In the land of Siderea, there are the modern science of magecraft and the ancient art of the old magic. Summoning falls under the latter. Anyone can perform the ritual to call forth a nature spirit, but the trick lies in the offering used to draw their attention. Arcane scholars agree it should be something incredibly rare and/or valuable. Gold, jewels, exotic spices and unguents...
Applejack has a jug of cider, and she hopes figures any djinni with working taste buds will be more than happy with it.
Humanized Equestria AU. An entry in Choices: A Species Change Contest. Thanks to EileenSaysHi, Krack-Fic Kai, Mishkiel, and Mockingbirb for prereading. Rated Teen for some of the reasons behind the Romance tag.
Chapters (1)
I speak for everyone- er, Pony- when I say… please do more! This is great stuff!
"You know, normally if you ask a Djinn to bring rains I'd be surprised if there was any part of your farm left standing at the end."
"Yeah. But then there'd be no more cider."
Lovely little story, and yes, it deserves to continue.
Even when the species change, Rainbow and Applejack continue to bicker.
This deserves so much more! Bring on that iceberg!
Another very fun AU from you. I wonder why Twilight did her ritual in the first place. Probably to get a second advanced magic tutor. And the bit with her thinking Pinkie was fae was icing on the cake.
I like it, another!
*smashes glass*
Oh wow, this is good. Very, very good.
If you ever continue this, I will read it with great pleasure!
Hilarious, adorable, and perfectly in character for characters that are wildly different versions of the characters. Bacon as the Efreet was an amusing twist, and it has me wondering if Cadance might be an Earth Genasi (crystals, after all!) that Shining Armor accidentally summoned one time…
Delightful work as always, FoME.
What a fantastic start to a new AU. I'd have to echo the general agreement that it definitely deserves more.
You, my friend, are an absolute madman and genius
Epic work, my friend!
This was awesome and fun and I should've known Sunset Shimmer was the efreet, but dang if that ending didn't make me laugh
Ya' managed to get a whole lot of world building in with under 5k words. That takes skill.
The ending really got me too. Good stuff.
I absolutely love every single thing about this story.
More tales from this reality please?
Hee hee hee! Those last three paragraphs were a very good & fun ending.
imho, that stuff in this story is already a lot of fun for people who can read between the lines.
11434496
thinking she was fae, you say?
Yeh, you still have to disappoint my decision of first favoriting and updooting and then reading your stories.
If you keep this up, i don't see it happening any time soon either.
Hahahaha perfect! And as always, you leave us wanting so much more.
A lovely little fic, bravo. n_n
Like everyone else, I quite enjoyed it. (The Pratchett reference was a nice touch.)
Are djinni canon?
Whelp, I certainly wouldn't say no to some more of this setting
Well, it's definitely an intriguing world and a fun story, but... well, this is probably just me, but the romance elements felt a little... well, not exactly tacked on*, since it wasn't really prominent enough to be considered as such, but... it like it had a few moments sprinkled in a couple of places and that was it. It didn't really feel like either an integral or a necessary part of the story.
To be honest, I feel like it might work slightly better without it, since... I kinda feel like that sort of soul resonance shouldn't have to mean a romantic connection, since other kinds of connection can be just as deep and powerful. Admittedly, while I don't consider myself opposed to the ship, I'm definitely not a proponent either, so I may not be the right audience, but... I dunno, it just felt a little... off.
I probably didn't do a good job explaining my feelings and I apologize for that and, if necessary, for them, just trying to put them into words.
*the stuff with AJ and Dash, that is. The last part... well, that was, in a sense, tacked on, that was sort of the point - that it came as a surprise - and, as such, works great for the humour.
11434658
I feel like the people who downvoted this comment didn't read it properly.
That is quite a nice story, too bad its a just glimpse of a larger and crazier world.
11434967
I've never actually heard about a djinni before, but now that I do, I say that the tree of harmony should count as one after it gains the ability to communicate with the characters.
11435006
Reading Comprehension is becoming a lost Art it seems . .
Great story and interesting concept, that requires a sequel.
11435157
Perhaps it might have been clearer if you said, "You still have yet to disappoint..."
But then, I suppose proofreading is a bit of a Lost Art...
11435343
In my somewhat racist defence:
i am german.
OH my god! So unexpected and timely! I was focused on summoning stuff, and this just arrives and has a magical description of summoning and MLP and stuff! So awesome!
...
So many romance-y hint lines like that and more!
...
All the classic ships! Sweet!
Oh, the Fair Lady Butterfly's already married! Wow.
...
Pony Skin colors explained in this Siderea! ... And this land is named for Sidereal? A.k.a Starry? Why call it that?
So, the three older "siblings" of the CMC are here, and we know that Apple Bloom exists... CMC-style shenanigans in this world are gonna be more dangerous?
So, did Sunset and Twilight just get married? Or is it that Sunset's just approved to basically immigrate to Pony Hills or something?
Dang OPs, spending all the big ticket story ideas on oneshots
11434999
I think they needed more time to develop the chemistry to justify the payoff of the ship, but oh the woes of a oneshot. It definitely felt like it was going in that direction but I also felt almost nipped in the bud at how fast it ended and we were handed the payoff. Likely just the woes of a longfic reader tho lmao.
Damn these special change fics are elite, love this one!’
Yeah jerk this was too good to be a one shot. All the hinting at the magical mechanics and how it's mutated the world sounds awesome. I also want some more of the djynn life, how does clouds equal food? I though djynn were fire elemental subtypes not air. Also ffff alot of those descriptions sounded awesome of your characters I wish I could see them.
11435911
Big facts f ponys I want these magicy human summoning bois
I love all the races give me more character bonuses.
Very fun. The problem I have with FOME is every one shot he makes is in a universe I want to see tons of stories in. Your too good at your job
11436512
Yes! I would love to see some djinn romance
There's so much worldbuilding here I'm still trying to see if there's at least another three chapters.
Really great story :)
11434419 11434477 11434506 11434568 11434588 11434593 11434599 11434680 11434991 11435074 11435286 11435720 11436521 11437180
I can't promise anything, but if inspiration strikes, I'll happily revisit this world. If nothing else, I can certainly whip up some blog posts to help others explore it.
11434442
It's a very pony solution to natural disasters: Make the cause of the disaster like you too much to create them in the first place.
11434464
Some truths transcend such minor concerns.
11434496
My thinking was that Twilight summoned Sunset at least in part to prove that she was responsible and capable enough to handle some knowledge that Celestia insisted she wasn't yet ready for. Naturally, she proved the opposite, and true to form, Tia put her in time-out for a bit. A much less extreme banishment than some Celestia has performed over the centuries, but the lady does love a good banishment.
(And yes, 11434604, Pinkie is not a fae creature. Even the fae don't know what's up with Pinkie. She doesn't show the slightest sign of magic use, yet she's still Pinkie Pie.)
11434578
I hadn't really pinned down what Cadence's deal is, but that's a tempting path to take. With some... curious implications for Flurry Heart.
11434595
There was a fair bit more that the prereaders cut out, and for good reason. The main reason I asked for so many eyes on this one was to strike the right balance of exposition and actual story.
11434967
The closest we've gotten to any kind of elemental is from the tie-in TTRPG Tails of Equestria. And possibly timberwolves, depending on how you interpret them. And maybe Discord, though he's more Outer Planes than Inner going by D&D logic.
11434999 11435813
It's a fair point. Going from first meeting to happily ever after in under five thousand words is a breakneck pace for any reasonable romance, and soul-bonds need not translate to eros. The Appledash elements emerged organically as a "You know, this would be neat" idea rather than something I intended on from the beginning, so I'm not surprised it didn't work for everyone. I do appreciate the criticism; it'll help with future shipteasing.
11435699
Well, when the nation's ruler(s) move(s) the sun and moon... (Note: I have not fully decided how Luna works in this setting.)
Scootaloo idolizing someone who doesn't even have bones to break will definitely be an issue.
As Dash demonstrated, summoning removes most of the issues with a long-distance relationship, even one that stretches across multiple planes of existence. The letter from Celestia basically let Twilight know that she's out of time-out.
11436510
Very glad you enjoyed it this much! "I want this over ponies" is quite the praise indeed.
A fruit-bearing plant concentrates sugars into specific bits of itself that are designed to be detached and eaten. Cloud orchards work the same way, but with magical energy.
I borrowed from the D&D interpretation. Djinni and efreeti both work very differently in the original Arabic folklore.
11434578
In the original Arabic, humans filled the role normally served by an earth elemental. D&D's Dao read somewhat differently when you know about this.
11437342
"I, who am created from smokeless fire, will not bow down before one made from clay!" -- Iblis
This is a very amusing fic, though the shipping side of it feels a bit tacked on--not enough to bring down the whole fic of course, but still enough to make note of it. Of course, it might just depend on one's own shipping tastes...but I am a believer that not every story idea must ultimately lead to some kind of ship, and I wonder if the shipping was really the right thing this story needed...
...then again, maybe it's just the addition of the Twilight/Sunset overdoing it for me, because admittedly, the AppleDash does seem like an obvious route to take this...
...eh, the real point here is that this was a fun fic, with a clever premise, and some nice world-building--all of the right traits I typically look for in a fic.
I would personally be down for a whole series of stories about the whole group being our being attached to Djinn. It could be the alternate take on how they become saviors of Equestria.
This was a cute story.
This was a lot of fun. AJ's summoning was a hoot.
Sehr schön hoffe auf mehr ! besonders wie Rainbow Dash auf Pinkie Pie reagiern würde!
Oooh, I love it. Would definitely love to see this expanded upon.
literally in love with this AU
I kinda want to see more of this AU. Looks extremely interesting.
This was a wonderful little bit of fun.
I can see it.