fandomhigh | Living With Difficult Women [Tuesday, Period 5]

Max had spent a large chunk of the past week rethinking precisely how he was going to run this class with all the... women in it. He hadn't really come up with a solution he liked, but it was class time now so it was apparently time to go with a solution he didn't much care for.

"Welcome back, everyone," he began as he looked around at his students. "This class is intended to be a practical one, but for us to do that we're going to have to be candid with one another. That, however, requires trust, and we don't all know one another that well." He quirked an eyebrow, wondering if anyone was going to challenge that assertion. "We're going to try to remedy that." He grinned suddenly before adding, "The trust part."

"You're going to pair up. Then each of you is going to share a deeply private secret with the other one. That way each of you will know that if you violate the trust of the other students in this class, someone else here holds a serious piece of information to punish you with. If the person you're partnered with judges your secret to be insufficiently powerful, they can demand another, so you're better off sharing one major thing than being forced to go through a dozen things that almost qualify."

Max let a hard gaze drift slowly across the room, letting it rest on each student until he felt he'd driven home how serious he was. "Understand this: by receiving these secrets you're being entrusted with something important. Violating that trust is not something I will tolerate. The only reason we're doing this is to help everyone to feel like the can be candid because they'll know that everyone has shared something here they don't want spread around."

He gestured to the ~~handwavy~~ list he had up. "I've assigned partners randomly. Find yours and get to it. I'll be stopping by to check on how each of you are doing."

"Oh, and Pendragon, Cauthon, I want to see each of you after class."

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"I'm not sure he thought this one through very well," Francine said after glancing at the list and... not really needing to move, since yeah, she was the girl who'd always gravitate towards sitting by the people she already knew. "We know each other's secrets."

As did the fluffy white bundle on the desk in front of her, currently making pissed-off faces at the world in general and the topic of this class in particular.

"Well," Arthur started, "Some of them, at least. But enough to call this one settled."

"I'd say you know most of mine. I'm not exactly a super-spy." Not that she wasn't willing to call this one settled, because I think I've seen what happens when you die (but not anything useful like how) was one she could live without sharing, kthx.

"Any embarrassing moments...?" Arthur prompted, lightly.

Shut up. "You were there for half of them!"

Arthur held up his hands. "I'm just trying to fulfill the exercise despite our handicap."

"Oh. Point." And sadly, she had plenty more where those came from. Um. "You go first then, while I'm trying to think of ones that don't involve nudity. " HA! Or something.

There was a very long pause as Arthur racked his brain for something that could go for a personal secret without... threading onto matters of state. "...I once shot and killed a unicorn," he said, finally.

His eyes might have flicked towards Katchoo the bunny for a moment. Yes, this was that story, and you didn't even have to ask, you harpy.

It would be a challenge to tell which of them was the bunny, at this moment. "...Why?"

Arthur shrugged. "I thought the horn would be a nice present to my father."

Which was all the motivation he ever used to need in general.

"But...unicorn."

About all the management can say in Francine's defense is that the unicorn poster on her wall back home in Houston is at least not a Lisa Frank one.

"It came back to life," Arthur volunteered, "As it turns out, killing a unicorn is a bad idea."

"Oh, good." She could go a little less stricken-looking now. "Of course it was a bad idea. They're all magic and sacred and .... about innocence and purity and stuff."

"Pure of heart," Arthur filled in for her. "Killing... one casts a curse on your home."

The fact his voice didn't speed up to quickly stick those words together? Years of practice at dignity.

Leave it to Francine to only speed to a conclusion when it's the wrong one, or it can give her something extra to worry about, or both. "So there's a curse on Camelot now?"

"No," he said, with a flare of undeserved exasperation. "No, I made amends. The curse was lifted."

And Francine had exactly what to lay down against that? "I, um. The first time I ever back the car out of our driveway, I ran over a cat? Those don't come with curses, though; you just feel really guilty."

Though hell, who knew. Considering the state of the Peters home now...

And leave it to Arthur to voice the question, "What did you do with it?"

".....Buried him?" Which, well. "And, um. Didn't tell anyone." Including his owners, which was part cowardice and part honestly figuring they'd be a lot happier thinking he'd run away.

Huh. "Well," he said, "That's a shame." Remotely sympathetic, it didn't sound, but he was trying.

"Sorry my guilty secrets aren't more interesting," said she, and if it was the tiniest bit grumpy, it wasn't him. Mostly. It was the whole issue of the fuzzy bunny, now in her hands.

"It's that time again, isn't it?"

Okay, that statement did bring some sympathy skipping along with it.

Blink. Stare. "Excuse me?"

He couldn't possibly mean that. Mostly because she was pretty sure Arthur would swallow strychnine before meaning, discussing, or even acknowledging the existence of that.

"Katchoo turning into a rabbit," he said, holding up his hands. Please. He didn't want to know.

"Oh." Well, that made two of them, as she didn't want him to know what she'd been thinking, though it certainly made a more embarrassing admission than a two year old story about a dead cat. "Sort of. Last time it was Merlin; this time it just happened by itself. Poof."

Re: Share your secrets

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