He paused, those ancient eyes narrowing slightly as he searched for words. Mandy watched in fascination as the powerful Djinn prince struggled to find a comparison she would understand.
"You're of the generation that understands computers."
"Absolutely," Mandy replied, not sure if he was making a statement or asking questions. She wondered where this was going.
"When something goes wrong with the computer," Kieran continued, "it can be set back to a point in the past. I believe it is called a... restore point?"
The last words lifted in question, seeking confirmation. Mandy nodded, wondering where he was going with this.
"What the Djinn magic would do," Kieran explained, his elegant hands sketching shapes in the air, "would be similar to resetting your body to a healthy restore point."
Mandy absorbed his words, her heart skipping a beat as understanding dawned. Her vision blurred slightly as tears threatened, and she blinked them back furiously.
"You mean like, before the stenosis and the arthritis set in?" Hope bloomed, wild and dangerous in her chest.
"Yes, exactly." Kieran's deep voice rumbled through her living room.
"But..." Mandy swallowed hard, struggling to contain the surge of emotion threatening to overwhelm her. "I was only in my thirties. That's a long time ago - over three decades."
Kieran's elegant shoulders lifted in a graceful shrug, as if three decades were nothing more than the blink of an eye. Given his age, Mandy supposed they probably were.
"As with the computer, a reset is a reset," he said, his deep voice carrying absolute certainty. "And magic is magic. The magic doesn't care when the restore point is, as long as the wielder..." He paused, those ancient eyes gleaming. "The Djinn... identifies the right time."
Mandy studied his face before dropping her eyes to the coffee table, her mind spinning. He could make it all go away, just like that - with a wish. Her mother's favorite saying echoed in her memory: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
Yet this was different. Kieran wasn't some fairy tale - he was an actual Djinn with genuine powers. That was undeniable, however crazy it seemed. And according to him, his supernatural abilities could erase her constant battle with pain.
The weight of hope pressed against her chest until she could barely breathe. She'd learned to live without hope over the years - hope was dangerous. Having hope led to despair.
But Kieran was offering more than simple hope.
No more pain. The words echoed in her head, but their meaning remained elusive, like trying to grasp smoke. Her entire existence had been shaped by pain management for so long that imagining life without it felt impossible.
This conversation about healing her back and knees had sparked something else - a deeper fear she'd been avoiding all her life. She needed to discuss it with him, but the very thought made her palms sweat.
Mozart butted his head against her hand, demanding attention. She stroked his soft fur absently, grateful for the distraction as she gathered her courage.
"Kieran?" Her voice came out softer than intended. She cleared her throat and tried again. "There's... there's somethingelse I wanted to ask you about." She added hastily, "Not about this wish we were just discussing. Something different."
Those ancient eyes fixed on her with the intensity that still made her skin prickle. He remained silent, waiting.
Mandy shifted in her recliner, wincing as her back protested the movement. "I mean, if you don't mind. It's... well, it's kind of complicated."
"Talk to me." His deep voice carried neither encouragement nor discouragement, just that same patient neutrality she'd come to associate with him.
“The thing is… I’m afraid of dying,” She blurted her deepest fear without preamble, then paused as she tried to clarify her thoughts. The concept of mortality itself wasn't what troubled her - she understood its inevitability, its universal nature. No, what sent chills through her was the possibility of a drawn-out departure, the slow march of terminal illness. The prospect of watching her own demise approach, step by measured step. Her throat constricted at the admission, prompting her to take a long sip of tea before gathering herself to say more.
Mandy's handstrembled slightly as she wrapped them around the small glass, drawing comfort from its familiar warmth. "It's not death itself that scares me," she explained, her voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, it's not about dying. I know I'll die, everyone does. But for me, I have this awful fear of knowing it coming. Cancer, leukemia - those kinds of diagnoses where you know what's ahead."
"The thought of lying in a hospital bed, watching the clock tick down..." She shuddered, unable to suppress the visceral reaction. "Or just as bad, being at home with hospice care, marking off each day, knowing what's coming but being helpless to stop it."
The tea's warmth spread through her chest, helping to steady her voice. "I've seen it happen to friends, to familymembers. That slow decline, the way they changed as the disease progressed." Her fingers found the pendant's comforting patterns. "The waiting. The knowing. That's what terrifies me."
Mandy's fingers traced the pendant's warmth as memories of those early years washed over her. "Those first years after becoming disabled..." She swallowed hard, struggling to find the right words. "They were horrific. Emotionally, I mean. All I could think about were the things I'd never do again. And not just the things I used to do - hiking, dancing, traveling. It was also everything I'd ever dreamed of doing but hadn't gotten around to yet."
She let out a hollow laugh that caught in her throat. "Even things I never actually wanted to do suddenly became these huge regrets. Like skydiving or parasailing." Her eyes twinkled suddenly as she shook her head. "Not that I would have done those things anyway - I'm terrified of heights! But just knowing I couldn't... it ate at me."
"Looking back on those days now..." She paused, her voice dropping to barely above a murmur. "Sometimes I think I wasn't entirely sane. The grief, the anger, the despair - everything I'd lost, everything I could never do... it consumed me."
