I followed him down the hall before he flicked his hand and a large pair of doors opened ahead of us, through the doorway lead into a smaller circular room, still very high walled, but covered in deeply inset with dark wood and filled entirely with books and various trinkets, the back wall was a wash of these super tall and thin windows with pulled back curtains in thin, almost diaphanous white fabric, there was a fireplace that softly crackled with a strangely pale purple colored fire, a dark blue and green couch facing the fire flanked by matching styled armchairs around a dark wood coffee table with a mirrored top, all the furniture sat atop a massive decadent Persian rug, there was a candle lit lamp in the back corner with a glass purple colored shade, a massive C shaped dark wood desk with a green velour top and a dark brown leather chair behind it with two navy velvet chairs facing it, a large cart along the left set up with a rather ostentatious tea service on it. The room smelt weirdly familiar and alien at the same time, it smelt of the pleasant heat of fire, the sharp pang of incense and the dull, pleasant air of the evergreen plants outside, but…the incense was a different scent than I am used to. I am accustomed to the thick, heavy heat of incense that smells of sandalwood, sage, jasmine and myrrh…but this was thick with the scent of patchouli, rain and basil, but just that warm pungent waft of incense was enough to make me feel more comfortable.
I walked towards the desk before sitting at the desk as he sat at the desk before just flicking his hand and the tea seat started making it by itself, he sighed as he put a leg up on an ottoman that slid over as he just moved his head, some kind of injury by how he was acting.
“So, to put it shortly…your mother was one of us” he said holding his hands out, “Nonhumans, monsters, mythical beings, magic beings….whatever or however someone wants to be referred to and because you are her son…you are one of us as well. Magic and various aspects don’t start showing themselves until mid-teens or so, fourteen-fifteen for most races that look for the most part human, others are much, much more apparent at younger ages. Your mother…was a djinn.”
“A…what?” I asked a little confused
“A djinn…also said as jinn or when Anglicized…genies.”
“A…genie?” I asked extremely, extremely confused, “My mother…who lived in the middle of nowhere California and worked remotely as a financial advisor for tech-startups…was a genie? I highly…highly doubt that. If she was a genie…why wasn’t she like rich and famous or something? Why did she choose to work tirelessly, marry my father…a massively in debt man who would rather be a stay at home father than anything…and not some like…famous or rich guy?”
“Your mother was a very…kind, honest and warm person. She did whatever she wished: your father made her happy, you made her happy…everything she did was as she wanted. She didn’t feel the need to be like that: she didn’t feel the need to be wealthy or famous or anything like that, she was perfectly fine where she was. Everyone on the faculty was always made happier whenever we heard anything from your mother, she…enjoying staying in touch with all of us.” He said as a teacup and saucer floated over towards him, a floating pair of tongs dropping a few sugars into his tea before a small thing of cream poured a splash into his cup as a cup of tea floated over towards me. I held my hand out and the saucer rested atop my hand as I took the mug. I’ve always been taught putting anything in tea was disrespectful to the tea according to my mother, so I enjoy the bitter taste of black tea, black coffee or dark, dark chocolate.
“What was she like here?”
“Oh, she lit up any room she walked into: everyone knew who she was, loved talking to her or just being around her because she just brought life, light and warmth wherever she went. Whip smart, extremely devoted to her studies over magic or the rest of her other studies studied. She would make bulk bagged lunches and make rounds to the other houses and drop them off at the doors of people panicking from the tests.” He said as he rested his hands on the desk-top. “Everyone was…heartbroken when they heard what happened.”
“Did…my father know?”
“No” he said with a soft shake of his head, “He…knew all of us existed, he knew that all of us were here, he knew your mother was magical, but…he had no idea of what she was, he just knew that…whenever anything was wrong or strange…she’d handle it. She rarely used her gifted magic…wishing…She would only ever use it in the worst situations. He…didn’t want to learn anything more, it was a lot for him to process and the knowledge of his wife and thusly, you, were magical was…too much for him, so he choose to keep himself just knowing that we all exist to keep his own heart calmed, he didn’t know what would happen if he knew more or was more involved with all of us, so…he choose not to.”
“So, now that I know…am I like going to be pulled into a lamp or something?”
“No, no…there was a massive wave of djinn freeing a few decades ago, once genies are freed…all of their successors are born free.”
“Was…was that why my mother died? Someone found out?”
“No, no, no, Kain…your mother’s death was a horrible, horrible accident, but just that…just an accident.” He said, “Have you not…accidently caused something odd to happen? You told me just a minute or two ago you…talked to your mother?”
“It was maybe two weeks ago, I had wished that I could just…talk to her one more time and…I had a weird dream that she was in.”
“Because of your mother being a djinn and you being a half-djinn…your wish was fulfilled in the ways it could. Djinn magic has very few rules: you can’t wish anyone dead, anyone back from the dead or to magically fall in love with you against their will…those are the biggest rules, usually each djinn has their own smaller personal ones, but…those are the big three ones that must never be broken.” He explained
“There…has been one or two things I can think of: I has asked for help with…everything I needed with coming here and…people just started coming out of the wood work with help and gifts.”
“That is how it would happen.” He said with an understanding nod, “I’m…I am truly… and utterly honestly, very truly sorry about your loss, Kain, but…I assure you here at Paradise Academy we want nothing more…than to enrich and further progress the personal growth of all of our students and…you are one of our students, so…we want nothing more than to see you flourish here.”
“So…what exactly can I do?”
“Well, all djinn have a certain elemental affinity, usually one of the traditional four: water, earth, fire or air…your mother was a very rare subtype of fire djinn as she was a light djinn. There is the usual battery of abilities brought on by having a physiology that isn’t human: being immune to contaminants, some form of immortality, increased: willpower, accuracy, agility, athleticism, balance, dexterity, durability, energy, flexibility, health, instincts, intelligence, memory, mental abilities, senses, reflexes, some form of regeneration, strength, survivability, wisdom along with a battery of others depending on the race. Djinn have all of that, plus your bodies are able to adapt to their environments very easily, you can at will become invisible or shapeshift yourself along with various teleportation magics ranging from short range at will to long-range with some effort. You can…allow your body to be airy…ethereal, I think would be the proper word as you can turn your person into smoke or clouds or dust or…whatever with the elemental affinity. You can fly, hypnotize, become intangible, read minds, become noncorporeal, speak all languages, make all possible sorts of sound, you could possess someone via your magic, but there is…very bad side effects with that, but that is alongside psionics, some ghostly types of magic and telepathy.”
“So…what…what element am I?” I asked
“We don’t know yet” he said, “If your mother had been still alive around 14-15 she would have started teaching you some basics, but…alas we do not have that, but we do have ways” he added as he stood, limping a touch without his cane as he walked over to a locked panel along the shelves and unlocked it with a sap of his fingers, inside was a large glass orb on a bronze stand. “Let’s see…this is usually used for people of mixed elemental genetics to see which is their genetic favored, but it should work for you” he said as he walked over before setting the crystal ball on the desk in front of me. “Please, Kain…rest your hand on this, close your eyes and focus on yourself…the orb should tell us what element you are. Djinn and the other types are special in that they do not follow normal elemental lines, your mother’s parents were an earth djinn and an air djinn, but…she was a fire. All of the subtypes usually fit the four classic elements.” He added. I swallowed softly as I flexed my hand a little before closing my eyes as I reached out, the crystal was like touching still water, silken smooth and cool. As I started letting my focus dip into myself, thinking about all of the strange things that’s been happening, looking back to that dream I had about my mother and of how having that dream made me feel and everything along those lines, the soft light that glowed through my lids from the glowing orb steadily and smoothly started fading deeper…and deeper as the light shifted and changed in its shades till I was wrapped in bottomless darkness before a dark, deep, rich, bloody red started blooming along the edges. “Well…that’s different.”
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