Wish World

While a line of ponies had formed over at Fluttershy’s cabin, each creature in it waiting to meet the goat woman who could grant them anything they wanted, some ponies were still in Ponyville doing their daily routines. Some had jobs to run, and others were just skeptical that someone would come out of the blue to fulfill their wildest dreams.

Then there was Twilight Sparkle, who who was intrigued in Atamanna, but for a different reason than wanting a wish granted. She simply wished to know more about the genie, who was so different from those the alicorn princess had heard of in lore. After a brief conversation with her, Twilight, along with Starlight and Spike, went to her castle library to look into their guest more, pulling off the shelf any book that contained information on Saddle Arabia, and the myths the nation that might have more truth about them than first believed.

“Listen to this,” Twilight said, an hour into scouring for details, the excitement she had for research guiding her, “I’ve found an entry in ‘Common Misconceptions About Lands Outside of Equestria’ talking about Geniecorns, and their non-pony counterparts. According to it, ‘While Geniecorns are the most common versions of the genie myth, and that their name is actually derived from the word ‘Genieborn’, which fell out of use when the legend of genies became adapted into pony culture, and applies to all creatures who are the descendants of Djinn’.”

“That gets rid of your theory that she’s a draconequus, Starlight.” said Spike, still looking through the shelves in search of any book that they might have missed.

“Not yet,” Starlight said, looking through her own book on magical beings with incredible power, which had entries about both draconequus and geniecorns, “All it means is that it’s possible she’s actually a genie, but she could still be anything else as well.”

“While I agree with Starlight that she might just be some powerful creature pretending to be a genie,” Twilight said, agreeing that nothing had been proven yet about their visitor’s origin, “Right now I don’t see the problem with assuming that she is what she says.”

“The problem is that this book says that genies don’t just grant wishes to anypony passing by,” Starlight said, looking at the entry for geniecorns, “They are suppose to be bound to a magical object, like a ring or a lamp, and those who possess that object may receive up to three wishes.”

“That is how the myth goes,” Spike said, as genie myths were so common that even he knew about them.

“According to this book, that might be a slight misconception,” Twilight said, “It states ‘While legends of geniecorn being tied to some magical object that binds them into servitude, that myth is only tied to genicorn themselves, as in order to protect Saddle Arabia from an arising evil, the geniecorn had to enhance their ability to grant wishes through a pact of servitude.”

“A pact of servitude?” Starlight said, wondering more about what her book was talking about, as her own only touched on the surface level of the geniecorn legend.

Twilight skimmed ahead a bit, curious herself what this pact referred to, “From what I’m getting, while genies have access to wish magic, most can only perform wishes within limitation. Essentially, they can only perform wishes that their level of magic can handle, and if the wish would conflict with a greater magical force, then it simply couldn’t be granted.”

“So you couldn’t wish to have Discord sent to the moon unless the genie was more powerful than him,” Starlight said, just saying the first random example to come to mind.

“Right,” Twilight agreed, giving a small giggle at the suggestion, as she was sure Discord would just snap himself back to Equestria if that happened to him, “And at most times the genie can grant themselves their heart’s desire, but likewise only within the limits of their magical ability. However, if a genie forgoes their own desires to dedicate themselves to the service of others, binding themselves to a magical focus, the genie can use the stored magic inside the focus to enhance their own abilities far beyond what they can normally do.”

“So a genie can use a magical item to siphon magic from to make themselves stronger,” Starlight said, making sure she was understanding things correctly.

“That’s what the book is saying,” Twilight answered, “But from what it’s saying, the only way they can do that is if they do a ritual that prevents them from using their magic for themselves. Thus, the only way to cast powerful wish magic is to dedicate your magic in the service of others.”

“That makes sense,” Spike said, giving up on finding more books on the topic, “So our genie is handing out wishes in order help people, cause that’s what genies do.”

“Hold on,” said Starlight, noticing a detail had been brushed aside, “You mentioned the word ‘Djinn’ again. Does your book say what that is exactly?”

“Not this one,’ Twilight answered, “But you picked up on that detail too, I see. Seeing that Atamanna calls herself a Djinn, I was curious too, so I looked in my copy of ‘Creatures of Legend A-Z’, and found an entry. It appears that Djinn just refers to the original masters of wish magic, ancient beings who could reshape the world around them with a snap of their fingers.”

“Sounds like more draconequus stuff,” Starlight said, as Discord also did that act when performing chaos magic, though admittedly that was just a personal quirk, and not a requirement.

“There’s more though,” said Twilight, grabbing the book she had spoke of, “Cause what I found fascinating was that the Djinn were not just the ancestors of genie, but of another tribe of wish granters called ‘efreeti’.”

“Efreeti?” Spike asked rhetorically, “Never heard of them.”

“That’s because they are intentionally not talked about by Saddle Arabia,” Twilight said, “At one point, the genie and the efreeti went to war with one another, over the fate of Saddle Arabia, and in a way, the whole world. As far as the book says, eventually the original djinn vanished for an unknown reason, leaving behind the two tribes of their descendants to live among the other creatures of Saddle Arabia. While the genie adapted to this change, and used their magic to live in harmony with the Saddle Arabians, the efreeti were not happy, as with the djinn around, they were able to get whatever they wanted, whenever they pleased.”

“Just sounds like they were spoiled,” Spike noted, “But how did that lead into a war?”

“Well while genie used their magic to provide for themselves and others, the efreeti used their magic to play tricks on the Saddle Arabians, by ignoring the intent behind the wish, and making the wish come true in the worst way possible, either for the wisher, or those around them.”

“That sounds like the origin of all those ‘be careful what you wish for’ fables.” Starlight said, trying to piece together how these events were reflected in Equestria’s current myths about genies.

“While the genie didn’t agree with this malevolent wish granting, because it reflected badly on them, they didn’t want to interfere because the efreeti didn’t have the ability to do anything they couldn’t reverse with their own magic. However, whatever the genie could undo, the efreeti could just do again, so there was a huge back and forth of each side using their magic to stop the other from doing what they wanted.”

“Is that how the war started?” Spike aked, becoming intrigued with the story, going over to Twilight to look in the book himself.

“Well the book is a bit vague,” Twilight said, “But it says problems with the efreeti eventually got worse, and one in particular found a way to enhance their wish magic far beyond the rest of the Genieborn.”

“How?” Starlight asked, as that sounded like a very important part of the story.

“It doesn’t say,” Twilight answered, “But it does say that the Genie and the Efreeti went to war over this power, as it was an incredible threat. In the end, the only way to defeat this power was for the Genie to use the pact of servitude, and then have the sultan of Saddle Arabia wish the Efreeti to also enacted the pact, making it so they could no longer freely use their magic, and would join the fate of the genie in being forever bound to the items they drew their power from.”

“But what about that really powerful Efreeti?” Spike asked, “Does it say what happened to them?”

“It doesn’t go into detail, but I suppose they got locked away too.” Twilight concluded, “All it says after that is that the Efreeti, now powerless unless someone made a wish on them, were separated, locked away, and guarded from the rest of the world. This was in the hopes that no one would ever be foolish enough to try and get a wish from them.”

“So taking that into consideration,” Starlight said, “We either have a genie who has figured out how to break their pact, a powerful creature who is acting like a genie for fun, or…”

“An efreeti who somehow escaped from their prison?” Spike said, seeing that was what Starlight was leading into, but questioning if that was really what was happening. “But didn’t Fluttershy vouch for her?”

“It’s possible she’s just acting nice to convince us she has only good intentions,” said Starlight, “Trust me, it’s something that works really well.”

“There is another possibility,” Twilight said, seeing one option Starlight missed, “That Atamanna is being honest about what she is, and that she’s really one of the original creators of wish magic.”

The three exchanged looks, each wondering if that could actually be the truth. Incredibly magical creatures often had a natural longevity, and there was no telling how old one could be. Even genie from the original myth were supposed to be centuries old, so it wasn’t impossible that the masters of wish magic could still be around.

“Yeah, you could be right…” Starlight said, still thinking that all this was too good to be true, “But…”

“But what?” Twilight asked, actually wanting to hear what Starlight had to say, as she appreciated the unicron’s input on these matters.

“Even if they are telling the truth about that, it doesn’t mean that they are here with good intentions.”

That a creature with that kind of power appeared out of nowhere, and just wanted to do things for others out of the goodness of their heart, it was just too hard to believe. While most creatures were good natured, or at the very least not evil at heart, many wouldn’t go so far out of their way to help others, even if they had the power to do so. Discord, for instance, was such an example. Even reformed, he seldom did anything to actually help people with their problems. Starlight hoped she was wrong, but with her own experiences as a villain, she couldn’t help but see the worse of this goat who was offering everything for nothing.

“You’re right,” Twilight conceded, as plenty of creatures with ill intent often wore a welcoming smile while holding a dagger behind their backs, “It’s just that we’ve had this problem once before… Where a stranger came to Ponyville, and turned out to be harmless. That stranger was Zecora.”

Starlight grimaced at that, as she knew that Zecora was a perfectly fine member of Ponyville, and that treating her the same way the same way she was treating Atamanna would have been a mistake.

“I agree though that we shouldn’t just blindly trust someone with as much power as Atamanna claims she has. At the very least we should look more into what these Efreeti were, and how the Genie War took place, but unless she proves herself dangerous, we can’t just stop her from doing as she wants.”

“So what’s the plan?” Spike asked, assuming that the trio had gotten every important detail they could get from the books they had on hand.

“Simple, Spike,” Twilight said, “We need to take a trip to Canterlot and continue our research in the Royal Library. If Equestria has any more information on the Djinn or the Genie War, it would be there. There’s just one problem…”

“What’s that?” Starlight asked, already stacking her pile of books to replace on the shelves.

“We promised Atamanna that we’d go back to her tent tonight to ask our questions, and I don’t want to outright snub her in case we’re wrong to suspect her.” Twilight answered. “So here’s what we’ll do. Spike, you get things packs for our trip to Canterlot. Starlight, you go make arrangements for a carriage to take us there. Meanwhile, I’ll go to Atamanna’s tent and tell her we’ll have to reschedule.”

“Are you gonna be ok going by yourself?” asked Starlight.

“I’ll be fine,” Twilight assured, “It will be a small conversation in order to say something came up, and then I’ll be back in time to help with preparations.”

“Ok then,” Starlight said, “But make sure you don’t say anything that could be considered you asking for something. I think that goat will give you whatever you want at the first opportunity of doing it, and we still don’t even know what that would mean.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Twilight, “But…”

“If you’re not back in an hour, I’m going right to Princess Celestia.” Starlight said, determined not to allow any action against her mentor go unpunished.

Twilight laughed, and headed off to see Atamanna, waiting till she was out of sight to show her nervousness. Starlight’s thoughts, along with her own discoveries, had been convincing enough that she now had her own healthy concerns about a wish granter being in town. It wouldn’t be the first time an ancient evil had come back, and with the potential of wish magic being in the mix, it was more than enough reason for the Princess of Friendship to be worried about a worst case scenario.