stilljustandrew | (no subject)

"Oh," Ava says.

She nods.

"Okay. Great."

This place is ridiculous.

"I can't juggle," he says, half to himself, "but ..."

The Fool dances in a half-circle around them, arms poised as though waltzing with an invisible partner.

"Well, I can dance ...?"

Beat.

"Only with a partner, though."

He pauses.

"Do you know any good riddles?"

"Do you?"

He heaves a breath, bracing himself. "It's probably our best bet. You," he adds, raising his voice. "Tom Fool. We accept your challenge. The winner is the first to ask a riddle that the other can't answer. Agreed?"

"Agreed," the Fool sings out. "Who tells the first riddle?"

"You're kidding," Ava mutters, a mutter which is only very narrowly not a whimper.

"Fine. You first. I'll try to think of something."

He nods, and mutters back "We're a team, though. Jump in if you can think of an answer to his."

Louder: "I'll tell the first riddle."

Riddles in the dark, he thinks, and with that he's got his first one.

"This thing all things devours; / birds, beasts, trees, flowers. / Gnaws iron, bites steel, / Grinds hard stones to meal; / Slays king, ruins town, / And beats high mountain down."

... See, Ava knows that one! Or she thinks she does, anyway.

Too bad it's the home team's riddle.

(On second thought: they're the visitors.)

The Fool throws back his head and laughs. "Such a terribly difficult riddle! How shall I ever find the answer, in this place where the dust of its devouring lies all around us, and it has begun to turn and devour itself?"

Spreading his hands: "Time, good master, there's your answer. Have I struck the mark?"

Okay, buddy, nobody likes a sore winner.

Ava refrains from sighing-- and from glowering-- with some effort.

Andrew nods. "Right in the gold."

He steeples his fingers in front of his chest. "Now let's hear your first riddle, Tom."

The Fool bows with a ridiculous flourish, and flutters one hand upward.

"What goes through the door without bending, goes through the water without a wetting, lies flat on the floor and feels no shame?"

His glance, light and mocking, goes from Andrew to Ava and back.

Ava considers, nothing more than absent thought in her expression.

But she'd rrrreally like to get this guy.

A glance to Andrew. "Any idea?"

He runs through the riddle once more, mouthing the words silently, and smiles.

"The answer is something else that lies all around us: shadows."

... Shadows, as in knight-of?

Ava glances to the Fool-- half to see if this is the right answer, and half in suspicion.

"Indeed!" The Fool seems as delighted at having his own riddle guessed as he was about guessing theirs.

He whirls around, arms outstretched, and tilts his head back again to sing: "By a knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to tourney; ten leagues beyond the wide world's end, methinks it is no journey ..."

"Why do they keep saying that?" Ava asks Andrew.

Calling him a scholar made sense, she guesses sort of.

Low: "What, the Knight of Shadows thing? I think it's got something to do with the tarot, but ... I don't really get it. Like, if you were a combined symbol of something instead of an individual person, that's what they think you'd be."

He shrugs. "I guess it means a warrior? Or, like ..."

Ava's lips quirk.

"Somebody who feels no shame. Thanks, guys."

Andrew gives her a swift glance at that, but the Fool claps his hands sharply. "Turn about, friends. Ask me your riddle."

She's been trying to think of riddles. She really has.

But all she can think of is the sphinx one, and everybody in every universe has to know that one. What's the one about nothing?

There's a lot of nothing here. The Fool'd guess it right away.

This is making her start to feel frustrated.

"Here's one," Andrew says, without flourish; the fun's gone out of it for him. "And this should be something you recognize. I know a word of letters three. Add two, and fewer there will be."

The Fool frowns in thought, and doesn't answer immediately.

God damn these fucking riddles.

Ava doesn't know this one.

(Add two letters? Add too? Uggggh.)

Abruptly he brightens, and laughs. "O, clever. Could the answer be 'few', perchance?"