fandomhigh | Spy Games, Monday, Period 5

Entry tags:

spycraft

Spy Games, Monday, Period 5

If Sarah didn't seem nervous as she waited for the class to assemble, that was only because she'd spent the last decade keeping cool on the outside no matter what went on underneath. Just teaching for the first time would be bad enough, but there was one student name on the roster that she had very much never expected to see here.

"Welcome to Spy Games," she said with a smile and a twist of her sweaty palms against her skirt as the time came for the session to begin. Her voice came out calm, sure, self-confident as possible. Thank God. "I am your instructor for the next two months. My name's Sarah Walker and, to get this out of the way, I am qualified to teach this class because I worked for the CIA for the last several years. My main focus was protection of national security data."

Anyone at the CIA could say that, but Sarah was hoping to ward off questions.

"If you're here," she went on, "I'm going to assume you want to be a spy, or at least want to know how to be a spy. Maybe you want to work for the government; maybe you just know a lot of people you don't trust. Whatever your experience, there are all kinds of applications for the stuff we're learning here. The syllabus and rules are on your desks, but some of the things we'll cover are lockpicking, disguise, persuasion, and weapons."

"But today, we're talking about basic undercover work," she went on. "If you're undercover, you're lying to everyone all the time. You lie about your name, your family, what you do for a living, maybe your politics, maybe your religion. But under all that, you can't change who you are. You're still you, but the details are different. And the secret of good undercover work is using that."

"For example, I'm not exactly the chattiest person in the world. If I go undercover for more than a few hours and I decide I'm going to be someone who can't keep her mouth shut, I'm going to get caught fast. I'll always have to think about the part I'm playing, and that's when people make stupid mistakes. And a big part of your job as a spy is not making stupid mistakes."

She cleared her throat, finally relaxing into this. "I understand the tradition for the first week of classes is introductions. We're doing that, but with a twist. If you've heard of the game 'Two Truths and a Lie,' we're going to play that -- except you must make one true statement about yourself, one false statement about yourself, and a third statement that can be either true or false. Your fellow students will guess how many lies you told, and which they are."

"Remember that if you're undercover, you're lying for a reason. And in this class, you have a purpose too. Tell lies -- and truths -- that will make me think you have it in you to be a good spy." She pointed out randomly. "You first."

Once the students were done with the game, she smiled before dismissing the class. "Your assignment for the week is to tell one lie. It doesn't have to be a big one or about anything that matters. Just tell it and see how it feels; we'll report back next Monday. And if any of you want to be TA, I could use one. And Miss Bartowski, please stick around too -- I have a quick question for you."

She was impressed how level her tone sounded on that last bit.

[OOC: First posted class of the semester! I will pick up tags in the a.m.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, you wouldn't be a landen, you'd be considered Blood. You'd be odd, since you do not wear a Jewel, but most people would assume you simply weren't wearing one openly. And if you said you were a Prince, people wouldn't even question your caste. You don't have a psychic scent, but that might be because we're here.

Honestly, it would be your lack of aggression that marked you as different. But even then, since you're not a Warlord Prince, few people would comment on it."

She stopped lecturing in order to actually comprehend what Liir had said. "Wait--you can do magic? By yourself? Not with..." Karla frowned, trying to remember Zack's term, "...Materia?"

He nodded.

"By myself, yes. And I don't know what 'materia' are," he said.

"Another new student has them. They're round, glowy, spheres. He said that each one could let him cast a single spell. It seems a very cumbersome way to do magic.

How does your magic work?"

"...mostly, I do my best to convince things that they should do what I tell them to do. Or I remind them about things. It's kind of strange," he admitted.

Though less strange than glowy balls.

Her brow furrowed. "You speak to things? I don't think I understand."

With all the difficulty she'd been having trying to explain magic on her own, she should have realized it would be no esier for Liir.

"Can you show me something?"

His question in response might sound odd.

"Do you like chocolate?"

"I may be different, but I am human."

He nodded with a brief chuckle, closed his eyes, cupped his hands behind his back...

And handed her an orange a moment later. The strange thing was, though, that it smelled a great deal more like chocolate than orange.

"There. I made that. And it tastes... rather different than just about any orange you'd get elsewhere."

Specifically, like chocolate.

"You made this? From what?" Karla took a bite, it was delicious. Glacia didn't get oranges often, being far, far, FAR to the north, but when Jaenelle went on adventures, there was no telling where she'd go and what she'd bring back. Karla remembered oranges tasting like bursts of sweet sunshine. "This is wonderful."

Still nibbling on the orange, she continued, "I can call something in,"--a box appeared on her desk--"or vanish it,"--the box disappeared--"but I can't just create something out of nothing. Not without at least some preparation, and probably a tangled web or two."

She sounded impressed.

He ducked his head and scratched behind his ears.

"I don't know. I made it, though. It's... about all I can make. Apples and oranges. I can change how they taste, though. And since I'm a cook, I'm pretty good at it. If you ever want another one, just ask."

Karla was too busy eating it to respond with anything more than an enthusiastic nod.

Eventually though, "I can make potions and poisons and tinctures and teas, but doing something as simply as boiling water for soup is completely beyond me."

"Well, when we get back to the dorms, I could give you a few pointers if you liked," he offered.

She made a face. "All right, but only because I know I can stop any fires I start."

She wished she were joking. Or that she didn't know that from experience.

"Everyone who insists they can't cook says that," he pointed out.

"It's really not that hard. If I can do it, anyone can. And I was cooking when I was eight or nine."

"I once bullied convinced our cook to let me make breakfast for my parents. The dogs were busy digging a hole to bury it in before I'd even finished cooking it." Her tone was solemn, but her eyes sparkled with amusement.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"We'll see when you're in the kitchen with me. A lot of the equipment here makes it a great deal harder to burn things than those people have at home."

"Deal," she said, smiling. "But you've been warned. I refuse to take responsibility for any structural damage that may occur under your supervision."

"I've heard that before," he said with a laugh.

"Yes, but I've actually done it!"

"So had Karal," he assured her, "or so I was told by a reliable source."

"Karal?"

[[I keep typing his name by accident. It's nice to type it deliberately for a change. You can be handwavy about Karal's backstory, though. I'm a Lackey fan.]]

"He was my older sibling here," Lirr explained, "and he was the same way. His Firecat told me about some of the kitchen fiascos he'd had.

"I used to cook for him all the time, bring him lunch in the library."

So many things seemed to summon up memories of Karal lately. It was almost uncanny.

"Firecat? Anything like the Arcerian cats I was mentioning?"

"A little," he admitted, though not quite.

"But Karal knew more about it than I did. Mostly we just talked shields."

"You can shield? That's something more than changing apples and oranges," she told him. Until she realized, "Wait--did you speak of magic shields, or shields of wood?"

Re: Activity - Truths and Lies [Spy Games, 5/11]

new-to-liirness.livejournal.com - 2009-05-12 18:38 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only