Aqua's visit to the Hellfire Club (open)

[Pietro Maximoff]

::That was one strategy. Pietro did not lie because the world was smoother without false words, and honor couldn't be achieved through the speech of forked tongues. He assumed that his reputation was enough that he could get away with lying, but never wanted to test it. He preferred to keep silent than to speak something false.:: "You do not either, and that makes conversation and trust easier."

[Aqua]

That echoed her thoughts, and she nodded. "Do you think a person that's lying about telling a lie is actually telling the truth?" she ventured a small logical riddle.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro had heard this riddle before. Where a man only lies and then says he is lying. In that set, there was no answer but she had told it differently. Here he could be, but Pietro went with his instincts rather than logic.:: "I would question a man's need to lie about lying."

[Aqua]

"And how would that help you solve that question?" Emily asked.

[Pietro Maximoff]

"How can you trust a man who lies about something so trivial?" ::Pietro countered.::

[Aqua]

"Well," Emily shrugged, "maybe he's simply unable to tell the truth. Brain damage. Unlucky mutation. Something like this. Lying about lies would be his way of telling truths... or would the result still classify as lying?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

::The conversation had suddenly become abstract, and Pietro's interest was piqued further. He was at a disadvantage with English as his third language.:: "Strictly speaking it is two lies that cancel each other out. But if he lies and cannot tell the truth, to say he lied would be the truth so he would be forced to say it was the truth, which is another lie."

[Aqua]

"But if he lied and then said he told the truth, which would mean he lied about lying?" Emily offered another interpretation.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro accepted that interpretation with a slight nod.:: "It would still be two lies but not deceit."

[Aqua]

Emily tilted her head. "How do you distinguish between a lie and a deceit?" She could sense and probably even explain the difference herself, but in the light of his last words, it was important for her to hear his interpretation.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro glanced around the train; they were nearly alone in this car and he was grateful for that. The discussion could too easily lend itself to private matters, not for the ears of others. As it was, they were treading in dangerous water.:: "A lie is an untruth that is not a mistake; deceit is done with the desire to mislead and harm."

[Aqua]

"Thus, a deceit is a kind of a lie, but, more specifically, a lie with bad intentions?" Emily tried to reformulate his words.

[Pietro Maximoff]

"Yes," ::Pietro said with a single nod. That was a far less harsh way of making the distinction.::

[Aqua]

"Uh-huh," Emily said, making a pause to think and apply his definition to the small riddle of 'lying about a lie'. As far as she could see, Pietro made it look as though a lie was a relatively neutral thing, simply a means of describing something in a way that didn't correspond to the actual situation, but a deceit was something that could affect on a personal level. "So, the way you define it, I understand you would understand if someone was lying, but not if deceit was involved?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro considered that description. It ws closer to how he felt, although not completely accurate.:: "I might understand. I could forgive."