Page 76 of Guiding Desire
The Story of the Girl and the Wishing Wisp follows an unnamed girl who lives on a moon all by herself for reasons unknown.
She is lonely and wants company, and in her search for it, she wanders the unwelcoming moon and encounters various “things,” who, in the logic of fantastical tales, can talk and reason: a rock, a wandering shadow, a lizard living in the moon sand, and a pink worm who fits in her palm.
None are able to offer her companionship, and they all send her away. Then, desperate, she sits down on the ground, resigned to her lonely fate. But she is found by a wishing wisp, which the story describes as “a small flicker of electric brightness.” It asks the girl why she is sad, and she tells the wisp.
The wisp in turn says that it has been looking for something too, for someone to make a wish. The girl then wishes to have the power to find companionship, and the wisp agrees to give her that. She feels power inside her and uses it to turn on the moon and make it shine brightly so that other people can find it. They do, and she is never lonely again.
Having granted a wish, the wisp turns into a girl too, who is described as having eyes “like electric flares.” Together with the first girl, they become the first Conduit and Guardian respectively, and all the people they have now found honor and respect them. [...]
(Homework assignment: summarize The Story of the Girl and the Wishing Wisp and analyze its core messages, Orrey Acton, Year Four.)
Theauto-drivelookedpatentlynormal, but normal could be deceiving. Orrey had been used to his forceful, deceptive nightmares for years now, and he knew how to get himself out of them. He tried that as the auto-drive took them away from the Grounds, made himself become aware of himself, his body, noting the odd details about his surroundings.
The problem was it made him only more aware of the slow shiver running over his skin whenever Senlas touched him, and the only surreal detail about his surroundings were that Guardian’s powers, which were unquestionably not a piece of Orrey’s imagination. If anything, telekinesis was possibly one of the more boring powers, not the kind of flashy thing often displayed during Guardian Games.
In conclusion—and it was a painful one—Orrey wasn’t dreaming. At all. It was all real, first the nonsensical notion of anyone beyond the walls then, what? A plot?
Orrey stared out the auto-drive’s window. Argentea still looked normal, peaceful. Covenant flags fluttered in the warm evening breeze, and surveillance drones blinked in steady awareness as people were out enjoying a late dinner or whatever it was normal people got to do.
“It’s not fucking normal,” Orrey said.
Senlas reached forward and put a warm hand on Orrey’s knee, once more forcing out those shivers.
“What isn’t?”
“All of it. Me. Do you think—a coma is different than a dream, isn’t it? Maybe the bomb was worse, and I’m in a coma. That would explain everything. I just have to wake up, and things will go back to normal. They’ll have retested me, and it’ll turn out I’m not a Conduit after all, and there won’t be any Guardians plotting anything, which they don’t do. I mean, why would you? I’ve only seen a slice of the Grounds, but I’ve seen where you live. Plotting means throwing all of that away when the judicial AIs find out.”
Senlas’s dark features hardened. “If they find out.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not in a coma, kitten.”
Orrey pointed at him. “But you would say that. As a figment of my imagination, that’s what you would say. And it would explain why you’ve grown sexier.”
Senlas’s eyebrows flew up. “Say again?”
“You know. Why I went for sex with you when I didn’t want to start a relationship. Or turn into a Guardian chaser. You’re not real.”
He gently patted Orrey’s knee now. “I’ll assume this is still because of your meds, and because you had a long couple of days. But, kitten, what we did…you did want that, didn’t you? You liked it?”
“Yeah. It was good, really good. Channeling was…” He shrugged. “Some dream memories are good. Or coma memories.”
Senlas pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what I won’t be doing? Dragging you to a psych eval. If it makes you feel better to think we’re not real for the night, fine, but I’m plenty real.”
Orrey sighed. “That’s a possibility. Can’t deny that.”
The vehicle stopped in front of Senlas’s building, and he opened the door for Orrey, helped him out when Orrey’s foot got caught on the seat and he stumbled.
Inside the building, the plants looked black under their optimized grow light, color bleeding out only where the lights hit neighboring plants with different needs.
Orrey paid attention to everything around him, hoping to see something like the obvious oddities that always let him know he was having a dream. None stood out.
They took the elevator up. On one wall, it showed newsflickers, a weather forecast.
I can read all of them, and all of them make sense, even that new drama they’re releasing,Orrey thought.
Senlas’s hallway too hadn’t changed, and no shadow people waited for them there.
