therookery | Riddles on the Road

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Riddles on the Road

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?

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[He returns with a pause of his own. What else works?]

Does it have to be a bucket? Could you be put into something else?

[But that question happens to lead him down a quick succession of thoughts. With a degree of cautious certainty:] A hole.

Perfect. [There's a smile in her voice; she smiles more easily over the sending stones because nobody can see her underbite.] Your turn. Tell me a riddle.

So I choose something to be, and then I tell you about myself, and you have to guess?

[He wants to make sure he has it right.]

More or less. You can even make it rhyme, if you like.

[Maybe some people don't know riddles? But the young man seems to be into it regardless. And if he's making up his own riddles, they could be harder to guess, since she won't have heard of them. Or they could be terrible. Either way, it's something to do.]

[He takes a moment to think about it.]

All right. I think I have one.

I can be made of many things, but I only have one name. I sit, but never stand, because I don't have any legs. I block the sun, and the rain, but not always the wind.

Sit but never stand, [she says quietly, latching onto the most unusual thing. The last sentence makes her think of some form of shelter. What blocks the sun and rain and sits?]

A hat?

Yes! I'm a hat.

[He sounds delighted at first, but... she guessed that rather quickly. He doesn't know whether that's good or bad.]

Was that all right?

That's a good one. Sit but never stand made it tricky. But it was interesting and I had to really think.

My turn: I'm the part of the bird that's not in the sky. I can swim in the ocean and yet remain dry.

But... birds aren't always in the sky to begin with.

So long as they're not underground, I'd say everybody is in the sky at least partly. But fair enough. Say the bird is flying. This is the part that's not in the sky.