Written for Elendiari.
"Merry?" I could hear Pippin enter Brandy Hall from the study in the back corner of the smial. He continued to shout my name until he found me, bent over a scrap of parchment. "What's that?" His coat and scarf were unceremoniously tossed across the room and onto a chair. "Merry!" he repeated when I failed to answer.
"This, Pippin," I answered proudly, "is a riddle."
"Oh," he said, paused, and continued, "well, what is it?"
"A riddle, Pip. I already told you --"
"No, I mean, what does it say?"
Frustrated with the puzzle, I handed Pippin the slip of paper. "You approach two talking doors," he read. "One door leads to the City of Truth, and the other to the City of Liars. You do not know which door is which, but you are able to ask one question to determine which door leads to the City of Truth. What question do you ask?"
Pippin stood for a moment, brows knitted in concentration. Where I had been working on the puzzle all afternoon, he exclaimed that he had solved the riddle almost directly after he had finished reading it aloud.
"Well," he said, "You would ask one of the doors what the other would say if you were to ask which door leads to the City of Truth. Then you would pick the opposite of what it told you."
"I, er… hmm," I mumbled, running his answer through my head a second time. "I almost had that, you know."
"Of course," Pippin said, grinning. "Now that we have that figured, when do you think we might rematch that race?"
""I never was, am always to be, no one ever saw me, nor ever will, and yet I am the confidence of all, to live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?" I smiled innocently, or as close to as I could.
Pippin took a few moments longer to solve this riddle. "Tomorrow," he proclaimed proudly. "When shall we race?" He said, not to be sidetracked.
I remained silent.
"Tomorrow?" Pippin asked, and I nodded.
"Merry!" he said, exasperated, "That's not fair! Alright, alright, I'm sure you would have solved your riddle eventually!"
"Yes, and we shall have a rematch," I said, smirking good naturedly, "…eventually."
