I Don't See The Point PV Moffy

The correct term for what Cypresse was feeling would be politically miffed.

There was honestly so much wrong with what the old man had just concluded that her very much Ravenclaw mind wanted to crawl out of her skull and scream every fallacy that had just been made in his face. However, considering that that mind was just as blind as she was and would likely end up vituperating its frustrations to a fallen leaf somewhere on the ground, the castigation found its way out of her tongue instead.

"You know what..." She paused, taking the time to languidly sweep her hand through the air and in front of her face, putting up a good show of examining her chipped, too-long nails. Which... she was literally unable to do, short of knowing that they weren't about to poke her in  the face. "You know what a Ravenclaw actually does? A Ravenclaw doesn't just get the answer to the question. A Ravenclaw will go through the thought process, every consideration, and ponder the limits of a question. It makes sense that you're not a Raven, actually: only the truly intelligent will really value a riddle for the actual point of one. Whether or not the response I gave you is one that you expected, I did answer the riddle, and based on your reaction, I answered it right. You asked be to solve the riddle, not say what you wanted. Those are different things.

"And further, I'll let you in on a little secret - the Ravenclaw Door Knocker - you do know where that is, right? - lets Ravenclaws in based on their mental process, not the given answer. We value wisdom, not just knowledge. If you just say something that someone else told you without thinking it through and understanding why, it actually won't open until you do understand. That way, you learn. I guess the 'wise old man' trope doesn't fit you, especially since they aren't supposed to be hypocrites - if you want to assume something, such as that I don't know the answer, then I should be allowed to assume things too.

"Now, onto the specific mechanics of the riddle itself. I don't know if you'll be able to understand a short girl barely out of her teens, but I'll try to explain without the crayons I'd usually use." Cy paused for a moment, taking a deep breath in stark contrast to the short ones she'd taken briefly so as to not interrupt her truckloads of slightly passive-aggressive explanation that she'd poured down. She did not intend to hear a response until she'd finished in whole. "Technically, if that's the level you want to argue on, you have to consider the meaning of every single word that you uttered to get a clear answer. For simplification purposes, we'll skip the Plato-ism of considering the definition of fingers and I. Let's move on to the word now, because you said right now. If you think about it, if you're able, now is never a time. It is all the time, because it is always now. Therefore, there are infinite answers possible."

"But if you assume now meant the exact moment in timespace when you finished uttering the word now, there's still the matter of the verb holding. There are, of course, a lot of definitions for hold, but a good generalization might be supporting with one's hands or arms. I believe we can agree that to support is to bear the mass of. But obviously, or at least obviously to me, your hand is on the end of your arm, meaning your arm is stopping it from falling to the ground, because, you know, gravity. If you chop off someone's hand, it'll fall to the ground, right? Or, if you chop off someone's finger, which is attached to someone's hand, it will also fall to the ground. That would be ten fingers on two hands, which is ten, unless you're referring to just one hands, in which case you have five.

"However, there are also other interpretations for this. You could also say zero, if you don't count that as supporting, or if you have a different definition of holding something. You see? It really does depend. You could argue for any answer being correct, including an answer that says that there are no correct answers except that there are no correct answers, wow, try saying that five times fast, because you never really know the definition. People are what give words definition, and I hope you understood that, because I'm too lazy to go fetch a dictionary and find some three hundred words that I just said.

"If you want to argue that I still didn't answer the answer correctly, I'd first like to say that what you say is the correct answer doesn't make it the correct answer. Who said there can't be more than one answer to a riddle? You could say that one plus one equals three, but that won't make it true. So you see, I can't accept defeat if it never happened. And now my throat is dry." Cy shifted her weight back onto her heels as she felt for the silicone cap of the water flask at her hip and sipped as delicately as if the contents were tea, not bothering to replace it as she continued. She hadn't actually anticipated this much talking, but Aoi had drilled the concept of always come prepared into her head too many times to count - if not Aoi, then situations where she unwisely didn't listen to her sister.

"About your stories. As hard as it may be to imagine, and I sincerely know that it may be, I do teach classes, meaning I do talk to students. Meaning that man, the teacher gossip that happens around them probably exceeds the rumors spread about each other, except it's usually truer. Besides, everyone has stories, even if they're not as adventurous and whimsical as the ones my students have said. And please." She took another sip, waving her hand. "Indolent vegetables don't tell a two-sentence story to get rid of people. They don't offer riddles for a deal, nor do they find a way out of acknowledging an answer, or not slam the door on jejune children. And finally, they definitely don't work at Hogwarts. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that - Hogwarts has standards.

"And even if you were some kind of torpid lackadaisy, even you would have stories. Sure, they might not be as adventurous and whimsical as what the kids have said, but they'd be there, all right, and if I'm denied my Tumblr, there'll have to be stories elsewhere. Everyone has stories, whatever they've lived through or not lived through. A teenager's little sister did this. A woman's child did that. A stranger on the train was reading the same book. A couch potato had a childhood. There are stories everywhere, but I've heard more about yours, so I'm looking for yours. Even if you were a good-for-nothing jerk, which you aren't, you obviously got there somehow. Anyway - how much work is it really for you to just freaking talk about your life? I promise I'll go away if you give me a good story, one with none of the BS you've brought up."

She was sure she was toeing the limits now, but decided to see if anything would be offered in return or not. Really, why not give her a story? As far as he should be concerned, she was just another student - certainly young enough to be regarded as such with a little stretch of imagination. Was it really that much work? If he was in the middle of something important, why not just say that? But it was too late for any polite turning away after all of the banter that had taken place. Quite interesting, then, how this would turn out.