I opened my eyes at that to see this sumptuous burgundy wine colored light shifted into smoke, slowly swirling and coiling within the glass sphere like someone blowing smoke into a bubble where it was just collapsing in on itself and spreading from the confines, but as the light reached its edges it darkened and turned pitch black as soft puffs and swirls of smoke popped from the red smoke to turn back in on itself as the smoke coiled about the glass.
“It’s…red.”
“One moment.” He said as he stood, half limping and half hobbling over to the bookcases as he looked along the spines of books, “Djinns…djinns…B….B….B…C…” he said as he drummed fingers along the book spines, as I looked to the shelves…every single book was almost an almanac of various races: the shelves were split down the center of the room with each shelf wrapped all the way around were for a singular letter, each shelf rising up only passed a singular letter so there was no overlapping of the books, each one was adorned with the text of some sort of magical creature, he looked about before glancing upwards a touch as he looked along the small bronze plague beside the shelves looking at the letters, fingers moving as if he was still reading the names along the spines before snapping his fingers softly and nodded then flicking a hand and a very, very thick tome slid off a ceiling high shelf and floated down, he brushed dust off it before blowing heavily on it causing a small puff of dust to flutter down. “Ah, here we are…The Djinn Dictonarium.” He added as he flicked the pages open, “No…that’s not ice, not lightning…you’re male so you’re not a Peri, same with you being a Silah…not a Qarinah…not a Qutrub…ah, here it is.” He said before walking over and holding the book open, along the right aged, yellowed page was the depiction of a figure, lower body fading to a large coil of smoke vanishing into a blue glass bottle, their skin was solid ink black and a long mane of white hair floated around them, glowing red eyes and bedecked in gilded jewelry. The ground around the lamp was cracking and falling away from the bottle as smoke seemed to seep upwards through the ground. “A very…very rare subtype of earth based djinn…known as Shaitan.”
“Earth? But…its blue?”
“Yes, but magic is different colors for each and every person out there, however because of how it looked in the sphere…with how your magic which is red, turned black at the edges, which is why you are a Shaitan…a djinn of darkness.”
“Darkness?”
“Trauma in magical children has the chance to…greatly warp the magic of the developing child, I am guessing that your mother passing when your magic was just developing…caused you to develop, not as another other type of djinn other than a Shaitan.” He explained, “In some depictions they are malevolent, destructive djinn who are evil to the extent of being compared to demons. The usual djinn magics I explained, plus lots of magic over the earth: being able to absorb the elements, control it, you cannot be harmed by the earth in any possible way along with things of that sort, greater invisible, adapting to subterranean and volcanic environments…lots of magic over magma and lava, immunity to pain, some lesser demonic types of magics, greater forms of crafting and metalworking, empowerment through sins and vices and…increased ranges of shapeshifting.”
“…wow” I said quietly
“Please, do not think that because I said that in some depictions Shaitan are depicted as demonic or evil…that is only the thoughts of people who had no idea that people like you are actually people, not embodiments of their magic. You are in no possible way evil.” He said
“So, my having depression made me a like shadow genie…just…great.” I said
“Kain, please…understand that all of us here only wish for you to be happy and to learn about the world in which you belong. People here are here for the students…if you ever want or need someone to talk to…our therapist’s office is always open, you’ll make friends, people who will be friends with you because of who you are, not what you are and people that will have no idea about who or what your mother was…people here will like you…for you. I am nothing special, I’m just a three century year old gargoyle…I have little magic innately, I’ve learned all of magic…I’m a wizard, divination specialist so foresight is something that I am devoted to learning, practicing and furthering. I cannot see the future like I wish I could, but I always have the general idea of how people’s future look as light around them and your future…is impossibly bright.” He said with a soft smile.
“Bright?” I asked as I looked down towards my beaten boots, clashing against the rich and lavish carpet underfoot, “But…how could my future be bright…when all I see is darkness?” I asked.
“We’ve all been through…all sorts of trauma: our therapist will be able to help you…if you wish and if you don’t want help or want to work through it on your own…you may, but…this school stands by a motto: In Scientia Sit Pax.” He said, I looked at him confused as he said words in what was without a doubt Latin, but…I didn’t know how I knew it was Latin.
“In knowledge there is peace?” I asked before flinching a little as I heard myself reply with the translation as I never learned Latin, to my knowledge the only languages I know are English, Hindi, Farsi and Arabic.
“Exactly, in knowledge there is peace.” He said as he flicked a few fingers and the glass orb floated back into the cabinet which closed with a soft click behind it. “The more all of us learn: about anything…wither it be each other, magic, history or anything…there is always room to learn and where there is space or time to learn, there is room for growth. Growing as a collective is how we rid the world of the dark pits that stain the populace.” He added as he softly brushed a spot of dust off his desk from the book. “And here, you will learn everything you could possible want to learn, whatever we could possibly have access to teaching you if you want to learn about it…we will teach you.”
“Is…is there anyone else here like me?”
“Djinn blood…no. Djinn are an extremely rare people who usually stick to themselves across the Arabian peninsula, most djinn families prefer to teach their children all that they wish to learn about their magics via their own hands. They have apprehension about beings of other races teaching their children. Wish granting is a very seldom found magic that is…extremely powerful…they see it often as too dangerous, too powerful of a magic to be taught by beings…other than themselves.”
“Who…who else can grant wishes?”
“Certain types of fairies can grant wishes, though…far more minor than in your case, same with leprechauns, merfolk can to an extent, certain very, very high level demons, certain objects also can allow granted wishes, but…those usually come with prices, there is a way to gain a wish if one folds a thousand origami cranes, but…a wish from a genie is something that is far, far more powerful than the wishes of other wish granting beings.” He explained before softly sighing, “I fear I may have taken up a large amount of your time with all of this explaining, you should be getting to the auditorium so you can find where you belong.”
“Um…where is it?” I asked as I stood
“Ah, walk straight and when you get to the foyer…keep going straight before you get to a big trapezoid shaped room with a big pair of doors on your left and you’ll be in the main quad, the path to your right will lead right to it.”
“Don’t you…like need to be there or something? You’re the headmaster.”
“Oh, no…I let my assistant handle this process, I’ve got masses of paperwork to do at the start of term.” He said as he nodded towards the thick stack of papers to his side.
“Thank you” I said before walking out of the room, the door softly closing behind me as I walked. I felt the hood over my head fall back, but I didn’t feel the need to fix it.
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