fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, September 13]

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ethics

Ethics [Thursday, September 13]

"Today we discuss lying," Anakin said as he closed the classroom door precisely on time. "Everyone lies. 'Of course that doesn't make your butt look big.' 'You like her, I like her.' 'I'm totally okay with you moving on.' 'Everything's fine, why do you ask?' It's how the world goes around because no one wants to be trapped in a conversation where someone whines at you for hours on end about how awful their life is."

He looked around the room. "Trust me. Everyone's life is terrible. They're just not telling you about it. Be grateful."

He reached onto his desk for a piece of paper. "Today we're conducting an exercise to see how well you pass this particular social ritual, then we'll discuss whether you think it is necessary. We're playing two truths and a lie. I'll tell you three things about myself and you have to decide which one is the falsehood. Then you'll all tell three things and we'll see how well you can either read each other or keep things hidden."

He gave them a small smile. "I'm very good at this." He schooled his face to absolute neutrality, put his mental blocks up to bar the Jedi in the room from gaining an advantage, then recited: "I've never been beaten in one-on-one space flight combat. I'm not afraid of anything. I named my children after people I met in Fandom." His eyes challenged them to call him out. "Who's next?"

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"Escaping from a pack of heavily armed guards," she replied casually. "Who wanted to kill me or take me back home."

He'd been inches from locking Padmé in her room for the rest of her life under similar circumstances.

"I take it neither option was particularly appealing," he said dryly.

"Considering going home meant that the others would all die and I'd have to marry a man four times my age...no, not really."

Anakin's eyes went wide. "But you're a child," he breathed, shocked.

"I'm fifteen," she replied, not exactly protesting. "And I was betrothed last year."

Anakin took a deep breath.

Then another one.

"I recognize that there are cultural differences," he said, "but I cannot imagine you were actually consulted in these plans. Am I correct?"

She shook her head. "Tarkheenas are more currency to their fathers than daughters."

Anakin's eyes blazed. He had a Thing about slavery. "Absolutely unconscionable," he spat. "Family is supposed to be protection."

Aravis smiled a touch bitterly. "I wish. But I'm on my own at this point, it seems."

"Family doesn't necessarily mean blood relations," Anakin said quietly. "There was one I knew who was like a brother to me." He shrugged. "Not that I ever said that. He knew anyway."

Aravis considered, thinking of Cor and Bree and Hwin. "I suppose. My blood doesn't care for me though, and as of now they think I'm dead. There's not really any escaping that."

"Would you change it, given the chance?" Anakin asked. There was no judgment in his voice.

"I can't change how they feel about me," she replied. "I stand by what I did in light of the circumstances."

Anakin's eyes shone with a little bit of pride. "You're so far ahead of where I was when I was your age," he said, mostly to himself. "Getting married off against your will and then ambushed doesn't exactly inspire warm feelings," he noted in a more normal tone.

"We weren't ambushed so much as...well, ambushers," she replied, biting her lip. "I didn't want to be stuck married or living under my father's will. We turned on the guards taking us back to...my husband's country."

Anakin didn't look entirely pleased by that admission. "Who was your husband, then? Not the old man, I assume."

"No," she said slowly. "I had been taken from here, against my will, and a party was formed to come get me. So when they got to the temple in Tashbaan and interrupted my wedding, the...most vocal of my rescuers was substituted as the groom."

Anakin nodded as the picture became more clear to him. "And they weren't leading you back here then to apologize for a huge misunderstanding," he said dryly.

"No, they were seeing me home to my now-former husband's entirely fabricated empire."

Anakin leaned closer, looking very serious. "So what your group did to the guards: was it to stop them from realizing they'd been tricked and trying to kill you, or was it payback for being trapped, hurt, and treated like a possession?" His voice was quiet. "Intent counts for everything, my lady."

Aravis didn't have to think too hard. "The former. The two I faced against were the ones who took me," she said softly, "but I did not kill them. I knocked them out and left them with enough supplies to get home. None of us killed any of them."

"You're shading it," he said just as softly. "They made you feel helpless, so you returned the favor. I've been there myself."

"And what's so wrong with that?" Aravis asked, a defensive edge creeping into her voice. "They were horrible. I gave them a taste of what it was like before knocking the consciousness from them."

Anakin stared through her, seeing something far away. "Because you can get a taste for it," he said. "You can start to believe that your feelings are the only ones that matter, your brand of justice the only that should be inflicted."

He shook his head and focused back on her eyes. "You carried a blade. With that comes responsibility. Causing deliberate harm to another soul...taints your own."

"He should not be allowed to treat anyone the way he did," she said, very softly.

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