Cassandra, for her compulsive lying

"I totally did my homework! I just lost it on the way to school!"

"Oh, Brad? Yeah, the two of us are totally going out with one another. He's just too shy to admit it."

"Hey, can you lend me $50? I'll pay you back, I swear."

These statements and many more are why the friends and family of Cassandra were wary to trust anything that comes out of her mouth. The high school senior just didn't seem capable of going a single day without lying at least twice to someone. Sometimes she did it because she wanted to cover for a mistake she made, sometimes she did it because she thought it was funny, and sometimes because she liked telling outrageous stories. A lot of the time she did it just because it had become second nature to her. The slim redhead was at least cute and charismatic enough to avoid the worst ire of other, but her reputation still followed her around the school like a dark cloud. That didn't stop her from lying, of course, just to be more careful of how blatant she was about it.

Of course, eventually a liar always has to pay their dues. But there aren't a lot of them that did so like Cassandra did.

It all started when she was walking home from school. She was thinking about one of the cuter boys in her class, when she crashed directly into an old man walking down the sidewalk, knocking him down to the ground.

"Oh crap, I'm really sorry about that!" Cassandra said, offering her hand to help him up, "You aren't hurt, are you?"

"I'm quite alright, miss," the old man said, accepting her offer of help to get back on his feet, "And luckily, you seem to be in pretty good shape as well."

"Yeah, I'm not hurt too bad," Cassandra said, rubbing her elbow.

"Where is a girl like you heading off to in such a rush?" the old man asked.

"I was headed to the hospital," Cassandra said, thinking that was a better excuse than just her not paying attention, "My sister is really sick, so I go there every day after school to cheer her up."

"Oh, that's sweet of you," the old man said with a smile, "Has she been getting better, at least?"

"Not really," Cassandra said, digging herself in deeper, "The doctors aren't entirely sure what's wrong with her yet, but they think it might be cancer. Like, the bad kind."

"Oh dear," the man said with a frown.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad," she said, "My parents are freaking out, not only because of how bad it is, but because they aren't sure how they're going to pay for it. Our insurance doesn't cover something like this, at least not enough to offset the costs we would have to pay."

The old man frowned at this, then reached into his pocket, "You seem like a sweet girl, and I feel like we were destined to meet here. So I'm going to help you and your family out."

He fished out an ancient looking gold coin and held it out to her, "Here, take this. It's my lucky coin."

Cassandra blinked in surprise. She wasn't expecting something like this. She knew she should refuse the coin and come clean now, but she reasoned that she was too deep in at this point, so instead she tried to deflect the offer with, "Are you sure? I mean, I feel weird accepting something like that from a stranger. And it is your lucky coin..."

"Oh, don't worry about that," the man said with a laugh, "I've already lived a long, rich life. It's about time I passed the luck on to someone else. And if the luck isn't working out for you, you can always sell it and use the money to help your sister. I'm sure a collector would pay a small fortune for a piece like this."

Cassandra hesitated, but with only a twinge of guilt she ultimately took the coin from the old man... only to immediately feel it burn the palm of her hand. With a yelp, she dropped the coin on the ground and looked at her hand. Her palm glowed with a light blue sigil for a couple of seconds, before it faded away, leaving her hand looking the same as it always did.

"What the hell was that?" Cassandra asked, looking back up at the man in shock.

"That was your punishment for trying to bullshit me," the man said, suddenly looking much less feeble than he did only a few moments before, "And not only that, but doing it so poorly. Seriously Cassandra, a cancer ridden sister? You could have just said you were late to an appointment or something."

"W-Who are you?" Cassandra asked, "And how do you know my name?"

"I've gone by many names over the years, but with all of them I held the title of the God of Truth," he replied, "And I know the true names of all I see."

"What did you do to me?" Cassandra asked, looking at her hand again.

"I bestowed a curse upon you, for your uncontrollable habit of lying," he said, "You were more willing to take a valuable coin from an old man rather than tell the truth. Thus, I believe drastic action had to be taken. Hopefully you learn your lesson."

"What kind of curse did you give me?" Cassandra asked, now starting to get rather scared.

The God of Truth grinned. If he was going to tell her what it was, it would be the truth... but he wondered if it would serve his purpose better (and be more fun) to just leave now and let Cassandra figure it out on her own.