Three Wishes
You have no idea how I tire of my existence. It is an incomprehensible agony every moment of every day of the entire millenium since I have been in this cursed prison. As a genie, a spirit minion of the forces of evil, ensnared by King Sombra’s incomparable magic, I am perpetually banished in my enchanted stockade, a tiny red ruby on a necklace of purest gold. My only release from this confinement is when I am summoned, my jail activated with the simple incantation of three taps. Then I am discharged, though only long enough that I may grant the necklace’s bearer and activator three wishes.
I hate it.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
At my disposal are powers to rival Celestia and Discord combined, and I cannot use the slightest iota of it unless commanded by a mortal.
I hate it. I hate them. I imagine that doing any job for one thousand years would give anyone a bad attitude, but I am a genie by nature and occupation; a bad attitude is chronic, let alone inevitable.
I do not seek sympathy. Nor do I seek pity. I seek only to be understood.
First thing’s first, I am not blue, nor am I cute. My shape is variable, but the one I prefer is that of a draconequus, with canine features and avian wings. I am not named Genie, Jeanie, or any alternative variation on djinn; my name is Lilly. I cannot be freed, and I can never be freed. That is one of the few limits to my power.
And I do not enjoy my existence. I am not happy, humorous, and have absolutely no desire to help ponykind, dragonkind, or any other species in any of their dreams and foibles. I have no future, no plan, and as such I have no hope and no love.
I hate it.
Perhaps it might not be so bad, if my bearers showed the slightest divergence from the norm and occasionally requested an original wish. But no. I have granted immortality so often that I am surprised a single being can still die. I have given wealth and power, sex and love, abstractions they all demand and then generally beg me to recant.
My most recent adventures should act as a fine example of both the wretched state of my existence and the banality of a pony’s desire.
My prison, my necklace, has been around Equestria and beyond to places unknown. Its newest residence was in a little town called Ponyville.
The first mortal to invoke me was Gizmo, an earth pony with slicked back hair, large glasses and an overbite. The lime green bow tie he donned was certainly a disaster to the modern day fashion statement. He was at Nick and Nack’s Fine Antiques, the pathetic domicile in which I found myself.
I appeared to Gizmo as he absently rubbed at the necklace’s ruby hard enough for Sombra’s spell to consider it three taps. Having long since learned that mortals have difficulty believing truth unless it takes off its pants and shits in their face, I made the effect of my appearance as dramatic as possible, smoke and lights and everything.
“Greetings, Gizmo. You have invoked the necklace of King Sombra, and are entitled to three wishes.”
“Like that movie Aladdin?”
I cringed. I have seen the film, several years ago, at the behest of a former master. I hope one day for my necklace to find delivery to Ron Clements so that I might personally disembowel him. It is comparable to a draconequus being judged by the standards of a dimwitted dragon. I hissed but kept my cool. “Similar. Three wishes. At your discretion.”
Gizmo thought. Then he opened the door and pointed to the cashier, an attractive lass as far as ponies go, a great deal more attractive than Gizmo’s feeble character. I knew precisely what he was going to wish for.
He disappointed me, as they all do. “I wish for Lyra to fall madly in love with me.”
“Lyra, I assume, is the aquamarine unicorn with the highlighted mane?” I asked for confirmation, as I am required by the wills of my magic to do so.
Gizmo nodded vehemently.
I sighed. “As you wish.” I did not bother to mention to him that he would quickly tire of Lyra, that he would be wiser to use his wishes for, say, the power to make others fall in and out of love with him. Specifying generalizable wishes is usually better than generalizing specific ones, but simple-minded ponies don’t generally seem to realize that. I gave no hint. I had no desire to help him, only to be done with him.
“When will it happen?” He asked after a moment. I supposed that he expected more fireworks. Anything to see to truly believe.
“It has already happened. Test it for yourself.”
He remained inert for a few hesitant seconds before finally speaking to her. He returned after a minute appearing crestfallen. “She shot me down. She said she didn’t like me that way; said she thought of me like a brother.”
“Indeed. She does think of you as a brother. In fact, she loves you like a brother.”
“That wasn’t what I meant!” Gizmo shouted. I noticed Lyra look up from her magazine, obviously startled by my pitiable new master. She only spotted him yelling at thin air, however. I kept and have kept myself invisible to those who have not summoned me, unless one’s wish orders otherwise.
I shrugged in apathy at the bewildered little pony. I didn’t particularly care if he was happy with his wish or not, only that he made his wishes.
Gizmo sighed. He was at least smart enough to catch onto his mistake. “Okay. I wish Lyra was in love with me and wanted me to be her coltfriend.”
He was getting more specific now. That was usually the case after mortals find their first wish not to their liking, either to restate it or negate it. “As you wish.”
Lyra’s mind was weak, and easy to dominate. It was amusing to watch her as love consumed her will. It was literally like turning a switch. One moment she was leaning over the counter reading an article on classical instruments, the next she stood erect and blushed. She checked her appearance in the mirror, and raced to the back part of the store, to her love, to Gizmo.
She raced into his forehooves and they kissed. Only after the kiss was broken did she cry, “Gizmo! I love you!”
Gizmo smiled broadly. Clearly this was a fantasy he had dreamed for a long time. It was easy to tell. When the whim was new, they preferred to play; when it was an old whim, they acted with alacrity. This was clearly the latter, as Gizmo proved by replying not with wooing, but with an eloquent, “Let’s fuck.”
Lyra blanched. “No, Gizmo. I want to save myself for marriage! I love you more than life itself, but I refuse to have sex before I’m married.”
Gizmo turned to me. “You suck!”
“I granted your wish, Gizmo. Make your third and be done with it.”
“Fine! I wish that in addition to her present love, Lyra is madly, passionately, totally, completely, desperately, uncontrollably attracted to me, unable to imagine life as anything other than my eternal loveslave!”
Yes, as power consumed his mind, his inner evils soon burst into a grand conflagration. His third wish wasn’t very shocking, actually. In my time I’d held witness to much more depraved and twisted desires.
“As you wish,” I repeated, and made it so.
Lyra then threw away Gizmo’s glasses with the swipe of a hoof, passion driving her mad. She humped at Gizmo’s crotch until she could get at his erect penis, and they began to fuck wildly. She moaned and shrieked and clawed at his back, panting heavily as she pound at him. He reached orgasm quickly, as I imagined he would, but she was unwilling to stop, and tried to make him rise again. He did so, and they again went at it. I wondered how long it would be before Gizmo realized that he could match her level of enthusiasm for only so long. I observed with mild amusement, as one might watch two animals in heat, before I returned to my necklace. I was not sad to go. Even imprisonment is preferable to catering to fools. If I must be in the presence of the damned, better to do it alone.
A few hours later Gizmo tapped the necklace again. I graced him with a spot appearance. “Yes?”
“Genie! You’ve gotta help me! She’s insane! I can’t get her to stop!” His expression sported that of utter horror.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. You got your wishes.”
“Take them back! Please! I can’t control her!”
“I can’t. Three wishes. No more. No less.”
“You can’t leave me like this! You gotta do something!”
I didn’t have to do anything. But this sort of occurrence had been a constant byproduct of thoughtless wishes, so I did have one option for the beggars. “I can strip you of your wishes, in the exchange for your soul.”
It might have been more difficult to tempt Gizmo into agreeing if not for Lyra dry-humping the wall outside and screaming his name, likely attracting the attention of unsuspecting passersby. “Okay! Deal! Just stop this already!”
What Gizmo did not know as Lyra’s shouts ceased was that she would remember this episode, stew over her humiliation for months until finally breaking from the stress. She’d ultimately hunt him down and kill him. It’s happened too many times to count now. And this incident didn’t differ from any cases prior.
I had no need of his soul, other than the pleasure of keeping them. Souls serve the function of sustenance, money, and warmth all in one. After death Gizmo’s spirit would be kept under my thumb, crushed and suffocating for all eternity. It served as some satisfaction for me. But only some.
I returned to the cold comfort of my cell.
The next to invoke me was an older grey-haired pony, the mayor of the town, as she griped about having to deal with the Gizmo-Lyra rape scandal. It seemed it was the rage and gossip among Ponyville’s sniveling citizens.
She had seen the necklace whilst investigating the antique store, perhaps purchasing it on a whim. How she came to obtain me did not matter, though.
Three nervous taps of her hoof, and I appeared in all my splendor. “Greetings, Mayor Mare. You have summoned me from my necklace, and thus you are endowed with three wishes.”
She was shocked into silence. If only she could stay that way forever. But, no, after a minute she found the courage to say, “Really?”
“Really.” I hate it when they question me.
“Like from that movie Aladdin?”
“...Yes,” I hate that even more.
“Okay. I-I wish for a million bits. Then I can finally be rid of this crazy town.”
I snapped. I could transfer money into her account, or simply present her with a check, but mortals tend to prefer visible results to their wishes. I did not mention that the Imperial Internal Revenue Service would be interested in where she got it. Mayor Mare was just another prime example of unoriginal wishes. Stressed laborers like herself often wish for money, a million or a hundred-million or a billion in whatever currency befits them. I have had to explain more than once that a zillion is not a real number. Just once I’d like to meet a pony who wished for one million and thirty-two bits. Any variation would be welcomed at this point.
The private quarters of her home was filled with a million shining coins. She swam for a moment in the golden pool with sickening glee.
Mayor Mare’s eyes glowed with avarice. “Okay, I-I wish for a handsome young stallion to serve me.”
I granted her my standard male sex-doll, who I designed entirely from local model advertisements. He wore a leather thong, but in all other respects was an identical amalgamation of the types described in adult paperbacks. He was mindless, more a machine than a pony. He approached and began to kiss the bottom of Mayor Mare’s hooves as she giggled happily.
Again, such nonconsensual domination over others was neither surprising nor intriguing to me.
She taunted her new toy. She made him bark like a dog, made him lick the soles of her hooves, made him massage them and then pleasure her. I groaned impatiently and waited for her to finish. Wanting this done fairly quickly, I positioned myself before a mirror.
When she finished, she turned to me. And in the mirror, she noticed her grey hair and wrinkles. I knew precisely what was coming next. The young wish for eternal life, the old wish for their youth. Mayor Mare showed no deviation, nor did I expect her to. “I wish I were young.”
“As you wish,” I smiled, and in the blink of an eye Mayor Mare was a baby filly at three months old.
She cried, and as I am able to understand and communicate in any language, I knew that she meant to say, “But that isn’t what I meant!” Although I hardly needed to bother translating.
“So sorry, Mayor Mare. But that was your third and final wish. Terribly sorry. The only way I could age you is if you sell me your soul.”
“Okay! I don’t care! Just age me!” She wailed.
And I granted her age. She was decrepit by the time I finished with her, every breath a struggle. Mortals never figure out that their wishes should be specific. At least, rarely in time.
My next master was a pegasus Royal Guard named Stern Faith. He pocketed me when investigating the disappearance of the mayor of Ponyville, finding only a long-dead crone and a clearly valuable ruby necklace.
It clicked three times in his saddle pack as he dropped me on the bed of his Canterlot dormitory. I appeared on cue.
“Greetings, Stern Faith. You have invoked my necklace, and thus are granted three wishes.”
“What, like in Aladdin?”
I suppressed a snarl. “Yes, Stern Faith. Like Aladdin.”
The look on his face was such a bore. Time and time again a faithful follower of some monarch – pony, dragon and Everfree creature alike – would unleash me, and they’d ask for the same thing. Stern Faith was yet another one of those not-so-faithful followers. “Okay. I wish I was really powerful, and really rich, and everybody feared me!”
“Of course. As you wish.” I did not mention that this was not one wish but three. And, after all, was a form of speech used to combine two otherwise separate sentences.
Stern Faith found himself transported to the outskirts of Equestria’s mountains. He roared wearily, purple flames escaping from his elongated jaws. Yes, he was now an adult dragon clamoring angrily over his heaping trove of gems and gold.
“What did you do to me?!” He thundered, smoke seeping out of his nostrils.
“I made you powerful, and rich, and feared.” I answered promptly.
“You turned me into a dragon! I didn’t want this at all! I wanted to be a king!”
“You didn’t specify how you wanted to become powerful, or rich, or feared. I merely bestowed upon you your wishes.”
Stern Faith was too panicked to think straight. Which is how I like it. Fun can be apparent in the smaller details, I’ll admit.
“Get me back to normal!”
“I’m sorry. You’re out of wishes.”
“But that was one!”
I counted my fingers, ticking off. “You wished to be powerful. You wished to be rich. You wished to be feared. Three. The only way I can grant you this new wish is if you sell me your soul.”
“Okay, okay, fine! Just get me out of this body!”
“As you wish.” I decided not to harm him any further. A figure of power without a soul is as good a way of punishing this land as I can devise.
Stern Faith was returned to his room. After regaining his wits, he immediately grabbed the necklace and tossed it in the Everfree Forest. It rested there for several weeks. Finally, it was picked up by Rainbow Dash, an athletic klutz of a pegasus. She had crashed into the Forest and had found me perched on top of a bush. It took her several days before she invoked my necklace; I was almost beginning to suspect that I would have some peace from inane wants and needs. Alas that wasn’t the case.
Eventually, in the living room of her Cloudsdale residence, she accidentally tapped the necklace thrice and I appeared. “Rainbow Dash, you have invoked my necklace and thus are granted three wishes.”
“Wait, what? Like in that flick Aladdin?”
I grunted. “If you must.”
"But why do you look like Discord? Are you his cousin or something?"
"Does it matter? I am granting you three wishes."
It didn’t take her long to absorb the situation. A fine little perk of the dumb and impatient.
"You're right!" She squealed in joy. “This. Is. So. Cool! Um, okay, what do I wish for? What should I wish for? I can’t believe this is happening! I gotta tell everypony about this!”
I stayed silent. I could have told her nopony would be able to see me, but I waited to see how she would play this out.
“Okay, okay, okay! Uh, I have to hurry it up! I need to think!”
She didn’t have to hurry. But she did. She did need to think. But she didn’t.
“I wish I was the fastest pegasus in Equestria! Wait, wait! Scratch that! I’m already the fastest pegasus!”
That was two wishes already. One negates the other. At least she made my job simpler.
“Uh, okay! Maybe I should wish to be a Wonderbolt? Wait! But that’s just wasting a wish, because I’ll be in the Wonderbolts, anyway! Okay, okay! Uh, I wish…! I wish! Agh, I don’t know! I don’t know what to wish for!”
“Perhaps you’d like me to tell you?”
Rainbow Dash looked to me inquisitively. “But…how do you know what I want to wish for?”
“You could wish to know what you want to wish for.”
She brightened up. “And then I’ll have two more wishes! Yes! Okay, I wish I knew what to wish for!”
I granted it. Her face dropped as enlightenment rushed through her every pore. Her eyes had gone blank for a second before her pupils constricted into dots.
I waved farewell. “I’ve completed my duty, and your three wishes are granted.”
I almost smirked at her reaction. Almost. “B-b-but! You said three wishes! I only wished for one thing! I know what to wish for, too! I know what to wish for!”
I shook my head. “Three wishes. Your first was to be the fastest pegasus in Equestria. Your second was to ‘scratch that’. I assumed you meant to negate it. And your third wish was to know what to wish for.”
She fumed, her wings flapping violently. “You tricked me! You little–“
I didn’t hear the rest of her vulgar berating, for I was once again in my ruby prison. I’d have offered to take her soul in exchange for another wish, but I had no mind to give her the satisfaction. She knew what she wanted to wish for, after all.
In the midst of her temper tantrum, I was flung out a window. I fell freely and landed in a street corner, back in the nasty clutches of Ponyville. I rested for an hour until I was swiped again by a filly heading to school.
She was quite innocent and naïve, so I wasn’t expecting any creative or innovative reasoning when I was released.
I had been dropped. One tap. Two taps. Three taps on wood. And I appeared in the middle of a moderately ordained clubhouse.
“Hello, Apple Bloom. You have invoked my necklace and are thus granted three wishes.”
I was faced with three annoying mugs. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Their eyes shone with utter wonder and opportunity. It left a foul taste in my mouth.
“Like Aladdin?” The three yelped simultaneously.
Oh, how I wanted to wring their fragile necks. “Yes…like Aladdin.”
They then began whispering to each other. I heard every word of it. I knew exactly what they were looking to achieve. And I was pleased, to say the least. Just a bit.
“Can I split my wishes with my friends? One wish for each of us?” The yellow one asked pleadingly.
Normally I’d count it as the use of one wish. But I felt a little generous.
“Of course. You each may have one wish.”
They gasped in excitement, screaming, “We wish we had our cutie marks!”
I nodded. Two new cutie marks and one on the house. I watched carefully as they stuck out their rumps to view my three masterpieces.
“Look, Scootaloo! Your cutie mark looks like milk drops! Your talent is milking cows!”
Apple Bloom was half-correct. The orange filly certainly was now talented in milking. But not for the cows.
“And yours looks like a tongue, Apple Bloom! I didn’t know you spoke other languages!”
She wasn’t a linguist. But I knew she’d soon be blowing others away with her new talent.
Sweetie Belle bounced. “I got a sliced peach! I got a sliced peach! I’m a…uh, a peach farmer or something! Or…is that a coin purse?”
It was a vagina.
“Have fun with your new talents, girls.” They had been too busy chatting animatedly to notice my departure.
The life of a genie is a strenuous one. That last account was from a month ago. Now I sit in my ruby and hope to be left to my miserable existence, alone. Unfortunately I am invoked again, and by all odds for another young one.
I’d been taken away from the clubhouse by a colt stopping by for services. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been putting their talents to good use with their fellow classmates. Their indulgence was intensely enthusiastic.
But now I am forced to fulfill the unimaginative yearnings of my new master. The colt is young but still coherent enough to announce his wishes. I just want it to be over as soon as possible.
“Snips, you have invoked the necklace of King Sombra, and are entitled to –“
“What’s ‘invoked’ mean?”
....Did I even want this one’s soul? “Don’t worry about it. I will grant you three wishes.”
“Oh, oh! Are you like that Genie from Aladdin?”
“Your three wishes, Snips. Remember that you have three wishes.”
He answers quickly and directly. “Awesome! I wish I could be a genie like you! It’d be so cool to be able to do all that stuff! I want your job!”
I blink.
I stare.
I keep staring.
Well, I’ve been wrong this whole time. Just as you give up hope on them doing anything new and worthwhile, they surprise you.
Without wasting a single breath, I exchange places with the colt, trapping him in my place. My soul now inhabits his body, but I am free for the first time in one thousand years. I cannot fully believe it, but it is true! As a genie, I could not be freed, but by switching places, the curse of the djinn merely transfers to the colt.
I was finally gifted with what I can assure had been my one true desire: an original wish. The potential in youth these days can baffle, I tell you.
Oh, I have so much that I want to see and so much to do and so many places to go!
I think my first stop will be at Ron Clements's house.