"Oh my god, who FUCKING CARES?!"

Both philosophers shut up, and for the first time in hours, a silence falls over the pond.

"Did that duck just talk?" Ernesto asked.

"Do you mean if we perceived the duck as talking or-" Lily began, before being interrupted by the same duck flapping its wings.

"No! No more of that bullshit! Yes, I'm a talking duck. We immortals occasionally take vacations in the forms of lesser beings, but after hours of deciding if I'm a duck or not, you've got me wishing for death. So I figured, I'd just tell you and you can shut up. Yes, I am a duck. Go the fuck home."

"But you just said you were an immortal in the form of a duck!" Lily exclaimed, raising a finger in the air. "Therefore, you are-"

"Ducks can't talk. I hate to say this but I agree with Lily." Ernesto nodded.

The duck slapped its forehead with a wing, demonstrating a surprising amount of range of motion. "Okay. Great. You got me. You're in agreement. Go home. This is my pond."

"But..."

"NO BUTS!" The duck screamed, throwing its wings back.

"BUT... if you're in the form of a duck, the shape of a duck, and swim like a duck, you are indistinguishable from a duck and therefore a duck!" Lily said.

"No, not at all. Ducks don't talk. He is just in the form of a duck. If he wanted to be something else, he wouldn't be a duck, and so he isn't a duck." Ernesto replied.

The duck sighed, perhaps the first time in the entirety of world history that a duck sighed, and the two witnesses were more concerned with whether the duck was a duck. The realization of this caused him to sigh again. "I will shapeshift again if it will get you to go away. Then I won't be a duck anymore."

"Don't you dare shapeshift, we're trying to have a discussion here about whether an indistinguishable object by all standards of perception would truly be the object if it later ceased to-" Lily started.

"I would actually kind of like to see the shapeshifting." Ernesto muttered.

The duck dove under the water and bubbles started forming. After a few moments, a large crocodile rose from the depths and snapped at Lily's feet. The philosophers screamed and ran.

"You can come out, they're gone now." The crocodile gurgled. The duck from before rose from the depths.

"Thank god. Some humans will believe anything."