Chapter 6
The box didn't look like much. Just big enough to hold a few trinkets. Small enough to slip into a pocket. Big enough to hold a world of potential.
I touched the latch. What would I see if I looked inside? It was supposed to be whatever I wanted most, right? What did I even want now?
There was a knock on the door and I grabbed the box, sticking it in my saddlebag.
“Come in!” I called out.
The door opened, and a familiar pegasus walked in. Flash saluted when he saw me.
“Good afternoon, Miss Shimmer. I hope you won’t mind too much, but I took the liberty of telling the locals that I was your personal guard. It’s stretching the truth a little but I thought you needed a friendly face more than the embassy needed another set of hooves.”
I grinned and waved him in. “You must have gotten this assignment for having good instincts.”
“Thank you. I heard you slipped out this morning,” he said. “Next time you decide to go for a walk, mind leaving a note behind?”
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“No, but a lot of ponies got in trouble. If Princess Shahrazad hadn’t stopped him, the King would have thrown some of the guards into the dungeons for losing his precious daughter’s fiancée.”
I winced for a multitude of reasons. “Sorry.”
“Hey, no need to apologize to me. You might want to say something to the King next time you see him, though.”
“Yeah, good idea.” I nodded. “Are you going to stay in the palace?”
“That’s the plan! There’s a guard post in this wing, I’ll hang my helmet there until we figure something else out.” He scratched his head. “Still, there’s only one of me. You prefer me on day shift or night shift?”
“Good question.” I thought for a minute. “Probably the night shift. But I don’t need you guarding me. I need you guarding Shahrazad. I don’t trust the local guards and I promised her I’d keep her safe. If you can keep an eye on her when I can’t be there, I’ll be able to sleep easy.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” I said. “Except that I can trust you.”
He rubbed his chin and smiled. “I only really have to guard her until the wedding. After that you’ll be able to spend the night, won’t you?”
“I’d rather worry about assassins than wedding planning,” I mumbled.
“That’s too bad. I’m pretty sure when they gave me that message about making sure you were cleaned up for a romantic candlelit dinner with your beautiful fiancee that they intend for you to think about the future.”
My stomach growled. Food suddenly seemed like a really good idea.
I sighed and did my best to look composed. “Do I have to wear a dress?”
“Okay, this isn’t what I expected,” I said.
“Is the food not to your liking?” Princess Shahrazad asked, looking concerned. “I had the palace chefs do their best to replicate the most famous Equestrian cuisine, but I don’t think any of us have ever had it.”
Between the two of us, illuminated by a dozen candles, was a spread of hayburgers and fries. You could say they looked exactly like the burgers at Hayburger Princess, but that wasn’t true. When you got a sandwich from there, it came squished and messy and made by a teenager given half the time they needed to slap together your order properly. These looked like the pictures on the menu, with thick slices of vegetables and firm buns instead of the paper-thin toppings the real place used to improve their margins.
“No, no, it all looks great,” I assured her, grabbing a burger and taking a big bite. I blinked in surprise. “You even got the special sunrise sauce right. I have no idea how you did that.”
“We have ways of finding even the most secure information,” Shahrazad said with a grin. “Even your most secret sandwich sauces are not safe. I am told, though, that it is equal parts ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and chopped pickles.”
I gasped in mock surprise. “I knew it!”
“I ask you keep the details in strict confidence. A dozen operatives spent their lunch budgets finding out this information.”
“I swear on my honor I won’t say anything.” I put my hoof over my heart. “Next you’ll tell me you have Celestia’s cake recipes.”
“There are limits to even our operational knowledge,” Princess Shahrazad sighed. She grabbed a few fries and ate them. “I know it’s not gourmet, but I wanted something to put you at ease. I saw you were uncomfortable with the pageantry of the celebration dinner.”
“That means a lot to me.”
“You are my fiancee. The least I can do is make you comfortable.” She smiled and gave me her best bedroom eyes, picking up a small burger and biting into it with what was supposed to be sensual slowness. The sauce got all over her face and her expression cracked, breaking out into a laugh.
“I don’t think this kind of food is meant to be seductive,” I said.
“No, I suppose not,” she admitted, wiping a tear from her eyes forced out by the laughter. “Still, it brought a smile to your face.”
I blushed and tried to hide it by taking another bite of the burger.
She watched me eat for a few moments before continuing. “Maybe if I keep you interested you won’t be so tempted to run off, hmm?”
Shahrazad had waited until I was trying to swallow, and the hayburger took that moment to try to find its way into my lungs instead of my stomach. I half-collapsed in a coughing fit, trying not to suffocate on fast food.
“I would prefer if my fiancée wasn’t associating with dangerous criminals,” she said, leaning closer. “Do you need a glass of water?”
“The ‘dangerous criminals’ were starving peasants,” I said, between coughing fits. “How could you let ponies go hungry right under your nose?”
“We’re doing our best,” she said, quietly. “Food is rationed out. There are still problems. Theft. Simple spoilage. Undocumented ponies. If they were truly desperate they should have come here. Even if they were criminals they would be fed. In the dungeons, perhaps, if they were wanted ponies.”
“But that wasn’t true when the Djinni were around, was it?”
She sat back, tilting her head. “Ah. So what did you learn, then?”
“I heard that they used to run around making things better for ponies. There was plenty of food back then. The whole land was green instead of a desert.”
“No, more like the reverse,” she said. “If you’ve heard the legends about the Djinni, than you know they granted wishes indiscriminately.”
“So?”
“You were a foal once,” Shahrazad said. “Think about all the foolish decisions you made. All the stupid things you hoped and dreamed for. Huge wishes that only a foal would make without hedging themselves against disaster. Things you know now that would have been terrible, but things you wished for before you had the means to achieve them.”
My ears folded back. She laughed.
“Yes, I can see it in that cute face of yours. You had some grand wish that was your entire world, and now you’re ashamed to even speak of it!”
I nodded mutely.
“Now imagine a world where some of those wishes come true. Where a pony wishes for a mountain of ice cream and the folly becomes real. What can be done with that? It’s inedible after only a few hours. It melts into the ground. Crops are ruined. Vermin everywhere. All for a simple foal’s wish. What if they wanted something bigger? What if they were just old enough to be angry, and wished for terrible things in that anger?”
“That’s…” I shivered.
“The Djinni didn’t destroy the land, but if one gives a filly a box of matches to play with they are just as responsible for what happens next as the foal.”
“So what happened to them?”
“The same thing that happens to all dangerous animals,” Shahrazad said. “We hunted them into extinction. Now finish your dinner. I want to spend some time cuddling before you have to get ready for Royal Court.”
“Ready for what?”
“How do I look?” I asked.
Flash rubbed his chin. “Is this one of those situations where I should just be reassuring and tell you something uplifting?”
I groaned. “That bad?”
“No, no!” He backpedaled magnificently, like a foal caught with his hoof in the cookie jar. “I just- you look great. Very…”
He searched for words and motioned to my outfit. The same cloak I’d been wearing.
“Black.” He finished. “Don’t you have something else to wear?”
“Oh yes, let me just check around. Maybe I have a secret compartment in my flank where I keep a seamstress!” I huffed. “I didn’t come here for a fashion show, Flash!”
“Okay, I can see you’re in a great mood despite having a nice romantic dinner,” he said. “Honestly I’m not sure how to defuse this situation so I’m gonna throw in the towel and ask you what I need to say to calm you down.”
“Tell me I won’t screw up having to attend court in a foreign nation and cause an international incident and start a war and make Celestia ashamed she forgave me for all the dumb things I did because I haven’t learned anything and she was right all along that I’d never be a Princess because I mess up everything I do!”
Flash sucked a breath between clenched teeth. “You know I followed you like halfway through that until it turned into weird self-loathing.”
“Thanks for the moral support,” I grumbled.
“You’re not going to have to make decisions or anything. It’s probably just a formality since you are, technically…” He trailed off. “They aren’t going to make you make decisions, right? Because if you’re Princess Shahrazad’s fiancée, you might have to do that at some point…”
“I know! And this might be some kind of stupid moral test! Celestia did this kind of thing all the time!” I started pacing. “She’d drag me into something with no warning just to watch me squirm and then she’d judge every little thing I did!”
“Uh-huh. And you don’t think this might just be a formality?”
I ignored his obviously stupid suggestion. “There could even be some kind of trap,” I said, thinking out loud. “There were always unwinnable traps back home. Mom would set me up to fail and then I’d feel like an idiot and she’d use it to teach me a lesson but there was no way to win! I’m just lucky I turned out okay. You should see Twilight Sparkle. She’s a total neurotic mess when she gets stressed out.”
“Right… did you call Princess Celestia ‘Mom’?”
My train of thought derailed, killing thousands of innocent bystanders. “What? No!”
“You totally did.” He grinned. Didn’t they teach guards to remain stoic?
“You misheard me!” My cheeks were burning red from his mistake.
“I don’t think--”
I threw a silence spell at him, enclosing his head in a sound-proof bubble. “This really isn’t a good time to tease me, Flash! I’m trying not to have a panic attack about this whole thing! What if there’s some special protocol that I completely mess up? What if- what? I can’t hear you! It’s soundproof! Something about your neck? You’re hungry? Thirsty? Why are you flapping your mouth?!”
I dispelled the bubble, and he gasped for breath. “I was trying to tell you that I couldn’t get any air!” He said, between deep, sucking breaths. “Did you ever think there might be a reason some ponies are afraid of you?”
I scowled at him. “I know I wasn’t exactly nice to be around when I was a filly, but I’ve been working at it!”
“You’ve still got a way to go,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he had against me. I’d dispelled it as soon as I realized he was in trouble, hadn’t I?
“Let’s just get to the throne room,” I mumbled. “The one thing I can control is getting there on time.”
“Please tell me we aren’t just going to sit here and smile and wave,” I whispered.
Shahrazad giggled and wiggled her hips, bumping her flank into mine. We were sitting to the side of the throne, close enough that we could have a private word with her father that the supplicants wouldn’t be able to hear.
“We are here to learn,” she said. “And I suppose we could advise my father if he wanted a second opinion, though he rarely bothers.”
“I just didn’t expect it to be so much like home,” I said. The throne, the queue of commoners and nobility forced into equality by the need to wait their turn. The feeling that this was the final method of appeals and, at the same time, that the pony they bent knee to would listen to any claim no matter how large or small.
“I am told that we have been holding court like this for longer than Equestria has existed,” Shahrazad said. “It is likely that Princess Celestia took inspiration from us.”
“A thousand years ago there would have been nearly a hundred members of the royal family attending,” the king added. “It’s hard to believe there are so few of us left.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Time,” he said, with a small shrug. “Accidents here and there. Marrying into other families. To be truthful, it’s likely a majority of my subjects have a royal pedigree if one traced their family tree back far enough, but only myself, my brother, and my daughter remain in the direct line of succession.”
“It would have been one fewer if not for you,” Shahrazad said. “Now, haven’t we kept them waiting long enough, father?”
The king nodded, and motioned for a pony to approach the throne. The first pony in line had to be helped by a guard. One of his legs was twisted and bent, like it had broken and never quite set correctly. I knew exactly what that was like. He knelt inside a small circle carved into the ground, and I saw it glow, just for a moment, so faintly I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“What was that?” I mumbled.
“Oh subject mine, what do you desire that this King can grant you?” the king said, with the intonation of somepony who was acting in a play and reciting memorized lines.
The guard whispered in the crippled pony’s ear. I raised an eyebrow. Was this all some kind of act being put on for my benefit? A lot of things in the government were ceremonial, sure, but there was a big difference between tradition and… I don’t even know what to call it. Religion?
“My liege, I beg of thee…” the crippled pony started. The guard whispered more, obviously feeding him lines. “...I beg that you-- that thou heal my leg so I can better serve you?” He glanced at the guard, clearly making sure he’d said his part correctly.
“It is within my power,” the king said. “I grant you this boon, openly and with no hidden cost or qualification.”
He held up his sceptre and brought the tip down to touch the ground. I saw a spark, like static between your hoof and a doorknob on a dry winter day. The spark whipped across the distance between the two and into the kneeling pony. And then something happened that I’d never seen before. His leg twisted, bones popping into shape like they were made of rubber. Wasted muscle and gnarled tendons stretched and reformed and a heartbeat later it was all still again, and the pony’s crippled leg was whole.
“That’s impossible! Magic healing can’t even do that!” I looked at Shahrazad for an explanation and all I got was a smug look.
“Maybe in Equestria,” the Princess said. “Perhaps you still have a few things to learn.”
“It’s not about learning,” I hissed. “I know the limits to magical healing, and that just can’t be done. Even the best potions couldn’t do that! You can make a pony heal as well as a foal and speed it up a dozen times, but that was… that was more like rebuilding his leg from the inside out!”
“It’s pretty great, right?” Shahrazad sighed. “That’s the power of the king.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I thought you were Princess Celestia’s student.” She had an expression like a cat playing with its prey. “Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”
“Fine. I will.” I huffed and watched carefully, half-listening as the next pony approached King Zephyranthes and made their carefully-worded request. Most unicorns couldn’t figure out magic just by watching it being cast. It was a skill, like having perfect pitch and being able to play music after hearing somepony else perform a piece.
Watching the magic, feeling the tingle in my horn now that I was ready for it, I put the pieces together.
“The reason everything is so formal is because it really is like a play,” I said. “It’s a symbolic language. The actions and request and even the placement of the throne and the supplicant are all part of it, like runes in the matrix of a massive spell.”
Shahrazad didn’t say if I was right or wrong, but her smile changed just a little, her eyes twinkling with real mirth. I could tell I was on the right track.
“A symbolic language like this would only be used in magic if you wanted to create a completely unambiguous statement that couldn’t be misinterpreted or twisted,” I continued, thinking out loud. “Which means that all of this is just to… fill in the last part of a ritual spell prepared meticulously in advance. When you granted that request, you were literally filling in the blanks of a wish, using language that means it’ll do exactly what you intend for it to do. Am I right?”
King Zephyranthes held up a hoof, and the next supplicant was stopped before they were in the ring carved into the floor that formed their active part in the ritual.
“That is correct,” the King said. “You catch on quite quickly, Miss Shimmer. Princess Celestia has high standards for her students indeed.”
“I’m guessing that there are a bunch of safety nets built in,” I said. "Where do the wishes even come from?"
He nodded. “Forgive me if I do not tell you all of our secrets, but suffice it to say that only the royal bloodline could make it work. Even if you marry my daughter, you will not be able to sit in my throne and wield the power of kings.”
“That’s a pretty good way to keep unhappy generals and outsiders from taking over,” I muttered, thinking. There were plenty of ways around it. Would it make a difference if he was doing it of his own free will? Domination spells, threats, a gallon or two of cheap wine, what threats was it really proof against?
If he was smart he wouldn’t tell me, and if I was smart I wasn’t going to ask.
“It’s how we provide for the ponies under our care,” Princess Shahrazad explained. “I believe you ponies call it noblesse oblige?”
“A symbolic language like that has to be pretty limited, though,” I said. “The only way to avoid misinterpretation would be having the options set firmly and precisely. Like ordering a meal from Hayburger Princess. If you say you want a ‘Number Three’ it’s totally unambiguous that you want a Big Sun Burger, hayfries, and a drink. But you can’t tell the pony behind the counter you want extra pineapple or no honey mustard just by ordering off the menu, you’d have to go outside the symbolic language of ordering a ‘Number Three’.”
“There are things even the power of kings cannot do,” Zephyranthes agreed. “Not all of the limitations are unintentional. There are things that nopony should have the power to do.”
He motioned for the next pony to finally come forward. She looked half annoyed at having to wait for me to give a lecture about how things worked and half terrified at the whole situation. I knew that particular combination of emotions pretty well -- stuck waiting for something terrible to happen, having to reschedule your panic attack because someone else cut in line to have theirs first.
“Oh subject mine, what do you desire that this King can grant you?” Zephyranthes said, once they were in place.
The guard started whispering to the pony, a mare only a little older than I was. She looked like she’d been crying.
“My liege--” the guard tried to whisper to her, and the mare ignored him. “I told your servants that I was here to beg you for food, but it was a lie. I knew they would turn me away if I told them what I really wanted.”
My ears perked up. Now this was getting interesting.
“My son is dead,” she whispered. “You have the power to bring him back! I know you do! Please, I’ll give you anything, do anything, if you just give my boy back to me!”
The king sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“My servants would have turned you away for your own good. The dead cannot come back.” He motioned to the guards. “I will not grant this request. I am sorry for your loss.”
“You’re really not going to help her?” I asked.
“There are things that should not be done,” King Zephyranthes muttered. He sounded annoyed. “I am sorry. I had hoped to show you this as a thing of wonder, but it has soured.”
An idea popped into my head. A terrible idea.
“She doesn’t need to be dragged out of here by guards,” I said. “She’s a grieving mother. I’ll walk her out and try to calm her down.”
“There’s no need for that,” Princess Shahrazad said. She tried to pull me closer, and I stood up to avoid her grip.
“Don’t worry, this’ll just take a minute.”
I slipped away before either of them could tell me it wasn’t allowed. The best thing about ceremonies is that nopony is really prepared when somepony doesn’t follow the rules. I just bumped the royal guard out of the way and led the mare outside. By the time we got to the door she was crying again.
“I knew he’d say no, but I had to try,” she whispered.
“I understand why you did it.” I grabbed her hoof. “Sometimes you have to go outside the rules to make things okay.”
She looked at her hoof. She could feel what I’d put there, passing something to her under the guise of making a supportive gesture. I loosened my grip a little so she could see the edge of the silver box.
“Don’t open it until you get home,” I whispered.
“What is it?” She looked at me with growing confusion.
“Just trust me, okay? It’s something that’ll help. Don’t tell anypony about it.”
“I don’t understand…”
“You will,” I assured her, ushering her away. I gave her what I thought was a brave smile. For some reason she shivered and ran away down the stairs. Maybe I wasn’t as good with ponies as I thought.
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Wishes. Not even once.
I'm sure nothing will go wrong and everything will be fine. That's totally how these kinds of things work, right?
9847270
Yes, there's like absolutely no chance wishing for the dead to come back to life will end up with a zombie plague or something, right?
Well, this is going to get interesting, and not in a good way.
I wished for the wisdom and wit to ruin people's day.
It came true, and I've never regretted it since!
Doomdoomdodododoooooomdoomdoom.
Zombie plague? Cursed monkey's paw? A more unique backlash?
I do wonder what the royals are doing. Are they the last Djinn, having exterminated the others? Are the Djinn enslaved to power the magic, or maybe their corpses?
And thus the zombies swarmed the land.
I'm sure there's nothing nefarious behind this at all. NOT... AT... ALL! WINK-WINK!! (See, I actually DO think there's something nefarious going on! But I'm being subtle! Like a nuclear bomb in the toilet!)
Oh gee, I wonder where the wish powers are coming from. Couldn't possibly be a bunch of djinn being held captive and forced to do the bidding of the evil empire.
Dammit, Sunset! Did you not read "The Monkey's Paw"? How about "Pet Cemetery"? HOW ARE YOU THIS OBLIVIOUS TO COMMON SENSE?!
"Sometimes... sometimes dead is better, Stotch."
media.giphy.com/media/l2Sq8pkKnKkG1CC3e/giphy.gif
This makes a lot of sense, really. With a wish, you really can do anything, and that's rather the problem. All it takes is a malicious Djinn, or one who will grant wishes exactly as worded for things to go awry.
I'm glad to see that the royal family here recognizes the power and value of wishes, and actively uses them. The carefully constructed framework for court is essentially a parity check to make sure the wish will not go awry. It's exactly like a program; carefully constructed so that only valid inputs are accepted, to ensure that only desired outputs are produced. Deviate from that, and the output may not only be undesired, but actually harmful to the rest of the system.
This just deepens the mystery. What is actually going on here?
Well gee, they're not full of themselves at all, are they?
Soooo... we're dealing with 'West Virginia Royalty' here to boot. Lovely. I'm expecting the son to be a hemophiliac and the sultan to be tricked by a phony holy man named Rasputin any minute now.
9847270 I'm fully expecting this story to turn into a flat-out parody of "Wishmaster" any day now.
The mystery deepens with every chapter. I am wondering how Arch Standin will judge Sunset's decision.
Oooo... nothing has ever gone wrong with necromantic wishes before...
The only reason you would be this carful about magic would be if the Djinn aren't gone, just trapped. And if that is the case, Sunset, it's best to leave this alone.
If they are just Djinn they are more chaotic than Pinkie, but not malichous If, however, they are Ifrit you could doom the world.
Bringing the dead back is a tricky thing and Sunset really should have known that. It's not that it can't be done, it's that is shouldn't be done in most cases. If you do not have a Divine source for the resurrection it's going to go wrong.
So would a wish like that kill her to revive another pony?
9847615
Yeah, would suck for the kid to wake up in a box and get to suffocate after being brought back to life but not brought up to his mother.
Or being a sticky, gooey zombie.
Or so many ways this can go wrong.
Doomdoomdodododoooooomdoomdoom
Sunset being party to possibly creating a litch/zombie/undead whatever I'm fine with, but how dare you keep making me want to like Flash Sentry!?!?
Kidding mostly of course. It'd hardly be the first time I liked a characterization of him.
The king’s power is giving me Fullmetal Alchemist flashbacks. Like Father Cornello with his fake Philosopher’s Stone. Clearly the Djinn aren’t as gone as the locals want Sunset to believe and in other news a zombie apocalypse is in the near future
Someone find a pic/clip of Genie from Aladin going over the rules for
Sometimes you have to shake the beaker, just to see what happens. Then pray your insurance covers the theoretical damages.
Ok Sunset seems really dumb here. There are many reasons I can think of off-hand from fiction that is ages old why this would be a bad idea. I was skeptical with the last chapter and this one seems to have only rewarded that skepticism. Maybe it’ll work out better than I hope but Sunset seems clinically stupid in this. I mean, she had to ask why having everyone get wishes would be a problem...
Also, Chekhov’s Gun alert! It mentioned Necroromantic spells in the last story. I predict things are about to get Freudian up in here!
I didn't think she'd be giving out that box so quickly.
The explanations both sides give for the nature of wishes and the transformation of the land into a desert are quite deliciously at odds. Fun! I look forward to Arch and the Royal Family both being at least a little bit wrong. Neither really explained how some the magic was being siphoned off at the feast.
I suspect it has more than a little to do with the
from the Royal Wish Machine, and Sirocco's
from last chapter.
Looking forward to the Super-Djinn Wish-Parasite to come out of the desert so Sunset has something to blow up!
No, Sunset, no!
And I'm now thinking Arch is trying to bring back the Good/Bad Ol' Days of unlimited wishes.
9847638 Oh that is too easy, if the wish is being granted by a Jerkass Genie (or equivalent), it will kill someone else's child, and make sure that the second family knows that Mother A sacrificed Mother B's child to get her own child back. Cue the cycle of vengeance and wishes!
Damnit Sunset, even you should know better than to encourage NECROMANCY!
I'm just here waiting for Sunset to ask the king to fix her leg.
Oh Sunset... When has any attempts at necromancy ever ended well?
This will not end well. You NEVER bring back the dead with a wish unless its goverment contract length worded. Unless its D&D then you reincarnate that bugger into a badger . A palidin brought back as a kobold is fun too.
While the conspiracy stuff going around, especially with the Djinni, is interesting, I’m more interested in the implications of the existence of wish magic and the other kinds of magic used by the Order. The Djinni alone could’ve caused untold changes to the world granting wishes at random, as could the backlash from said wishes. They aren’t free, they need to get their energy from somewhere... unless they were free under the Djinni and the current wishes have the cost because they’re artificially created. There’s also the possibility of non-Saddle Arabians making much larger requests from the Djinni, like say being able to control the weather, or control the sun and moon, or wish for the perfect symbol to lead a nation of earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Maybe some of those wishes required so much magic, the drained the land until only a desert was left.
As for the Order’s magic, Sunset learned from Celestia, Twilight, probably Luna, and Zecora. She should have knowledge of at least the existence of most kinds of magic (including forbidden dark magics). Something’s fishy not only with all the Saddle Arabia stuff, but back in Canterlot as well.
I will say though, Sunset seems a little too dumb here. Like I get she’s a self loathing mess desperately trying to do anything right, but she absolutely should know that giving the wish to resurrect a dead pony would end horribly. Not only is necromancy a no-no, she knows the wishes require outside magic. Sure maybe a wish could make a perfect resurrection, but at what cost? There’s also the issue of giving the wish out like that in the first place. If the foal is resurrected, what happens to the foal? What about to the mother with the stolen wish? What about to Sunset, if word gets out what she did? There’s shortsighted, then there’s making jumping off a train Sunset look rational and collected.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the pony Sunset gave the box to was an agent sent by Arch to test Sunset/retrieve the wish, playing Sunset.
9847396
To be fair, Equestria is like 1200 years old (using Shadow Play, Horse Play, and the Hearths Warming play), so Saddle Arabia having that style of court before Celestia is fully possible.
9848202 She's not the only dumb one in this story... they all seem pretty absurd. I mean, the whole wedding fiasco was such a blatantly transparent setup. If Sunset wasn't so dumb, there's no way she'd be going along with it so blindly.
No, we say it's a stupid decision because the sheer amount of what can go wrong would NOT be ignored by someone as intelligent as Sunset, not after receiving a direct history lesson on it AND figuring out the king gives out wishes. It's insanely convenient and predictable for the last supplicant to be one that needs an unlimited wish that there's absolutely no way this wasn't a set up.
I mean, it cold be what it seems, but you're not nearly that bad of a writer
I think Sunset just did something stupid because she sees the King's ritual as an elaborate set of rules and she's curious about what happens when wishes don't follow those rules.
9851458
Sunset is very smart, but she will always be impulsive, and these rules about wishes are like a big red button with a sign that says ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PRESS.
Why I have the feeling this so called "power of the kings" means that the royal family either stole the power from the genies/Djinni and/or had offspring with them?
Anyone familiar with "The Monkey's Paw?" Wishes are dangerous things.
>reviving the dead
doubt
We all watched Aladdin we know what is going to happen
Sunset Shimmer that was an incredibly foolish thing for you to do. Aside from putting herself in a dangerous position with the aretic order, she doesn't even know how a wish like that might turn out! Maybe the reason "no bringing back the dead" is a rule is because it leads to dire consequences! Really sunset, do you have no critical thinking?
She is going to get her son back but it will be like the freaking Monkey Paw.
How the heck do you "hunt into extinction" something that powerful? Is there some sort of genie kryptonite?
Totally called it.
Well this is going to backfire spectacularly.
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Yeah I keep thinking something to do with zombies will happen but I'm hoping that it will work out for the better no matter how unlikely.
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Iron. In many legends djinni are wounded by iron and it's proof against their magic. There are actually lots of eastern myths where extremely powerful creatures can be beaten with something common. War of the Worlds style.
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There's also if I remember right another way to defeat them by trapping them. As well as being powerful they were often very full of themselves and if you could create an object that could act as a prison it was possible to trap them within simply by tracking one down and challenging them to the tune of "if you're so powerful then surely you would have no trouble getting out of this vase/jar (or maybe a....silver box?).
Then once they've shot in thinking they're about to show you up, it's too late.
“...I beg that you-- that thou heal my leg so I can better serve you?”
Bruh...did you just..."thou" a freaking KING?
OFF WITH HIS HEAD!
This is the crap that drives me nuts when people try to get all thee thy thou and stuff. "Thou" is a word used to address only someone lower than you on the social ladder. It was very rude to use it to refer to an equal and a direct insult to use it on a superior. Using it on the king would immediately get your shit wrecked. One would use "you" or "ye".
Also:
https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-4-no-1-2003/teaching-usage-thee-thou
Okay, I laughed my ass off on that one. Also, damnit story, you are making Flash too damn likeable!
So, I get the reason the Djinn needed to be limited, now, does the king have a few kept prisoner, or is the Royal Family descendents of djinn and able to use this ritual to grant wishes? Or some mix of the two?
And Sunny... I get you are trying to do good, but there really are some wishes you should not try to grant. Still going with less we have some evil villian at work as a case of just a broken system no Pony is able and willing to fix.
I had my suspicions since the dangers of wish magic were explained, but the instant I read
I knew exactly where this was going. The Ahamkara are one of my favorite Destiny concepts, and your incorporation of their rules has been wonderful so far.
It's very fortunate that the Saddle Arabians have ways to store wishes safely for later use, because a being as willful as Sunset would have a very difficult time bargaining with a Djinn or Ahamkara directly.