Forgotten; Worshipped (Imported from Ao3)

36

Alexander woke up, with a distorted sense of time. He had become able to fall unconscious every once in a while, whenever he exhausted himself. While he resented every second leading up to him falling unconscious, he was glad that he could skip some time. Generally, according to the Judge, he fell unconscious for between 10 days and 10 weeks. He didn't want to wake up this time, or anytime ever, but some force seemed to be forcing him to. He was hardly conscious of what was happening when suddenly the phial he was in was shaking powerfully. The Judge was shaking it to get Alexander to wake up, a month had passed since he had fallen 'asleep', and the Judge was getting impatient with him.

"Wh-what do you want?" Alexander questioned groggily and the Judge sighed.

"I need your help," the Judge asserted and Alexander groaned.

"Yeah, I figured!" Alexander gnarred, "What is it?"

I'm somewhat in need of a riddle or two," he said and Alexander raised a brow.

"A riddle? What, did you piss off some local woodland spirit? You know, you're not supposed to do that right? I bet that thing was older than you" he scoffed and rubbed his eyes and the Judge growled.

"I don't need you to make fun of me, Wind," he spat sharply. Alexander had seemingly managed to make the Judge be permanently pissed at him.

"Shit, you totally did! What did you do?" he asked in disbelief. The Judge groaned.

"That doesn't matter-"

"It really does, believe me. Last time I pissed off a woodland spirit-"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" the Judge snapped and Alexander recoiled and cowered.

"But context is important here-"

"Just give me a riddle. Preferably an impossible one, so it can't possibly solve it," the Judge hissed and Alexander shook his head.

"No, giving it an impossible one will just piss it off more and make it curse you. I speak from expe-"

"Just give me a riddle!" the Judge hissed.

"I thought you wanted me to help you?" Alexander snapped.

"You would with a riddle!" the Judge growled back

"Fine... Any restrictions?" he hissed and the Judge nodded.

"It said it only allows 'who am I?' riddles, and it allowed me four tries while it will ask me four riddles in return. A battle of wits, more or less," he clarified and Alexander rolled his eyes.

"Of which you have none, if you need me for it," Alexander grumbled and then spoke louder, "Eight in total? That's a lot for a spirit? Anyway, fine... First riddle," and he told the Judge one of the oldest riddles he knew, to some degree because he had been there and a participant in creating them.

Outside of the phial, the Judge was standing in front of an ancient woodland spirit which had been roaming through the woods near his home and he had been ill-mannered toward it and had refused to give any hospitality. The woodland spirit had threatened him to put a curse on him which even he couldn't lift off himself and had given him a chance to get out of it by giving a riddle and, if the spirit couldn't solve it, he would be spared of the curse, but if the spirit could solve all the riddles the curse would hit him tenfold.

The woodland spirit chortled and wrapped its head sickeningly around itself, and then asked the first riddle.

"Let us start simple, shall we? Everything nourishes me, and I am the fattest thing there is. What am I?" the spirit asked and the Judge didn't know the answer to it and had to ask Alexander for help again.