InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Harry sniffs knickers"

Annie Wagner (cyberpath) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-02-09 13:25:00

Entry tags:

annie wagner, jeannie

Wandering (Open)
There was a lot of this place to explore, and Annie didn't have all the time she wanted to do so. She had the store to take care of, and she wanted to do that right. Already, she'd filled it with more computers, more game consoles, more phones, more electronics. Instead of just parts, there were actual machines in there. It was busier than she'd thought it would be, as well. She had no idea, but some days, she felt like it was the only shop of it's kind. She'd had to pick a day and close Fixit entirely, just so she could have some real rest. Some days, she didn't even get a lunch.

So she was taking this day off, in addition to the day she usually closed the store, to explore the city some more. It wasn't an easy task, because besides the size of it, there was the fact that everything moved. She knew that she was seeing some shops more than once. Some streets, as well.

She'd passed a botanical garden that she told her phone to note for later, and a zoo. She wondered if Rufio would go to the zoo with her. She saw a park, and a district that she noted to never come back to that was by the water. It looked very sketchy and scared her. She felt like she might run into people there that weren't nice, and weren't looking out for her best interests. People that she did not want to meet.

Eventually, she found a place that sold the stuff that Charlie had been eating. It turned out there were a lot more flavors of ice cream than just banana. Annie stood, staring at the sign, unable to make a decision on what she wanted to have.

"Holy crap."

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cyberpath
2012-02-25 03:46 am UTC (link)

"Oh." Annie was surprised. She hadn't expected the description Jeannie gave of her bottle at all. She hadn't exactly thought that things like that could fit inside of a space that small. Though, really, she supposed, Jeannie was a genie. She could probably do whatever she wanted, couldn't she? "That sounds really lovely. I guess I was sort of expecting you to say that it was cramped and uncomfortable."

Annie took the spoon with the mint chocolate chip on it and tasted it. No matter how much she wanted to try the other ice cream flavors, she could not pretend to dislike this particular flavor.

"Oh. I think I will have that." She nodded. "In a cup. Three scoops."

Maybe that was a lot, Annie had no idea. But that's what her taste buds told her that she wanted, and she was inclined to listen.

Then she gave her attention back to the genie. "It sounds very lovely." Annie nodded. "I think it would be nice to put one in my apartment. I wonder where they sell them here."

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i_blink
2012-02-26 04:27 pm UTC (link)

“It can be very lonely when I am in there for a long time without a master,” she acknowledged.

The green ice cream must have been very good indeed if the girl was not only giving up more samples, but getting three scoops of it. Three! Jeannie quickly tasted the caramel pecan, which she liked quite a lot, then told the clerk, “I would like to try the mint chocolate chip, please. Annie thinks it is very good, and I would like a sample.”

After that she would make her own decision. Probably.

Leaving the young man to juggle the task of getting her sample and Annie's scoops, she considered the issue of the jade elephant. If the girl wanted one for her apartment it would have to be small, not the lifesize version Jeannie imagined in her head. Which was a pity. It was very impressive to see that much jade in one place. But one for an apartment would have to be... what was the word for it? Knick knack! It would have to be knick knack sized.

“I do not know where they sell them,” Jeannie confessed. “But they have so very many shops here, I am sure one of them does. We can look for one after we get the ice cream if you like.”

But a plan was forming inside the djinn's brain.

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cyberpath
2012-02-28 11:07 pm UTC (link)

"Being lonely sucks." Annie said quietly. She'd been lonely for a lot of her life, she'd thought that she'd found somebody special to share her time with when she'd found her boyfriend, but then he'd broken up with her for no real good reason. She shook her head, she was having a nice day, and this wasn't the time to bring up things like that.

"I take it you have a master now?" She wondered how a master was gained, if it was like the story. Whoever found the bottle. Or if it was possibly more complicated than that. Annie wanted to ask, but she also didn't want to be rude.

Annie gladly took the cup of ice cream from the guy as he held it out for her, her eyes getting wide seeing how much ice cream she'd just ordered. But she thought she could eat it all. "Hers and mine are together." She told him, already reaching into her bag to get the money.

"I've seen all the stores!" she said, excitedly, spooning some of the green ice cream into her mouth. "I haven't had a chance to go into a lot of them. Some of them are things I'm used to, grocery stores and clothing stores and that kind of thing. But those stores that are all full of flowers or the shops filled with jewelry, those are so fantastic, I never even imagined."

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i_blink
2012-03-01 09:34 pm UTC (link)

Jeannie opened her mouth and took a breath, about to explain how kind and generous Sir Guy was, which was definitely an asset in a master, when the girl made the claim that they were together. She paused to think about that, wondering if that was why Annie had gotten so very much ice cream. Because if she tried to eat all of that the djinn feared that her new friend would end up with a tummy ache. But then she noticed the girl's hand reaching into her bag.

Oh that would not do. Jeannie intended to pay for the ice cream. She intended to do something else nice for the girl too, but it would have to wait. With a surreptitious nod and a tiny blink Jeannie willed the money to be unfindable for the next few minutes. She would never actually take it, that would be stealing. But it was amazing how easily a pocketbook could get lost in the bottom of a purse.

“Yes, together,” Jeannie confirmed, taking the sample that the clerk was leaning over to offer her. She tasted it, then shook her head. “I liked the last one better. A scoop of the caramel pecan.” She lifted an index finger to point at the stack of cones behind the counter. “In one of those types of cones, please. And I will pay.”

After all, she had all sorts of valuable things available to her that Annie would not; not just the paper money, but coins and precious metals and gems. Jeannie was especially fond of the jewels, but so few places seemed to want to take them as currency. Which seemed silly to her, because why take something flat and uninteresting when you could have something shiny and pretty instead? She did like to shop, and it always seemed to make people so happy when she actually bought something from them. She did not bother to tell them that most of the time she would take it home and blink at it until it was what she truly wanted. Everything could be made better, in her opinion.

Such as the shops that her friend had already found. Jeannie beamed. “My favorite so far has been a lamp shop. Is that not funny? Because I am a genie!” She giggled at her own pun. “Would you like to go to a shop when we are done with the ice cream? I know one that is full of little carvings and jewelry boxes and decorative plates, oh I like the decorative plates! We should go!”

And there would definitely be a small jade elephant in that shop for Annie to find. Jeannie would see to it.

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cyberpath
2012-03-02 07:15 am UTC (link)

Annie looked up when Jeannie said she would pay. "No, no." She shook her head. "I'm going to get it... I just... where is my stupid wallet?" She was so proud of being able to make money at something she loved instead of something she had to do that she'd just cashed her first check (it was weird that she'd gotten a check from a store she apparently owned, but she supposed it was just one of those things) and put it all in her wallet instead of saving any. But where was it? She could have sworn she'd just about wrapped her fingers around it a second ago.

"You don't have to do that, Jeannie, the ice cream is on me, really." Annie sighed and dug further.

While she did it, she was still able to hear what her new friend was saying. And it did sound like a good lot of fun. Annie hadn't ever really had a girl friend before. She'd never gone out just shopping before, either. Both seemed like a good time.

"Yes, I definitely think we should go shopping after this." She looked up from her bag a moment. "Decorative plates? Really?" Annie supposed when people had money and didn't have to worry about war, they could get things like decorative plates. The concept was very strange to her. To have a plate and never use it.

She looked in her bag again, but couldn't find the wallet. "I liked your lamp joke." She decided to give up for a minute. She was probably looking right at it, but so flustered she was just somehow not seeing it.

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i_blink
2012-03-06 01:26 am UTC (link)

While Annie rooted around in her purse, looking for a pocket book that would stay just out of reach of her fingers for the next few minutes, Jeannie pulled out her own coin purse and withdrew a large, shiny gold coin. She handed it to the clerk, who stared wide-eyed, and took her ice cream cone. The genie was fairly certain that would cover their bill and if it did not, the clerk would ask for more.

Beaming at her new friend, who had liked her joke, Jeannie said, “Oh yes. Some of them have scenes on them. Some of them just have pretty patterns. Some of them even have pictures of famous things. I have some in my bottle, but they are very very old and gold. And not painted. They are sort of stamped. I like the new ones better.”

Her bright smile got even brighter. “I like a lot of new things. They are so much more fun than what we had back in Bagdad. Oh, cars! I like cars. I am a very good driver. But my last master did not like me to drive, and my new master does not like cars. Oh, but if I asked him, he might let me get one! Would that not be wonderful?”

Jeannie made up her mind in that very moment that she was going to ask Sir Guy for just that. She had been wanting to teach him about cars anyway.

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cyberpath
2012-03-15 02:55 am UTC (link)

"You know what lamps look like where I come from?" Annie made a face. "Lamps."

In a way, she was glad for where she'd come from, as there was so much to discover now, in this place. But in other ways, she felt left out and a little bit stupid for not knowing what things were. She didn't think that Jeannie would ever call her stupid, though.

"I'm finding a lot of things here that I like too. A lot of things." She thought about Rufio and Buzzer, her store. Charlie. The fact that people were really nice and not out to kill her. That she felt comfortable here and found it easier to trust people.

"I know about cars." She said. "Actually, I know about all machines."

It might have been bragging, but it felt like she was just sharing something she could do the way that Jeannie had. And Jeannie had trusted Annie with being a genie. So Annie felt that she could probably trust Jeannie with being a mutant. Mutants and genies were alike, weren't they? In a way?

Maybe not with as many interesting abilities, all at the same time, as her. But she'd been told on more than one occasion that her ability was like magic.

"If you get a car, I can teach you about it."

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i_blink
2012-03-22 07:58 pm UTC (link)

“Oh machines.” Jeannie made a little face. She had not ever really considered cars to be machines. They were so much fun, and they went so very fast, and she could wear cute driving outfits in them. Convertibles were the best.

“I do not like machines very much,” she admitted to her new friend. “Except for cars. I can do things faster without them. They look like they will be fun to try and use, but then they set the house on fire or I get sucked into a rug cleaner and cannot get out, or my master spends the entire Saturday using the grass cutting machine instead of doing something fun with me. Why would he do that when I can just make it happen?”

Major Nelson had said he enjoyed the yard work, but that did not seem reasonable to the djinn. She had many, many masters who had employed her for the express purpose of avoiding labor if at all possible. But then, the modern world held a lot of surprises and changes that she could admit she did not totally comprehend. She confessed as much by adding, “But I have not used them very long. I was in my bottle for a very long time.”

Then she smiled. “Rockets are machines, are they not? Like cars? My last master was an astronaut.”

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cyberpath
2012-03-27 08:26 am UTC (link)

Annie tried not to laugh, she had a feeling that Jeannie was very serious in her statements. It just seemed so funny to her that somebody could be so anti-machine. In her time, her world, everybody used them. She was pretty sure that there were no such thing as hermits where she came from, or people that avoided using new technology at all.

"There are many things that people don't think of when the word machine is used, yet they are." She gestured absently. "Door knobs, watches, computers, if it has moving parts that come together to complete a task in some way, it's a machine. I can talk to all of them."

She took a big bite of her ice cream, which soon resulted in an ice cream headache. Another first for Annie. She stopped and put a hand to her head, trying to figure out the momentary blinding pain.

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i_blink
2012-03-29 05:38 pm UTC (link)

Jeannie paused and got a speculative look on her face. She had never thought of that before. Anything with moving parts could be considered a machine. It put an entirely different perspective on things. She had been only thinking of things like that new Radarange that made things explode when she tried to use it.

But there was no hesitation in her mind when Annie said that she talked to machines. It was not at all odd to her. Jeannie herself could speak to several species of animals. And given her past experience with the machines that gave her trouble, she did not doubt they could talk back. She had always thought the blender was a bit on the cheeky side.

This was something she would have addressed, but all of a sudden, her new friend seemed to be having some difficulty. It took a moment for her to understand what the problem was. “Oh!” she gasped with abrupt comprehension. “Ice cream headache!”

Fortunately there was a simple solutions, one that she had known since ancient times. “Put your tongue against the roof of your mouth and rub it back and forth. Like this.” Jeannie opened her mouth wide to demonstrate how to create warmth with friction. It looked, and felt, silly, but it did work.

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cyberpath
2012-03-30 12:45 am UTC (link)

Looking through a squinted eye, Annie watched what Jeannie did and then copied her. Sure enough, the sensation passed quickly after. Annie took a moment to look at the world and make sure that it wasn't going to come back.

"What did you call that? An ice cream headache?" It hadn't been pleasant at all, but Annie had to admit that the ice cream was well worth the headache if it only happened every once in a while.

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