Sleeping off the night felt great. I needed getting all of those marvels of the previous day out of my mind for a few hours. Once the clock hit the six o'clock mark, I jumped out of my bed, full of energy, prepared for a new day.

It wasn't until I stripped to go into the shower that I remembered why I was so upset before going to bed.

I sighed as I threw off the bandages. Fifteen minutes of blissful hot water and warm towel later, I started with my daily ritual. That pale-skinned woman in the mirror, yes, that was me, but that wasn't my face. Every time I showered, I had to do my makeup again from the start.

I got the brush, dipped it on the red bottle and then, with an expert hand, I drew a long line from my lips to my neck to return to my mouth again. I dipped the brush in the red bottle again and I painted around my beady pitch black eyes. Then, I got the second and last, the black brush, and I highlighted the commissure of my eyes and, finally, drew the lines below them.

Other people would take maybe ten minutes for this. I was so used to it that I finished in less than three. It was tribal painting, after all, not advanced make up.

And, as I did again and again since yesterday afternoon, I checked my wound and sighed deeply. I changed a lot since I came to Earth but, still, I kept behaving like my family back in Thaeb. The paintings, the tattoos, the old blood customs... even if I despised everything they lived for, I still looked at those tattoos with nostalgia. Until, of course, I saw the one on my left leg.

I smiled, reinvigorated, and put on my uniform. Kitchen shift was calm, but very time consuming.

Long before any kids woke up, only I and the night guard were up. I greeted him right before I entered the kitchen and then, the usual happened: preparing the milk heaters, baking the bread, preparing the cookie boxes, the tea and cocoa, the juice, butter and jam... the ins and outs of every morning and, at the same time, I started cooking lunch. They were only eighty kids, but they were eighty ravenous kids.

When I had barely finished with the proceedings for breakfast, the turmoil of the dining room told me they enjoyed their first meal in the day. And, hours later, the clamor at the tables was enough to understand the kids didn't leave too much food on their plates.

Nine hours of baking, cooking, roasting and intensive cleaning later, I was relieved for the day.

"Good job for today, little girl" announced Ellie, as she entered the kitchen while I was cleaning, to get her own lunch. "Could you, though, clean a bit on the second floor before returning to your room? There was a little fight and everything is a mess in.."

"...the first room I'll find tumbled down, I imagine" I laughed as I flipped the mop to finish. "Something else?"

"Take care of that wound of yours" and she went out. Being the headmistress of a chaotic place like this made me feel bad for her, but she seemed to like it either way.

I didn't like when the kids were so inconsiderate and left every toy, book and blanket in the hallway. Then again, it wasn't a hallway anymore: it was a minefield. I had the patience to sort out that mess, but not so much with the kids running around all the time. The moment I stomped my foot on the floor, the ten brats that were still fighting, turned to me and straightened up immediately. They'd grown to respect my presence. Ellie could be motherly and I learned a lot from her, but I was brasher, stricter, and my face painting helped a lot in keeping every brat in line and every kid tense. I loved them as a big sister, but still, I had to draw a lot of lines.

Ten minutes later, all toys were in their respective boxes, the bedsheets in their beds, the books in the trolley, and every child was steady aside their bed.

"Next time, I'll call the Guepo, am I clear?" I warned them. I smiled when I saw their fearful faces, as I mentioned that boogeyman look alike creature from my planet. Of course, there was no guepo in that orphanage, but I could sure imitate its voice very well at night...

With every kid relieved of their obligations, I walked the books back to the building's little library. Tales, stories, and legends... I usually read them books on the playground when I had guardian duty, but they kept wanting more and more. I found Earth's tales quite tame in comparison with Thaeb's. At least with Earth's, you could go to sleep with both eyes closed.

And that would have been everything if it weren't for something that caught my eye as I put the books back to their shelves: a woman, scantily clad with a veil covering her mouth. Anaissa's first outfit instantly came to mind.

After finishing, I brought that book to my room and, with extreme interest, I read everything I found in it. The book was an abridged version of a collection of folk tales named "One thousand and one nights", stories from more than one thousand years ago for kids to enjoy. In their childish way, those kid's tales kept me entertained for hours: bandits, curses, magic, enchantments, great journeys, and...

...the djinn story. The story of Aladdin, the kid who found a magic lamp with a creature named "Djinn" who was able to grant any three wishes you asked him. And one of the wishes was, precisely, building him a palace.

Just like Anaissa did.

Okay, I was raised among a superstitious folk. I ended being quite rational myself once I arrived on Earth, but Anaissa was different. I wouldn't say special (I liked my head where it was, thank you), but she sure wasn't normal.

I said I was rational. That implied that I usually looked at things from more of one point of view; and that led me to the point of "not every myth is that distant from reality. "Everything has a reason to be, a reason to be told; sometimes from a metaphoric point of view...

...but what if it wasn't always like that? What if someone found a real djinn? Like Anaissa?

No better way to answer that question than asking the very person herself. Less than ten minutes after reading the tale of Aladdin, I ran like hell to the forest with the book in my hand. I raced through the park, crossed the road, jumped to the path and reached the glade. As she had said, the tent was in there and, inside, the hatch.

And then, I stopped.

"Hey, Anaissa, I've read you're a djinn. Could you grant me a wish?"

Heck, that sounds stupid, no matter how you tell it.

No, this "djinn" thing was a mere excuse. I just wanted to see her again, but after the fiasco of the blood binding ritual, I just didn't know what to do to get near her without being really weird. No, I preferred to leave her alone, without me being a pest.

And I would have walked away that moment if it weren't for a strong fist opening the hatch with a blow of unnatural strength. A bronze colored arm with a big smear of blood on its skin. Anaissa's arm.

"Hm?" Anaissa murmured once she peeked out the hole. "Hey, Renate! Just when I wanted to go find you!" the woman jumped out of her concealed palace and sat down beside its entrance. "A pleasure seeing you here!"

I wasn't able to open my mouth. Not only because my surprise, or her presence, or her greeting, but because she still had my blood on her skin. She soon found where I was staring and, behind her cloth, I noticed her smile.

"I don't know what this means to you, but I can guess" she pointed out. "In fact, part of the reason I was getting out of my little home, was because I wanted to ask you what the deal was" I wasn't able to reply. Not that I wanted to confess anything so important so soon. She waited, though and, when she saw my disposition, raised her hands in peace. "Ok, I get it. Somehow, I know how you do feel about me" my heart jumped in surprise and awkwardness, "and, at the same time, I have to say, I cannot feel the same for you", now, my pale skin turned even paler from disappointment. "I mean, I don't know anything about you yet" then, she showed the smear again. "You, with your own body and blood, yelled at me I like you!. I can't reject someone so direct, but neither can I accept you so fast. So... "she pointed at the entrance to her home, "how about a cup of tea?"

Like the previous day, I struggled to get through, walked by her caring hand and, this time, we entered her comfy bedroom.

"Make yourself at home" she offered as she ascended to the kitchen. "I'll put a pot on the fire and head back".

I found myself in the most luxurious bedroom I had ever laid eyes on. So many cushions, tapestries, and complex carpets... I mean, I grew up sleeping on the ground; in the rudimentary cabins in the space freighters, the shared rooms in the orphanage, and my humble (but individual) current room. This room was so excessive in any sense of the word, that it was intimidating. Everything was so soft that I bet I could fall backward onto the ground and I wouldn't feel a thing.

I ended up just sitting down between some cushions, book on my lap, trying not to be so overwhelmed. A hard job, I must say. I started to see things everywhere, like the prim state of her spectacular canopy bed, like she didn't sleep in all night; the general warm air in the place; the strange echoes that came from the deep cavity, even further underground... and, finally, the soft steps of the lady of this extravagant lair.

"You should chill out a bit" she said when she put the tray with a tea set between us. "You remind me of a scared mouse... or is my room a bit too excessive?"

"...sorry".

"Sorry about what? Sincerely, I hoped you had returned to feeling confident, like yesterday" Anaissa kneeled and served the tea to both of us. "Or is this smear on my arm what makes you feel so suddenly shy? If so, please, cut it out now".

I remained silent, looked away, and kept feeling my heart throbbing wild. Exactly what she didn't want.

"It makes me sad seeing you so silent" she said as she drew her cup to her mouth. "What can I do to get you to speak about yourself?"

I was going to ask her forgiveness again when I saw them: as usual, Anaissa covered her mouth and neck with a long cloth. I didn't find it annoying or anything. Maybe it was a custom as weird as one of my bloody ones, so I didn't ask any questions. But now, I could see she was concealing something with it. And that was enough excuse for me to speak up.

"Could you take off your mask?"

Whatever I said made her choke on her drink. She looked genuinely scared when she heard that but, after a second, she raised the cloth over her eyes and laughed it off.

"You mean this little thing? Of course, of course!" again, she seemed very agitated after she coughed the tea away.

"...did I say something wrong?" I feared that, like with the "special", she was upset about me using another incorrect word.

"You have a penchant for saying the most remarkable words, did you know that?" she untied the shroud and, nonchalantly, threw it behind her. "But it's fine: you don't know anything about me or what I am and..." she looked down to the book I was carrying and she made her assumptions with a very open smile. "Nope, I'm not princess Sherezade. I wouldn't tell thousands of tales to keep myself alive: I would prefer giving the king a beating he would never forget and deal with the consequences later".

And finally, I could smile again, partly because of the joke, but mostly because she had finally started to really trust me. Because that cloth had concealed something peculiar...