Chapter Text
Jasmine bint Hamid Al-Azhar Al-Nuriyya, rightful heir to the throne of Agrabah, died when she was twelve years old.
Her people mourned her; they lowered their voices in the streets. Lanterns were left flickering on windowsills, and the city that once danced to vibrant music fell into muted uncertainty.
For a week, the palace banners hung black. Flowers were laid at the gates. The court wept—or pretended to. Noble families sent condolences wrapped in gold and silk.
Jasmine watched it all from a distance.
She saw the mourners kneel, the flowers fall. She heard nobles speak of her beauty, her promise, her tragedy—as though they had not turned away from her cries days earlier.
It was an odd feeling, to watch your own funeral. It was as if she was a ghost. Is this how her mother felt when she died? Had her soul lingered, had she watched the aftermath? Had she seen her own funeral procession, too?
She watched her father—or what was left of him—standing hollow and still beneath the weight of Jafar’s hand on his shoulder. His eyes stared off somewhere far beyond the horizon.
She wanted to scream. To tear through the velvet-draped lies and grab her father’s hand. To ask him why he didn’t fight for her. Why he believed Jafar over his own blood.
But the Jasmine who might’ve done that had died in the desert.
Dahlia’s hijab—the drab, worn fabric which had once been so fine—covered her hair and shaded her face. It was the closest thing she had to armor.
From her dress, she’d even cut a strip of fabric for Jasmine to use as a veil. Jasmine was glad she had, or she would’ve been recognized as soon as she left the palace grounds.
Now, the cloth shielded her face, and in a strange way, her heart.
It still smelled like Dahlia, like her signature, flowery perfume oil which she’d treasured so much. A gentle, floral blend of jasmine and orange blossom, soft and sweet, like the girl who had once brushed knots from her hair and whispered jokes during royal banquets.
Jasmine inhaled carefully, eyes stinging. The scent was already fading.
With a heavy heart, she turned away from her past, and turned toward her future—the looming, darkened streets.
At first, the streets felt familiar. She’d glimpsed them from carriage windows, passed through them with guards flanking either side, smiled down from palace balconies at dancers and lanterns and fruit sellers.
Now, the same streets looked different. Louder. Harsher. Everything blurred together—heat, dust, color, sound. No one looked at her twice, and yet every glance felt like a threat.
She wandered for hours through alleys thick with smoke, through markets that had once greeted her with garlands and cheers, now cold and indifferent. Her fine slippers wore thin against cobblestone. Her stomach curled and knotted with hunger.
She passed food stalls dripping with roasted lamb, spiced rice, sweet pistachio pastries. The scents hung in the air like cruel ghosts, making her dizzy with want.
She kept her head down, too afraid to ask, too proud to beg.
The sun began to dip behind the sandstone rooftops, and the market grew meaner in the twilight.
She passed a vendor shouting over bruised fruit, a boy crying quietly as he clutched a stolen loaf.
She waited for the fire to find her—for her fury to rise in her gut and swallow her alive, but it didn’t come. In its place was a dull, hollow ache.
Later, she would recognize it as shock. But then, if she thought anything through the noise in her head, it was that she had been broken.
She turned into a narrow side street, darker and quieter, looking for anywhere to sit, to think, to breathe. A stone step, a patch of shade, maybe a crate to curl behind.
But the alley wasn’t empty.
A figure shifted at the far end.
Jasmine had always been a fighter. From birth, she was fire and smoke, fierce eyes and fiercer words. Clever and sharp and even unintentionally cruel.
Her mother, Sarina, had found it endlessly amusing. She’d often remarked that they had little need for guards when they had a little tiger in their midst (often, this was her way of dismissing said guards from the room).
Jasmine always responded by pretending to be an actual tiger, roaring and prowling around the room, hissing at advisors she didn’t quite like and purring when her parents scratched her behind the ear.
But that was when she was young, and new. That was when she was Jasmine bint Hamid Al-Azhar Al-Nuriyya. Now, she was no one.
Here, in the alley, her world had shrunk. The walls were too high, the sky too far. Her breath came too fast and not enough.
She tried to speak but nothing came.
(Oh, but if her parents could see her now. Jasmine had never been a quiet child.)
She backed into the stone wall and blinked hard, willing herself to think—to move—to fight.
But her limbs wouldn’t listen. Her body still thought she was in the throne room, screaming at Jafar, begging the guards to listen, stuck in the exact moment she realized she had become invisible to them—her words meaningless.
The taller man reached for her, his fingers brushing the edge of her veil.
And then the fire found her again, gasping back to life like a desperate child. It flared high, scorching.
She moved—not with grace, not like a warrior, but like an animal cornered. She slapped his hand away with every ounce of panic and fury surging through her.
“Don’t touch me!”
Her voice was hoarse, ragged, but it cracked loud against the alley walls.
He stumbled back, more surprised than hurt. The younger man stepped forward now, expression shifting from amusement to something colder.
“Little brat.”
He reached for her too—but she was already in motion. She ducked under his arm and scrambled away, breath sharp and shallow. Her legs were shaky but fast, driven by instinct and fear.
She reached for something—anything—on the ground. Her hand closed around a shard of broken pottery.
When he came at her again, she slashed.
It wasn’t deep. It wasn’t precise. But it was enough to make him shout and pull back, clutching his forearm.
(“There’s the tiger,” her mother would’ve said.)
Jasmine stood there, shaking, holding the shard like a dagger, wide-eyed and breathless. Somewhere inside, she felt the burn of pride—but it was buried under fear, under disbelief at how close it had come.
The older man growled, fury blooming in his eyes now. “You’re going to regret that.”
“No,” came a voice above them, calm, cocky, and certain. “You are.”
And when Jasmine looked up, she swore she saw an angel.
Perched on the low edge of a crumbling rooftop, silhouetted by the pale, dusty sun, stood a boy. Lean, lanky, with a mess of black curls and a wild grin stretched across his face.
His tunic was patched, his belt fraying, but he held himself like royalty.
He dropped down with easy confidence, landing between her and the men with a thud and a small cloud of dust. The older man took a wary step back. The younger one hissed, still gripping his bleeding arm.
Aladdin flicked a glance at Jasmine, eyes sharp but soft when they landed on her. “You alright?”
She gave a single, breathless nod, still clutching the shard like her life depended on it.
“Good,” he said. Then he turned to the two men, voice shifting into something cooler. “Because you’re about three seconds away from regretting your entire day.”
The older man barked a laugh. “Is that so?”
As if summoned by magic—or mischief—figures appeared on the surrounding rooftops. Three boys, no older than fifteen, scattered like cats on ledges and window frames. One held a sling, another a coil of rope, and the third a satchel that clinked ominously.
The man with the bleeding arm glanced up, eyes darting.
The slinger raised his arm.
“Careful,” Aladdin said, stepping forward, just slightly. “He’s got great aim. And you don’t have much blood left to spare.”
The two men hesitated.
“Not worth it,” the older one muttered. “Come on.” He jerked his head and the younger man followed, glaring at Jasmine like he wanted to say something—but didn’t dare.
They disappeared into the alley’s shadows, leaving only the lingering tension and the stench of fear behind.
The other boys—the silent shadows of her savior, eyed her strangely, before falling back and retreating onto the rooftops.
Silence.
Jasmine’s hand finally began to loosen its grip on the pottery shard. Her fingers were cramped, trembling.
Aladdin turned to her, smile dimming slightly. “You’re bleeding.”
She blinked. “I am?”
“Your hand,” he said, gently taking it. She flinched at first, but he was careful, lifting her fingers to reveal a shallow cut across her palm—probably from the shard. “It’s not bad. Just looks worse than it is.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Aladdin,” he said. “Prince of thieves, they call me!”
Jasmine let out a half-choked laugh, more breath than sound. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t sound so ungrateful,” he said, wearing a mock-scowl. “I should be asking who you are, anyway! Are you new to the city? I haven’t noticed you before, and I know everyone!”
“I’m—” she started, then stopped. Her heart thudded loud in her chest, like it was warning her. The truth was too dangerous. Her real name had power still, even if she had none.
So she did what her mother had once taught her in court, in the delicate space between diplomacy and deception.
She offered a half-truth.
“Jas,” she said finally, eyes steady on his. “My name’s Jas.”
Aladdin raised an eyebrow. “Just Jas?”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s all I’ve got right now.”
He studied her for a moment longer, then nodded, accepting it without pressing. “Well, Jas,” he said, grinning again, “you fight like a wildcat! I could use someone like you on my side.”
She breathed unsteadily, her lungs still catching up with everything that had happened—but relief flooded her, warm and unexpected. She recognized the offer beneath the grin. An alliance. A shield. An invitation not just to follow, but to belong.
It wasn’t the kind of protection that came with silk clothes and palace guards, but it was all she had, and she would take it and hold it with both hands.
So she nodded.
“Alright,” she said, voice quiet but firm.
“Come on,” he said, already turning toward the mouth of the alley. “You can hide out with me for a while.”
“Your crew fine with that?”
“They better be—we don’t live together, why should they care?”
Jasmine followed a step behind him, hand pressed to the cloth wrapping her palm, eyes flicking toward the street ahead. The city felt different now. Still dangerous, still loud and shifting—but no longer like it would swallow her whole.
Aladdin kept talking, mostly to fill the silence.
“You’ll meet the others soon,” he said. “They’re decent. Mostly. Don’t let Karim teach you dice—he cheats like it’s a religion.”
She allowed a small smile. “And what about you? Do you cheat?”
“Only at things I can’t win fairly,” he said with a wink. “Which is most things.”
She gave a faint smile, but her gaze flicked around—to the unfamiliar streets, the faces they passed, the noise that felt too close, too unpredictable.
Every sudden motion made her stomach lurch. She hated how raw everything felt. Like her skin had been turned inside out.
Aladdin stopped at a cracked wooden fence and pushed a loose slat aside. “Shortcut,” he said, stepping through without hesitation.
Jasmine hesitated. Then ducked after him.
On the other side was a narrow garden gone wild—bent trees, tall weeds, broken pots, and stone steps that led nowhere. The kind of forgotten corner that the palace would have cleared in a day. Here, it felt like a sanctuary.
Aladdin jumped up onto a low wall, offering a hand down to help her up the next ledge.
She looked at it.
Then at him.
And took it.
His grip was warm and steady, and she hated how much it made her throat ache.
They climbed higher, over ledges and broken shutters, until they reached a rooftop that overlooked the western stretch of Agrabah. Laundry flapped on distant lines. Chimneys curled smoke into the golden sky.
“This is me,” he said, gesturing to a faded blanket, a battered satchel, and what looked like a rolled-up rug for a bed. “Not exactly royal, but the view’s great.”
She stepped toward the edge and looked out.
The city stretched wide—loud and alive and impossible. Rooftops folded over one another like patchwork, stitched together by hanging laundry, crooked chimneys, and the occasional shout echoing from the streets below.
From up here, Agrabah didn’t look cruel. It looked endless. Chaotic. Beautiful. Like something that couldn’t be owned, only survived.
Jasmine sank down slowly, lowering herself with more care than grace. Her knees trembled from adrenaline and exhaustion, and when they hit the rooftop, a bolt of pain shot up her thigh. She winced and curled one leg beneath her.
Aladdin flopped down beside her with the careless ease of someone used to heights, bruises, and broken sleep. He rummaged in the worn satchel beside him and came up with an apple—soft and bruised on one side, but whole.
Without a word, he offered it to her.
She looked at it for a moment before taking it, her fingers brushing his. The apple was warm from being pressed against his body. She turned it in her hand, staring at the bruised skin, the tiny brown speckles near the stem.
Aladdin didn’t say anything. Just leaned back on his hands, legs stretched out in front of him, eyes on the horizon like he had all the time in the world.
Jasmine sat with the apple in her lap. Her fingers curled around it tightly.
And then, quietly: “Why’d you help me?”
Her voice was hoarse, and small. It didn’t sound like a princess. It barely sounded like a person.
Aladdin didn’t look at her right away. He just laughed a little to himself, softly.
“Why not? You looked like you needed help.”
Jasmine blinked, her chest tightening.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but I know your name’s not Jas. Doesn’t matter. What I saw was a girl in trouble. How could I turn away?”
“I didn’t expect you to fight back like that,” he added, glancing at her now, his grin returning. “That was spectacular. ”
“I didn’t know I was going to,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Aladdin nodded, then leaned back fully until he was lying on the roof, arms behind his head, staring up at the slowly purpling sky.
“You don’t have to know everything,” he said. “You just have to keep moving.”
So Jasmine laid beside him, staring up into the great abyss until the darkness fell in full and the heavens blinked their hundred-thousand eyes.
Perhaps not an angel—too mischievous. Maybe he was more akin to a djinn. Whatever the case, he was the only friend she had left in the world.