}

She'd kill him.

_{[There is not the slightest ounce of wicked glee or satisfaction in his voice. Only terror and, more importantly, certainty.]}

She'd find a way to do it.

She would.

No. No, Wrath, she wouldn't. She has no power here, just that sickly dying body she's trapped in.

[Lust's voice is soft now, as comforting as she can make it. She'd go to him, if she thought he'd allow it. But she knows he won't so she hugs her knees and stays on the steps.]

And no one would help her. We're well known, all of us. You, me, Envy, Greed...if she ever ended up here, most of this world would be against her. She only had all the power she held back home because she spent centuries setting it up so she did. Here she has no alchemy, no slaves, no armies, no allies. She'd be like a bit of dust on the wind - powerless.

Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood.

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