Summary: When Near was born, the midwife cried out and refused to touch him. He had the mark of evil: the black eyes and white hair and skin were signs of bewitching. My twisted take on Near's early childhood in Thailand. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, nor any version of Near, be it manga, anime, or spin-off movie.

A/N: This was written for The Muse Bunny's weekly contest. The prompt was "blame." It's probably the shortest fic you'll ever see from me... XP

Nameless

When he was born, the midwife cried out and hurriedly shoved him into his mother's arms. He had the mark of evil, she insisted: the black eyes and white downy hair on his pale head were signs of bewitching. The old woman refused to touch him again, and rushed out of the hut without collecting her fee.

The new mother looked down on him, muttering reassurances to herself that the condition was temporary – that it would subside in a few days and render the tiny infant normal. The old woman had only been spouting superstitions.

Still, she refused to decide on a name before color came to the child.

When pigment still refused to grace his hair and cheeks two months later, his mother moved to the outskirts of the village to escape the whispers and frightened looks.

When the nameless toddler tried to join in the games of the other village children, their mothers suddenly appeared to take them home. They snatched their children's toys from his pale hands, never looking at his eyes nor speaking a single word. He never cried or protested, but merely sat in the dirt until his mother came for him.

When the quiet child first attempted speech, he mispronounced "mother" – what he said sounded like an ancient word for "demon." His mother screamed and locked him in the storeroom for the rest of the day.

He never tried to speak in his people's tongue again.

When the white-headed boy grew older, a troupe of missionaries came to the village. They brought shiny toys for the children – robots and cars and dolls. Enticed, he approached them, but the children were bolder now than their superstitious parents. They hurled rocks and sticks at him when his tainted hands reached for their prizes.

Wandering a safe distance away, he set to work fashioning his own toys from the sticks they'd thrown.

When the missionaries had finished building their chapel, one of them noticed the boy putting the finishing touches on a stick city. The young British woman cheerily applauded his handiwork. She wondered how she'd missed seeing such a unique child among all the black-haired youths of the village.

The boy paid her no attention. He took up a carefully chosen rock as he gave his masterpiece a final look. The missionary thought he must have been mute.

She asked him if he would like to come to the chapel with her to learn about God. The boy only hummed as he made the rock in his hand fly gracefully above his city. The missionary corrected herself: he was mute and dumb. Deciding to test her theory, she asked the boy his name.

The rock crashed into the city, reducing his most intricate tower to a messy pile of sticks and vines. The woman's face went ashen.

When he visited the small chapel, the missionaries were busy teaching the adults of the village to speak English and read the Bible. The children sat in one corner, the woman he had met yesterday leading them in their lessons. The boy tugged at a lock of his hair and opted to join the adults' group.

The villagers backed away from the boy, crying for the missionaries to throw the evil child out. The older children overheard and began to laugh and point and whisper. The missionaries worked to calm the crowd as the oldest among them led the small boy aside.

When, some weeks later, the silent boy carefully pronounced his first English sentence, the old missionary nearly fell from his chair in shock.

The boy cared nothing for God, dismissing Christianity just as easily as he had his people's pagan beliefs, but he came to the chapel every day for his lessons. He learned to read and write from Bible passages. He worked with numbers from an abacus the old man gave him, and found he had a talent for calculation. At times it seemed that the pale boy lived there; he often stayed at his desk until dawn in his quest for knowledge, his tutor indulging him with any new books he could find.

He learned that his condition was called albinism, and had a purely scientific cause. In Christian cultures, too, his tutor told him, white was considered a symbol of purity and good. Contrary to what the villagers believed, the boy's colorless features could even be construed as angelic.

This idea tickled his thoughts to no end, bringing an awkward and unfamiliar smile to his face.

When the chapel had stood for some months, nearly all of the villagers had been convinced to convert. A mass ceremony was held to baptize each man, woman, and child. Christian or not, however, superstition still held strong among them. The boy was put last in line, to keep his cursed influence from contaminating the holy water.

After a long wait, watching water poured over the others' heads and crosses draped around their necks, the white boy approached the pastor to receive his blessing.

The crowd held their breaths as the handful of water dripped upon his fair head, christening him as Nate River.

They seemed disappointed that the holy water did not burn him.

When sickness plagued the village, the people's newfound religion was easily forgotten. The boy's own mother was the disease's first victim, and so the blame came easily to rest on his familiar shoulders. They were appalled to see the quiet boy sit still upon hearing of her death, pausing only long enough in his studies to twirl a lock of white hair between his fingers. They prayed to Jesus and icons and ancestors alike that the damned child be cast out and themselves saved.

He remained in the chapel, only continuing to wear the cross for the sake of the kind tutor protecting him. He otherwise would have gladly cast the wretched symbol off and become nameless again.

When only the boy and the long-since vaccinated missionaries were left in the decimated village, he began to wonder if they would shun him as well. He could see the doubts and fears in their faces as they reassured him that everything was only coincidence – that disease was nothing supernatural, and that he shouldn't believe himself to be its cause.

He wondered why they deemed such explanations necessary when no one was left alive to blame him anyway.

When the missionaries returned to England, they took the boy with them. His tutor knew of a place where gifted children like himself were welcomed and given a fine education, regardless of race, religion, or background – an orphanage founded by an old friend in Winchester.

Had the boy been prone to voicing his opinions, he might have protested living amongst other children again. He had learned long ago, however, never to speak needlessly.

When the boy was shown his room, all the enticing opportunities here – the multitude of classes to take, languages to learn, books to read – fell to the background of his mind.

The old man in charge gently laughed beside the speechless albino. He thought that every seven-year-old should have toys to play with, genius or not. The child shuffled slowly across the room to pick up a particularly shiny robot. His own shiny robot, that no one could take away or scold him for touching.

There was just one more thing, the man told him – he had to choose an alias for himself, as did all the other orphans here, to protect his identity.

Holding his robot to his chest, the boy reached up to fiddle with his hair as he reflected upon his short life. It took him but seconds to think of a new name to describe himself.

The old man blinked in confusion, and a quirky smile came upon Near's face.

Not a demon, nor an angel, he somehow came near to both.

A/N: For those who don't know, there are three live-action movies based on Death Note, the first two being an alternate re-telling of the story. Near makes an appearance at the end of the third one, a spin-off called L: Change the WorLd. In it, he's a boy from Thailand, the sole survivor after a mysterious disease (which L is investigating) wipes out his village. I haven't seen it, but hearing about that made me think... How did he end up with the very English-sounding name Nate River if he's from Thailand? And if it was changed later, wouldn't the shinigami eyes still see his original birth name? Then I started wondering how Near's movie background might fit in with his manga/anime character, and bam!, this plot bunny was born.

It's been nibbling at me for quite a while, actually, but I'd been putting it off. Then that contest prompt gave me some new ideas for how to go about it, and the bunny went crazy and wouldn't let me sleep until it was done (5:30am.. x.x;). And so, you have... this.

Near's not my favorite character, but I love toying with him. He's a challenge to write, and our similarities force me to examine myself as I try to capture him. And yes, I do think Near has a touch of evil in him, but being Near, he's not ashamed of it. XD

Review, please? :D