Djinni "Whisp" Grant's SDCCI diary

Cover
Don't you just wish you could read my diary?

✧8✧8
It's amazing how different the world looks when you're the one in charge of it. I don't mean the whole world, of course; just the one that exists inside the lantern. Now instead of criticizing - which I used to do a lot of - I have to actually be responsible. I think my first decision will be to return to my original shadow look, because I want my unlife to change from the inside out, not the outside in.

✧8✧8✧88
I think I still have a lot to learn about being a djinni; mostly because when I was 'shadowing' Gigi, I didn't pay very good attention to the things she was telling me abut the job. I think my jealousy made me deaf to everything except what I wanted. So now I have a lot of catching up to do. Good thing there's an instruction book, and an even better thing that I have a lot of time on my hands since it's a five thousand volume set. At least its interesting.. well, most of it is, anyway. The legal and warning sections are full of fine print that I'm sure would make any monster who needed sleep - which I don't - go completely comatose. Something that I learned today, which I should have already known, is that the number of wishes a djinni can grant is based upon how many years they have been a servant of the lantern. I'm only allowed three to begin. I hope whoever finds me next doesn't feel like they've been ripped off. Hmmm... I wonder if I should say, "You only get three, don't waste them." Well, the next volume seems to be full of things a djinni can and cannot say, s I guess I will find out. Just hope its not in the fine print.

✧88
There is a clock and a calendar on the wall of a small storeroom deep in the basement of the lantern palace. It is the only place inside the lantern where the passage of time is recorded. I used to go there when I was a shadow and watch the time pass when Gigi was out granting wishes. I first I thought it was fascinating, but over time my fascination turned to resentment as I watched the hours and days go by while Gigi was out seeing the world.Once, when she was gone, I got so angry I tore down both the clock and calendar from the wall and destroyed them. I can't believe I was such a... brat. Somehow I thought this would make Gigi feel bad about not taking me with her when she left, but when Gigi returned and I led her down to the room so I could gloat over what I'd one, the clock and clanedar were back as if I had never touched them. I looked foolish, and felt worse. Gigi kindly told me that the clock and calendar used to be in her room, but she moved them to the basement because it made her feel lonely to see the time passing. She said they were part of the lantern, and even tough they could be moved, they could not be destroyed. I think that was the moment when I realied that I was a part of the lantern too, and I began to wonder if one day, Gig would lock me away as well. That's when I began plotting to overthrow her, take over he lantern, and then the world. Gigi, of course, would never had done that to me, but I guess that it jut shows how much a shadow knows...

✧X8
I am on volume 1753. This volume could be titled When Wishes Go Wrong, and in it I found a story about the perils of wishes made in anger called the Princess and the Captain. It's about a vamire queen who uses her last wish to punish her youngest daughter who has fallen in love with the captain of the guard, a commoner. The queen, whose word was law and tolerated no questioning of it, is displeased by heir affections and forbids them to ever be together. The princess argues that the captain is her one true love, but the queen is unmoved and not only strips the captain of his rank, but threatens to have him banished from the kingdom forever. So the princess agrees o forsake the love of her unlife.. yeah right.. and of course, that doesn't last long. They are soon found out and brought to the throne room.

Now the wrath of the queen was great, and she ordered that her djinni's lantern be brought to her. He was the oldest and wisest of all the lantern djinni and had been in the queen's service for a thousand years. "Ninety and nine wishes I have granted you oh queen, and there is but one yet left." aid the djinni. "Listen well then, servant of the lantern. Since my daughter and my former captain understand neither the nature of obedience nor the unbridgeable gulf between royalty and those of common birth, I wish them to be forever obedient and forever apart!" "But my queen.." said the djinni. "Would you disobey me as well?" She raged. "Be it as you wish." Replied the djinni. Then the djinni clapped his hands and there was smoke, a flash of light and the sound of massive iron doors swinging open and then closing with a deafening crash. When the smoke cleared, the princess and the captain were gone, and in their places two lanterns stood.. a hand's width from each other. "Forever obedient - forever apart." said the djinni, and with those final words, both he and the lanterns disappeared.

The rest of the story tells how the vampire queen, being filled with remorse, leaves the throne and spends her unlife searching for her daughter's lantern. There are however, two footnotes at the end of the story. The first reads:

While any djinni old enough and powerful enough to have accumulated 100 wishes could have certainly fulfilled the 'letter of the wish' by turning the princess and the captain into djinn, the queen's wish never specifies whom they should be obedient to or apart from; thus it is just as likely that the princess and captain were made forever obedient to the love of the other, and forever apart from the queen herself.

The second footnote reads:

If however, the princess and the captain were indeed both turned into lantern djinn, then the queen herself is probably still looking, because you do not find a lantern. It finds you.

7th of July
Today my lantern was found and I was summoned for the very first time! I thought that I would be ready when it happened, but I was completely taken by surprise. In fact, I had just put my hair up in a towel and was getting ready to apply a beauty mask when a voice thundered through the inside of the lantern, "You are summoned!" Note to self: find preference settings and change voice from 'In a world..' kind of intonation to something less ominous. Anyway, I put on my 'game face', took a deep breath, and hoped that the monster I was about to be serving wouldn't be able to tell that I was nervous. Guess I shouldn't have worried too much about that, because when I said, "I am the djinni of the lantern, what is your wish?" the monster who summoned me almost fainted. He is a vampire.. of sorts.. and by his clothes it looks like he's seen better days. He didn't wish for anything tonight, so I suppose I'll have to wait before I am allowed to grant my first wish. Now I'm more excited than nervous.

8th of July
"You are summoned!" I thought I had it fixed, but now the voice sounds like a ombie using 'baby talk' so instead of ominous it's just irritating. More importantly, I finally got to talk to the monster who is currently in possession of my lantern. His name is Kieran Valentine, and much like me he is trying to keep his present and future from being defined by his past. We talked for hours and I think, that even without wishing for one, I've found a friend. It was good to be able to talk about what we'd done in the past and not feel condemned. I think going forward it will help to know that we'll be both be cheering the other on to succeed. Speaking of wishes, he still hasn't made one yet.. but I'm good with that.

10th of July
"You are summoned!" Ack! No, I'm right out on it blasting through the lantern like an opera singer. It still needs work. I may not have learned anything I should have from Gigi, but one thing I did pay attention to was the way that wishes work. When I djinni grants a wish, a force is released; a force so powerful that it can remake the very fabric of reality in rder to fulfill its purpose. It is also a force that needs specific instructions or else it will interpret what you've wished for, and sometimes the results get lost in translation. Sadly, I am not allowed to give hints or coach monsters on what they should wish. It isn't that I don't want to, it's that I physically can't. Gigi once told me that she tried to tell a monster how to word a wish and her mouth literally closed shut, and wouldn't open until after the wish was granted. So, all that to say, I knew that KV's first wish was not goin to turn out how he hoped it would. I'm just happy that he had a 'rescue wish' left, otherwise...

12th of July
I really feel bad for KV. He' already used up two of his three wishes with nothing to show for it. I tried t tell him how sorry I was, but he wouldn't even listen. He even said it was completely his fault, and that I had nothing to be sorry for. I really hope he things hard about his last wish

1st of August
"You are summoned!" Ooh, I liked this version. It sounded like I was being called to the front door to meet an old friend. I'll keep it. KV used his lat wish today. He wished that we could always be friends. I think that would have some true regardless of whether or not he wished of it, but I thought it was so unselfish of him to use his last wish like that. I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to be fulfilled until I was holding my very own iCoffin with KV's number programmed into it. The best thing thought, was that I had full bars everywhere I went inside the lamp! Being able to have a friend to talk to, even when I'm inside the lantern is s much more than even I could have ever have wished for.