nianthe's lecture

Excerpts of, "Nianthe's Lectures"

Recorded from the speeches of the witch Nianthe during her fiftieth year of life.

NIANTHE: What is a witch? It seems like it could be anything, for there are many varieties of witch. No two among us are quite the same, and in fact very few commonalities are binding us together in this room today. All of us seem to have our own peculiar methodologies of magical research and practice, and all of us seem to be using them towards our own particular set of ends, many of which are completely at odds with one another. When covens convene, enemies are brought under the same roof, in pursuit of the same goal, which is deepest magical truth. A witch is nothing more than that, a pure-hearted and zealous seeker of truth, unbound by the orthodoxies of wizardry.

So it is on this occasion that I would like to humbly offer the tidbit of immaculate wisdom that my life's work has yielded. Across many years, and across many layers of reality, I have gone in search of the answer to a single question, like so many of you have. And the question that has defined my existence:

"What is the luckiest possible wish?"

Now, to even begin to discuss a question of such depth and perplexity, we have to have an exact idea of what specifically is the question we're working with here. You know. What does it mean? Well, let's break it down.

For starters, luck. What is luck? Well, luck is when good things happen to good people. It is not when bad things happen to bad people per se, although that's usually lucky if it means that consequently, good things for good people. And it is not lucky when good things happen to bad people, because it is very unlucky when good things happen to bad people. Am I right? I'm right.

And what is a wish? A zealous, truehearted yearning. That one's easy, everyone knows that. A wish is like a spell, instead of casting a spell you pour your heart out to the snake goddess or the fairy queen or whoever and try and make them feel sorry for you and help you.

Question? What? Is it like a prayer? What the fuck is a prayer. Mm-hmm? Mm-hmm. Oh. Okay. Yeah. Then yeah, it's like a prayer, but magical instead of religious. Thanks for your question.

So, the luckiest possible wish would be the wish that would cause the most luck to happen throughout all of everything.

Seems like the answer to such a question would therefore be pretty complicated, right? Well, after decades of dedicated research, I actually discovered that it's pretty simple. The luckiest possible wish is if you wish to the goddess with all your heart for her to cast the spell "Withershins", which is a spell that causes everything in the timeline to undo itself, resolve all its contradictions, and trace itself back forwards again until the end of time, while still preserving the basic "heart", "meaning" and "significance" of the universe and remaking all of its essentially good entities into an immaculate form untouched by the cycle of suffering.

Question? I'm sorry, you're going to have to speak up. How could that be? Well, I researched it and proved it to be true. Excuse me? How could what? How could all contradictions find resolution? I don't know, wise guy, why don't you ask the witch who spent her entire life researching THAT question?

No more--Okay, one more question. Yeah? How could a life without suffering or strife be a satisfying one? Well, how about you come down here and I show you how, you little punk?

So that's it. The luckiest possible wish. And if you can think of a better one, then I don't want to hear about it. Goodbye.