fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, September 9, 2nd period]

"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 any psychics in the room from gaining an advantage, then recited: "During a war at home I was known as 'The Hero Without Fear.' I've been married twice. I've never been beaten in one-on-one lightsaber combat." His eyes challenged them to call him out. "Who's next?"

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Jan pawed the floor, trying to think of something. His people might keep a secret from another, but to deliberately tell an untruth was very rare. Unicorns really didn't lie. "I can jump higher than the wall around the school grounds, I can make art, and I don't remember anything before I arrived on this island." They also weren't very good at it.

"You have to have some memory before coming here," Lee said.

Jan canted one ear. "I know things, my name, that I am a unicorn and what that means. It is as if someone placed that knowledge in my head and I awoke to find it there." He said it calmly, matter-of-factly, but his tail flicked against his hocks. "But I do not remember."

"Then, the lie's the jumping," Lee decided because he figured everyone could make some kind of art.

At that, Jan tossed his mane and arched his neck, his version of a grin. "I will show you if you wish to see it."

"So...you can't make art?" Lee asked. "Not even by putting your hooves in paint and walking on a sheet of paper?"

"What's paint?" he asked, puzzled.

"Ah," Lee said, getting it now. "You can't make art because you don't know what it is."

"I know what it is!" he protested. "It is pictures. I have been made into art, but," he lifted one front leg and held his hoof towards Lee, "I cannot make pictures."

Re: Two truths and a lie

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firebringerborn.livejournal.com - 2008-09-09 23:13 (UTC) - Expand

"I don't want to doubt your jumping ability," Agnes told him respectfully, "but everyone can make art."

"Art is pictures," Jan replied. "I cannot make pictures, so I cannot make art."

Agnes eyed him oddly. "You've never made marks in the dirt just to amuse yourself? Or arranged flowers in a pretty way? Or sang? Art isn't only about drawing, you know."

Jan eyed her in return. "Flowers are for eating, and why would I make marks in the dirt?" He pawed the floor. "And singing does not make pictures." Jan had it very firmly fixed in his head that pictures were art and art was pictured.

"Art doesn't have to be pictures," Agnes tried again. "It's... any way of expressing yourself, any way of showing your feelings, anything pretty that you make yourself."

"Lie is making art," Firekeeper proclaimed, in human language for the benefit of the others in the class. This one was easy enough even without being able to scent the telling factors of a lie. It had taken her own eyes a long time to even be able to pick meaning out of flat shapes on paper the way humans did, much less attempt to recreate the effect.

"Yes," he replied with relief, sending her a look of gratitude. Firekeeper understood. "The pictures, the marks on the paper that are something else, I cannot make those."

"The first time I seed them, my eyes was not knowing what they was," Firekeeper admitted, trying to ignore the blush coloring her cheeks at her awkward command of ~~Pellish~~ English. It didn't bother her when talking to humans, but with Jan, who had heard her speak properly... it was embarrassing.

Jan found her speech slightly grating, far preferring her usual manner, but he was careful not to let it show. "I knew the marks meant me, but I know not how I knew, and If I hadn't been shown a picture of me, I doubt I would have recognised it as anything but a smudge." He lowered his voice. "It is strange, this human insistence on marking things, as if memory was not enough."

Well, everyone could make art, and Jan had told her about losing his memory. "Unicorns don't jump?"

Jan canted his ears in amusement. "We jump, we jump very well."

Seriously? "Does that mean you can't make art?"

"It's not the reason I cannot make art, but yes," he replied, "I cannot make pictures." He only had the most tenuous of grasps on the concept of pictures.

Edited 2008-09-09 23:14 (UTC)

Molly still wasn't sure Jan was right, since art was kind of in the eye of the beholder, but she'd argue it later. "This means you win."

Jan snorted in confusion. "But it is not a contest."

"Well, it maybe is a little bit? To see if you're a better liar than we are guessers?" Molly didn't see the harm in lying for class and it was possible some of the lesson was lost on her.

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