SON {QUAL} NAVE, ARIEL & GENIE

[Arthur]

Arthur had only been the King of England for a mere few weeks, but already, he'd been thrust into a role which his late father had been well accustomed. Uther Pendragon, despite his many faults, was generally regarded by the Britons as a just and powerful ruler. His son had only recently been told of his origins by Merlin, Uther's closest friend and confidant. It'd come as quite a shock to the boy, but the wizard had only been able to tell him when he was completely sure in his conclusions. Not only did Arthur have a large pair of shoes to fill, but that he was to become an even greater king than his father, the expectations and pressures were all the more hard on him.

Not surprisingly, his kingly duties as of late had royally been taking away much of his time from his lessons. Neither Arthur, nor Merlin, nor the wizard's owl Archimedes liked this, but there was nothing really the three of them could do. A way to better compromise the new king's time would have to be found eventually. Luckily for Arthur, there wasn't much for him to do this day as there typically was. He'd had to read and sign off on a few things and listen to the complaints of some of his new subjects, but now he was free to do as he wished with the remainder of his time.

Excitedly, the child removed his crown and set it upon the seat of his throne before scrambling down off of it and hurrying out of the throne room. Oddly enough, he'd not seen Merlin and Archimedes at all the entire day. Even so, Arthur did hope the two had some exciting new lessons planned for him. His education was never boring as many others of his age would find their own ones to be. Merlin's plans almost always involved some exciting display of magic, whether it be that all involved were shifted to another form, or even taken to a different place or time entirely.

Down steps and through corridors Arthur ran, stumbling several times and catching himself in the process because of his over sized robes. He came upon Merlin's tower and entered, scurrying up its winding steps before arriving at the top. Taking a hold of the door handle, the king quickly opened the door. Expecting to see his friends, all he saw was a messy room devoid of any life whatsoever. The smile of excitement on Arthur's face faded and he wandered in slowly, looking around. Why weren't Merlin and Archimedes there? He closed the door gently behind him and began to look about.

While it wasn't like them to do it to him, perhaps they were playing some sort of game with him. Maybe it was part of the lesson. Merlin was one to make himself disappear , and it wasn't unlikely that he could have taken his owl along in the process. As Arthur's blue eyes wandered about, a note on the table came into view. He walked over to the piece of furniture and took the note up in his hands. The boy's literary skills were far from perfect, but they were decent enough that he could make out the gist of the note. His tutors were at a wizards' conference and would be gone for about the next week or so. During that time, Arthur was to continue practicing his reading and writing. After all, he'd still a stack of books to read that extended all the way to the ceiling! The wizard and owl would test him when they returned.

This wasn't the first time Merlin and Archimedes had ever left Arthur in a situation like this, so he didn't think too much on it. The boy placed the note back on the table and wondered where he should start. Since he was there, perhaps he could get to some of that reading he was apparently supposed to be doing. Arthur wandered over to the stack of books and pulled out a thick novel entitled Moby Dick. Merlin had collected books over the years from ancient times to the distant future, so the child could never be sure that he'd understand any one's contents. The particular novel the king was about to read had been placed in a smaller part of the stack, so in pulling it out, Arthur caused the other books to avalanche from beneath it. One book, a history of some kind, opened up to a page that showed a picture of a half-human, half-fish woman. Never having seen such a creature before, Arthur was certainly intrigued.

Shifting Moby Dick underneath his arm, the boy bent down and picked up the other book. He continued peering at the image as he made his way back towards the table. In not paying attention to where he was going and the messiness of the room, Arthur slipped on something. ”Whoa, what, whoa,” he cried out as he fell forwards into a pile of various trinkets and objects. Loud banging and clashing could be heard from the tower as a result, causing some of the guards stationed outside to look up in question.

The final items finished rolling around and settling on the stone floor as Arthur sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, a particular object again caught his attention. It was a gold item that reminded the king of Merlin's tea kettle, but much sleeker in general shape. Perhaps that was what it was – an expensive tea kettle the man had acquired at some point in his life. Arthur wobbly got himself upright again. He bent down, picked up the assumed kettle up and his books, and then carefully returned to the table. He'd made sure this time that he was cautious in the process; after all, he'd a tendency to be very clumsy.

He set the books on the tabletop and began to examine the gold kettle with youthful curiosity. It was caked with dust, meaning Merlin hadn't touched it for quite some time. Arthur decided to try and clean it up some. With the back of his sleeve, he began rubbing the metallic object. He couldn't have expected what was to happen next!

[Genie]

The summons, a gentle yet insistent rubbing of the lamp that sent waves of tickling sensation up his long blue back, woke him from a sulk-induced slumber he had never meant to take to find himself slumped against the curving inner wall of his gilded prison. Again. The tickling persisted. His master wanted him and Genie didn't want to go. Not that what he wanted mattered of course, for he had learned long ago that as far as most masters were concerned, his opinion counted for less than nothing and this latest guy was a prime example of humanity at its worst.

Sighing, he ran his fingers over his face. Genie had had many masters over the long millennia of his servitude but even he had to admit that every now and again he got one that genuinely scared him. Sidu was such a one, a slave merchant by trade and a sadist by nature who dabbled in alchemy, perjury, and forgery and took great delight in making his magical blue servant's life a misery. His first two wishes were dreadful requests, commands Genie now knew that for the sake of his own sanity he would gladly keep locked away behind the closed doors of his mind for the rest of eternity. Of Sidu's third and final request, there was as yet no sign and Genie was beginning to suspect that just as he had already so slyly hinted at, his master had now decided to withhold his third and final wish in order to keep his 'favourite' slave-cum-object-of-contempt-and-cruel-amusement bound to him for the rest of his wretched human existence. Of course said wretched existence was only a drop in the ocean for the eternal djinni, but even so, talk about a tough break.

The rubbing sensation persisted. Strangely for once, it didn't feel like Sidu's possessive and greedy touch, but a lighter, more tractable hand. Genie's eyes narrowed, no doubt this was just Sidu's way of trying to catch him off guard, well either that or the ugly chump's sciatica was playing up again and he was looking for someone to take it out on. His eyes closed as he sighed again, ah what did it matter 'cause whichever way you diced it in the end it boiled down to the same thing, namely that Sidu wanted something and that something was Genie.

Unable to refuse the summons any longer and prepared for the worst, he fixed his expression into one of polite yet detached neutrality (no mean feat when by nature you're bright blue, loud, ebullient, and a great believer in fair play) and exited the lamp. First emerging as a long stream of rose, gold, and violet coloured smoke he quickly took on his familiar solid form - or semi-solid at least, for below the scarlet sash that bound his hips his semi-transparent, long smoky blue spirit tail curved away around the over-cluttered room.

"Master? You wanted me?"

Folding his arms across his broad chest and hoping not to catch the lash of the merchant's temper, Genie raised his head to meet his master's eyes and promptly felt a thrill of shock run through him. Where was Sidu? It wasn't like him to miss an opportunity to gloat or ridicule but there was no sign of his leering sallow face close by, and no tang of his sour unwashed body either. Instead there was (Genie blinked several times just to make sure of it) a kid. A kid just standing there staring. Hmm, well how about that, had Sidu got himself a new acolyte since his last dismissal back to the lamp? He seemed to go through acoloytes at an amazing rate...

As the kid continued to stare, mouth ajar, and round-eyed, Genie felt a twinge of sympathy. No doubt Sidu hadn't told him about his 'special servant' and having rubbed the lamp had promptly exited the room in the malicious hope that Genie's sudden appearance would scare the poor boy witless. His hands moved to his hips as he considered the child. Well so far the plan had worked but in all likelihood if Sidu came back and caught the lad still frozen and gaping like that, he would use it as an excuse to punish him for sloth, clip him around the ear and send him to bed without supper (but only after he'd made him scrub the entire house from floor to ceiling of course.)

Genie felt a wave of pity for the boy, and running his gaze around the room was about to advise him to 'look busy before the boss comes back' when it occurred to him that something very odd was going on. Clearly this wasn't Sidu's cell-like lab, in fact this wasn't ancient Mesopotamia at all, so where was it and where was Sidu himself? Had something happened to him after they had last parted company? Magic lamps after all had a tendency to change hands and not always fairly either. Uncharitable though it might have been, Genie had to admit that whatever had befallen the slaver, he hoped it was something really nasty!

A familiar glitter drew his eye as something in the kid's hands caught the light, and suddenly like the proverbial bolt from the blue he had it and everything made sense again.

It was the kid. The kid was holding the lamp. The kid had rubbed the lamp.

His eyes met the boy's. "M-master! You're my master? I mean - Yes. YES! It's you! You're my master!" Like the sun coming out after weeks of cloudy skies, Genie's smile lit up the whole room.

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[OOC: I'm gonna be briefer in my subsequent posts Jacob, I swear it! =D )

[Arthur]

(OOC: Not really fond of this post that much. ._.)

Arthur held strong preferences for order and tidiness, probably stemming from his days as a page in his foster father's household. The boy had been treated more like a servant than either the former or a son. Sure, he'd learned about the ways of knighthood, but he'd never been allowed to actually partake in any of its activities. Things like horseback riding and jousting and slaying wicked beasts had always been exciting to him, but all he'd really ever gotten to do was help his foster brother into his armor and wind up the jousting machine. Arthur didn't know if he'd ever get to experience the life of a knight, especially given that he was instead a king now. Of course, the potential to be a warrior one wasn't out of the question, but Merlin would likely not allow military training of any kind until the boy was at least in his late teens or adulthood. Academics were always to be first and foremost in his young life.

As he continued to rub the assumed expensive golden tea kettle, the dust began to catch on Arthur's robe. He didn't mind this all that much, mostly because he was used to having debris on his person – again, from his former life. Arthur was eventually able to see his face on the particular spot he'd been working on. The boy was satisfied with this and was about to work on the other side when he felt the item in his hands begin to shake. What was causing it to do so, he didn't know, but what he was certain of was that tea kettles didn't move about on their own, especially with such magnitude.

From the object's spout spewed forth a lengthy stream of multicolored smoke. A more solid form soon appeared, taking on the form of a massive sized male. The man's body took up the whole of the room. Oddly, the being's upper half was barrel shaped and blue skinned. He'd pointed ears like an elf and a small amount of black hair. The man's waist was comprised of the smoke from before. What and who exactly was the being? How had the king conjured him? When the male's dark eyes directly met his own blue ones, he nearly dropped the artifact in his hands. Arthur could only stare with a mix of sheer amazement, nervousness, and terror.

The man addressed him as “Master” and asked him what he wanted of him. The lad was too frightened to give him an answer. Why had the being called him by so formal a title? No one ever had before. During the awkward silence between the two, the male looked about the room and seemed to come to a realization of some sort. This was made most apparent when he looked at the assumed kettle and then back at Arthur. The being questioned the Briton briefly again, then remarked in a more assured voice that he was indeed his “master.” A warm, wide grin appeared on his face. It was so cheerful that it seemingly lit up the whole room. ”Who are you, Sir,” Arthur finally managed to say, "and why are you calling me 'Master?"