Riddles on the Road

[mythalenaste]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Pel Ashara
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Just riddles.
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Orlais and everywhere else
NOTES: Will update with any warnings.

[Pel is restless, and possibly a little bored. Sometimes, you have to walk away from work for a few minutes and do something else. But Pel doesn't like to shut off her brain. So she speaks into the stone, voice mild and thoughtful.]

Anyone up for an exchange of riddles?

I am weightless, but you can see me. Put me in a bucket, and I'll make it lighter. What am I?

Comments

[degenere]

A spirit, of course.

[mythalenaste]

Wrong. And you're supposed to be an educated man.

[degenere]

I am educated, and philosophical of mind. Of course, the easy answer would be a hole. Anyone could tell you that. But a man of education would tell you that your riddle's answer is a spirit, as in, the spirit that a man has in him. A spirit can be seen. The gleam in the eye, that leaves once a man has died. The breath, warmth, life, so on. And a good spirit would make a burden lighter--a burden such as a bucket.

So in my education, I still say spirit.

[mythalenaste]

Your education in architecture tells you this.

[degenere]

Architecture is but one of my domains of expertise. I have many, many more. And I have spent long hours in taverns and beside campfires, debating with a sweet brother of the Chantry.

Suffice it to say, I now know a lot about the spirit of a man.

[mythalenaste]

That, or you're the most pretentious person I've ever met.

[degenere]

[wow ouch]

You can't have met very many people, if that is the case.

[mythalenaste]

[That did sound a bit harsh. She tries to soften it.]

I know a man who makes everyone call him 'Twisted Fate.' I suppose you'd come after him, at least.

[degenere]

[Well.]

How wonderful. I am less pretentious than a man who goes by Twisted Fate. Is it a title? A name? A description of his philosophy? It doesn't matter. Truly, I feel so much better now.

Thank you.

[mythalenaste]

...Sorry, I was just teasing. [Usually the people she teases just kinda go with it. And she'd thought he was teasing to begin with.] Wasn't serious at all. Let's back up a bit?

[degenere]

Nooooo, no, no.

[so dire, so serious]

I am languishing in despair now. I can't back anywhere. What if the next thing I say sounds pretentious again? And yet, I know no other way to be. I am now in an ideological quandary. You must cheer me up.

[mythalenaste]

[Oh. Oh good, she'd thought he couldn't possibly be as pompous as he sounded. Humor comes back now, and she gives a soft and relieved chuckle.]

All right. The answer to the riddle is 'Spirit' after all and not a hole. Everybody but you was wrong.

[degenere]

[With some small hope:]

Truly? You would not lie to me on this, would you?