“That’s what the Kou princess was doing?” Alibaba shuddered, like Ja’far had just presented him with a breakfast of snakes. “Not – not just borrowing Vinea’s power, but wrapping herself inside her?”
“It’s how a Djinn Equip works,” Sinbad nodded, still troubled. What on earth was the problem? “To manifest a Djinn in this world takes an incredible amount of magoi. Only a magi like Aladdin or Judar can manage it without dying. But if we cover ourselves with a thin layer of the Djinn’s power and assimilate it with our own, we can come close to the power of a manifested Djinn. For a little while.” He grinned, thinking of the first time he’d shown off Baal’s Equip, in the throne room of Sasan. “Of course, that also means we take on some characteristics of their form, as well. That princess’ Djinn must look like a fish! What does your Djinn look like?”
After all, that could be the real difficulty, silly as it was. It’d been hard enough for Sinbad to grit his teeth and take on Zepar’s embarrassingly cute form the first time, and he’d had years of experience with his other Djinn before that. Alibaba was still young enough to be dreadfully mortified, and given Sinbad had no idea what form Amon liked to take-
Oh my. From that wide-eyed, utterly aghast look on the prince’s face, this was going to be good.
Alibaba swallowed. “It doesn’t matter, because I’m not doing it.”
Huh. That wasn’t embarrassment anymore. More… determination. And anger. The same fire in gold eyes Sinbad had seen in Rashid’s, when someone had suggested the King of Balbadd cross the lines Rashid had drawn for himself and his country ever since he’d taken the throne.
Why anger?
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
>Why anger? >
Probably because Alibaba sees it as stealing the Djinn’s power and twisting them into something they are not for your own purposes. And this King already made a big deal about being able to ask a Djinn if he was willing to do XYZ.
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Pretty much, yes. Luckily Alibaba is a Combat Pragmatist, or this would go even worse.
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Okay, that answered my confusion.
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And it’s not like Sinbad has ever asked for permission to do so. It’s not likely anyone has even thought to bother to ask for permission. Nah. It’s totally acceptable to take part of a djinn’s life force, use it as armor and drain it even further to use as a weapon. Oh yeah, this will go over just peachy keen.
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Also? Merchant.
Alibaba: “There is no way, no how, this is free.”
Yeah. Until he has some time to talk to Amon about how this works, he wants to be very careful with anything in this line.
…Given how borderline (or just straight over the border) crazy most of the Djinn Warriors seem to be, I can’t say he’s wrong….
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I with Sinbad on this one – why the anger?
I can understand the anger and the sense of wrong from using Amon’s power without giving him the ability to say no. But this one is baffling me.
And I’m hoping it is one that can be cleared up in a way that works for all involved because Alibaba and Balbadd are already at too much of disadvantage for Alibaba not ever use full Equip. To the point that he might as well be fighting without Amon for all the good that partnership will do him.
Because I can’t figure out what is bothering him, it is making my bunnies gripe about characters with a death wish. You do want to survive this crazy attempt to free your people and country, don’t you? And the subsequent retaliation because nobody appreciates having a monkey wrench thrown into their plans?
There is also the factor that Amon might feel insulted by that outright refusal. Even if Alibaba has a sound, if potentially flawed, reasoning for it. Because from what I understand of the full equip, it might be difficult to explain why you find it wrong without insulting the Djinn in question or at least making them feel insulted.
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In part this is because Alibaba is having a very bad week. Balbadd’s in danger, Aladdin’s out cold, Cassim’s been kidnapped, and everything’s crashing down on him at once. People under that much stress, backed into a corner, can go right off the Honor Before Reason cliff.
What Sinbad really needs to do here is explain a few more things about Djinn. Cross your fingers….
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What Sinbad really needs to do here is explain a few more things about Djinn.
Would be nice. Because I think this is enough trial and error, hope for the best.
Because Alibaba doesn’t know much about Djinn and their kings. Only what he’s read in stories and I bet the stories are somewhat slim on the actual mechanics involved and such (for a good reason – no sense in making it easier for people seeking to kill them by explaining too much – also it might get dull. People want you to get to the sword fights and other exciting bits).
Sinbad, please make yourself actually useful by explaining what you learned about Djinn since your first one. I think you can be described as one of the knowledgeable on this topic.
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I suppose the explanation he was given could pass for possession- the question of who is doing the possessing is the mind bending bit.
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Meep. *Nod*
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Huh, you know, on first read, I figured the “what does your djinn look like” line sounded a bit like a “c’mon, show off already!” (which yes, upon thought, makes little tactical sense), and I thought Alibaba’s big line was going to be that calling Amon without discussion/for a frivolous purpose was disrespectful.
…I still think that plays into it, just much less than my first impression. ^^;;
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Also Sinbad. Who cannot resist poking people!
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In the vein of the discussion below about the effects of an alien mind, imagine the effects of his seven Djinn on Sinbad’s mind.
Like maybe one of those effects is certain personality traits the person already has that they share with their Djinn are intensified.
For example, Sinbad was already attracted to shinny and had a very “Oooh me likes . . Mine!” attitude to start with. Ba’al is a dragon likely with the same attraction to shiny and attitude about what one does when one finds a particularly interesting sparkle.
That probably isn’t the only effect but it might be one of the big ones since we all know how like-and-like can resonate with magic.
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And Baal is canonically one of the nicer and more humane Djinns. When it comes to Zepar… eep.
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In my opinion,Alibaba’s got a point. You’re wrapping yourself in a Nonhuman’s power completely/without a price.If faerie tales taught me anything it’s this. RULE ONE: TANSTAAFL is king/Threefold rule. What are the consequences of binding yourself to an alien mind? Djinn are Friendly Eldrich Powers…
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Yes. The vast majority of them were not originally human. That’s… got to have an effect. Somehow.
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To be fair to those who don’t think there is a price or just effects of touching and binding with an inhuman mind, it’s not like they can really talk to the Djinn they are wrapping themselves in. Hard to get an accurate picture of someone when you probably only talked to them once when you were tired, hurt, hungry, and covered in yuck.
Everyone is operating on combination of trial-and-error guess work + what the Djinn can get through to their king via dreams + those moments where a Magi happens to be nearby and is willing to manifest said Djinn so they can actually have a face to face conversation (that is rare as most of the kings weren’t chosen by one or the magi doesn’t have anything to do with someone not from a specific country or the magi didn’t bother to hang around and answer important questions or the magi didn’t know they were a magi until recently or the magi is kinda of crazy and more) + sheer dumb luck = it works, no one is exactly sure how, and since most of them already had a touch of crazies (they went into a place where they know a lot of people died – that is not sane), maybe nobody notices the effect of binding yourself to said alien mind.
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