(no subject)

[womanofvalue]

WHO: Peggy Carter
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: January 23, PM
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Lie detection afoot!
STATUS: Open

---

It should just be any other morning, as far as Peggy's concerned.

When she wakes, the village still appears charged with whatever powerful magnetism has been at work for some time, but that's not the only strange thing. She can't put her finger on it, but she goes about her business as usual, taking the time to get herself ready for a day of exploring and fetching supplies. She spends the morning amassing wood for hers and Stella's home, delivering that back, and when her stomach rumbles a warning, she heads towards the inn.

That's where things begin to get even stranger. Alvarez is there, delivering his eggs, and when Peggy makes the briefest of small talk with him, she ends up asking whether everything is going well at home and with the man who looks like Steve's cousin. When he says 'yes', it's like something in her pings an alarm. Peggy can't explain why, but she instantly can tell that he's lying to her. With her heart and soul and everything around her, she knows that he is, but she just doesn't know why she knows.

By the time she's wrapped her head around the fact, Alvarez is gone, but Peggy feels compelled to test this out a little more, trying to understand exactly what is going on and whether it's measurable or whether she's just developed even better senses at detecting untruths than usual.

If that's the case, she half wishes she'd been able to have this back in New York. It would have made discussions in the office and with Howard far easier, if she'd known when he was lying. So she waits, impatiently, and when the door opens, she springs forward without even taking a long look at whomever it is. "I need your help," is what she insists, in a tone that implies there's very little choice in the matter.

Comments

[notabirdcostume]

Cooking duty had fallen upon him once again and Sam is looking forward to being stuck in a hot kitchen for once. The weather is not showing any signs of getting warmer and the constant lights from the aurora are also sticking around stubbornly. He was tired, finding it hard to sleep, but he was also used to not getting much of it anyway.

Peggy stepping into his path nearly startled him, but thankfully he hadn't gotten that jumpy yet. However, he'd been a little sidetracked so he had to process what she'd said for a second before replying.

"Sure. What do you need?" Peggy was one of the few people who he wouldn't even ask for clarification before agreeing to help.

[womanofvalue]

She narrows his eyes at him critically and wonders what the best way about this was. Did she have to trigger this? Was there some sort of on switch that she had to flick with her mind in order for it to work or could she simply charge forward and see what happens? "Lie to me," she says, hands on her hips as she waits expectantly for Sam to do precisely as he's told.

Bossy is definitely a word that got tossed around behind Peggy's back during the war and she'd care, only she's a little bit proud of that word.

[notabirdcostume]

Nope, sorry, this was going to be one of the few times where he had to ask. Peggy's request catches him off guard on several levels. "Huh? Lie to you? Why?" He doesn't understand the request, but, then again, what about this place makes sense.

"Any kind of lie?" he decides to clarify. Women don't often command that you lie to them and Sam was fairly suspicious of a command like that without getting instructions that were a little more concrete here. The last thing he wanted was to say something regrettable and have Peggy Carter slap him...or worse.

[womanofvalue]

"Any sort," she prods, wondering if she might also be able to know the truth behind the matter. "Big lie, white lie, small lie, lie of omission." She encourages him onwards with a half-manic, wide-eyed look that might be rather intimidating if you weren't used to Peggy's particular way of driving forward. "Something is going on and I can't put my finger on it, but I have my suspicions."

It just requires someone to step in and tell her a lie or two, so she can find out whether it's just a one-time thing that she's become very good at.

[notabirdcostume]

She's being suspiciously vague, but after Thor's stint with fire powers Sam thinks he might have an idea where she's going with this. Although, part of him hopes he is wrong because he doesn't want to think about how much more intimidating Peggy can be if she can really detect when people are lying.

He considers his options, several ideas popping in his head and bursting like bubbles just as quickly. How ridiculous should he go? It's a strange dilenma to be in, being asked to lie on the spot. He decided to go for something that was a half-truth, but also something Peggy wouldn't know was an obvious lie or which part was the lie.

"All right, well did I ever tell you about the time I introduced Vision to nature documentaries?"

He wasn't sure if phrasing it as a question would hurt this experiment. He'd certainly introduced Vision to a particular type of television -- but documentaries about nature was note quite it. He waited to see how much Peggy could detect.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy narrows her eyes at him as he begins to speak, like she needs to focus this like any other sense such as smell or touch. Strangely, it turns out that she needn't have worried that much, because all is fine as Sam speaks right up until the word 'nature', at which point her mind starts shouting at her to tell her that something is most definitely wrong.

"No," is all she says, firmly. "That's not true." There is a part of her that is vaguely amused that this is the lie Sam's chosen to give her. "What's a Vision?"

[notabirdcostume]

Well now, that was interesting. It was like that game where you told two truths and a lie, except apparently Peggy would be way too good at that game. He wasn't quite sure what to make of this. Still, he was curious more so than worried. "Which part was the lie? Can you tell that," he asks, deciding to see just how precise this ability is, quirking an eyebrow at her question.

"Vision's the name of a former teammate of mine," Sam adds.

[womanofvalue]

"Sam, is Vision a person?" The name is utterly ridiculous, like one of Howard's project names gone rogue or wild, and her imagination is already running a touch wild as she wonders what on earth they've gone and gotten themselves into. "Or did he nickname himself?" Perhaps he's a scientist. After all, they do so love to name their inventions.

"I can't tell what part is the lie," she admits, still marveling at the fact that she'd been so capable of figuring it out. "How on earth can this be possible? Something must have been done to me," she vows.

[notabirdcostume]

"Android," he corrects. "He's a little odd," Sam adds, as if that helps. Honestly it's hard to explain Vision if you hadn't met him and Sam didn't want to bother trying.

"Well, this place is weird. Thor had fire powers for awhile...maybe it's something like that," Sam muses, not quite sure what to make of it either. Peggy could detect lies. There didn't seem to be a real purpose for it. Did she need to find someone who was lying? Was this just another piece of the puzzle to this place? It really did seem like just another way of messing with them all.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy grimaces and when she says what she does next, she's not sure why she's bothering when she already knows the answer. "Stark built him, didn't he? One of the Starks," is her tired and knowing remark as she presses a hand over her eyes and wonders how on earth either Howard or Tony could possibly think that had been a good idea. Those men, honestly, she swears.

"I remember those," she says, trying to get her mind off whatever other idiotic inventions the Starks have invented. "Thorfinn had them, too," she says. "Fire and lie detection, though?" she points out. "I'm not sure I see the connection."

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana didn’t feel as if she could do very much while there was thick blankets of snow on the ground. She’s taken to walking around the village and then going down to the shore line to see all there was. Eventually she started to pick up sticks and twigs that had broken from the weight of the snow, bringing them back to the Inn to be used as fire starters or fuel. It wasn’t difficult work but it gave her something to do and she was able to offer a small measurement of help who also found themselves in this strange village.

When Moana stepped into the Inn she jumped with a start, dropping all the sticks that she’d been carrying. Her eyes were fixed on Peggy and wide with surprise.

"Is something wrong?"

[womanofvalue]

Peggy isn't sure that she should be so demanding of a young girl that she's only just met, but the ends justify the means in this case, she feels. "I'm going to need you to lie to me," she says, easing back off from her insistent demand because that level of hard-headed stubbornness is usually reserved for people she's known for at least more than a single month.

"Tell me a lie. Any lie," she coaxes. She's so fixated on it that she doesn't even bend to start helping pick up the sticks, her tunnel-vision so fixated that it's the only problem in her mind.

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana looked very confused. This was definitely the first time someone has asked her to lie to them. She chewed on her lower lip for a few moments before nodded her head in agreement. It was a lot harder thinking of a lie when the other person knew that you were trying to lie and so Moana fell silent, allowing her brain to twist and turn before speaking.

"I know how to sail."

[womanofvalue]

She knows that's not true. Peggy can't understand why that is the case, but the moment that she says it, she's aware that it's a total fabrication and that she can't understand where it's coming from to know this, but she knows. "You're lying to me," she says, with an air of surprise that she probably shouldn't have given that she'd asked Moana to do so, but the shock is with the clarity that she knows this. The other interesting thing that she notices is that she has no idea what the actual truth is.

Apparently, this clever new power of hers can only do so much. "Another," she coaxes. "Something really outlandish."

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana nods her head looking a little taken back. "Well, yeah." She’d asked for a lie and it was a lie that Moana gave her. She was a decent liar though it wasn’t a skill that she’d perfected on purpose. It just happened, having to hide a part of herself from her father and the village.

"Okay." She paused again but this time the lie came easier. Outlandish thinking was a lot closer to the way that Moana’s mind worked. She’d always been a little odd, at least compared to those in her village, now it might at least work to their shared advantage. "When the sun falls and I can call stars in the night and grow wings and horns to join them in the sky." She flailed her arms to either side to signify wings, her lips tugging into a smile as she let her imagination run away with her.

At this point, Moana had completely forgotten about the twigs at her feet.

[womanofvalue]

This is an entirely impossible thing. It's like Peggy can almost taste and hear the lie with her senses, like something in her is twigging like an alarm going off. "This is extraordinary," she says, amazed at what she's able to do. Of course, there are dangers to this as well. What happens if she's talking to someone and they say something that she truly wants to believe is true, only to discover that it's not.

Maybe she's going to have to avoid certain people, for a few days. "Have you ever heard of something like this happening before?" she asks, which brings up her next worry. Exactly how long is this going to go on for?

[chosenbytheocean]

"What is?"

Moana was very confused and naturally curiously. She wanted to know what Peggy was after or if there was a point to her lies. "Something like?" She didn't know if she'd missed the point of clarification or perhaps Peggy had forgotten to say something? There was a missing piece to this puzzle that Moana wasn't able to connect.

"You mean lying?"

[womanofvalue]

She's gone so deeply inside her own head that it's almost like she's speaking to herself, which is an unfortunate thing. "Sorry," she says, trying to backtrack to make sure that she says things out loud. "I can tell when you're lying. It's uncanny, like I can taste and smell it and feel it," she says. "With absolutely everything, I can hear the lie."

"I can't tell what the truth is, though," she admits, but maybe that's going to kick in later.

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana looked at the woman curiously, her lips tugging into a bit of a frown. "This just happened?" Like those fire powers she'd seen a few days ago. "How is it? Did the gods give you this gift?" She didn't know what Peggy believed in and Moana had begun to realize that not everyone had the same beliefs.

"Oh." She suddenly remembered the sticks and quickly bent down to gather them back into her arms. "I wonder if you can feel when someone is telling the truth or if it's just lies." It seemed odd that it went one way and not the other.

"What if it's only a partial lie?"

[domesticaffairs]

Byerly is hardly the person anyone comes to for help--if they know him. He's almost disappointed that Peggy comes to him looking for help. Clearly that means people haven't gotten to know him too well around here yet.

He lifts a delicate eyebrow at her tone. She sounded like "no" was not an appropriate option here.

"And how can I be of service?" He gives a small bow, hand to his chest. He's not quite lying here but he's hoping it's something he can weasel his way out of or at least half-ass so he can go off and do his own thing.

[womanofvalue]

She raises her brow when she notes who it is that's here and offering his services. At least it isn't his too-forward, incredibly rude friend. "I need you to lie to me," is her firm insistence, hands on her hips as she readies herself more like she's about to get into a physical dispute and not that she's asking an acquaintance to tell her lies to somehow gauge whatever is happening to her.

It could be an incredibly useful tool, but not if she can't calibrate it and figure out how it works.

[domesticaffairs]

His face doesn't change as he merely stands back up straight--what an odd request. He complies, albeit against his knowledge.

"I'm afraid I'm not particularly prone to lying to someone with such a beautiful face," he replies with an expression that may appear sheepish on some, but merely made him look like he was up to something. The lie here of course being that he doesn't lie to someone with a beautiful face, versus the fact that he thinks Peggy is beautiful. She is quite gorgeous and with the correct amount of sass that Byerly appreciates in women.

[womanofvalue]

Oh, look, there it is again. It's that distinctive and strange feeling like there's a warning bell flashing madly in her mind to tell her that not only is he lying to her, but that she knows it. The trouble is that all those words together make her unsure which part is the lie, but luckily her deductive skills come in handy there.

That and the part where Peggy's self-confidence is hardly a frail, flagging thing and she knows that she's plenty good looking. She takes pains to make sure she's presentable, so it must be the lying part. "You're lying," she says, but it's hardly an accusation and more a wondrous epiphany. "I can feel it somehow, as if with all my senses."

[domesticaffairs]

He raises his eyebrows. That was not the reaction he was expecting honestly.

"And how long have you been able to tell?" He would have to watch what he said around her. Lying is so second nature to Byerly he may not even recognize that he's lying.

[womanofvalue]

She hasn't spoken with anyone today until the inn, so by that timeline, she might have been in possession of this ability since last night when she'd exchanged a quick goodnight with Stella, but even that might not have yielded anything. "It can't have been longer than a day," she assesses when she takes all the facts into account.

"I can't suss out the truth, only that there's a lie," is what's driving her the slightest bit to vexation.