A/N: Hey, everybody! For the people that reviewed for Catching Up, here is that long awaited explanation to everything that goes on in that oneshot. Please enjoy, and be sure to review. Right now, I pretty much live off those things.
Just one thing I want to say is that the updates might be slow, considering I'm kinda busy right now. [Summer, busy, never thought I'd use those two words together..._]
Bonds:
Chapter 1: Another Name, Another Face
If there was anything that didn't suit Genie about his over-10,000-year imprisonment, it was the long, long periods of time that he spent hidden away in his lamp, secluded from the rest of the world. If someone spent even a fraction of that time in an 'itty-bitty living space' of their own, they'd get why he was so sporadic.
Other immortals were even fewer and farther between, which said something considering their longevity. The Magic Carpet had been with a previous master, and when the three wishes didn't go quite so well, he had taken to following his lamp around over the years. It didn't take Genie long to notice that Carpet was young in immortal terms. Still, it wasn't like he got out to see fellow immortals often, even if they were one-sided conversationalists. His last stint had been with a caravan driver that went relatively okay as masters go [Meaning: He hadn't asked for world domination. A definite plus.], and last he checked, he had been sold off to another merchant. After that, he had stopped paying attention. It wasn't like things changed, really. He'd end up in someone's hands, and, chances were, they'd eventually rub his lamp and bring him out. And, for better or worse, he'd grant a few wishes and then go back for however-long until the next mortal came knocking on his door. Carpet may be there, he might not, even though his tête-à-tête abilities needed work either way.
Still, even with the fact that he'd have to go on being someone's servant as soon as he got the rub, he was still very eager to just get out. Though, in retrospect, he might have used a bit too much force, considering that the straggly teenage boy that was to be his new master looked like someone just threw a firecracker in his face.
"Hello, new master!"
"M-Master?"
"Ohh, quick on the uptake! I like it!" Genie quipped, grinning good-naturedly at the still shell-shocked child. After a moment of gaping, he finally seemed to find his voice.
"W-What are you?"
"Hmm…Maybe not so quick on the uptake…" The blue djinn muttered, more to himself. "I am the phenomenally cosmic Genie of the Lamp, right here for your personal wish fulfillment."
"Personal wish fulfillment? You are a genie?"
"Is there an echo in here? Yep! That's me!"
"You can grant any wish?" The boy asked, an almost wild hope lighting up his eyes. Genie somehow got the feeling that this was where everything would go downhill; many were not happy when he brought up the limits he had when it came to what he could do.
"Almost. There's just a few things that even I can't do. Such as the wishing for more wishes gambit. None of that."
"Are there other things that you are unable to do?"
"Well, I can't kill anyone, so please do not ask," Genie replied, poofing up a tombstone and flowers to emphasize his point. "I also can't bring people back from the dead, so none of-"
And with that, Genie briefly transformed the scene around them to resemble the classic Frankenstein scene when the monster comes alive, with his new master as the scientist and Genie as the monster.
"I LIIIIIIIVE!" He cried, sitting up from a sheet-swathed table while his master looked bemusedly on. Making the whole thing vanish in less than a second, Genie floated close to the boy's shoulder, chuckling a bit at his own joke.
"I've always wanted to do that. So, aside from that, the only other thing I can't do is make people fall in love."
The simple statement caused quite a ripple in the atmosphere of the scene, the boy's gaze turned to the ground, but Genie didn't have to look too hard to notice that he had been glaring as though someone had just denied him something important.
"But, other than that, you name it, I can do it!" He continued, hoping to pull this out of what seemed to be dangerous waters. It seemed to work, sort of. At least he wasn't giving off that kind of venom anymore. Instead, his expression turned mostly thoughtful.
Suddenly, the sound of voices was heard, snapping both up to attention.
"Marid! Marid!"
"Where is that boy? The fields will not hoe themselves!"
"A fine time to take a break; this drought has left us all with barely any crops!"
The boy's face flipped from brooding to panic as the speakers began to grow closer to his position; he turned to Genie just in time to see him pull back into the lamp.
"Just bring me with you. We'll talk later!"
Understanding in an instant, Marid hurriedly stowed the lamp under his shirt, just in time to hide it from the trio of men that came into view.
"I'm sorry, father, I lost track of time!" He hurriedly spoke, all but prostrating himself in front of the burly man in the middle of the cluster. His sire's eyes gazed, hard and unforgiving, fell on him for a few moments before he sighed, looking only disappointed.
"Son, we can't keep having this. You know how pressed we are for a good harvest."
"I know, father, I'm sorry."
When they arrived back at their shambling hut, the boy immediately went for the fields behind. Ringing the mostly bare expanse was a dirt road that went into the heart of the village. It was quiet, still, and empty. He always liked working through the fields late in the day; it always was such a wonderful time to just think.
"So, wonderful hobby you got here."
Marid jumped a mile, looking around, and seeing only the field, and the small, bluish stalk that was the only healthy looking thing on the field. Which struck him as highly odd, considering there was no plant he knew of that was that color. The reason soon came in a small puff of bluish smoke that became the slightly transparent form of Genie. Immediately, the young lad began to panic.
"Careful, if my father sees you-!"
"Don't worry! I can do covert as easily as I can grant a wish."
A wind suddenly blew between the two, kicking up a huge cloud of dusty sand from the loose soil. Marid immediately pulled up a hand to keep it out of his mouth and eyes. Genie was not so prepared, and received a face-full.
After coughing out much of the offending grit, the blue jinni looked to the boy.
"Is it always like this around here?"
"No, just since the drought came, three months ago."
The blue face turned for a moment, taking in the land around him. The last time he had been out, it had been in a busy city. He had traveled a lot in what felt like such a short span of time. Too bad he rarely got to see any of the distance he'd spanned. Still, the lands around him were rough, untamed, and clearly not much use to these agricultural people. They would die if they kept trying to till it, and coming up with nothing. Suddenly, an idea entered his mind. Certainly, none of his other masters had wanted a jinni's advice, but perhaps, since this actually might be something useful…
"You know I can make it rain, right?"
The boy turned away from his work in an instant, his expression incredulous.
"Y-You can?"
"Just say the word, and you have it!"
The man of the house paced around the table, growing more antsy by the minute. The boy should have finished getting the dead crops out of the soil, so why was he taking so long, and when they already had so many worries!
Almost as if on cue, a moan came from a figure that lay on a blanket in the corner of the one-room hut. The concerns abandoned for the moment, his qualms turned to the woman that lay pale and sweating on the grass mat.
"My…My dear…" She spoke, faintly, but still clear to his ears. He knelt, cupping her clammy hand in his.
"I am here, my love, I am here."
"W-Where is Marid?"
Ah, trust her to leap to that. Before she had fallen ill, she had been fiercely protective of her son.
"He is out in the field, getting rid of the dead parts of our crops."
She still did not relax, her fever radiating heat like a furnace.
"What a-about-?"
"Shh, he has not seen her at all today, and I have not seen her come into the village."
"Th-The girl…He does not see…Good child, but so blind…"
"I know, I know. Let us only hope he will not have the audacity to try to seek her out. She was rather forceful last time, from what I heard."
Her sweat-soaked brow furrowed slightly at these words, but she appeared to relax into a doze. Her husband rose from her side, once he was sure of her calm. He stood there for a moment, just keeping watch, when suddenly a very strange noise fell on his ears. It almost sounded like-.
As the realization came, the blanket of their hut was thrown back to reveal a very excited Marid.
"Father, Father! You must see this! It's raining!"
The village was afire with the sudden spurt of rain. Many knelt, thanking any higher power that had finally decided to take mercy on their plight, some, particularly younger children, danced through the puddles with a fervor. Only one stood apart from it all, Marid, from his point at the top of the hill, where he had found Genie's lamp.
Speaking of which, he saw a curl of blue smoke from the edge of his vision, turning to grin at the very pleased jinni.
"Thank you."
"I'd love to take credit, kid, but you're the one that made the wish. If anyone should get that thanks it's you." Genie rebuffed poofing up a trophy into the boy's hands. Marid carefully placed it down, at which point it vanished. Looking over the boy's shoulder, Genie noticed the flair of caravan wagons approaching the small village bellow.
"Hmm, looks like the circus came to town!" His transformation into a clown on a unicycle got a partially bemused, partially amused stare as Marid's gaze turned to the convoy.
"It must be the traders. They do come this time of year. Not that anyone has much to trade." The last part was added in a huffed undertone, but Genie still heard.
"Well, there's no harm in going to look, is there? Go on, I'll be around." He said cheerily, lightly nudging the boy in the direction of the town. Marid did not need much persuading, although there was a distinct drag to his step as he walked down the hill. Changing himself into a simple insect, Genie followed behind a few moments later.
Marid gazed around with partially-concealed wonder at all the traders were offering to the hapless people that passed through their stands. He always had loved this time of the year, especially the story telling that came towards nightfall, when some of the older patrons and traders would gather together and exchange stories. Many listened to this, above all the younger children, who were easily awed by the tales. Even though Marid was not longer such a youth, he still could not help but feel wonder at the faraway places, and people, that the words conjured. The flashy wares were roved over by his amateur eye; all were in some way wondrous to the farm boy. He then turned toward the small crick that ran around the hill he had just come from, and felt his train of thought abruptly derail.
Genie, meanwhile, had taken much longer to get down the rise, though he did cheat a bit on the last few yards. Still, teleportation got him right smack in the middle of a man that was selling a load of extravagant fineries, and he was not very amused by the insect that suddenly came into his midst.
"Impertinent pest!" He swore as he swatted at Genie, who vaulted off the stand's table to avoid the blow.
"Hey! Bugs have the right of way too!"
Of course his protests fell on deaf ears, the man turned immediately back to his wares. Almost automatically, Genie's eyes slid over the objects, silently identifying them in his mind.
Valuable necklace that no one here will probably buy, gold ring that looks like it was dug out of a Sultan's treasury, very familiar-looking carpet, expensive looking chalice…
…Genie's insect neck almost snapped with the force when the exact words of his thought hit home. It could have just been his imagination, but it seemed almost as though the edge of the rug fringe twitched a bit in a greeting. Then again, from the way the thing was so tightly wound up into a roll, it could have just been the wind. Still, there was the fact that the rug sitting there looked just like…
"Carpet?" He all but squeaked. Using the fact that insects could stick to just about anything to his advantage, Genie easily scaled the shelve and made it up to the rug.
"Hey, Rugman! It's me, Genie! You still in there?"
The carpet then vibrated in it's tightly-packed roll so hard that the disguised jinni almost toppled backwards off the shelf from the force.
"WHOA! Calm down, I'd really rather not be a smudge on the dirt right now!"
His somewhat frenzied pleas were noticed, and immediately the magic carpet calmed. Genie checked on the merchant, who was in the middle of trying to convince a passing bystander that his sweetheart needed a pretty trinket that was on display.
"Alright, on three…one, two…SPAGETTI!" Genie hollered, to which Carpet almost vaulted off the shelf. "'Kidding, kidding…okay, three!"
If you asked Genie what happened right after he had said three, he wouldn't have had a proper answer other than that they got out of the tent. Still, Carpet managed to trump his bond, and destroy half the shelf in the process. With bug-ified Genie clinging to his fringe, muttering something about pandas and bamboo [he had smacked his head in the resulting commotion], Carpet had made a wild dash for the tent flap, to which the merchant was too slow to stop.
Before they knew it, they were out in the cool night air. Carpet practically shivering with the excitement of being free, a feeling Genie could only partially understand, through the limited filter that his bonds had to offer. Though, personally, it hadn't been so bad. Maybe this master could go without some domination/power/wealth. Perhaps things would be simpler, less searing to his moral radar. He sure hoped so.
Pulling up to his normal form, Genie perched cross-legged on Carpet, gently resting a hand on the woven fabric. He might not have been the greatest at the art of conversation, but at least it was someone who would hopefully be around.
The train of thought abruptly derailed as soon as Genie spotted a familiar boy making his way toward another person at the farthest edge of the village, near the small creek that had just been rejuvenated by the recent rain. Unspoken, Carpet hovered closer. Both were obscured by shadows, but it was easy for Genie to guess who the boy was.
"Please, you know I'm leaving tomorrow, won't you at least hear me out?"
"No. I have told you again and again that I cannot love you. You don't understand anything of what I have said."
"But I love you!"
"Your love is not what I want from another. Get on with your life. I'm not worth the time you have here." There was a beat. "You mother is still ill, is she not? Spend time with her, she will need it."
And with that, the girl turned, much to the displeasure of Marid, and left the shadows that led down to the river. Passing through a beam of moonlight, her features were thrown into sharp relief. Her hair was long, flowing, and inky black, which hung in long tresses around the tall, lanky frame. Her clothes were simple, a faded blue robe that covered her fully, and the hint of sandals were on her feet. There was a certain air about her, something that conveyed to the two immortals that this was no ordinary girl. She carried herself on, away into the night, leaving the heartbroken lad behind. Something about this made sense to Genie, and he stared as his words replayed over again in his mind.
"The only other thing I can't do is make people fall in love."
Meanwhile, from the hill that the jinni and boy had abandoned, a tall figure watched the exchange between the boy and the girl, his eyes taking in all while his mind made the calculations and draws. His hand fingered something, a leather pouch, before he pocketed it, descending down the other side of the hill and into the darkness.
A/N: My theory about why Genie was able to be out was that he can only go a certain distance from the lamp, but he can be out of it while he has a master. He does it during the parade in the movie.
Anyway, until next time, everyone!