"Alright, so, NOW are you gonna tell me what this is?" Zoe pulled a small, dark wooden box out of her purse. Inside was a plain-looking stone, slightly metallic, rather like haematite, but with a reddish hue to its surface, rounded, flattish and about an inch across. For some reason, Grandpa Jack had left it to her after he passed away, but there was no note or anything explaining why he'd done so. Zoe ended up showing it to her best friend Athena, who had more of a taste for weird occult things like this, but when she saw it, her eyes had gone wide. She hastily instructed her to put it away and not touch it until later, when they could get some time alone.
"Yeah, yeah, in a second," Athena dismissed, without even really looking at Zoe. They were in her backyard, and Athena was digging around in a toolshed for something. She already had an old cast-iron pan brought out back there and resting on the brick edge of a firepit (no fire), but that apparently wasn't all they'd need. Man, if I didn't trust her like I do...
Athena returned with a sledgehammer in one hand, and a regular hammer in the other. "Okay, so, what was your question?"
Zoe sighed impatiently. "Athena," she began, "You clearly know what this is, but I have no idea, and the Cloak and Dagger shit is getting old. What the hell did Grandpa leave me?"
Athena bit her lip. She could hardly believe Zoe found herself a Wish Stone of all things... but if she knew... "It's... It's easier to just show you. Can I see the box?"
Reluctantly, Zoe handed it over. There was a heavy reverence in Athena opening the mahogany symbol-carved wood, carefully removing the Stone, and setting it in the iron pan. Then she grabbed the sledgehammer.
"Ath, what are you doing!?" Zoe realized what was going on a second too late. The head of the sledgehammer came down, and the Stone shattered into innumerable fragments, all caught by the pan.
"That was a Wish Stone, Zoe," Athena explained when it was done. She set the sledgehammer aside and continued "So named because whosoever holds the Stone and makes a Wish will have that Wish granted. Any wish, no matter bizarre, irreversibly becomes part of the fabric of reality!"
"And you just DESTROYED IT!?"
"Wishes can NEVER be undone by the same Wish Stone," she explained, grabbing the smaller hammer. "Those things could curse people until the end of time on ACCIDENT. People HAVE been cursed by the Wish Stones."
"Okay, use it responsibly, then! Don't just destroy it right out the gate!" Zoe was kinda freaking out at this sudden turn of events.
"It doesn't matter how responsible you think you are, leaving a Wish Stone whole is NEVER a good idea," Athena insisted, going at the bigger shards of former Stone with the hammer until it was all powder. "And frankly, I didn't want to risk you wishing on it while you still had it, even if you knew what it was."
Now, Zoe was properly pissed off. "Athena, that was my fucking inheritance you just smashed! Grandpa Jack's entire fucking legacy! It was MINE! Not yours to fucking crush as you please!"
"You still have an Inheritance, Zoe." Carefully, Athena was trying to gather up the sparkly metallic powder from the edges of the pan with some utensils, all assembled into a neat little pile at the center. "It's just Wish Dust now, instead of a Wish Stone."
"Cool, how does that fucking help me?" Zoe fumed, crossing her arms. "Does that fairy dust grant wishes like the fucking Monkey's Paw, too!?"
"Not exactly. Not like the Stone does." Athena had a razor now, was carefully sectioning a small fraction of the pile of Wish Dust off to one side, and another slightly larger fraction off to one side. "That pile's yours. I told you, it's easier to just show you."
Then Athena snorted one of the lines of Wish Dust like it was coke.
Zoe scoffed. "Athena, just what the FUCK have you been... reading..." Her voice trailed off, because Athena was starting to transform.
