It took Quinn a little over 30 minutes to get ready with her swollen belly and achy feet. She was six months and only getting bigger.
She ate her card board box tasting breakfast before heading out into the cold completely confused by where she was suppose to meet the lion.
"Took you long enough." The lion spoke up from behind her. The blonde startled.
"Will you stop that!"
"Stop what?"
"That reappearing thing! Give a girl some warning will you!"
"It's not my fault your easily scared."
"I am not!"
"Are too."
"Not!"
"Are!"
"Oh my god! Will you just tell me what you want already!" The blonde yelled than shut her eyes at her stupidity because the neighbor stopped on his way to his car to look at her confused.
"We shouldn't talk here because clearly you have no sense of volume." The lion said with mirth.
Quinn glared at the lion. "Whatever, than where?"
"Back at the car."
"Fine." The blonde growled out as she stormed away towards the junkyard.
She reached the junkyard in under an hour. The blonde was shivering by the time she made it to the car.
Dipping inside to grab her quilt, wrapping it around herself to get warm. The lion appeared by her side in the passenger seat.
She startled a little but relaxed a lot quicker than the last two times.
"Ok, We're here, so talk." Quinn spoke impatiently rude.
"Alright what do you remember from last night?"
"Uh. I remember you saying your like a genie or something."
"Right."
"So, what? I get like 3 wishes or whatever?"
"Sort of."
"I'm confused, isn't a genie suppose to come in a bottle?"
"I was in a bottle at one point. However; my former master broke mine by accident and since it happened in this car. The car became a replacement of sorts."
"Oh. So, how long ago did that happen?"
"1991."
Quinn's jaw hit the floor. "Have you been in this car that long?"
"Yes."
"Can't you ask, like, your genie friends for advice about that?"
"I'm actually the first and only originally 'Genie', I'm the reason the word 'Genie' was created. I've been alive for almost three centuries now."
"Wow.. So, how are you alive?"
"Let's back this up a little before we get into that because we have more pressing matter's to discuss."
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that since my last master broke my bottle because he was drunk and crashed the car. I've been trapped here and no one has been able to awaken me since, until you that is."
"What? Why?"
"You tell me."
"No, I mean why couldn't anyone 'Awaken' you?" The blonde asked using air quotes.
"I don't know, the bottle was what summoned me. When it's rubbed I'm called upon. When the car accident happened and the bottle shattered. I was pulled into the vehicle. The car was fixed and resold but no matter how many people touched it or rubbed it clean, I was never summoned again."
Quinn was silent for a moment in thought taking in what she had just been told.
"I need to know what you did to release me." The lion spoke.
"I didn't do anything."
"Obviously, you did."
"No I didn't." Quinn replied in annoyance. She didn't want the lion to know that she had been crying and screaming over her lost life pathetically.
"Alright, fine. Whatever, it doesn't matter anyway. Let's move on. The sooner we're done with your desire's the sooner we can part ways."
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"What?"
"Desire's."
"Because that's what they are and what you get fulfilled. People over time rephrased them to wishes."
"What if I don't want your wishes?"
"Than I will be glued to your side until the day you die and trust me.. I can be quite annoying, so don't try me."
"And you trust me when I say, you already annoy me." Quinn snarked back.
"Duly noted. Now, you get seven wishes."
"Seven?"
"Yes, seven. Know that there are rules to wishes that restrict me from fulfilling certain things that you may ask for."
"Why seven though? I thought it was three?"
"Does it matter? Why can't you be normal and say whoo hooo seven wishes!"
"First of all, no. I don't say 'whoo hoo' or anything else that juvenile or stupid."
"Ok, seriously do you just walk around with a stick up your ass ooor..?"
"Can we get back to your stupid explanation."
"You are so rude."
"And your annoying."
"Takes one to know one, sweetheart."
"Bite me."
"Please don't tempt me."
The two stared each other down in silent challenge, eyes narrowed.
The lion cleared it's throat. "Anyway, Rule number one: I can't bring people back from the dead."
Quinn snorted rudely. "Ok, Aladdin."
The lion glared but left it at that. "Rule number two: I can't make anyone fall in love with you. You know free will and all that."
Quinn rolled her eyes but nodded.
"Rule number three: I can't make you into a vampire."
Quinn burst into laughter at that one. "What? Oh my god! Who makes up these rules?"
"Ha ha, very funny. It's actually happened." The lion replied annoyed. "Which is how I discovered I can't, the rules build over time when I attempt to grant the desire."
"What happened?"
"A vampire enthusiast begged me to make him a vampire. Needless to say it did not end well when he found out I couldn't. Anyway, moving on."
"Rule number four: No one can know about me. Not that they'd believe you but no one can know. I'm only able to be seen by certain kinds of people."
"Like who?"
"None that concern you." The lion replied in such a frosty tone Quinn could feel it in her bones. It was a touchy subject obviously so she decided not to press. Not that she cared or anything.
"Rule number five: You and only you have the gift of desires. No one may make a desire out of your desire. So there's no sharing."
"Rule number six: I am at your beck and call. So, if you need me in any way, emergency or not. I'm there immediately but I can only do as you wish not as you ask."
"Rule number seven: I have my own free will in certain situations. So even if you say yes or no. I still can do whatever it is that I decide to do in that moment."
Quinn nodded.
"Ok, so what do you desire, master?"
"Please don't call me that." Quinn replied.
"What shall I call you than?"
"My name is Quinn."
"Quinn."
"Yes and what's your name?"
"Whatever you want it to be."
"Gross, that sounded like a dirty pick up line."
The lion chuckled. "It's true though. My name is what ever my master gives me."
Quinn stared at the lion for a moment.
It was causing the lion to internally squirm because she had never been scrutinized so thoroughly. It didn't help that the blonde's gaze felt extremely familiar.
"What do you want your name to be?" Quinn asked finally.
The lion was thrown for a loop at being asked what she wanted to be called for the first time ever by a master.
"Uh.. Well uh.. I don't.. I don't know.." The lion replied insecurely. You could hear the self conscious nervousness in it's voice.
It caused Quinn's heart to soften a little at the sound.
"Well, what's your actual name?"
"I don't know.."
"What do you mean?"
"I.." The lion took a deep breath for a moment and Quinn waited patiently. "I don't know my name.. I don't remember where I'm from and I don't know how I even came into existence.."
Quinn's eyes softened more and she felt her heart strain a little.
She couldn't imagine not knowing who she is and having to practically be a complete strangers slave. The blonde cleared her throat.
"Well, just think about it for a minute."
"Ok.." The lion replied unsurely as they sat in the car in silence.
The silence stretched for several minutes before the lion spoke. "How.. How about.."
The lion started nervously. "How about.."
Quinn raised an eyebrow in expectancy in silence.
"Lucy."
Quinn's eyebrows hit her hair line. "What made you pick that?"
"I don't know.. I just.. The name has been in my head for so long and I don't remember where I heard it but.. What?" The lion asked self consciously, when she noticed Quinn's lips quirked at one end and she had that damn eyebrow raised.
The blonde bit her lip. "Nothing it's just.. That's my name."
"Your messing with me."
"No, I'm completely serious."
"Than why did you say your name is Quinn?"
"My full name is Lucy Quinn Fabray."
The lion felt an odd churning in her stomach upon hearing the girls full name but couldn't place what it was.
"Why do you go by Quinn than?"
"I moved here from another town and I got bullied at my old school because I was a book worm and a nerd. I loved learning more than I liked people and that made me a target. I wanted a fresh start and to change who I was. So I stop reading so much and only do it when I'm either alone or in glee. I stopped being a teacher's pet and got rid of my glasses. I joined the cheerleading team and became captain."
"So, what happened?" The lion asked with a nod toward the blonde's belly. "And what the hell is glee?"
Quinn scowled at the lion covering her stomach with the quilt.
"I don't want to talk about it and Glee is show choir."
The lion could hear the pain in the blonde's voice as well as the quiver in her tone. She felt her own eyes mist so the lion cleared her throat and decided to move on.
"Ok. Well, I'd like to be called Lucy."
"Ok, Lucy." Quinn replied.
Quinn felt weird calling the lion by her name but decided to go with it.
The lion felt a foreign feeling of a happiness in her chest at the fact that she got to choose her own name.
"Well Lucy, I wish I could stay but I'm already going to be late for first period. So I have to go. I have school." Quinn said leaving the car without another word or looking back.
The blonde shut the door on the sitting lion and made her way to school wishing she still had her beetle but her father took that from her as well as everything else.
She was only allowed the clothes on her back, her school bag with her books and her cheerios duffle bag with a few items of clothing. He didn't even give her the full thirty minutes. She was out in fourteen.
So that's all she had, nothing else because he didn't give to whores. His words not hers.
At the thought of the words the blonde burst into tears as she walked alone in the cold to school.