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There had only been a sense of drifting. Just a hazy, semiconscious state; comfortable, like lying half-awake in bed on a Sunday morning, unaware of the passage of time. It had been like that for so long that he had all but forgotten anything else. But the peaceful, drifting haze was shattered by a sudden flash of light from above him, and an inrush of clean, fresh air.
And his coming fully awake when the bottle was opened.
He was young, as genies went. He had never served, had never even been out of his bottle since he'd been imprisoned. How long had it been? He didn't know, and didn't particularly care at this point. He was nearly frantic at the chance to get out, pushing his way out in a puff of turquoise-blue smoke, then coming back to his solid form as quickly as he could, wanting nothing more than to feel the earth beneath his feet.
Before him there was a woman, She-Who-Had-Released-Him. Mistress, his mind told him. It was an almost automatic reaction, along with his gratitude. But Mistress wasn't behaving like a rescuer was supposed to; in fact, she didn't seem happy at all. She was sitting flat on the ground, her mouth open, staring at him in shock.
He knelt down before her, again almost automatically -- he had been well- trained in the ways of genii prior to his incarceration -- and began saying words of thanks and appeasement. But Mistress just kept staring at him. "Oh God, I've lost it, I must be going crazy." she murmured, looking away, her eyes starting to waver.
"Please don't cry, Mistress," he pleaded, with a brief afterthought of thanks that she could understand what he was saying, even with the stilted genie-pattern of speech he'd been forced to acquire. This wasn't the way the first meeting between genie and rescuer was supposed to go. "You have released me; now I am yours to command."
"Wh-what?" she finally stammered, still looking at him as if he might suddenly grow another head or sprout wings.either of which he could have done, although neither seemed appropriate for his current situation.
"You released me from my imprisonment within the bottle. Now I am yours," he said gently, so as not to startle her further. He remembered how it had been the first time he'd seen someone materialize out of thin air, and knew it could be a shock to even the most stable psyche.
She sat back, still on the floor, and shook her head. "Who are you? *What* are you?" she asked in confusion.
He was surprised. Hadn't she ever heard the stories, the legends of what he was? He gestured at the male version of the harem-type clothing he wore, gold and a rich blue that matched his eyes. "I am a genie," he replied, thinking it would have been obvious.
"A genie?" she repeated.
"Yes," he replied, wishing he could be more helpful. "You have not heard of genies?"
"Yes, I've heard of genies," she replied doubtfully. "I just didn't know you actually *existed*."
"We do," he replied simply. She really was quite fetching.long legs, dark hair, and slate-blue eyes. She couldn't have been more than 21. There was a time when he would have jumped at the chance to talk to someone like her, but that was long ago. How he had behaved in the past would not have been appropriate now. He was a bit taken aback, not because of his typical response to a beautiful young woman (which hadn't diminished over the intervening years), but because he was beginning to feel a pull towards something more than gratitude towards her. At first he didn't understand it, until he remembered something from his initial training. It had to do with a bond that was forged during speech.
Once he had begun speaking with her -- it always took spoken words to do it, as it relied on conscious thought as a way for the genie to get a glimpse into its master's (or mistress's) mind -- it was as if he was seeing more than what was on the outside. It was a surprisingly comforting feeling. He could see down to her core, to the innate goodness of her soul; and in that moment, he *knew* her. Not where she was born or what she did or who her first boyfriend had been, but everything that was important about *who* she was.
And if you knew someone so well, so completely, it was very hard not to like them.
He suddenly realized that this was what allowed his kind to serve.even though he'd initially been horrified at the thought of this bondage to another human being. He hadn't always been a genie; he had been made one after a number of transgressions against Hadji and some of his more important family members. He had been warned of consequences, multiple times, but he'd never thought something like this could be done to him. Now he knew better. Now he was paying the price for his insolence and his carelessness. Now *he* would serve.
But it wasn't what he'd feared. It wasn't slavery. It was honestly, willingly wanting to help someone whose inner goodness he couldn't help but see.
Now he understood how Jeannie had done it.
A little unsteadily, the girl rose to her feet, dusting off her pants and wiping at the smudge of dirt across her face. He continued on his knees for a moment more, making sure she had regained her footing before he stood as well. It felt good to stretch his legs. "Are you all right, Mistress?" he asked surreptitiously.
She blinked, then smiled lopsidedly. "I guess so."
"I'm glad," he replied, as he looked around the place where he now found himself. Dusty books and pieces of statues and pottery littered the tables around him. There were dirty fingerprint smudges on many of the items, including what looked like an unnaturally flat television screen with a typewriter's keyboard attached to it. "Where are we, Mistress?" he asked curiously.
"We're in one of the archaeology department's labs -- I was cataloging, and working on my thesis on the computer." She gestured at the TV-like device; there were words on the screen, with a blinking dot at the end of the last sentence. "And I found this bottle, in with a bunch of other things that hadn't been catalogued yet.it was so pretty that I wanted to get a better look at it."
The newly-released genie was still gazing around the room, his eyes again falling on the computer screen. "Mistress, may I ask you.what year is this?" he said weakly, feeling more lost than when he'd first been put into that bottle.
"It's 2037," she said. "October 17th, 2037." She sounded concerned. "Why? When was the last time you were.out?"
He paused. "A long time ago. Things have.changed.since I was imprisoned." He didn't want to think about how much time had gone by, or how different everything was, or how everyone he'd known was most likely dead. Several of his best friends definitely were; he had witnessed the event that had taken them, and this was his punishment for not going with them. But that was in the past...old news, as he once would have called it. He shook his head, willing himself to focus on the present. They were at peace now, he could console himself with that. And there were more pressing subjects of concern to him now. There was a whole new world out there -- who knows what kind of advances they'd made while he was gone? He would have to reacquaint himself with the rest of the world. Plus he had his new duties to perform, and a young lady who obviously could use his help in her studies. Not that she wasn't capable, he knew, but someone so young could always benefit from the assistance of someone older and wiser.and someone who could give her a magical edge.
He smiled again, his earlier distress now firmly pushed to the back of his mind. "Mistress, I would like to thank you again for releasing me from my bottle. I am your genie; I am yours to command, and you may have anything you desire."
"Um.do you mean three wishes, or something like that?"
"Oh no, Mistress," he assured her. "I am yours forever."
She frowned. "That might not be easy.my dorm room isn't all that big, and there's not much room for even me in it..."
"That won't a problem, Mistress. I will stay in my bottle when I'm not needed, and while I'm sleeping." He smiled warmly. He was starting to feel better about his situation, and was actually looking forward to beginning his duties. "Is there anything else, Mistress?"
"Well, yes.I need you to stop calling me 'Mistress'. I don't know what it meant back in the Olden Days, but lately it has kind of a negative connotation."
"But Mistress, I can't do that," he replied, his brow furrowing. How could he? It was against protocol, and besides, it felt wrong to refer to her as anything else. "It just wouldn't be right."
She sighed. "OK, maybe you could just call me that in private. If anyone else is there, you can just call me by my name. Would that be all right?"
"Yes, Mistress.what is your name?"
"Jean."
"Jean?" he repeated doubtfully.
"Yes. Jean Charlotte Mackenzie. But you can call me Jean," she said. "And what's your name? What should I call you?"
He paused. Now *that* was the problem.usually genies just called themselves Jeannie (if female) or Gene (if male). Serving someone with either of those names had obviously never come up before! But he supposed he could use the name Hadji gave him when he became a genie. It began the same way as his original one, so it wouldn't be that difficult to get used to.
He told his new Mistress his name -- all twelve syllables of it.
She looked like her eyes were glazing over. She tried to repeat it, making it only a little way in before stopping and shaking her head. "I don't think I can manage anything that long. Would you mind if I just used the first part of it? The first couple of syllables?"
"Do you mean 'Roger'?" he offered, hoping almost desperately that she would allow this. It was his only link back to his former life, after all. Hadji had at least allowed his new name to take elements of his old one.
"Would that be all right?" she asked.
"That would be perfect, Mistress." He looked away for a moment, then smiled sadly, his bright blue eyes mistier for a moment. "A long time ago, my friends used to call me Roger..."