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hippo2 — Taking responsibility - Part 2
Published: 2013-05-04 08:16:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 5311; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 0
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It didn't take Martha and Amelia long to find the transformed couple. The two rabbits sat in the same meadow Martha and Amelia had left them originally behind in. Martha squatted down in a few feet away. "Here... Come here..." she called them.To her surprise, the two rabbits looked at her.
"Come here! I want to help you."
As if they could understand Martha, both rabbits cautiously jumped closer. Still, they kept a distance in case Martha would turn hostile.
"I want to make you human again." Martha promised.
Now both rabbits jumped just in front of Martha.
Martha reached out and touched both rabbits. She closed her eyes and sensed the magic signature around the rabbits. There was still a strong trace of the magic that had forced the couple into their new forms. Martha reached inside and sensed the magic pattern of their minds. They were still different from the rabbit-pattern of their forms. Their minds were still mostly human. Martha let the rabbits go and they jumped away.
Martha stood up. "They are still human in mind. " she said to Amelia. "Can you wish them back into their human form now?"
"I got a better idea!" Amelia fetched her mobile from the pocket and made a call.
About 30 minutes later, a woman in her late 40s met Martha and Amelia in the park. "Hello, I'm Frau Kohlschneider. Susanne is my daughter. You said you know where she is? "
"Good day, my name is Martha and this is my friend, Amelia." Martha introduced herself and Amelia. "Frau Kohlschneider, this will sound very strange to you, but this rabbit here is your daughter. She was transformed by a genie." Martha presented one of the rabbits.
Frau Kohlschneider gave Martha an angry look. "Listen, I have no time for this stupidity. My daughter has been missing for months and you have the guts to tell me a fairy tale. I'll call the police." The woman took her mobile out and began to dial.
Martha decided to go all in. She blinked and changed into her green genie form. The mobile fell from Frau Kohlschneider's hand. The woman fainted.
A few seconds later, Frau Kohlschneider regained her consciousness. Martha was kneeling next to her and cradled her head in her lap. Then she saw the now green-skinned Martha. "Ok, so you say you are a genie. And you say that my daughter has been transformed into a rabbit. How do you know that and why are you telling me?"
"I know it because it was I who transformed Susanne and Marcel into this pair of rabbits. And I tell you this because I want to redeem myself for what I have done." Martha put her lamp into the hands of Frau Kohlschneider. "You are now my mistress. I will grant you three wishes exactly the way you state them. If you wish for it, I will turn Susanne and Marcel back into humans. And you can still use the remaining wishes for your own benefit."
"Are there any limits to the wishes?"
"I can't kill, I can't bring the dead back, I can't bend the free will of a person, you can't wish for more wishes nor can you wish that I'm bound to you any longer after your last wish is granted." Martha counted the rules.
"Alright, I'll give it a go." Frau Kohlschneider stood up with the help of Amelia. "First, the most important wish: Martha, I wish that you turn these rabbits back exactly the same way they were before you transformed them, and besides that, you do nothing else."
"Your wish is granted!" Martha blinked. Instantly, the two rabbits grew into the shape of Susanne and Marcel. Even their clothes appeared on their bodies. Bewildered, Susanne and Marcel looked around.
"We're human again!" Susanne said.
"Yes, we are human again!" Marcel replied. He jumped forward and embraced Susanne. When they parted again, both, out of an instinct, raised their upper lips, exposed their frontal teeth and nibbled on their lower lips – a behavior typical of rodents.
Frau Kohlschneider rushed forward and embraced first Susanne and then Marcel. "I'm so glad to have you back. Say, how did she turn you into rabbits? Was it a wish?"
"I... I don't remember." Susanne replied.
Marcel shook his head too. "We were here at the park and suddenly, we were rabbits. Maybe you should ask the genie."
"I will!" Frau Kohlschneider turned towards Martha again. "Tell me genie, why did you transform these kids into rabbits?"
Martha didn't want to answer the question, but as a genie slave, she was forced to answer it. "I heard that Marcel was cheating on another girl with Susanne, here. So I decided to punish them and turned them into rabbits."
"You turned them into rabbits because of such a thing?" Frau Kohlscheider asked angrily.
"Listen, I'm not proud of what I did. It was wrong, ok, but now I have turned them back. So, no harm done, right, hehe...?" Martha made a forced laugh.
Suddenly, Susanne interrupted. "Where are our babies?"
"Babies?" Frau Kohlschneider and Martha asked, in unison.
"Well, soon after we had been transformed into rabbits, we developed the instinct to procreate. The result was a litter of three. They must be somewhere, around here." Susanne explained.
"Are you telling me, you have three rabbit babies?" Frau Kohlschneider asked.
Susanne nodded. "Genie, will you grant me a wish, too?"
Martha agreed.
"You're not going to wish these rabbits into human babies, are you?" her mother asked, before Susanne could state her wish. "Three children, you have no idea what that means!"
"Do you want to let them starve? They are my children and I won't give them up." Susanne replied. Frau Kohlschneider remained silent. So, Susanne state her wish: "Genie, I wish that you turn my little bunnies into well-developed and well-cared human babies of an according age."
Martha blinked. "Your wish is granted." Suddenly three rabbit babies appeared on the ground and turned into three human newborns.
Frau Kohlschneider shook her head. Then she spoke to Martha again. "See what you've done? You ruined their lives. It's all your fault. But now I will make sure you won't destroy anybody else's lives: "I wish that you will be locked inside your lamp for the rest of time."
Martha was shocked, but she remembered, what Sami told her recently. "Sorry, mistress, but a genie can be trapped only for a limited time. I can't grant that wish."
Frau Kohlschneider took a deep breath and thought intensely. She had to word that wish very carefully. "Alright, genie, I wish that for the next one million years, you will be locked away inside your lamp, all alone, with no other being trapped inside with you and with no person able to summon you unless you have served your time."
Martha gulped. "Your... your wish is granted," she said, with a very sad voice. Martha blinked and was instantly sucked inside her lamp.
Frau Kohlschneider passed the lamp to a shocked Amelia. "Here, you can have this. I don't need that lamp anymore." Without saying another word, Frau Kohlschneider returned to her daughter, Marcel and the babies. They left the park and went home.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Part 1: [link]
Part 3: [link]
Part 4: [link]
Part 5A (with codeword "Goddess"): [link]
Part 5B (with codeword "Mouse"): [link]
Part 6: [link]
Part 7A: Martha's human side has won the argument: [link]
Part 7B: Martha's genie side has won the argument: [link]
Part 8A Check Sylvias State of mind first: [link]
Part 8B Go and ask David or Amelia for help: [link]
Proof-reading by
The backstory of Susanne and Marcel can be found here: [link]
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Comments: 38
Isn't 1000,000 years a little too harsh a punishment?
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It is. Even for a genie.
Frau Kohlschneider was out for revenge. She didn't think about the consequence at all. She even wanted to lock Martha away forever. But that won't happen, or I won't have a story to tell. Wait for the next Weekend and you'll see how it the story will go on.
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All you need is genie, that is more powerful than Martha.
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Maybe, but don't forget he's a bound genie. Unless someone wishes for it, he can't take revenge on the family.
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Good thing there's at least 2 humans on Martha's side.
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Yeah, it depends on David and Amelia now.
Would you free Martha at once, if you could?
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Not at once since she still needs to relearn some humanity, but definitely shorten the duration to a week or month at most.
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Let's hope she'll learn her lesson.
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This is actually Amelia's fault. She didn't have to involve Susanne's mother in this at all.
Obviously Sami can undo that wish since he is more powerful than Martha. How long it will take Amelia to tell him? Well probably less than a million years.
How old are the babies? Will they develop properly? I assume they'll be normal humans as adults but they might be developmentally delayed. (And there's a typo where Susanne announces the babies must be "someone around here".)
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Somehow I doubt that you feel too bad for Martha now. 
The babies are definitely not new born. On the other hand, rabbits grow up awefully fast. About three or four weeks after their birth, little rabbits begin to exploring the environment of the nest. But they still sleep their at night and stay close to their parents. Also, the baby rabbits are still suckeled by their mother. Compared to humans, they would be 11 or 12 months old babies.
It's very likely that they'll develope into normal humans when they grow up. Luckily, rabbits care a lot about the newborns. Still it will be very tough for Susanne and Marcel to raise three children.
No wonder Frau Kohlschneider reacts so repulsive when Susanne looks for her babies. Is that an unlikely first reaction? Think of the situation as an unwanted teenage pregnancy. That happens too.
Anyway, it's two (or even five?) more lives that Martha screwed up. But this time, she'll pay for it!
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11 to 12 month old babies who have never been spoken to? That will delay their speech development by YEARS. Not good. With constant individual attention you might reduce that delay to one or two years but having 3 kids who are developmentally delayed will devour Susanne's and Marcel's lives. Martha's punishment is too good for her in that case.
The frau's reaction's "realism" depends on how long she's been asking Susanne "when will I become a grandmother?" Repulsion is a bit extreme for that. What I am surprised at is she didn't try to turn Martha into a rabbit?
And Amelia is amazingly silent throughout this story, calmly receiving Martha's lamp from the lady without a single comment. Somehow I think she wants to see Martha punished.
And this will do wonders for Sami's views on humanity.
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If Martha was kind, she granted Susanne's wish in such a way, that the rabbits were transformed into well-developed babies of 11 months. That means, their state of developement can be normal for a child of that age (Of course there are different oppinions on what would be a normal state of developement, but just say it is enough that they won't suffer any drawbacks from being born as rabbits.) Don't forget when Amelia was transformed into a human, Gregorios gave her a personality she wouldn't have had as a mouse. Of course Amelia developed further and so will the babies, who are still at the beginning of their lives.
Nevertheless, it will be though to raise three children. Even one child can be too much for teenage parents. Still, that happens too. And in this case we can asume that Frau Kohlschneider will support her daughter. Maybe a litter of three rabbits was a bit too much here. The size of the litter was indeed very difficult to decide on. 3 is a very small litter for rabbits, while a tripple pregnancy is very rare among humans. Three little bunnies appeared to me as a good compromise. It still more manageable than having 8 babies to take care of. But then this would be a story from "The Simpsons."
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I have to say, this was sort of a bad move for Martha huh? Why did she make them rabbits again?
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What was a bad move? Turning them in to rabbits to begin with? Or making them human again?
She made them into rabbits, when Martha was shortly a free genie and could use her full powers without a wish. She overheared that Marcel was cheating with Susanne on another girl. Martha thought to punish them by turning Susanne and Marcel into rabits. Of course that was way over the top. But now, this bad deed is comming back on Martha.
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And there are still more victims out there. Some are even beyond help. I wonder who Martha will cope with that. Maybe it's better to acknowledge that her humanity is gone.
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Nah, it's not a probelm of that my friend, she is just way to young. Giving these powers to a young specsis is like giving a WMD to a young country. What she needs to learn is self contorl
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Sadly, she doesn't have a good mentor here. Sami's definitely not a role model. Maybe if Martha finds a jinn settlement like Al'Amhadina, she might get a proper training. Many choices for the endings...
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Well we do have Alex and my Genie.
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Alex is even younger than Martha. She wouldn't be a mentor at all.
Just remind me, who's your genie again?
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You never mentioned her. Do you have some art or stories about her?
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Gotta give Frau Kohlschneider props on that one for figuring out a loophole.
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Maybe she simply wanted to se Martha being punished. Anyway, Martha is in a fix now.
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Well, I can't say I blame her for the final wish.
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Yeah, Martha must take responsibility for what she did. And since she didn't care about any human law when she transformed them, she shouldn't be surprised that her punishment is equally harsh.
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My guess is that she won't be stuck for a million years.
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That's a good guess, since otherwise, the story would have propably ended. But how long until she will eventually get out of the lamp? And how will she react then?
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Until Amelia tells Sami and makes a wish to undo the previous wish, which might happen as soon as next Saturday.
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