Chapter Text
It's a miracle she's not having cardiac arrest at this point.
Sandrone's third coffee of the day was a black void like her soul. It reeks of crippling deadlines, shitty professors and even more incompetent groupmates. It's bitterness aiding her throughout the night, like a punch in the gut. Way to go for Sandrone, making this entire project by herself–what else was she supposed to do, really, when she had the unfortunate outcome of having three airheads for her sorry excuse of a team?
And so here she was, still awake at four in the morning while the rest of the world snored all their worries away. Tinkering with the mechanical dove's gears as quietly as she could because of how thin the dorm room's walls were, despite how shaky her oil covered hands had gotten from the caffeine intake. With shaky hands holding her wrench, she slides down one tic. Satisfied, Sandrone closes the tiny hatch, hoping that this time, the mechanical wings would stop buffering and actually work.
"Entry log number twenty-six. Commencing twenty-sixth attempt of Project Silver Dove's wing assembly."
Sandrone adjusted the recording device before reaching for the handheld controller resting beside the workbench. Fresh grease stained the tips of her fingers as she thumbed the activation switch.
"Initial diagnostics—power core stable. Servo response nominal. Optical cameras online. Gyroscopic stabilizer calibrated."
The tiny mechanical dove remained motionless atop its stand, pink optics flickering to life one after another.
"As for the wing articulation..."
She leaned in, instinctively holding her breath. A quiet whir echoed throughout the workshop. The paired servomotors engaged first. Then came the satisfying succession of tiny clicks as dozens of miniature gears synchronized, transferring motion into the dove's delicate wing joints. Brass pistons compressed and released in perfect rhythm, each feather-like segment unfolding exactly as she'd designed it.
Good.
Very good.
No resistance. None of that excessive vibration. Current draw remained well within acceptable limits. For the first time in days, Sandrone allowed herself the smallest hint of optimism.
"Flight test commencing in three..."
The dove hopped from its perch.
"...two..."
Its wings caught the air.
"...one—"
"W-wait!"
Instead of floating gracefully, the automaton lurched violently to the left. Its gyroscope overcorrected. The right wing compensated with far too much force. The entire machine spun like an arrow released sideways, charging headfirst toward the nearest wall. Sandrone slapped the emergency shutdown before the controller had fully registered in her hand.
The dove lost power mid-flight.
She barely managed to catch it against her chest, momentum nearly sending both engineer and machine crashing backward. The pink glow behind its eyes dimmed. One by one, the servomotors disengaged. The frantic chatter of gears slowed into silence. Only then did Sandrone release the breath she'd been holding.
She stared down at the tiny machine.
"...I hate you."
Moments later, she collapsed forward onto the workbench with a dull thud. "Urgh—! Seriously! Why can't you just fly normally?!" The complaint echoed around the cramped apartment workshop with no answer heard in return. Only shelves overflowing with spare actuators, half-disassembled prototypes, and enough scattered blueprints to wallpaper the entire room.
Her calculations hadn't been wrong. They couldn't have been. She was Sandrone Guillotine. The top engineering student in the university. She had built autonomous drones from scrap during her first year. Designed prosthetic joints precise enough to rival commercial models by her second. Yet somehow… A mechanical pigeon had reduced her to talking to herself. She'd already redesigned the wing frame using a lighter aluminum alloy to lower the wing loading. The dove became too buoyant, immediately pitching upward and embedding itself in the ceiling. She increased the gear reduction to smooth the flapping motion. It stalled halfway through every cycle. She recalibrated the servomotors, rewrote the stabilization algorithm, even redistributed the battery pack to shift its center of gravity.
Each solution merely produced an entirely different problem.
The machine refused to fly. It either climbed when it should've glided, dove when it should've hovered, or treated every nearby wall as though it were the intended destination. All of this, the constant breaking and building, has put her into a dead end in a hopeless project.
Perhaps she should take on Rosalyne's advice of "taking a break", no matter how infuriating it may be. Her brain is fried, her eyes could literally be held up by imaginary toothpicks to keep her from dozing off, and she has that antsy feeling from drinking her black coffee. Sandrone gives it more thought. She could stubbornly continue doing this cycle until she could finally crack the code, or, she finds something else to do to keep her mind off equations.
Sleep was not an option, as tempting as it was, she could doze off now and wake up the next evening. She couldn't afford losing precious time.
Perhaps a visit to the old shop will do.
A few streets down from campus, there was a shabby store selling tech from ancient times. Sandrone once found a cog dating back from the Cataclysm. It was one of the very few places she actually enjoyed going to and–what was the word? Relax.
With her bird project sealed in its display case and her tools scattered about her work desk, she sets off when the sun had just barely risen feeling more defeated than ever.
Sandrone would never admit it aloud, but she could appreciate the owner's decision to keep their shop open twenty-four hours on weekends. It demonstrated foresight. Any establishment catering to engineers ought to understand that inspiration rarely respected business hours. Neither did catastrophic design failures. Besides, no respectable thesis had ever been completed on a healthy sleep schedule.
The little bell above the entrance chimed softly behind her as she stepped farther into the shop. The place smelled pleasantly of machine oil, cedar shelving, and old metal. Every aisle was crowded with neatly labeled drawers containing screws, bearings, gears, springs, copper wire, and enough miscellaneous components to keep Sandrone occupied until sunrise.
She slowed almost immediately. Not because she was overwhelmed, but because she was impressed. The inventory was... respectable. Someone here actually organized their fasteners by thread pitch instead of size. Civilization was not entirely lost.
A worker emerged from a doorway near the back of the store, wiping grease from his hands onto a faded rag.
"Looking for anything?"
"I'll be fine on my own."
"Suit yourself then."
He disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived. Sandrone preferred it that way. People had an unfortunate tendency to recommend substitutes.
"There isn't much difference between these bearings."
"There absolutely is."
She'd had that conversation enough times to avoid it whenever possible. Basket in hand, she drifted from shelf to shelf with practiced efficiency.
Wing hinges. Precision springs. A replacement servo.
She paused before a display of brass gears, selecting three before returning one after noticing an imperceptible manufacturing defect near the teeth. By the time she reached the final aisle, her basket had grown satisfyingly heavy. She should leave. Instead, her attention wandered. Toward the back of the building. Past the polished displays. Toward a narrow corridor marked by an aging wooden sign.
STORAGE. EMPLOYEES ONLY.
Sandrone frowned. Storage rooms were fascinating. Not because they were forbidden but because they held the things people hadn't yet decided were useful. Old inventory maybe even have discontinued components. If she was lucky there would even be experimental stock or sometimes, forgotten prototypes.
She lingered for perhaps five seconds. A perfectly reasonable amount of time. Then she walked through the doorway.
Dust floated lazily in the beam of a lone overhead lamp. Unlike the showroom, the storage room lacked any discernible organization. Crates were stacked atop one another, shelves bowed beneath decades of forgotten inventory, and half the labels had yellowed enough to become unreadable.
It was magnificent.
She set her basket aside. I'll only take a quick look.
She wandered deeper between the towering shelves, fingertips brushing over tarnished brass and curious mechanical oddities whose purposes had long since been forgotten.
An old automaton head. A cracked astrolabe. A clock that ticked despite having no visible mainspring. None of it belonged in other places like a modern hardware store. Someone had simply... kept everything. Her kind of people.
Near the very end of the aisle, something caught the corner of her eye. Half-buried beneath a moth-eaten canvas sat an unremarkable brass oil lamp. Its curved handle had oxidized slightly to a muted green, intricate crescent pattern barely visible beneath layers of dust.
It looked hopelessly out of place among the machine parts.
Sandrone crouched.
"...Huh."
The metal was unexpectedly cold beneath her fingertips. She turned it over, examining the craftsmanship with growing interest. No visible seams, maker's mark or indication of how old it truly was. Only countless tiny engravings spiraling around its body, worn smooth by hands that had held it long before hers.
"...Definitely not mass-produced."
The gleaming surface that felt unreal to be that polished since this was something from centuries ago catches her attention. Its shape was molded expertly even with the limited technology they had back then. Sandrone sees her reflection on the surface and knows this was the distraction she needed.
"How much do you want for this lamp?" She takes it to the cash register immediately. She didn't know where her excitement came from, it must be the coffee or the prospect of actually doing something fulfilling and something she liked after the past few weeks. It is definitely the former.
"Hey- where did you get this? We haven't input that in the inventory yet. Did you sneak i-"
"Yes, yes, I snuck into your totally secure stock room that totally took me immense difficulty to open as it was unlocked." Everyone seemed to make it their mission to annoy Sandrone today. "I'm still buying it, which was your intention in the first place anyway. Now, are you going to refuse your customer or do I have to make 50 spam accounts reviewing 1 stars in your shop?"
“W-will do, ma'am.”
“When was this made?”
“The supplier told us it was from the Archon war…”
“Hm. Interesting.”
Finally, this was her definition of relaxation. She went home that morning with a newly enlightened mind.
The lamp was a glaring contrast in Sandrone's otherwise minimalist room. She set it down on her desk after clearing it from her shattered tools. Its body was made out of brass, yet even under the better light, it looked so polished and shiny. Maybe she got scammed and this was actually not from the Archon wa–
Her phone began to chime.
10:30 am, first outdoor testing of project Silver Dove.
Sandrone can feel the dread settle in, all the way to her bones making her head slump down on the desk. "Perfect timing." Great. Now she was faced with the prospect of showing her half finished prototype, facing her freeloading groupmates and leaving this mystery to solve itself at a later date. Her hand reaches out to touch the cool surface, already feeling sleep kick in.
"I just wish this stupid bird stopped exploding..."
Then,
Sandrone wasn't quite sure what happened next.
At first, she was on the brink of falling into a deep slumber. Then a light so bright like a supernova came and along, sounds of wind chimes- wind chimes?? and a force that pushed Sandrone off her chair came along with it. The pain on her back from the fall became the least of her concerns, because now all the drowsiness from her disappeared immediately as she shields her eyes from the light. Sandrone takes a look when it begins to die down, only to see a girl with strange clothing floating– Floating!!! What's even stranger, was that there was pink mist in her room now.
Wait— a girl?
"Oh."
She had the voice of an angel. Literally speaking and it was eerily calm too. Unnatural pink eyes scanned Sandrone's trashed apartment, until finally she took mercy on the flabbergasted engineer.
"This is unusual." The mystery girl regarded carefully. "Humans have evolved so much already, is smelling like...engine oil the new fragrance trend in this era?"
"W-what?"
Lamp girl taps her chin thoughtfully. "When I was last summoned, lavender was the newly crazed fragrance, along with...saffron, yes that was what it was called."
She descended and her bare feet met the carpeted floor. Sandrone expects her to come closer but instead the lamp girl took interest to something humming in her kitchen instead.
“This box, why is it humming?”
“... It's a microwave.”
“Fascinating.” She had an even weirder smile too. If Sandrone was a cat all her fur would be spiked in caution now, yet the alien girl paid no mind.
Said alien girl is getting closer. Her pink eyes staring straight into Sandrone's soul.
Oh, dear gods.
"You're awfully silent for a human. "
More silence followed.
"How were you even able to summon me? I made sure to–" Ghost girl suddenly stops talking and shook her head instead. "Irregardless, it seems my duties have been requested once again."
Those restless nights and numerous red bull cans in her trashcan must've caused temporary brain damage to Sandrone, because what she was seeing now was most definitely a hallucination.
"You have awoken me from my slumber, hence, I will serve your every wish." An eeriely calm voice came from the not–ghost figure, her lips curving as if this was funny for her. "My name is Columbina, Wish granter from the Moon."
Sandrone looked at the glowing woman. Then at the lamp. Then back at the glowing woman. She reached into the grocery bag. Removed the receipt. Looked at the receipt. She had paid twelve mora. Twelve. For an antique lamp.
Not once had the cashier mentioned it included a woman.
Sandrone inhaled.
Deeply.
Then pointed toward the apartment door with all the authority of someone who paid rent every month.
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM TRESPASSER!!!”
Columbina blinked.
"...This is a curious first wish."
"It's not a wish!"
"Oh." She lowered the hand she'd already begun raising. "My apologies."
Sandrone pointed accusingly toward the front door. "I said get out!"
Alien girl only furrowed her brows in confusion. "I heard you."
"Then leave!"
"I cannot."
"...What do you mean you can't!?"
"You have not wished for it."
Sandrone stared. "I'm telling you to leave."
"Yes."
"So leave."
"I cannot."
"...Why?"
"Because you have not wished for it."
"...Are you stupid?"
Columbina tilted her head. "I've been called many things over the centuries. Certainly not that. I admit I'm mildly offended."
"That wasn't an answer!"
"I don't believe it to be an accurate one."
Sandrone pinched the bridge of her nose. No. This was definitely a dream. Dreams often made no sense. Her subconscious had simply developed an irritating personality. She knew the brain starts deteriorating when it has not acquired sufficient sleep. Gods, she should've listened to Rosalyne. She wishes she had her emergency contact here right now to prove this was all a dream.
"Listen carefully," she said, enunciating every word. "Leave. My. Apartment."
Columbina smiled apologetically. "That is an instruction. I require a wish."
"What is the difference?"
"Intent."
"...Intent."
"Mhm."
Sandrone looked at the ceiling. Perhaps if she waited long enough, she'd wake up. Nothing happened. She looked back down. The hallucination was still there. Now examining the ceiling fan with undisguised fascination.
"It spins."
"It does."
"Without anyone pulling a cord, or any pulley system. Surely, this must be made of magic."
"It has electricity."
"I've… been asleep for far too long."
Sandrone abruptly walked past her. Straight into the kitchen. If this truly was a hallucination, the logical solution was hydration.
Or caffeine.
Possibly both.
She opened the refrigerator. One lonely bottle of water. Half a carton of milk. An alarming amount of instant noodles. Columbina appeared beside her. Without walking.
She simply Appeared.
Sandrone closed the refrigerator door fast.
"...Did you just teleport?"
"I floated."
"That's not floating!"
"I floated enthusiastically."
Sandrone decided she hated this woman. Which was a strong feat to achieve. She doesn't hate easily because hating required the energy she simply did not have because of this degree. She could care less about her groupmates abandoning her on this project, she does not like having to deal with her professor, but she doesn't hate any of those things.
This.
This was worthy of hatred.
She poured herself a glass of water. Downed it in one go. Set the glass into the sink. Then looked up. Columbina was watching the faucet. "Remarkable. You have rivers indoors. It's even sanitized enough to be considered drinkable."
"We have pipes."
"How luxurious."
"It's... normal."
"For you, perhaps." Columbina wandered toward the kitchen counter, stopping before Sandrone's electric kettle. She circled it once. Then twice. Her palm reached out before Sandrone could stop her but, strangely, it did not burn the strange woman.
"Ah, so it's boiling water? There's no fire."
"No."
"How, then?"
"Electricity."
"There is that word again."
Sandrone was beginning to suspect "electricity" meant as little to Columbina as "moon wish granter" did to her.
"You truly don't know?"
"I've been asleep for several centuries." She said it in the most casual tone that Sandrone begins to believe this absurd story.
"...Right."
Columbina blinked.
"...This is the worst hallucination I've ever had."
Sandrone feels her brain being fried crisp after these conversations. Seriously, the universe just had to make it even worse for her by sending some– some girl dressed in what looked to be a fashionable curtain or blanket to give her an even bigger headache.
She regards the girl carefully. She was now…floating, bare feet not quite touching the ground. Her eyes had crescent moons in them, as if she really was from the moon or something. Really, this was the worse scam story she had ever heard or maybe at this point experiencd. If she wanted money then Sandrone was the last person she should be robbing.
The girl only tilted her head.
"Do these delusions happen often to you?"
Sandrone did not answer. Instead, she marched straight toward the floating woman until only a foot separated them. She squinted. No visible projector, wires, no drone, hidden speakers were also absent. Tentatively, she poked Columbina's shoulder. It yielded and was warm, soft and most notably, solid. Sandrone frowned harder. "...You're tangible."
Columbina only shrugged. "Oh, well, I should hope so."
"No, that's impossible."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Sandrone poked her again. Then grabbed her wrist. Checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
Her skin was warm, yet there was no heartbeat beneath it.
"No pulse."
"I haven't required one for quite some time, Miss."
Sandrone immediately let go. Nope. No. Absolutely not. Her apartment had become haunted. By some polite, weird, ghost. Which somehow made it worse. "You." She pointed. "Name."
"My name is Columbina."
"No. Full name."
"I only have one…?"
"...Then, Occupation."
"I grant wishes."
"Nationality?"
Columbina looked genuinely puzzled.
"...Moon?"
"What does that even mean?!"
"It is where Wish Granters originate."
Sandrone opened her mouth. Closed it again. She physically turned away, rubbing both hands over her face. Her brain had officially resigned. When she turned back around— Columbina was examining the framed engineering degree timeline pinned above her desk.
"...University?"
"Don't touch that!" She quickly rushes over and grabs the frame away from the black haired woman.
Columbina smiled apologetically and that made her even more irritated. "I wasn't."
"You were looking at it." Sandrone accused even further.
"I was admiring it."
Sandrone snatched the paper from the wall anyway. "...How did you even get in here?" There she said it. After all this mind numbing back and forth the woman finally acknowledged the strange nature of meeting this…person in her apartment. Said person took a while to answer, as if she finds it difficult that Sandrone couldn't understand. In the engineering student's mind, she was already calculating the possibility of this happening, it's not like this person sneaked inside her house and did that grand…special effects entrance, because she locked her doors— triple locked, in fact, and where else would be her point of entry? The window?
The intruder doesn't seem to find this entire situation strange, too. She only shrugged casually, the fading pink tips of her hair brushing her shoulders, and casually replied. "I thought it was obvious that you summoned me."
Sandrone's eye twitched. What kind of summoning is she talking about? Did drinking five cans of red bull trigger some sort of ritual Sandrone was unaware of? "I rubbed a lamp!"
"Correct."
"I didn't summon anybody!"
"You did."
"I bought it for twelve mora!"
The girl looked visibly offended at that, her hand dramatically clutched to her chest. "Aw...That seems rather inexpensive for my services."
Ridiculous.
Sandrone threw both hands into the air.
"WHO EVEN ARE YOU?!"
Columbina blinked. Then, with remarkable composure, she dipped into a graceful curtsy. "Again, my name is Columbina. I serve under the Authority of Wishes as a certified Wish Granter of the Moon."
Sandrone stared.
The words filtered into her brain one at a time.
Authority. Wishes. Certified.
Her mind snagged on the last one.
"...Certified."
"Yes."
"As in, you have... certification." Sandrone blinked. Somehow, that was the part her exhausted brain found the most unbelievable. Not the floating. Not the glowing eyes. Not even the claim that she had emerged from a lamp. No, what refused to process was the implication that somewhere, somehow, there existed an organization handing out professional qualifications for geniehood.
"It took many decades."
"You have training."
Columbina's smile softened with quiet pride. "We all do."
"...There are more of you?"
"Oh, certainly."
Sandrone stared at her for a long moment, waiting for the obvious exaggeration to reveal itself. It never did. "How many?"
Columbina thought for a moment.
"...Thousands?"
Sandrone's eye twitched.
"THOUSANDS?!"
Columbina didn't so much as flinch. She merely offered a tiny, apologetic smile. "Approximately. Again, I have been asleep so there could be more during the time I was away."
This was insane. This defied all logic. Had her life been a lie? She's not sure why she'd been convinced, but she reasoned that one can not be that determined to rob some broke college student and go the extra mile with these special effects and convincing story. "And nobody thought to tell humanity?!"
"We're generally difficult to summon."She answered with such effortless sincerity that it somehow made the statement even more absurd. As though hidden civilizations of celestial wish granters were an entirely reasonable thing to keep from the public.
Sandrone opened her mouth, closed it again, then opened it once more.
"I SUMMONED YOU BY ACCIDENT!"
"...Yes. That is admittedly unusual."
Sandrone collapsed onto the sofa.She needed aspirin. Or a priest. Heck she'll take both. Columbina floated over, clasping her hands politely. "The Authority will likely be most interested in how this happened."
"...Authority?"
"The Authority of Wishes." She spoke of it as though discussing the local post office. Celestia above, Sandrone was losing it.
"They oversee Wish Granters. They assign us to worthy humans. Every human accumulates merit throughout their life. A point system, if you prefer."
Sandrone blinked. "...There's a cosmic grading rubric?"
"There is."
"...You're joking."
"I have never once joked since waking."
That… Disturbingly sounded true. For some reason Sandrone just can't deny all that she's telling her just yet. She needed to hear everything, and if this was some scam story this scammer would've been stumbling over their own words now. I mean, she's not asking for her money yet so it's worth the listen right? Sandrone just can't use logic in this situation and that deeply unbalanced her. As if she was balancing a unicycle on a pole placed on the edge off a cliff.
Columbina continued. "Acts of compassion, Selflessness, Perseverance, Kindness without expectation, each contributes toward one's merit snd once a human accumulates enough… They earn the right to have a Wish Granter answer their call."
Sandrone frowned. She leaned forward. "So why me?"
For the first time, it was the woman's turn to be confused. Her brows furrowed in an annoyingly graceful way and her eyes looked to be somewhat lost by the question. She had this all knowing aura until now. "I don't know. Well, I wasn't technically assigned to you."
"...Assigned?"
"The Authority normally selects which Wish Granter answers each summoning." Columbina's expression became thoughtful. "They maintain careful balance. A wish granted in one place often changes countless lives elsewhere. It is... delicate work."
She glanced toward the antique lamp resting on the coffee table. She had this faraway look. It was the same look Rosalyne had pointed out whenever Sandrone talked about Alain that time he was sick. She wondered if cosmic aliens faced problems like that too. Not that she would care. "...Except… I wasn't supposed to answer anyone."
Sandrone followed her gaze, to the lamp that started this entire predicament. "...Because of the lamp?"
"Because of me, they wouldn't be able to assign me because I disappeared from their radar for too long…” The woman paused, as if finding the words to better articulate the delicate nature of her existence. “I slept, basically."
"...That's it?"
"Mhm."
"You just..."
"Slept."
"For how long?"
"I've lost count."
"...Centuries?"
"I believe so."
"You just decided to take a several-century nap?"
"I was rather tired."
Sandrone looked at her.
Waiting.
Surely there had to be more.
There wasn't.
"...That's the explanation?"
"It is."
"No dramatic curse? or imprisonment? No evil wizard?"
"No??? I simply sealed myself away."
"...Why?"
For the first time since appearing, Columbina hesitated.Only for a heartbeat. Then she smiled again. "I no longer wished to grant wishes."
Silence settled between them. Sandrone expected the answer to invite more questions. Insted— It only raised hundreds. She's had enough of this, whatever fairytale story this girl was telling needed to be proven. Verified, because logic is the very foundation of Sandrone's life. She stood so abruptly the coffee table rattled.
"Absolutely not."
"Pardon?"
"I'm an engineer."
"Oh...Congratulations!"
"I don't accept explanations with missing variables."
Columbina blinked.
Sandrone grabbed the nearest notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, and clicked her pen with enough force to make the spring protest.
"If you're real—and I'm not saying you are—I need answers."
She scribbled GENIE??? across the top of the page.
"Start from the beginning."
Columbina looked at the notebook. Then at Sandrone. Then smiled with quiet amusement.
"You're interviewing me?"
"I'm interrogating you."
"I see."
"You will answer every single question."
"And if I don't?"
Sandrone narrowed her eyes.
"I'll... figure something out."
"A formidable threat."
"It is!"
"It sounded unfinished."
"It is unfinished because none of this makes any sense!"
Columbina laughed.
"...Very well."
She folded her hands neatly in her lap.
"Ask away, Miss..."
Sandrone blinked.
"...Oh."
She hadn't introduced herself. Should she really? Doesnt this supposed powerful being know who she was already? But maybe Columbina didn't want to be rude. Why was that important anyway? She broke into SAndrone's apartment for god's sake
"...Sandrone." She answered despite her inner conflict.
"Sandrone Guillotine. Engineering student.” She folded her arms. "...And owner of what I thought was an ordinary lamp."
Columbina inclined her head.
"It is a pleasure to meet you properly, Sandrone."
Sandrone stared at her for a long moment.
Then quietly added another line beneath GENIE???
Possibly insane. Verification pending.
Sandrone snapped her notebook shut.
"No."
Columbina blinked.
"...No?"
She walked over to her closet, already reaching for a coat that'll shield her from the cold breeze. Perhaps she should drop by the pharmacy to buy some…medication for whatever she was experiencing too. She doubted this…woman could even leave if she did.
Sandrone decided that calling her Wish Granter was ridiculous, and settled on genie instead. If you were to tell her this was her life five years ago before starting university she would've jumped off the Palais Memoria. "I refuse to believe that an organization employing thousands of certified wish granters has managed to avoid every government, researcher, historian, journalist and conspiracy theorist for centuries."
The genie floated closer to her, inspecting the small cabinet and the contents inside. Should Sandrone give her some clothes too? She'd stuck out like a sore thumb with those…robes in public. "I imagine many have tried."
"And?"
"They lacked sufficient merit." Again with this cosmic rubric, it was absurd to think that being nice was what these people graded upon.
"That explains absolutely nothing!"
"It explains quite a lot, actually."
"It explains nothing!" She stomped over to her desk after putting her coat on. Sandrone was already grabbing her backpack. She stopped halfway through zipping the bag.
"You—!"
Columbina looked up from examining a framed circuit diagram. "Yes?"
"You are coming with me."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere that can verify whether you're real." She was grabbing her freshly laundered clothes before she could even think about it. A university T-shirt, her gray hoodie and sweatpants that were probably shorter for the woman. She had no right to complain anyway. She dropped the clothes and pushed Columbina to her bathroom.”Go change.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“Yes.”
"I assure you, I already know that I am."
"I wasn't asking." And then the door was slammed shut.
The walk across campus was, in Sandrone's opinion, already going disastrously.
Mostly because Columbina floated.
Not constantly—apparently she could walk—but every few steps she'd absentmindedly drift several inches above the pavement before remembering humans tended to frown upon that sort of thing.
"...Feet."
"Oh."
She lowered herself.
A minute later she floated again.
"Feet."
"My apologies."
By the fourth reminder, Columbina had begun treating gravity like a polite suggestion. Sandrone developed the beginnings of a migraine. Students bustled around them on their way to morning lectures, blissfully unaware of the engineering student internally debating whether sleep deprivation had finally induced permanent psychosis. Oddly enough… No one reacted to Columbina. Not even a glance. A pair of freshmen walked directly between them, one nearly clipping through the space Columbina occupied before instinctively stepping around her at the last second, never once acknowledging the floating woman.
Sandrone almost passed out.
"Can they not see you?"
"Most can."
"Most?"
"Humans rarely notice what they are not expecting to notice."
"That's…! not how eyesight works—"
Columbina smiled. "It is for us."
That somehow made even less sense. Whatever.
The university administration building stood like a monument to bureaucracy. Its walls are painted in her university's signature maroon and yellow on the pillars and the archways. Many students walked about, some having to wait in line for whatever documents they processed. Sandrone marched through the front doors with the determined stride of someone about to submit a formal complaint against reality itself.
The receptionist looked up.
"Good morning. How may I help you?"
"I'd like to report..." Sandrone paused. Right, this was something quite difficult to explain. How exactly was she supposed to phrase this? Hello. I accidentally purchased a centuries-old lamp containing a moon employee.
"...A case of possible identity fraud." She settled on instead. Besides her, Columbina looked mildly offended but knew better than to complain.
The receptionist's polite smile faltered. "...Identity fraud?"
"Potentially."
She pointed beside herself. Towards a dejected puppy looking Columbina. "This woman claims to be a certified Wish Granter employed by the Authority of Wishes."
The receptionist looked exactly where Sandrone pointed. Her brows furrowed. She even took off her glasses and wiped them. Then looked back at Sandrone. "I'm sorry... which woman?"
Sandrone slowly turned.
Columbina was still standing there.
Smiling.
She even waved.
"Her."
"I'm afraid I don't see anyone."
Silence.
Sandrone looked between them.
Receptionist.
Columbina.
Receptionist.
Columbina waved again.
"Can you see me?" Columbina whispered.
"Yes!"
"Oh."
"She can hear you?" Sandrone asked hopefully.
"No."
"...No?"
Sandrone stared at the receptionist.
"...Could you please confirm whether there is currently a black-haired woman standing beside me?"
The receptionist's expression shifted into one Sandrone recognized immediately. It was a look of concern. "...Miss Guillotine..."
"...Yes?"
"Have you been getting enough sleep recently?"
Okay. Rude.
"That's completely unrelated, ma'am—"
"—It may be related."
"It isn't."
The receptionist reached beneath the counter. She sighed because really she had better things to do than deal with this. "For students experiencing excessive stress, the university counseling center accepts walk-ins on weekdays."
A neatly folded pamphlet appeared on the desk. Sandrone looked at it. Then at Columbina. Then back to the pamphlet. Columbina leaned over to read it upside down.
"What is counseling?"
Sandrone closed her eyes.
Very, very slowly.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed eleven. She had skipped her outdoor prototype demonstration. She was now being politely referred to mental health services. And the alleged celestial employee from the Moon was reading university pamphlets with genuine curiosity.
"...This," Sandrone muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose, "is becoming significantly harder to explain with science."