This is a one-shot because I think we need to fill up the archive. It's also a rewrite which I hope you enjoy.

Community service

I don't know how it started, but I do know how it finished, I was not about to give out an unjust punishment to anyone, but it was Philippa and John. I felt slightly guilty as I passed my sentence of community service for a month without magic.

Some people might have said it was too lenient. I could see their guilty faces looking up at me with a hidden trace of longing. A longing for me to return to being me: Faustina. What could I do? The other tribe representatives were there, keen to ensure that I didn't favour friends from any of the others. I was hard-hearted, I could feel it like a dead-weight in my chest.

I used to feel a live, but now I wasn't even sure if my heart beat properly anymore. It was cold and rigid and only whispered the slightest indication of humanity. The two twins before me had been my good friends once, but I could not be like them anymore. I could not have compassion or kindness, only judgement.

How I longed for the days when I had talked with the Gaunts as friends, when had been a future for me. But now I had no chance to do anything else, but what I had agreed to. I felt like I had a binding on me all the time; I could never do what I wanted. Yet, in all the loneliness and solitude and with a body that never warmed, I would do this again in a heart-beat, because I could not see my friends sad.

This had always been my destiny, I had always been chosen. Not Layla, not Philippa. The thought was not a comforting one though. It only served to remind of who I was and what I had lost. Even with my attempts to escape the influence of Iravotum, I knew I could not be the kind person I had striven to be a long time ago.

"Community service?" groaned John.

I felt like he had not aged, nor Philippa. Maybe it was because I was older by far now. It hadn't even been that long since I took up the mantle. I sighed inwardly, but I didn't show any emotion to the assembly.

"It is a fitting punishment," I replied.

"It was an accident," he protested.

"It may have been, but do you dare to deny that you two are solely responsible for the collapse of the Statue of Liberty?" I inquired before going into a rant. "Do you have any idea how long that will take to rebuild?"

"Well..." he started, but I cut him off.

"This way you both get to know what it is like," I smiled.

"You're not making us..." guessed Philippa and I nodded with a small laugh despite myself.

I must have sounded pretty cruel because both of them looked slightly angry. I was horrified, but as ever my face was impassive. Maybe I was turning more and more heartless by the year, despite myself.

"Fine," said the two twins at the same time, both sulky.

With that they left, noses held high in such a way that you would almost say they were indignant and that anyone looking may have believe the punishment was too harsh instead of what it was.

It certainly was enough to keep the Ifrit representative from passing any comment. Sometimes I got the feeling that they even approved of my entire Blue-djinn-ship if that is the right word. In fact, I had not received many complaints from any of the tribes. Somehow, I was striking a balance in the courts.

I sighed as the Gaunt twins left me without a single glance behind; it was as if they were finally giving up on me. My stomach sank. I didn't have many friends and I seemed to be losing all those that I did. Perhaps, because my heart was in the wrong place.

I was escorted back to my headquarters by my guards. Who needs guards when they are this powerful though? But even with all that power, I didn't really want to be the Blue djinn anymore. What choice did I have though? I hadn't only done this for me, but for the John and Philippa. I had felt duty-bound to take on the role to return their mother to them.

And now I was alone. I had made the hard choice, sometimes one has to. I couldn't go back on it any more than I could let them off such a blatant display of magic. I would always be the Blue-Djinn, until the day I died and I would always be alone.

That's it, tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: Children of the Lamp is not my own creation.