fandomhigh | How To Get By In A Hostile World, Thursday

A sheet of paper sat on every desk today; otherwise, the classroom was normal.

"So," Atton said, "I'm what my universe likes to refer to as a 'Jedi Knight'. Beyond blah blah religious stuff ugh that's the least fun part, what Jedi are famous for is having a connection to the universe that lets us do all kinds of weird stuff. One of the things we can do is read people's emotions, and sometimes even their thoughts. Most Jedi stack shield upon shield to make sure they don't do that all over the place, because it's really not as much fun as it sounds."

He gestured at his head.

"But some stuff always slips through, even in the most well-trained Jedi." Which wasn't him. A couple of months with an actual Jedi didn't really prepare you for this stuff the way years of training did, though Mical and Anakin had helped. "Now, this island has known people with similar mental powers. Some of them have more control than that, some of them less. Back when I hadn't been trained in my powers yet, I thought of this as kind of a pain in the ass. Like, who wants a stranger poking around their head, right?"

He pulled a face. "Actually, I still think of that as a pain in the ass, which is why I try to avoid doing it from the other end. Harder than it looks, though. What the point is, is that I taught myself techniques to keep people out of my head. It's both easier and harder than you might think." He nodded at the paper on the nearest desk. "What you need to do is fool people. Take advantage of the fact they usually don't really want to be in your head. And the way you do that is with detail. Pointless detail. You want to walk into a room with a telepath with nothing in your head other than the fact you think you hear something whistling in the next room, and nothing in your heart but the thought that the telepath is looking pretty good in that skirt."

Not thinking of any telepath in particular. Really. "It's easy, because the principle is easy. It's hard, because it's easy to slip into thinking 'I have to think this or she'll know', and then hey, she knows. So I want you to practice today. Write down every inconsequential detail you can find in this class. Every emotion you could be feeling about something in this class, too. Then see where your head's at."

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"If the lights were better maintained, they would make the room more pleasant," Jalian answered. "And breasts," because after Isabela said it, how could she not?

And you know mindspeech? she blurted out mentally.

What? She hadn't thought she'd ever meet someone who could when she left ken Selvren. She was always excited to meet a new telepath. Maybe if there were a lot, that was why things like this were important?

Jedi mindspeak was usually a little less literal than flat-out words. So when Atton tilted his head and sent out a So do you, it was more image-and-emotion than speech.

Jalian's own could range from words to images to entire infodumps - what she sent him back was a sort of cautiously excited mental wave mixed with a query. Why - she started, then realized others might want to know, and asked out loud. "Why is it important to keep people out? Are there some who are intentionally intrusive, or is this a privacy thing?"

Ken Selvren weren't big on privacy.

"Both," Atton answered immediately. "Mind readers will often use that power to help them tactically, whether on purpose or just because they're used to that psychic background noise being part of their senses."

He shrugged. "And some of us just don't like having people in our heads without permission."

Read: some people may have repeatedly murdered other people over just that. Ahem.

Jalian thought about that for a moment, frowning. "How is the first one different from body language?" She got about the same from non-telepaths' minds that she did from just seeing their stance and expression.

"Body language you can fake. Or close."

Atton was pretty good at that, too.

"Ah!" It clicked. "So this is like that. Learning to fake thoughts to deceive opponents."

"I wouldn't call it faking," Atton said thoughtfully. "You just... happen to be thinking of something that isn't useful to anyone trying to do you harm, that's all."

Jalian nodded. That part was semantics; at least she more or less grasped the reasoning now. "Do many of them want to do harm?"

It wasn't really semantics, though. A telepath could always tell the difference between someone faking it, and someone whose mind just... happened to be elsewhere.

But that was why Atton was so good at this; he grasped that subtle difference easily.

"Enough for it to matter," he said.

Jalian scrunched up her nose. She'd have to think about that one some more. For now, though, she just nodded and tried to process it.

How To Get By In A Hostile World, Thursday

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