Loretta of the Lamp

Forbidden to kill a human

"Let me go!" she wrestled with Akil.

"You can wait." He hissed at her in an undertone as he dragged her back into the shadows of a covered alley. He let her go, and she fell back against the wall with the momentum of her struggling.

In anger she put out both palms to shove him back, but he caught her and held her hands up and away from him.

"The punishment for stealing would be to cut off your hand just above the wrist," he tapped his thumb against her pulse, "right there."

"Let me go!" she cried at him again as she fought, so angry she could feel tears gathering.

"Do you understand what I am telling you?" he asked. He allowed her to pull free, and watched silently as she stormed further down the alley, putting distance between them.

"Asshole!" she muttered as she went, rubbing her wrists.

He jogged to catch up with her. "You cannot walk away from me. Do you not realise I followed you as soon as you pulled away? Of course I can feel it, that sickness, the pain. I feel it just like you."

"I don't care," she muttered, not looking at him because of the tears running down her dirty cheeks.

He stepped in front of her, and easily blocked her when she tried to duck around him. If he noticed her tears, he did not say anything. Instead he shoved a small sack into her hands, inside there was bread and cheese, and two apples that were only slightly bruised.

"I was hungry," Loretta said in a quieter voice, still refusing to make eye contact with him. She looked instead at the ground as she tore off a chunk of the bread with her teeth. Her anger was quelled for the moment as she leaned back against the clay wall and chewed. She passed the sack back to Akil, but he shook his head.

"It was for you." he said.

She did not say thank you. It just didn't seem right. When she finished eating, she wiped the back of her hand across her face and half-glanced at him. She opened her mouth to speak as she looked away, but he cut her off.

"As I see it, I have two options," he told her. "I could kill you and hide all evidence of your unfortunate existence here, or I could take you to the Djin king, washing my hands of you completely, explaining that you are a conniving little thief who tricked her way into the lamp and are therefore none of my concern."

Loretta snorted in disgust at him. "What's the Gin king?" She chose to ignore his candid suggestion to disposing of her.

Akil snorted back at her, possibly in disgust that she did not know, "He is the ruler of the Lamp, the king of all the Jinni,"

"Is he trapped in the lamp also?"

Akil just looked at her.

"Well he's not much more of a king than you are then, is he?" she suggested, disdainfully looking him up and down, still half dressed as he was.

He ignored her look, and continued, "Taking you to the Djin king does however risk danger to myself,"

"So you would prefer to kill me?" she suggested.

"Prefer? Of course. However, it is forbidden to kill a human."

"How lucky for me," she replied sarcastically, "and unfortunate for you."

"Then again, it is also forbidden for Jinni to communicate with humans, and I certainly didn't think it was possible for one to enter the lamp, and I don't think the Djin king will believe it either. He will most likely assume I have committed some dark curse in order to bring you here, thus incriminating me,"