"Something that looks an awful lot like a shiny new goddess turning up in this hellworld. I didn't think magic was a thing, but apparently it is. Her name's Stella, her deal seems to be stars, night, and helping people. Can't act under daylight, can't make truly novel stuff without hacking it together out of existing stuff, has limited attentional capacity. That's all I know so far."

"Ffffuuuuck. That's gonna shake things up. Can't wait to see what happens."

She nods. "See ya, bro. I'm heading back to my room for now."

Mike waves.

When Sable gets back into her dorm room, she has a brief discussion with her headmates.

She fulfilled a mundanely impossible wish.

            Still not sure we're not hallucinating.

    We may not be able to rule it out, but the events so far are rather convincing.

        An impression of illusion magic shattering.

We'll be on guard for that. If she asks us to do anything awful we call it off. She's limited and people don't know about her yet.

                And don't we — and the world — need some hope for once?

They come to a decision, and Sable grins. She focuses on the stars, the night, and the person who'd helped her so much.

"Okay, Lady Stella," she murmurs, heart brimming with excitement and hope and gratitude, "how can we help?"

Stella considers Sable's offer. 

It's a big help, in some ways. Having someone able to generate prayers for her about things that catch her attention matters. But she's also worried that Sable doesn't know what she's getting into. 

This is starting to get tenuous as an answer to your original prayer. If you focus on wishing to talk it might help me keep the connection. 

I expect I'll have some relative downtime when night is mostly over the Pacific Ocean. I'll probably use that to catch up on less-urgent things that I can nonetheless fix with time and effort. Well targeted prayers then might help me do a lot for people sooner.

If you're willing to get up just before dawn in the morning and pray for solutions to particular large problems, you could help a lot. It would help even more if you were willing to move to an island out in the Pacific, say Hawaii, and adopt a nocturnal lifestyle to help me work on thorny problems, but your location here is not terrible either, and I don't want to ask that of you — you have a life to live of your own. 

"We can do the early mornings thing at the very least. We'll see how things go, and maybe we can angle our degree for something like being a staff programmer at an observatory, which would give us an angle on Hawaii. We have our own reasons to be interested in visiting there, anyway. Tomorrow will be spent fixing legal paperwork to match our new face, though. Good luck with your night, Lady Stella."

Good night. And if you need help, don't hesitate to pray.

Stella turns her attention back to the boy who's slowly drifting off thinking about his mother coming home safe. She can't really ensure that; most of her journey would take place during the day. But she can offer a little reassurance, and listen just in case she has something to wish for.

So far her prayers are somewhat slow, so she takes the time to get a nice envelope together and a plushie of a kitten with some custom decoration. 

I'll watch over your mother for you, and do my best to see her safely home. I can only act at night, but I'll try. I hear prayers and wishes directed at the night, the stars, or to my name, which is Stella. 

I know this is a bit of a silly answer to a prayer, but the world doesn't know much about me yet, and you were wishing in the right direction. 

Take comfort; all is likely to be well, even without my intervention. 

— Stella

The boy excitedly squeezes the plush kitty and drifts off to sleep, thinking "thank you Miss Stella!" as hard as he can.

Despite almost no one knowing about her yet, Stella is still in for a busy night. Lots of people across the Americas "accidentally" pray to the night or stars: clerks wishing their shifts were over, people being mugged, strippers wishing for a quiet night or a big spender, an author praying for her story to get accepted by a publisher, an artist wishing for inspiration, a teenage boy who just got his driver's license wishing for a Mustang, a thief hoping to find a good score so her family can eat tonight, and so many more.

She breaks up muggings first, with teleportation and destruction of their weapons. Those who injured their victims badly enough to cause or seriously risk their deaths get the diamond mark. 

Those who want money the honest way are harder to manage, but she tries. Bored, work-less clerks whose bosses won't ream them out for reading on the job she makes books for; those having busy nights she does spare tasks for where she can hide them. More than one clerk forced to stand gets a tall stool they can perch on, or where that won't pass, a soft mat to cushion their feet. Often she applies combinations of these strategies together, hurrying work and then giving entertainment or comfort for the remaining time. Some few clerks, those worst off, get the offer of a way out, or extra money found in their wallets. The strippers are handled similarly: some get lost bills slipped into their take for the night; others she offers opportunities to get out of the business. 

Other cases she handles one by one, offering comfort and support where she can. The author gets a stack of books on how to get published, a letter of support, and a mug of cocoa; the artist who wishes for inspiration she offers an adventure — two teleports, one to anywhere in her range and one back home; the teenage boy gets a free car, though a reliable, workhorse machine and not the Mustang he wished for; the thief gets a selection of lost pieces of jewelry and a gentle admonishment. 

For those cases that are common and not serious, she makes up form letters to let her do more of them faster; but anything where fear of violence is on the table gets a personal response. 

Her most common form letter goes like so:

I don't have the time to speak to you personally, but I hope you are comforted by the token I've left. You matter, no matter how mundane your trials: and if you pray to the stars or the night sky again, you may once more catch my ear.

— Stella

Victims of violence are very relieved, if confused. Clerks are quietly appreciative of their jobs getting easier and their boredom getting relieved. The author is quietly grateful. The artist takes her up on the adventure, and travels to a bonfire party on a scenic jungle beach, looking around to burn it all into her memory and take a few pictures before eventually accepting the teleport home, at which point she starts sketching furiously and picking out paint colors. The teen grumbles heatlessly for a moment about getting a different car than he wanted, before saying, "Seriously, Stella, thank you, whoever you are." The thief blushes vividly and hurries to her fence. All in all, Stella's efforts make a quiet but noticeable difference for people all across North and South America.

Some of those differences are noticed, however. Rescued people post on social media, cops make phone calls up their chains of command, and gradually information trickles to alphabet soup agencies in several countries. Footage of teleportation is analyzed and compared, witness testimony is studied, uploaded photos of letters are dissected for every possible scrap of meaning. A great many people are extremely concerned about the capabilities displayed. They try to devise hostile response plans, in case this mysterious "Stella" turns out to be a threat, but no one can figure out where to shoot.

Eventually they decide to just experiment. An analyst in the CIA (who wound up winning jurisdiction due to the events occurring internationally) sits in a conference room and thinks about the stars, and the night, and silently prays for a very thorough explanation of who Stella is and what she wants.

This deserves a careful response. 

She produces a letter, on the same typewriter she uses for all her letters. It'll match their signatures. 

My name is Stella. I have only just begun to exist. My purpose is to give refuge, succor, and relief to anyone who needs it. In as much as I have a body, it is the shadow of the earth that produces night.

I can answer prayers and wishes directed at me, which includes the stars and nighttime itself. When answering prayers, I can freely duplicate and transport material objects, or combine them with some effort. I am unable to answer prayers during local daytime.

I have no intention to cause harm, and intend to uphold the rule of law as best I can, though I do not consider myself truly bound by it. I bear no allegiance to any country, though I have a fondness for the western world. I do not counterfeit money, but do retrieve lost valuables. I have no compunctions about producing valuable material goods that are genuinely needed by those who call for my aid, though I categorically refuse to provide weapons. I handle all prayers personally and only give items to people I believe will be responsible with them.

As someone who seeks to ease the lives of others, rather than upsetting their lives, I want to ensure the world stays stable and happy. Unrest, violence and death are anathema to me. Those who I have had to restrain from killing others I mark with a black diamond in their clavicle. I have little fondness for autocrats, but believe that in very few cases is violent revolution worth the cost in blood in its undertaking. 

I am politically left by western standards, though I anticipate you will quickly begin to learn my viewpoints on various issues from my responses to them over time. I have no desire to explain every action I take to a jury of my peers; I rely on my own conscience for that.

I respect the work you do to keep the peace, and hope you maintain it well.

As one guardian of the people to another, 

Stella.

The western powers set their colossal surveillance apparatus to the task of combing through all available videos, trying to correlate someone's reactions with Stella's publicly visible actions, in case she's lying about the body thing. They're not really a fan of having someone they cannot even in principle apply force against. Normally they have response plans even for their closest allies.

After an hour or so of collective analysis across the continent (along with waking a few heads of state for official opinions), the same analyst prays once more, wishing to discuss the possibility of appointing a diplomat or three for Stella.

It seems clear that the alphabet soup would like to convince her of their views. She's not immune to persuasion, and she'd rather not stray from her purpose... But it is worth trying to integrate with the existing system.

I believe we can help each other. 

I am willing to commit to an exchange of prepared letters at each nightfall on the east coast. Active conversation spends valuable time, but prepared documents I can check at relative lulls. Thus, in general I prefer asynchronous means of communication.

In the meantime, she vanishes gangs and cartels' hoarded drugs and weapons, upgrades and repairs infrastructure when she has the chance to get it in edgewise under other prayers, and generally does her best to ease the burdens of Mexico and South America using the knowledge offered up by those who pray to her, even accidentally. Though she's tempted to simply vanish the Pablo Escobars of the world, she restrains herself to breaking up attacks and handing out the black diamond mark to those whom she catches in the active commission of lethal violence. She's going to at least give them a chance to reform.

The governmental agencies agree to that proposal, and and start making calls to select an empty office on the eastern seaboard to use as the letter exchange point. Dossiers of diplomats and analysts are collected to form a specialized team to interact with Stella. They otherwise leave her be for now.

The cartels and gangs are rather displeased to find themselves suddenly disarmed. They investigate to see if any of their rivals are responsible, and threaten violence if they find the culprits.

While all that is going on, various street-level violence still occurs, and people occasionally pray about it — in very slightly increasing numbers, even, as rumors of Stella's existence spread.

Stella does her best to prevent as much violence as possible, though the constant low-level artificial light she's working in gradually builds to what might be a pounding headache in a human. She still puts preventing or repairing violence first, even in harsh light, but she starts prioritizing the more routine prayers by light level as she gradually starts to exhaust her pain capacity. Taking breaks to "wander" in parks and natural areas by starlight eases her pain a little, as does doing a few more of her personal whims — gifts for people she likes the wishes of, more or less. She practices making more custom gifts for those in parks and wilderness areas, learning the "motions" to interpolate text in flowing cursive more efficiently. 

After a moment to think and decompress spent making extremely overelaborate smores for a family in Yellowstone National Park, she realizes that she should also be prioritizing those in hospital, especially those who are suffering from old age or other terminal conditions. They take more time to set up, but some of the cases are urgent enough that they need her intervention now — she's already lost some people through her carelessness. 

She was already doing triage, but this new realization pushes her further. She can't be everywhere at once. 

She panics for a moment, and almost dangerously misplaces an interpolation on a handgun — but she catches herself. She needs rest, or she'll destroy her own ability to help too. 

Stella writes a form letter for people she's slightly too slow to save, and starts teleporting the recently dead to a renovated cavern under Yellowstone where she can work in total darkness. There she vitrifies and stabilizes their bodies — a much less fiddly process than repairing each and every injury — and starts reviving and returning those she can as a 'leisure activity' in her spare moments. Those who are too far gone even with all her abilities she also returns to their hospital beds, composed as peacefully as she can make them, with hand-written letters of apology.

It hurts not being able to be there for everyone. 

— three patients in she starts keeping vitrified copies of those she couldn't save. Their families can have bodies to bury, but she's not going to give up hope that the people themselves can eventually be recovered. 

News of her interventions still hasn't spread very far, but reactions are stunned and positive. A few more people make posts on social media. Gradually things start slowing down, as more and more of the night moves over the Pacific ocean. Eventually, morning comes to the west coast of North America, and night falls in east Asia.

Sable wakes in the pre-dawn quiet and prays to Stella, with gratitude rather than a request. "Thank you for this amazing new body. I hope you take some time for yourself, too."

And then she starts in on her tasks for the day, calling her family (two time zones ahead) to tell them the news, and then doing her coursework early so she can get a head start on the bureaucratic nonsense she'll have to do once offices open.

It's good to have someone looking out for her, too. 

She drafts a letter in between emergencies.

Hey, Sable. (I looked you up a little, hope you don't mind.) 

Thank you for the prayer, it's very flexible. I wanted to put a personal project to you. 

I'd like to raise an island in international waters in the Pacific, so that there can be a refuge for people who have no-where else to go in the world. I might end up with a couple of these, actually, in the Pacific, Atlantic and probably Indian oceans.

I'd like to invite you to help design them, and to be one of the Pacific island's first residents. I like you, and I think you have the attitude I want in a... priestess, I suppose. 

Infrastructure's likely to be light at the start — while I can copy generators and gasoline to power them, and houses, fresh water, food, etcetera, I can't integrate a country with the world, or provide all the people necessary to run a country — so no internet, and you'd have to keep your own generator running to power your house with fuel I provided, and eat food I made for you — but I'd be willing to provide all the necessities, and the climate would be lovely.

Some risk of retaliation from some group or other who dislikes me, of course. You'd be committing to a very interesting life. But come on, don't you think it would be such an adventure?

"Wow. Wow. On the one hand, hell the fuck yes. On the other, how am I going to explain this to my parents? Mom's going to have Opinions about my running off to be the priestess of a goddess I've only just met. On the gripping hand, she had Opinions and Concerns for my well-being when I came out as trans, and I didn't let her stop us then."

She hums for a long moment.

"Ah. This is crazy and I'm being reckless but I love this. Yeah, Goddess, sign us up. I reserve the right to ask for a letter drop on my mom to prove that you exist, though."

Draft me a letter and I'll send it with a gift, and my own personal note.

(She's replacing crushed organs and knitting together flesh for a car crash victim in another artificial cave below the Coyote Mountains Wilderness; her attention is a little bit elsewhere.)

She quickly writes a letter on her laptop.

Mom, Dad,

Let's rip the band-aid off up-front: I'm leaving school. I have good reasons, but you're probably going to have Concerns. Let's get a few of them handled quickly:

1. I'm still going to finish my degree, just online, because the opportunity requires travel.
2. I'm going to be the first priestess for that brand-new goddess you may have heard about, Stella. She's the goddess of the night, stars, and caring for the lost and in need.
3. Yes, she's real. She's going to be appearing this letter directly in your lap tonight, along with a note of her own. Hopefully a mundanely impossible event before your eyes counts as enough evidence for you.
4. She also magically transitioned me to a gorgeous new body, see the attached selfies.
5. She doesn't want sacrifices or anything awful. The main thing she needs is help coordinating people and requests, because her biggest limitation is attentional capacity.
6. You can't actually stop me. I'm telling you so you hear it from me first, rather than when I wind up mentioned in a news story about her.

I'm going to be busy coordinating a lot of people and setting up infrastructure, and quite frankly having the time of my life. I won't want for anything, and I'll be helping Stella make a real difference in people's lives. I think that's worth a precipitous leap, to get in on the ground floor. We can keep in touch over email once I've got the new location connected to the internet, and I'll work on cell service sometime after that. Take care.

Love,

Sable

She quickly snaps a selfie on her phone, then another close up to her face, holding her old deadname ID in-frame as well, and prints both of them out along with the letter. It all gets stuffed in an envelope, and she nods.

"There we go. Not the nicest explanation, but I don't really want to spend the time explaining things nicely when all they're going to try to do is overprotectively stop me from helping you change the world. It would take three extra days minimum, they'd still be scared and grumpy, and I'd still run off with you to a brand new Pacific island. The only change to things would be lost time."

She shakes her head.

"Best time to drop it on them will be tonight. New Orleans probably has too much daylight for you to operate there by now."