whichwayup: sunrise, sunset.

It was cold, here. Not only in temperature, but in the general feel of the land, with it's spindly, bone-like trees, branches reaching out towards the stormy skies where the fabled sun had once risen. And with its lack of color, only browns, grays, blacks blanketing the frozen earth. Had flowers grown here in a time long passed? Brilliant hues only contested by the rainbow herself?

A man stood, bundled in mottled furs & old leather, hunched against the wall that guarded once chunk of dead land from the next. His breath coiled in the air before him, each molecule a testament to the weather. His arms were crossed, shielding all the vital bits of his body from the outside. Hours passed as he stood guard, only moving every now and again to take from the folds of his cloak a flask, to unscrew the top and press the icy tin to his lips, to take a long draft of the liquid. To guard his soul, to guard his sanity..

Lifeless eyes scanned the rolling hills before him, the land in which he was Gatekeeper. There was nothing, as usual, nothing but his own ragged breath and the occasional squalling crow to assault his ears.

But, there was something. Something unlike the usual flora & fauna.. a person? No.. it couldn't be. No person simply sat in the middle of the road like this, no person wanted any closer to the dirt than they had to be.. But there it was, this thing squatting on his road. He took a few quick steps forward, gruffly mumbling obscure words to himself before slowing to a crawl. When had the person gotten there? The Gatekeeper had never even seen this person travel up the road, but here it was. He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, this was his job, he had to approach the person.

"You there, whot in tha' world are ye' doin'? Sittin' in the road like ye'r waitin' for summer to come.." The Gatekeeper inquired in a hoarse tone, eyeing them closely.

"Answering a question must, in each & every way, be willing by the questionee, lest answer go awry.." It was a literal mass of fabric, speaking through lace, velvet, polyester-blend & silk like a sailor whose rum was, indeed, gone. The words were melodic, however, keeping step as the speaker wished, the question fully evaded for the time being. Through the dark maroons & slates a full head of blonde stared listlessly at their feet, which were stuck straight out before them as they sat like a lifeless doll. Their arms, pale & uncloaked, hung like deadweights from their shoulders, palms up towards the sky in a useless manner.
"And so," they began again in their sing-song nature. "If answer wished from question is, the nasty human bites, he'll put upon his greatest smile and ask that question quiz!" Slowly, awkwardly, they lifted their chin to look this interrogator in the eyes. With head cocked minutely to the right, their bright eyes stared up at him with a doe-like expression.

"Nicely?"

The Gatekeeper guffawed, growing impatient. "A'right weirdee, y'er gunna tell me y'er name, roight? Or I be bootin' ya' back to whereve' it is you came from."
A click of the tongue and a creak of the bones later, the doll-like being was up, standing firmly on their sapphire-heeled feet. A toe tapped, jeweled hands flying to a stubborn place at the doll's hips, somehow finding them amidst the layers of dress.

"Kai is at your service, and service she will do! Be turning heel & biting thumb & leaving now, from you!" With a humph, the now apparently female figure jutted a hip to the side & took a few steps in the opposite direction with model-esque footfalls.

"Oy', shifty! Get y'er fancy bum back ov'r here! Answer me question!" He didn't want to play games with him.. her? It was a waste of time. Not that he had been doing much else.. but this kid was weird. He didn't like weird.

And with that she stopped in her tracks, not that she'd made many to begin with, and turned with an oozing slyness about her features.

"Shifty?" She questioned, quirking a sculpted brow. "If I am a caterpillar, dear, and you a rusty fox, how does that make me shifty?" She had made her way back to the man, circling him once or twice with curious fingers darting around him.

"I am from within the mind, of each who crawls at sunrise. I am rampant within the heart of each who stands at noon. And I am wished during every fall, when the man fell flat at dusk." They paused, cherry lips parting in a Cheshire smirk as they brought a clawed nail to the side of their head, tapping once. "Who am I but a God of what most confuses lowly mammals like yourself?"

"Trouble. That's all ye' be. What business do ye' have so close to the Wall, then?" The Gatekeeper inquired, unbothered by the person's gestures. He'd seen people do strange things, this wasn't nearly the worst.

Standing tall, now, which was only really five feet from the ground, they cleared their throat, eyeing their own dress curiously though without a word. "I crawl from ear to ear, spreading news of demise, at times. I dance from doorstep to doorstep, offering advice to those without my gift.. you, sir, may call me a story teller, seeing as you cannot perceive the obvious."

"A 'Storyteller?'" The man mimicked. Oh, great. It was one of these. The traveling circus acts trying to make a coin. Crazy or not, this person didn't look like the type who carried authorization papers. No papers, no pass. Those were the rules. "Yea, yea. So y'er lookin' to cross my wall, then?" A hacking laugh was offered at the idea of it. "Or are ye' headin' back to the Wastes? Y'er gunna need a better excuse than "Storyteller" to get wherev' it is ye' be headin'. Why else ye' be here?"

"I was born," The voice seemed slightly deeper than it had at the start.. how long had this been true? Perhaps this 'she' was really a 'he'? Oh, but of course not. Men didn't simply prance around in aristocratic dresses for the fun of it, nor did they act as oddly as this.. man? did. But perhaps it was male, as the femininity of their posture slackened, and they took on an imposing stance ( however imposing one could be standing so few feet from the ground). His arms crossed, looking up at the man through slightly lidded eyes, his features cold, dark compared to the bright, bubbly appearance he had had just moments before as his mind went back to his history, through centuries of cultures, languages & experiences; through the verses of early man, skipping past hieroglyphs, bibles & novels and straight on 'til morning.

With a struggled breath, the man hung his head, shaking it slightly as the tinkle of a laugh spilled forth from his lips. The thing started low, rising it volume until it became a ringing soprano bursting forth like magic-called rain. He lifted a hand, placing forefinger & thumb on the corners of his eyes, rubbing them roughly as if to ward away the images flashing behind his eyelids. Libraries of history came back to him, flooding his senses, inebriating him like the damned alcohol it was.

"I was born in the tallest room, of the tallest tower. I was born in the rotting life that earthworms call 'home'. I was born in the folds of cloth, in the starches of parchment, in the vibrant royal purples & pure ebony of ink.." His eyes lifted, staring up towards the sky, not daring to look into the eyes of his interrogator. How could he possibly describe the history of rhyme to this.. less than worldly man? How could he teach the intricacies of riddle when riddle was all he knew? He would only confuse the person, lead them farther into madness. No, he couldn't wish that upon anyone, could he?

It seemed speaking nothing but rhymes & riddles was getting to the God after all those long centuries..

With a sarcastic sneer, the very thing quite literally soaked in emotion, in the poison of the words, he met gaze with the man.

"Why am I here?!" He hollered, his voice rising to his sudden excitement. He longed to see the surprise in the other's eyes, to see him step back, to see his fright. He longed to tell him outright all the secrets he held in riddles, like the Sphinx he truly was behind the masquerade of his being.

But no, that would be unreasonable, that would be silly..

As long as people kept giggling at unintentional rhymes & passing riddles from mother to child, he would live on in the limbo his life had become.

But he was a God, that was enough.. it had to be.. if he disappeared, would not rhyme & riddle? What would become of poetry, of tales & soothsaying & stories describing history and beyond? Now was not the time to have a mental breakdown.

The man was asking simple questions, showing curiosity, doing his job, for riddles sake!

"I.. I apologize.. my life is as it has been for centuries, a lore keeper & keepsake of riddles.."

"So ye'r a real fancy storyteller, aye? Sent from one royal court to the next like a rabbit, aye? Pitiful life, ye' be havin'." The Gatekeeper's thoughts were interrupted by a low grumble coming from his stomach. "But I guess the food be nice, there, eh..?"

The riddle remained untouched, and so, it had to be answered. Likely a spynx in dear Riddle's position would have slain the fellow who lacked the whit to answer, but this God was a kind thing. He left the killing to his other half, and only then did he allow so by being annoyed to death.

"I am the God of Riddle, during sunset, & the Goddess of Rhyme at sunrise." He stated simply, voice back to a reasonable level, calmness washed over his features.

"So.. ye'r tellin' me I'm in the presence of a God..?" Unusual, thought the Gatekeeper, but the heaven-sent weren't terrible uncommon. They were like Tigers, to we Earthbound; exotic, but we've seen pictures, and the lucky amongst us have experienced them pacing in Zoos.

Alas, the Gatekeeper did step down. He would ask no more questions of the God. Laws were different for them, lucky bastards, and they needed to papers to pass from one area to the next.

Simple Gatekeepers had no power over Gods, after all.

And so the God would not bother telling him his favorite scent was apples, or that he enjoyed dusk, but not night, & hated the rain. Or that he often let himself go, let rhyme take hold of him for moments during the day to cope with the mockery of life he lived.

Or that he could be a melancholic whiner, at times.

If his feminine side had been speaking - though she listened, albeit silently, within his mind, offering nothing but a less than reassuring sigh at his thoughts - she would have replied bubbly, ( and in complete rhymes, of course ) that sunrise was best spent with bowls of sweet fruits & sugary treats and that she hated scary things. Like spiders. Spiders were terrible. Or that cupcake pink was a wonderful color!

She was quite a bubbly thing, really.

But they both thought it too much of a bother to speak, naivety was a terrible ailment to ward off, and this man had a severe case of it.

"I would have thought this to be obvious. But alas, the fox is not as quick as the caterpillar once believed.."

"My luck, aye? So why ye'r babblin' on with me? Don't ye' have business to be stickin' ye'r nose in? Writers to make itchy at their fancy writin' desks?"

Was he scared? Was he confused? Was he just dumb? Perhaps a bit of all of them. The wind picked up, suddenly, ruffling the grey & brown fur of the man's cloak. Playing with the folds of crimson & ebony draping the God as if to ward the conversation away, the jingle at the end of a speech gone too long.

Riddle grinned, suddenly, alight in the situation. He gleamed up at the Gatekeeper, a dainty hand reaching out to stroke his stubble-laden chin.
He, as Riddle still seemed to be dominate, offered the next few moments as a keepsake. Rarely did he touch another thing, let alone a smelly common human such as this. But he decided to leave the gruff old man with something to think on.

He didn't want to poor Gatekeepers mind to completely freeze over, after all.

"And what, when Jinn did ask, did the God most desire?"

The God moved forward, placing his lips to the others ear, whispering. He pulled away only moments after, the doll-like hand folding with its twin as a stepped away. Turning, he offered a wink in a makeshift wave of 'good bye', though it turned out to be more of a twitch and a sharp change of direction on his heel. And with that, they were gone; brother & sister had departed the scene just as abruptly as they had appeared.

---

The Gatekeeper stood, alone again, at his post. His arms crossed to ward away the cold, the wind still battering his aged frame, the words of the mysterious Riddle & Rhyme echoing through his thoughts:

"A hookah, a mushroom & to be three inches taller."