Mommy and Daddy are making sounds.

Sounds that might possibly mean something.

Would't it be fun to know what could those sounds mean?

Well, Megan will have to wait a few years to find out.

Or not.

"Aww. She just woke up. Look at her, this is unbelievable!"

"I refuse to be surprised by obvious things."

"You're no fun! Come to mama, Meggy!"

Huh? I know what the sounds mean now? What?

Uhh. Unbelievable? Surprise? Refusal? These are... way hard...

That's not very fun, huh. It would be fun to grasp them as much as they, though. To not be... surprised by obvious things? Uh.

"Come on, come on! Come here, come to mama!"

WHOA

^ pictured: the reaction of a mind transitioning from a childlike wordless mental state to immediately knowing the entirety of English, along with enough context and processing power to "not be confused by obvious things".

"Come on, come on! Come here, come to mama!"

Why are you telling me to come to you, mom?

...Aside from this being a weird display of affection, presumably so that I can develop my language skills.

Which I have. Somehow. I understand things. Somehow

"Gueeea!"

But I can't speak. I wish I could speak.

...

"Coming! Also, I can talk now, so this is a bit pointless."

Mom screams.

Dad stares in shock.

Welp.

This seems obvious in retrospect.

Kinda dumb of me. They wouldn't scare their relatives this much out of nowhere, if they were in my place.

I wish I was like that.

...

There's an obvious idea to test. A very important one, too.

I wish a banana appeared near me.

It does.

Mom faints.

AAH!

Well, that's ironic. I became this specifically to avoid-

I can do anything.

Holy shit. Anything.

Anything.

...that is TERRIFYING.

I don't know HOW I am doing anything. It was so lucky I increased my intelligence this much, instead of following literally any other succession of childish whims! That was a great idea, I should do more of-

No.

AAAAAAAAAAH.

"Aaaaaah!"

She doesn't say anything she just thought about out loud, that would probably shock Dad into fainting too.

Dad just stares.

"What the-"

He takes the banana, with shaking hands.

That sure feels like a banana. They sure didn't have any in the house. It just appeared out of thin air.

Dad also faints.

Oh NO! I wish they wouldn't- wait actually this is very convenient.

What should I do?

I CAN DO ANYTHING. I BARELY JUST ACTUALLY BEGAN EXISTING. What should I DO?!

I should ask someone who knows.

Does anyone know? Am I unique in my situation? Probably, it's not part of the basic context I WISHED INTO MY MIND, like that was a REASONABLE THING TO DO-

I wish to-

NO!

I need to stop panicking.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

What's the first thing to do.

Orient. That's what.

Mom and Dad are lying unconscious.

You are in your family's modest apartment. Everything is huge. Everything is designed for grownups.

Right. But I am basically an adult in a child's body, so...

So the entire world is not designed for me, and no one will take me seriously.

Okay. Wait.

No mental modifications.

But I can just-

I wish to have an adult body, with an exactly identical mind and soul (whatever that is) retained.

Well that went well.

Didn't even feel like anything, which makes sense if no changes in mind were specified. 

Now... What to do?

My parents are...

Hmm.

Should I ask them what to do?

That would be... incredibly... something. Awkward?

Huh. That's not a learned emotion. I don't think I ever felt awkward before.

Did I even exist a minute ago?

Probably not. I... killed my parents' kid, then. They will never experience me growing up under their care. I will never properly bond to them.

Wow.

Unless I undo everything that just happened.

Can I do that? 

I should experiment with how much I can do! So far, I know I can arbitrarily change myself and create small objects.

What should I try...

I wish to be unable to die until I wish otherwise.

Well that gave me 0 information.

I wish to... teleport into the corner of the room.

That's going to be MUCH more convenient than crawling on all fours, huh.

I wish to teleport into... some exotic country.

Middle of a desert! Nighttime. Freezing cold. Absolutely nobody around.

Huh? It's night here?! Weird!!! Did I do that? Probably not.

I have never seen anything remotely like this! The closest comparison point in experience is "sandbox", and though I know this place is called a "desert", I have no idea how anything works here.

This is like a whole different world.

A whole different world.

I wish to teleport to a different world.

...

A WITCH!!! Burn the witch!

IWISHTOTELEPORTBACK

Desert. Cold. Dark.

...And back again

Home. There we go.

Okay. That was... Extremely foolish and unforethought. What if I ran into someone massively more powerful? Before, uh, learning the limits of my power-

Mom. Dad. Still knocked out.

I...

Oh no. 

I could pretend nothing happened. They'd dismiss this eventually.

I could make a clone of myself as I was before this, with no powers.

I could explain everything I understand happened here, and vainly hope for a sensible reaction.

I... could brainwash them. Ugh.

I could undo everything, as I considered before.

I could stop time for them, keep them in stasis for a time until I figure something better.

Wait, could I do all these things? 

I haven't tried shit. I barely know what I can do. Unless I want to keep randomly changing my mind in a way I don't understand, I have to try more things to figure out the limits of my powers, though I wish-

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "Could I do all those six things with my parents that I just thought about?"

It says "Yes."

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "Does my power have limits?"

"Some."

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "Who are you?"

"Nobody."

...makes sense.

...

...

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "What should I do?"

It's blank.

Well. Only one of the obvious options has an opportunity to pivot to others, right? 

Let's freeze time for my parents, then.

What should I do? 

Who should I go to?

Arbitrary relatives? That sounds... arbitrary.

Smart people? Wise people? Powerful people? Kind people? Random people?

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "Who should I go to?"

Blank.

This is annoying.

I wish for a piece of paper with an answer to a question "Why didn't I get answers to my last two questions?"

"No real answers exist."

I... see.

Hmm.

How do I do this...

Let's teleport to someone free to talk, who I wouldn't immediately regret teleporting to!

And now, we enter the audience participation stage!

Who does Megan teleport to? 

One person at a time, please. As yourself, or as one of your characters which wouldn't make her immediately regret the meeting.

First come, first serve. Start with a stage description. 

She was probably not expecting to land on a spaceship but it seems that she has.  Right in the middle of it, as the captain? exits the helm.  It's done up in a minimalist sort of style, with colored guidelines over bare metal; the captain is wearing some sort of undersuit, and her belt is festooned with tools.  She has an obvious robot arm, as well.

"...Well.  Hello there."

General Kenobi!

just kidding

"...hi. I'm Megan."

Megan looks around. She doesn't immediately understand where she is.

"...What brings you to my ship today, miss Megan?  I wasn't expecting guests, but I've supplies enough to offer hospitality; you seem like you could use some.  I've always found that a good cup of tea can help me calm and focus, when meditation doesn't suffice by itself."

"I needed to talk to someone who has experience with the world.

I am... in a weird position. Where I don't really have any.

I think it's fair to say I have existed for about five minutes, now."

"Goodness, that seems like a pretty complicated situation to be in!  Do you know if you have a preference, as far as hot beverages go?"

"I haven't tried anything but warm milk and have no other comparison points. Warm milk doesn't taste very good.

Your ship looks very homely"

"Thank you, dear, I do try.  Mmm, let's try a nice herbal tea; it's not like warm milk besides in and of itself being warm, and if it's the warm that's unpleasant, I can fix that.  Would you like to help me make it?"  She fetches a couple mugs, weighing them in her hands; she offers the one in her fleshy arm to Megan.

"Yes I can. Heh.

Should I do it by following your instructions?"

"Or... do you want to see something really weird and shocking?"

"I asked if you would like to, dear," she - chides? - it's not a truly negative sentiment, despite the seeming of reproach - "not if you could, or even if you would.  You are most profoundly not obliged; I am quite capable and willing to handle this myself.  This is merely a choice you could make.

"Part of me is inexhaustibly curious about the weird and shocking thing, I'll admit - but it has been quite firmly overruled.  You don't need to do anything right now, not here - and - the way you said that, I get the feeling that you're still in shock yourself.  So I don't want you to be doing any more weird and shocking things, if that can be helped - not until you've had a chance to recollect yourself as best you can, and process what has happened to bring you where you are.  Obviously you can do what you like, but - if you feel my plans are worth listening to, I would strongly advise taking the time to ground yourself.  Does that make sense?"

"Yes. 

For the record, the weird thing would have been making the tea appear our of nothing in the mugs, using your expectation of what it would be. Though I now realize me appearing out of nothing was not actually any more surprising.

I'll help you, though. It sounds interesting. I have never cooked anything."

She nods.  "That is pretty surprising."  But she's not going to go on about it.  That should come in Megan's own time.

"You didn't need to tell me that, dear.  Not that I mind, to be clear; I just want to be clear that you don't owe me anything.  Not information, not power, not even truth.  Nor your continued presence.  If at any time you wish to leave, or to take a moment to yourself - you are welcome to the green bunk, for all that you undoubtedly have many other options for where to go.  Now, let's make ourselves some tea, shall we?"

She beckons Megan over to the kitchenette, gently.

"I see. Thank you very much."

She follows.

"May I ask who you are?"

"You can call me Diana; I think explaining who I am to a five-minute-old might take longer than the tea, but I'll try, if you'd like."  She quirks a small grin at her guest.  "Speaking of, dear, let's fill our cups with some water - but not quite to the brim because it's a pain to drink that way."  She'll demonstrate!  "You can try drinking some water from the mug, if you'd like."

"Thank you."

Megan generally follows recommendations on the topic of brewing tea. If it's meant to relax her, it doesn't, but neither does it annoy her. She has no midichlorians and as such no noticible presence in force; nevertheless she currently has no ability to or desire to hide facial expressions.

"Despite being a five-minute-old, I am capable of parsing language, and have enough context to 'not be confused by obvious things', whatever that means."

"Maybe I should explain who am I instead?"

"If you'd like; I do think a bit of background on what brought you here might help me help you."  The tea-brewing was something she hoped might be additionally calming, but mostly what it did was take time, to put a bit of space between Megan and what troubles her.

('No noticeable presence in the Force' is categorically untrue of anything that lives, including droids - but Diana has noticed the strange ways the Force is, and is not, behaving around this woman.)

(Right. No Living Force presence, because of no Midichlorians, but she sure does have presence in the-Force-as-a-physical-force and the-Force-as-fate, I guess.)

"Well, there was a barely conscious normal human infant called Megan, or more often Meggie, for, I think, about two years.

Then, that infant had a wordless wish to understand noises her parents made. Suddenly, she did. Then, an another one to be able to comprehend them. Then, one to be as smart as them.

The parents passed out when they saw their child suddenly talk to them and then materialize a banana out of thin air.

I have mental capacities of an adult, tiny wordless memories of an ordinary infant from Earth, and a power to make my desires come true, which has "some" limitations, whatever that means, which seem frighteningly generous.

I don't think I am that child anymore in any meaningful sense, though I'm keeping the name. For this reason, I would really rather not alter my mind further.

I froze my parents in time. I don't know what I should do. I can materialize pieces of paper with an answer to an arbitrary question on them, but when I try to get answers to questions like "what should I do", I don't get them. Apparently they don't exist."

"Well, yes, because 'should' is rather an illusion - even when you can investigate possible outcomes with the aid of a Force much more capable of predicting them than any human could be.  There's a thing in philosophy, called the is-ought problem, and asking what you generically should do just runs right into it.  Because - it's generally held to be conceptually impossible, to derive morality simply from the state of the world.  At some point, you have to decide what you want, because the universe doesn't have reasons, when you get down to brass tacks - it just is.

"...Even the parts of it that seem like they have pretty clear preferences have this problem; they arose from something, and that something was incapable of having morality if morality bit it on the butt.  If you ask a cosmologist, we can't know why the universe began."

"Why did the universe began... Hmm."

A piece of paper with "George Lucas wrote a scenario for an action movie series Star Wars" written on it appears in Megan's hand.

"Apparently, this one has an answer. Uh. Somehow.

I don't actually know how my powers work. So I have no clue what that answer actually means, or in which sense was the question interpreted."

"...Well, that's an interesting choice of proximate cause."

"An interesting definition of universe, as well.  And, apparently, confirmation of the world-of-fiction theory in the weirdest possible way.

"...Well, okay, not the weirdest, but it's certainly unusual."

"But that's rather irrelevant to the ultimate question of morality; even if we're actors in a holo Somewhere Else, it behooves us to behave as if we're real, at least in most circumstances I can think of.  There's probably some too-clever-by-half exception, but...don't worry about that unless you're actually concerned that someone's simulating you maliciously."

"That... seems true? 

I should not jump to conclusions anyway. That was just one question, and a pretty vague one...

What do I want?

I don't know what I want. I don't know what emotions and values I have, and I don't know which ones I want to have. I don't want to die or feel pain. I don't know what I actually feel towards other people? I barely understood the existence of other people as an infant. I don't yet really know what "morality" feels like, unless you count feeling bad for my parents fainting.

I have a lot of power, though still not sure how much. Not using is would be a huge waste, whatever is it I want. Using it is a huge risk, whatever is it I want.

There might be urgent things I should do. Reality is big, and things happen all the time and I might regret not doing things this instant.

It's overwhelming. I think. I haven't felt not overwhelmed yet."

"Alright.  Wanting people to not feel bad is a pretty good starting point for a morality, anyway.

"...Can your near-arbitrary power do something to solve the problem where things just keep happening all the time, perhaps?  I know I said no weird stuff, but I think that in this case the benefits might outweigh the downsides."

”That's a thought.

Can I just stop time everywhere outside this room?"

Yes.

Time stops outside this room!

"Well. There we go. Things don't happen anymore. I think."

Is it totally certain that nothing keeps happening outside this room?

No.

...reasonably certain?

No.

"Wishing for everything to stop everywhere apparently. Doesn't. Make it certain that everything stops everywhere. Huh.

Why is that?”

- Fundamental uncertainty about totality of existence

- Timetflow keeps restarting in some universes

"I guess I could just. Wish the time everywhere to stop repeatedly. Does this... even make any sense? Can I do that?"

Yes.

"Well that's dumb.

I have no idea if that's a good idea."

Is that a good idea?

Blank paper.

yeah, Megan figured.

"Don't ask if it's a good idea; ask what the consequences would be and make your own judgement."

"What would the consequences be?"

Complicated.

"...More verbosely, please, hypothetical author."

At this point, it is a a practiced mental motion:

I wish for a piece of paper with a detailed answer to a question "What would be the consequences of repeatedly stopping time all over existence?"

This might have been a mistake on Megan's part.

Existence is big. Even outliers to existence are big.

Clusters of universes with clusters of galaxies with clusters of solar systems with clusters of civilizations with clusters of individuals...

All interconnected by webs of consequences...

A piece of paper, blackened by dense writing in tiny font, appears in Megan's hand.

Or rather, the middle of it's bottom.

The area of the entire piece of paper is comparable to a cross-section of the observable Star Wars universe.

Upon appearing, it sliced through Diana's ship, as well as countless celestial objects and quite a few sentient beings. Though, of course, all of this is happening in the time-stopped zone. People cut in twain by the piece of paper didn't actually die - or perhaps they all died as soon as time stopped for them, waiting to be replaced by duplicates on resolution?

If not for the time-stop, the piece of paper and ink would be twisted and ripped apart by monstrous forces, collapse on itself in multiple points, and no doubt form quite a few black holes and  unprecedented astronomical objects (due to high concentrations of carbon and zinc), while wreaking havoc on all galaxies it passed through (all those people cut in twain would be promptly disinterested by effective collisions of their planet with a LOT of paper on VERY high speeds), though it would take quite a lot of time for all the gravitational waves to propagate and all the potential energy to lash out.

"AAA!"

"...Let's undo that, shall we," she says from where she ducked.

"And - perhaps you should request that the results of your commands be measured against your expectations, and executed only with a secondary, knowing, permission, if they diverge significantly from those expectations?"

The "summon bigger piece of paper" action is undone.

I wish that the results of my commands are measured against my expectations, and executed only with a secondary, knowing, permission, if they diverge significantly from those expectations.

"Done."

Of course, it's not the kind of wish that immediately provides feedback about it working.

"Now - try wishing for paper with the categories of consequence, perhaps?"

Honestly, it feels to Megan that it's gonna do the same thing.

But, sure, why not.

It does the same thing, as expected by Megan, thus not requiring any clarification.

It's now only solar-system sized.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

The medium sized paper piece is undone.

"Screw that. I am going to let them run. And take a breather.

And possibly talk to someone else."

"Best of luck, then.  May the Force be with you."

"Hey, I'm not going away just yet.

We haven't even had our tea!

What's with your use of "Force", anyway? The word doesn't quite parse right for me."

"That's true, we haven't had our tea.  I think it's about done steeping, actually."

She hums softly, consults a timer built in to her arm.

"I think that ought to do it.  And I think I'd like to have my own dramatic revelation, to answer your question - so do watch closely, hmm?"

The tea-strainers are promptly and deftly removed from the mugs, without a single hand touching them.

"This is the Force.  There are many other things it does - predictions, for example, and empathy - but the Force, as something of an energy field woven between all but the strangest living beings in this universe, and suffusing even the most lifeless rock, does have a penchant for 'move things with your mind'."