Today is the most important day in Sierra Mara's so far short life. It is not the day of her birth, nor of her death, her engagement, wedding, nor is it the birth of her first born. This day is important to Sierra Mara because it is the day she is bound to a lamp, sentenced to serve mortal men and women, and granted nigh infinite magical abilities. Put it another way, today is the day Sierra Mara became a genie.
It is now 5:34 PM, and Sierra Mara is half way through her last hour as a human. She is in her room, and is deep in the study of important historical artifacts. Sierra was a connoisseur of important historical artifacts. Compact dics, walkmen, VHS tapes, books made from paper, and dial-in modems were all fascinating to her.
But today her research took her even further in the past, back to a barbaric time when people still listened to the radio and only had three channels on their TV. She had found, through her rummaging in her father's attic, a box of old and yellowed comic books, which seemed entirely too old even for her father.
Two thoughts struck Sierra immediately. First, she wondered if there was a way she could use the comics to tease her father. Second, she wondered how much could these slim old books be worth. So she secured the contents of the box and made haste to her bedroom, giving her father only a mischievous smile on her way passed the kitchen. Her father did see it, returned the smiled, as fathers should, and began to worry about the trouble his daughter was about to get into.
Sierra placed the envelope in the mailbox and walked back the concrete steps to her house, fully expecting to wait the appropriate five to ten business days for a reply. Or longer, considering the United States Postal Service would be handling the delivery. But the USPS was not handling the delivery. Instead, transportation of the letter, and the lamp that would be returned to Sierra's house, was handled by an arcane system of runic mail.
Because of this, the letter vanished the moment Sierra closed the mailbox, and reappeared on the counter of Magic Works, a fine establishment and seller of ordinary items that happened to be magical. Interestingly, it appeared there at 3:45 in the afternoon. This discrepancy could have been due to the rotation of the earth and the multiple time zones mortal man has imposed upon the world, but it was not.
In fact, runed mail was designed so that correspondence would be sent into the past. Due to laws of causality, however, the return correspondence could not arrive until after the initial letter had been sent. This safety feature was designed in 234 BC by the celts, after they almost destroyed the world due to the mother of all grandfather paradoxes.
The sole purveyor of Magic Works, one Percival Dorne, saw the letter, opened it up without surprise or reaction, noted the order form, saw to it that the 35 cent check was made out correctly, and went to the backroom where he kept his stock of preordained magical artifacts. He had one last magic bottle left, and it sat above a placard titled 'Sierra Mara.' The name didn't mean anything to him in 1567 AD when he first wrote it down after a prophetic vision. He checked that the name on the placard matched the name on the order form, and picked up the tall gold and white bottle, careful not to disturb the cork in its top. If he had disturbed the lamp, he could have accidentally activated the bottle and caused a world ending paradox, on account of his prophecy being incorrect.
Percival rapped on a nearby coo-coo clock three times and the doors opened to reveal a half sleeping fairy in blue dress and striped tights. She yawned, looked at the old wizard with annoyed sleepy eyes, and sighed when he told her she must get to work.
The fairy, who guarded her name with great care until a wicked old wizard named Percival Dorne sussed it out, left her little clock home in a burst of fairy dust, leaving a mess that would take hours to clean up.
"O-kaaaay. Then, I wish I could fly."
"As you command, so it shall be." The genie said, but before her words had even left her mouth Miri's body tingled, shuddered, and began to change. Miri felt gales of wind come or her body, and only her. Her hands, skin, and hair turned a regal purple color: the kind that you would see in ancient castles on the tapestries.
Before she could think, thick purple thread wove itself across, and into her body. She looked and saw her hands unfurl into golden tassels. The line between her clothes and her skin vanished as thread took over her entire body. Miri's body went flat and she sank onto the concrete.
It dawned on Miri that she had been turned into a rug. No, not just a rug, she realized. A magic, flying carpet. And she couldn't scream, shout, or even cry at her new predicament. She couldn't even move, and could barely feel the dainty weight of the mad genie who stepped on Miri.
"I hope that felt as amazing for you as it did for me, Sejah. That means carpet, by the way. But I think it's a fitting name for you now." The genie said, settling her body onto the carpet. She pushed her fingers into Sejah's soft threads, sending tingles of energy through her flat form.
The once human rug tried to stir herself out of her new woven form, not content to let some mystical enchantment keep her from her life. But she could do less than nothing while the strange woman sat cross legged on her back. The sounds of the world, the birds that sang and the cars that hummed were muddled and weak, as though Sejah heard them from beneath water. But then she heard the genie speak in a clear, perfect voice.
"Amerk aretfa'e," she said and her words touched something completely unexpected inside Sejah. The carpet heard the sounds, but felt their true meaning "I command you rise", and she obeyed.
Sejah's body lifted up off the ground where she was just a rug to be walked upon, and floated into the air, her flat woven body rising and falling in a gentle wave. She kept her body semi-stiff to accommodate her rider and master. The genie pushed down on Sejah's right tassel, while also pulling on her left. The magic literally woven into Sejah's fibers responded and she turned right. Her rider pressed down evenly and Carpet suddenly sped forward, feet off the ground.
Wind rushed through her heavy yarn and excited the carpet. The earth and sky tried to grab her any which way and force her to obey their laws. But Sejah had found her true master. She had found her true form, and wasn't about to let little things like gravity hold her down any more. Her rider shifted her body on top of Sejah and pushed the carpet left. She trusted her mistress, and banked her body. And when she straightened out, she heard her Mistress's clear, commanding words again.
"Amerek al'ealey" Somehow, Sejah knew those words and she obeyed. She pushed her body higher, well above the street, above the trees and the house, toward the domain of the clouds. Her wish had come true. She could fly now. And even though she was a carpet, Sejah couldn't have been happier.