Jeannie (i_blink) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2009-01-25 22:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | guy of gisborne, jeannie |
Illumination (tag: Sir Guy)
Tiffany lamps were very lovely things. Jeannie had always thought so, ever since she’d had first seen one in the home of her former master darling’s friend, Dr. Bellows. Mrs. Bellows had been very proud of it, and Jeannie had understood why immediately. Someone had taken the idea of a stained-glass window and made it into a lamp that could be taken home. It was very clever.
But then, Jeannie had always had a fondness for lamps in general, she reflected as she looked at the beautiful Tiffany lamp in the display window before her. Lifting her fingers to the glass store front, she leaned a bit closer and wondered if that affinity had anything to do with so many of her kind being bound to lamps. Oh, not this sort of lamp, obviously. That was just silly. Where would a djinn reside in a modern lamp? The light bulb? That would be terribly bright, not to mention hot, and really, there was no way to open and close a bulb. Very silly indeed.
So maybe she simply liked lamps because they were pretty. There was one, behind the Tiffany lamp, with a fringed shade that she would love to have inside her bottle. Jeannie liked the fringe, it looked very fancy. Perhaps she could put more fringe on things inside her bottle.
Not that she got to spend much time in there these days. Inside her bottle, that was. At first, it had been a blessing. After all, she had been stuck in there for thirty one years, seven months, two weeks and three days before arriving in the City. After all that time, one got a little tired of looking at the same curved walls, no matter how many times one redecorated!
But since coming to the City, Jeannie had been unable to find a safe place to stash her bottle. She had been keeping it in her pocket at all times, so it would not fall into the wrong hands. Whoever owned the bottle, owned the genie, and she had not found anyone she could trust enough to share that secret.
Besides, it was a little against to rules to be so disloyal to a current master. There were loopholes, of course, and many genies had found ways of getting rid of masters they did not like. Jeannie had always thought that a bit unscrupulous and avoided doing such things herself. But she had always been fortunate enough to have good masters.
She was having some doubts about her own, lately, though. Not whether the City was a good master, because she truly thought it was, but whether it was still her master at all. She had died. Did that not break the contract? Besides, lately, she had not felt a strong connection to the City, the commands had felt vague and unclear. Perhaps because they were actually requests instead of commands? Then again, she had never felt the overwhelming rush of a bond made with the City as she had with her other masters. Was that because of the nature of the City, or because it had never truly been her master?
It was so confusing. She longed, oh how she longed, for someone to talk to about this. But she was unaware of any of her kind elsewhere in the City. Plus, they were not always the bes for this sort of advice. She would ask Dr. Simontam, but he seemed uncomfortable with her abilities. George seemed uncomfortable with her altogether, which deeply saddened the djinn, as she had very much liked the girl. Who else did she know that she could trust?
Oh, how she missed Spike. She had not known him well, but he had been so full of practical advice and help, Jeannie felt certain that were he still here, she could have gone to him with this problem. But he was gone. So she was alone. It was not at all what she hoped her life here would be like. Not at all. Lost in dark thoughts, she stood on the street, staring into the brightly lit store.