You shakily rose to your feet and dusted off your PJ pants from the fall. It wasn't really like they had actually been burned but it felt right. Face your future, while on your feet, right? Part of you... Ok... Most of you still couldn't believe this. The floating wand? The spark show? Was that the real deal? Magic? Or was it some trick. You went along with Ina because you always did, but inside your mind was still grappling with the impossibility of the situation. Besides, she really would start to whine, and somehow that seemed harder to deal with than the impossibility of magic.
You took a deep breath and sighed as you faced Sabrina. She was muttering in some vaguely familiar language. You felt like you'd heard it before on TV or discovery channel or... The kabab place downtown? Was that Farsi?
Sabrina cast an open hand straight towards you and began to shout. Her eyes flared with a golden light, as chains of lighting erupted out and grasped you from all sides. They pierced through you, wrapped around you, filled you until there wasn't a clear difference between you and the bondage.
"Ina?!" You shout. You were a little less nonchalant now that you were suddenly forced to face the severity of your good natured roleplaying. She didn't stop chanting, and her expression was flat.
A moment later you felt yourself being pulled towards her. Then there was a flash that blinded your senses.
You woke up groggily for the second time in the last 5 minutes. You were laying naked on your side, and forced yourself to sit up on the hard cold floor. Your heart raced as you looked around. As best as you could tell, you were inside some sort of metal cylinder, maybe twice as wide as you were tall, and at least 4 times as tall. The round ceiling was flat, gave off a faint white glow like a skylight in a house. The room tapered towards the bottom so that the bottom was a little more narrow than the top, and rather than a clean sharp edge where the wall met the floor there was a gentle slope. You stumbled over and touched the brushed steel wall. The floor was like ice on your feet, and you crossed your arms to fight the cold. "Oh now that you're my familiar, I'm going to need you to look at this flashbang. Hope you like the scifi prison aesthetic..." You sighed.
"Spirit of Fire and Air." A voice echoed with an ominous metallic twang throughout the cylinder.
You yelped as you turned around, and stumbled back into the wall. You lost your footing on the sloped edge, and slid to your butt.
Before you was a pair of eyes in a cloud of darkness.
"Bound not by Solomon, nor a prophet." The eyes came closer. "But a witch."
You simultaneously tried to scamper back further into the wall and cover your exposed genitals... which... wait. did they look different?
The eyes flare with fire, and the cloud swirls towards you with the sudden intensity of a tornado. Your hair is whipped by the wind, and you'd be thrown back if you weren't already against the wall.
"DISGRACEFULL!" The voice roars with the intensity of a furnace fed gasoline.
"H-hey I'm just..." You plead. It's not your fault you were distracted by the fact your big fella suddenly looked like a little fella.
"To be bound by such a lesser power." It continues
"Wait. Ina?" You thought it was offended over you checking out your junk but apparently something else had ticked off this entity. "I-I don't know about 'bound' you know." You try to placate the thing. "That's a really strong word, we're just sort of... Uh. friends and...uhh" Your voice fades away as the eyes glare at you, unamused.
"Or... Perhaps..." The voice contemplates. The eyes narrow and come mere inches from your face. The clouds become suddenly calm, like the eye of a hurricane. "Could it be? A newborn?"
The voice seems calmed, even as you become even more bewildered. "Yes... I see now." The eyes draw back and assume a smug aura. "How very curious." It purrs with the rumble of distant thunder. Moments later it fades to black leaving you alone in your... cylinder.
"What the FUCK" You shout. A moment later, you find yourself drawn up to the light in the ceiling.
The wind whips around and through you as you find yourself suddenly appearing in your apartment living room, the same place you'd made that absurd oath, and signed that damned contract. "Ina What the Hell did you do?" You shout. At least that's what you wanted to say. Instead you bow with a graceful flourish. From your bent posture you can see your skin shines like polished bronze, and your silky black hair is pouring over your shoulder like midnight over the desert.
Words come to your lips unbidden and you coo, "Greetings mistress, I, your nameless servant, offer myself to your every desire."
Whoa. What was that? You said it all... sexy and stuff. Hell your voice didn't even sound like your own. It sounded too light and soft, almost feminine, but not quite.
"J-Jim?" Sabrina stammered.
"Uhhh..." You mutter as you feel your body come under your control again. "Who's Jim?" You look down and realize you're wearing a... Well... It's a ridiculous costume to be blunt. Big poofy sheer harem pants, teal in color, and only vaguely obscuring the outline of your slender legs beneath them. You're also wearing some sort of halter top, also teal in color, that attaches to something around your neck.
"Oh god, did I erase your memory?" She hisses and clasps her hands to her mouth.
"Ina, that's stupid, you didn't erase my memories, I'm still me, I just don't know who Jim is and what he has to do with all of this." You hold up your hands, and find silver bracers around your wrists. At least that's what you thought until you turn your wrist over and realize there's no clasp to remove them. They're clean silver bands covering about a third of your forearms.
"Oh thank the gods." She sighs.
"Thank the gods?" You quip. "Is that part of your witchcraft thing. Can't say 'Thank god' like the rest of us?" You look up at Sabrina and realize immediately that you were in fact looking "up" at her. That's definitely new. Ina wasn't exactly a tall girl.
"Hey, there's more than one god, I should say it right. Ugh... That's beside the point. What do you mean. 'you don't know who Jim is' ?" She probes.
"Uhhh, you tell me, you're the one saying random guys names." You cross your arms self consciously, trying to cover your exposed belly and draw your lips into an irritated sneer.
"What's your name then?"
"I'm..." You blink a few times. "I uhh... Well... I don't have one. Never did."
Ina smirks. "Oh is that so?"
"Yeah. Kind of strange we never talked about it before."
"So you don't remember me, or school teachers, or your friends calling you Jim before this?"
"No. Ok!" you shouted your irritation and held out your hands. "You just sort of got my attention the normal way."
"The normal way? Like... saying your name." Sabrina titters.
"Sabrina?" You state flatly.
"Yes?" She replies flatly.
"Did you take my name?" You ask.
"It was an accident." She answers.
"OH My god." You cry.
"Gods." She corrects.
"Don't get snarky with me. This deal just keeps getting worse by the second. First you flashbang me, then I wake up in a tube. A metal tube. What was that about anyway? Then I get harassed by a cloud, and now you're telling me I don't have a name." You let your irritation bubble over as you pleaded. "I know I said surprise me, but would you please tell me what's going on now?"
Ina's brows were etched with a concern, but she sighs and states. "You're a djinn."
"A djinn?" You ask.
"A djinn." She answers.
You reexamine your costume, finally recognizing it for what it was. "I dream of genie? 1,001 Arabian Nights? Shantae?" You struggle with the tube top which stays firmly attached to your chest. "Desiree from Danny Phantom? Genie from Aladdin? Fricken Akinator from the 'ask me 20 questions' game?" You grab your bracers, no your shackles, and try to wiggle out of them to no avail.
"Yeah, duh. Djinn are super powerful AND can take human form so you can blend in. You're an Ifrit. They're supposed to be, like, crazy strong."
You sigh and put a hand to your face. "Ok. I can deal with this." You state with exasperation. "So that metal place was my lamp."
"Uhh... I didn't exactly prepare a vessal... I didn't know that was necessary." Ina admits. You glare at her incredulous, and she pleads her defense. "It wasn't in the book! How was I supposed to know."
"Come on, it's a pop culture truism, Genies need lamps!"
"Well I got a vessel for you. So it's fine." She pouts.
"And what exactly did you get." You curtly ask.
She squirms, then glances over to your dining room table. You follow her gaze and see her favorite metallic peach coffee tumbler.
"Please don't tell me..." You stammer and point with a weak finger at the tumbler.
She bites her bottom lip and nods.
