I wrote the hunt.  Deirdre would have done anything to provide.  However, years after I wrote it (2014, to be precise) I dreamed something similar.  I might yet use it later, so I won’t say more.  Also, I know the sensations of flying well from many dreams, so I took all of her maneuvers in the air from those.  And I’ve dreamed of herds of wild corries, the diminutive descendants of feral llamas.

          I dreamed that Lisa did not go on the mission with Jake, Randy, and Don, and that Randy felt miffed at Don for taking off right after proposing to Lisa.  Yet logic says that she would have been ideal for the mission, for a number of reasons.  It took me awhile to discover why she got turned down, and why this mattered.

          I dreamed of Rashid having to butcher his own mule. As far as Teresa of Ávila being patron of levitators, that's not on the calendar of saints as we know it in the 21st century, but she did levitate in prayer, so it seems logical.  The Calendar of Saints is full of patrons of things that did not exist in their own day.  And yes, St. Joshua (actually an Old Testament patriarch rather than a Christian-era saint, but called that anyway) is currently and officially the patron of spies and covert intelligence, for his work in spying on Jericho.

          As for Shermio’s musings, I based them on a dream.  I had asked for guidance, as I lay down to sleep, to let me know whether a certain peccadillo was important enough to confess, or of no real importance.  In the resultant dream a grinning, wobbly, ugly man approached me from a distance, his hair shorn short, and his arms spread wide to embrace me.  As he came closer, I saw that his ugliness came from a face swollen with beatings, a broken nose, and missing teeth.  He wobbled because he was punch-drunk.

          He told me that he was my guardian angel.  Affably he explained to me that every venial sin hit him as a blow, and a mortal sin struck a mortal stab to the heart, at which point I would need to drag him to confession to bring him back to life.  And throwing wide his arms again, grinning like a fool, he told me, “But I love you soooo much!”  On waking, I resolved that while I didn’t need to go to confession with my venial sins, I had better take them seriously, because he didn’t look in too good a shape to defend me the way he was!