For nearly one thousand years, the ponies of Equestria had a legend. A legend of a creature who resided in the abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters. An immortal being, one who had near omnipotent powers, but who only appeared in the Castle and its grounds at night, unable to leave. Ponies were wary of the creature, who was only known by the name Djinn, a Saddle Arabian name for a creature who could grant wishes to anypony who was brave enough to approach. This Djinn was unlike any creature known to the world, mostly because nopony who’d ever ventured to the Castle to ask for a wish never could remember what it looked like.
After a death in Ponyville of one mare who attempted to have her wish granted, Princess Celestia herself intervenes and visits her old castle to meet with the Djinn in pony, but is confused by what she finds...
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The concept behind this was pitched to me by yakopak.
Was this a one-shot for a abandon project? Since it says that its completed. Because this was amazing and it would be ashame if it is a one-shot.
11291871
I might write a sequel to it, because I'm brimming with ideas on where to go from here.
11291872
That will be interesting. Honestly, Djinns are such underrated entities in stories. I especially like the djinns from Magi-The Labyrinth Of Magic, they’re inspired by the 72 demons of king Solomon. They look epic in that one!
Im hoping he gets freed from his curse
11291872
i would love to read a sequel
11291872
An Evil Genie?
11291991 djinns are genies lol
Genies are inherently semi evil entities. As written in mythology they’re like a sort of chaotic neutral with evil tendencies. Very wrathful spirits that don’t understand people well, not to be messed with
11292015
I've seen good Genies
Interesting. Completely unexpected but Interesting nonetheless.
If the CMC found the Genie in the Lamp...so many possibilities...
11291872
Well, the ending did kinda imply that there would be more.
This is really good
Ah, I see you’re a man of culture as well.
Yes. Yes, yes.
I want so much more of this.
Monk
“Come into my parlor, Ted. I have cookies!” -Reykan
11291872
Please do.
You could do it justice.
Although you do realise that the young Twilight would run into books specifically pointint to the fact that there is a Djinn in the everfree just a train ride away.
well god damn
this feels like the prologue to the next Dangerous Business kinda story
sure hope you make a longer sequel
11293070
Dangerous Business? What's that?
11293093
It's A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door
a Classic among the fandom
here's a link
11293254
Aaah gotcha.
Oh? Anthropology reference?
11293333
Indeed so.
11293333
11293342
Such a great read... I almost want to reread, but at the same time I'm not sure...
That was good, more story please.
11292024
In modern fiction maybe. And maybe one or two legends. But djinns are selfish spirits that are beyond human morality. They’re basically aliens. Granting wishes is kind of just a thing they do. Good or bad, it’s usually bad because people suck and their wishes are easily corrupted
11294670
Yep
Somewhere, Lyra is squeeing and she doesn't know why.
11294805
Wonder how she’ll react to him in the sequel.
This was an interesting read. My only real problem with this story is the way the Djinn's existence is phrased/explained in the beginning. There's apparently plenty of proof that he exists, enough creatures throughout the years visiting him and having their wishes granted means it would be extremely unlikely that he would fade into a myth at all.
Yet supposedly that's what happened. How? And more importantly, why? If someone were to have their wish granted, they would tell people they trusted or cared about, and in turn, those people would tell others. And if there was enough paper evidence to convince a mare to go see him after apparently centuries had passed, why hadn't others before her?
Why isn't he something that is well known and taken for granted, something that creatures who are desperate come to regularly?
"As the years passed, and as the legend passed into myth, the Castle was visited less and less by anycreature,"
Having him fade into a myth isn't an issue, my problem with it comes from the lack of a cited reason. I think a simple little thing like as time went on and the wishes of creatures grew more extravagant and complex, the price for them grew as well, culminating in stories that the Djinn took souls as payment or the first born child. Something like that would make frivolous wishes dwindle, and creatures desperate enough to give up their souls and/or child are likely to be rare. Logically this would lead to fewer creatures visiting him, and the fewer that did the more likely he would fade into a myth.
Would be interesting to see the many types of Djiin in the sequel. A promising start.
11296395
sequel is out
11294805 Alondro soars around with his magical wings, raining magical fire down on those who annoy him!
"Some real 'sour grapes' going on with ya'll! This is AWESOME! Ya'll be jelly!"
What a djinn is has changed quite a bit throughout history. The word's origin is Aramaic, not Arabic, and originally referred to a class of lesser spirits below the level of gods, and who were mortal, though not always. Some could be malevolent, some benign, some helpful. They could come in many forms, and many were shape-shifters.
They also had their own society, and could even marry humans and have children (much like some of the yokai in Japanese myth... in fact, there are MANY similarities between the original djinn and yokai... perhaps there is a common root legend, given that Japan's root mythology is a mixture of native islander beliefs and mainland Asian, and THOSE Asian myths had developed in a central cultural region in roughly present-day India, and we know there was actually an immense amount of travel between India and the Middle East.
In one very old Islamic belief system by 7th century scholar Ibn Abbas, the djinn were created after the angels, but before humans, 1000 years apart, on successive weekdays. As with all created beings, they were granted access to salvation, but were often very arrogant as they saw themselves above humans, being created before them.
In other classic interpretations by Islamic scholars, the djinn are actually much weaker than humans and can only gain power over them by tricking the humans into fearing them and using tricks to get humans to submit to them, after which the humans could be possessed. In this, they functioned similarly to classical demons.
Djinn also featured in some sects of Jewish and early Christian beliefs, and again featured wide variety of attributes.
A common characteristic of all djinn is a fear of wolves (not sure why) and iron (similar to fae... and supporting my old thesis that magic is based on fusion power, and hence iron saps magic because fusing it causes a loss of energy! And why heavy metals overall, such as silver, gold, mercury, and even lead often had protective powers in numerous myths... they could absorb an enormous amount of the fusion-based magical energy without being altered).
And now you know!
This was a good read, I look forward to you finishing the sequel so I can read it, too.
11297434
Very informative!
this is....................
so F^#$~ing AWESOME!
Will there be references to Disney's Aladdin?
I hope he can be helped.
Morb
Does NothingImpossible’s comment ever get addressed in the sequel?