16 - PAfH; [Audio // Common]

[oblique_wisdom]

[Sheik is gracing the caves. He's doing his own investigation. And no, he won't be saying what for. As per the usual, he carries his harp on him and plays it as he speaks.

It looks like Zelda didn't get a choice in the matter this time. Sheik is operating off of intuition.]Like the song of a flowing river

Comments

[shipshapeshipco]

Ah, what is this? Could it be a well-versed riddle before my eyes? It's a gasp of fresh air on this sometimes stolid ship. Let Samuel the Solver, the Ponderer of the Pontoon, the buff of the barge, the Dalai Lama of the dinghy, solve this impeccably worded puzzle!

Let us look deeper... clipped wings, tear, duty....

Ah! I have discovered the meaning of your words, young troubadour! You are a Giant Cave Salamander, known to devour birds who, broken winged, fall into the rivers of the Texas panhandle! The flow of the mighty river that created their dark, dank homes is the anthem of their entire lives, blocking out the whisper of the outside breeze! And, of course, the tears of the children come when they see this hideous, unnatural monster.

Now that the gauntlet has been both thrown to the dusty ground and subsequently dusted off and re-handed, I will deliver to you soon a puzzle of escalating dificulty. This shall be the word-war that makes the world shudder!

[oblique_wisdom]

[Sheik is... perplexed by this man. Perplexed, and at the same time, quite a bit intrigued. He's the first aboard to understand that the Sheikah speaks in riddles and a rather roundabout way.

He listens thoughtfully, attempting to piece together where he acquires his theories from. And then to find that he is to be given a riddle in return...? Why, this must be Sheik's lucky day!]

One cannot deny that the conclusion you have arrived at could be defined as imaginative and creative. Could it be that you are implying by the classification of a 'salamander', that I am of a lizard type? Is it the cunning you observe that would have you choose this?

Why a salamander over any other being in the world?

sometimes Samuel gets it right

[shipshapeshipco]

Well, if you want to drive into mythological taxonomy, a salamander is a creature of fire and ash. So I suppose poetically you could be saying that you, as a cave salamander, are the secret fire burning within a seemingly peaceful cavern.

Or perhaps not.

[oblique_wisdom]

[There's method to his madness.]

Fire and ash, hm? You learn something new every day. You may, or may not be right. That's based on personal perspective alone. Though in a literal term, being of fire and ash in a place that is damp would considerably extinguish my flame, as rain would to dancing fire.

[Now where has he heard that before?]

[shipshapeshipco]

A fair point indeed. And to think for a brief moment I felt I was on to something both obscure and deeply revealing. Well, Comme çi, comme ça.

[oblique_wisdom]

To be obscure and deeply revealing. You seem to like a world of contradictions. How fascinating and a source of great intrigue. I'm sure you'll find something that fits your definition upon this ship--for it seems it has absolutely everything.