Chapter Text
Jafar
He sat upon his bejewelled cushion, basking in the adoration of his loyal subjects.
It had been only two months since the previous Sultan had died, leaving behind no heirs and thus appointing his most trusted Royal Vizier to take his place. It was a decision most saw coming, for the Sultan’s health had begun to dwindle, and he had no descendants. It wasn’t hard to tell that he would leave the Kingdom of Agrabah for Jafar, for they had been close in life.
But make no mistake, Jafar was a great pick despite his lack of official status. He was once a commoner like most of the Kingdom, and thus understood what it was like to have nothing and be raised in the streets. He did his best to remind himself of his past every morning, when he would parade through the city streets to look upon his subjects. Some saw it as showboating, although Jafar had never intended this. Instead, he saw it as inspiring. It was his way of telling the people that with enough hope and hard work, they too can pull themselves out of the gutter and become somebody important.
In the two months that had passed, public interest in Jafar grew due to pure curiosity. The previous Sultan was well-liked but was seen as mostly a well-meaning buffoon who struggled to make executive decisions, and though it was never said publicly, many assumed that every major decision was actually the work of Jafar. It was likely this that led to most people’s indifference to the new Sultan. True, he was the first Sultan in millennia to not be directly related to the previous one, but he’d been the Sultan for far longer than the last one had been gone. It was just that it was public knowledge now.
The only thing was, nobody could tell what Jafar’s ideals were just yet. He’d only been official Sultan for two months, and in those two months, he had taken suggestions and offered help to those in need, but it seemed as though he had never actually done anything. Two months wasn’t a long time, but people found his lack of opinions rather apathetic. He was a Sultan who stood for nothing as of yet, and nobody knew what to make of him.
But again, it had been only two months. Some held out hope that he would hold some big ceremony and announce something he had been planning in secret all along, and yet, he never did.
So up there he sat, towering above all of them in his expensive luxuries, and disciplined horse, and he looked down upon them with a sense of nothing. Simply apathy. Was he mocking them up on his high horse, or was he trying to be friendly?
Whatever the case, he smiled and continued his mini-parade down the Bazaar, before his horse began to deviate from its usual strict and stiff march and began to panic.
In brief glimpses, Jafar noticed the cause of the ruckus. A girl, no, a girl and a boy, had rushed across the road and almost got trampled by his giant stallion. As he pulled his horse back to avoid crushing the poor, skinny kids, he began to feel himself slipping and almost fell off the horse himself.
“Move you fools!” Jafar commanded, utterly baffled as it seems both children had gone straight into their fight or flight mode, instead choosing to freeze.
Right in front of his path.
The horse continued to panic, stepping back further. Jafar locked eyes with the boy, who glared at him with a look of pure contempt before the two siblings fled into the crowd, disappearing. As his attention left the vermin, Jafar now noticed the entire crowd was laughing and snickering. At him?
“Did you see that?” A voice in the crowd whispered.
“He tried to run those orphans over,” another voice huffed.
“He didn’t even check to see if they were okay!”
“You’d think he’d have better control over that horse…”
“Poor kids.”
The whispers faded into each other, growing and rising to a grating sound in Jafar’s ear as he scowled. Finally, he frowned and turned his horse back towards the palace, where he made no effort to acknowledge the crowd, even as he got further from the small gathering of witnesses.
Yet, gossip spread quickly in Agrabah, and word-of-mouth caused things to get lost along the way. It was two months later when Jafar was officially known throughout the Kingdom as a stuck-up noble who didn’t care about orphaned children. Jafar supposed it was his fault then. He had never shown who he was or told anybody of his motivations. Nobody knew who he was or what he stood for, so it was up to the people to fill in the blanks. Unluckily for Jafar, his only public act besides waving was almost trampling some children to death.
As time passed, Jafar stopped appearing in the streets of Agrabah and only addressed his people from his balcony window or at certain events. In hindsight, Jafar regretted such a thing. Perhaps if he had acknowledged his one misdemeanour instantly, nobody would’ve cared.
But he didn’t.
And now he was known as the Sultan who abused orphan children. When alone at night, Jafar assured himself that nobody truly believed this about him. It was Agrabah after all, and people these days had nothing to do besides sell, buy, steal or lie. Telling stories, even heavily dramatised ones, was the only way to get by nowadays.
Still, Jafar grew lonely up there in his golden towers, and thus it came late at night when he stood before his fireplace and began to cry.
“Oh! Why did you make me the Sultan, you old fool?! I was no leader, I was a Vizier! An advisor! Yet, in the heat of the moment, it was I who needed advice. Oh, how true it is that one could give the best advice in the world but would struggle to follow it themselves!” Jafar madly raved, removing his jewelled headdress and throwing it across the room.
He ranted and raved, crying out for salvation and wishing desperately for somebody to help him. The fireplace bellowed, and soon the tangerine warmth of the flames shifted into an acidic green.
And when Jafar looked up, his wish came true.
Aladdin
The Street Rat sat in the alleyway, keeping to the shadows to stay cool. Beside him, his sister shifted in her garments, only showing her eyes as she scanned the busy streets of the marketplace.
They kept to themselves in these labyrinthine alleyways that made up Agrabah. When everything was made of sandstone and practically identical vendor carts, it was easy to get lost, but the two siblings knew their way around.
As of right now, they were outside the secondary marketplace. Typically, merchants preferred to sell their wares closer to the palace, perhaps in the hopes that they could haggle with somebody who actually had money. Aladdin and Jasmine did not go near those stalls, for they were too crowded and were surrounded by palace staff. Back during the previous Sultan’s rule, the staff were incompetent and served mainly as decoration. Once Jafar took over, he quickly whipped them into shape, turning the once-useless staff into things to be feared. At first, it was alright; they were mostly there as a warning, and those who did get caught simply got a punishment to suit the crime. Then a year or two into his reign, something just changed. The guards became mad with power and would patrol the streets just looking for somebody to attack and brutalise, whether or not they had done anything to deserve it. Nowadays, they would lock you up in their dungeon just for loitering, or cut your hand off if you were lucky.
Instead, Aladdin and Jasmine sat in an alleyway next to the marketplace, and close to a set of eroded stairs. The steps ascended up onto a roof, which was the closest to the stalls. Rookie merchants would put their stalls closer to the walls to get more shade, and this was perfect for Aladdin and Jasmine to swoop in and get their food for the day. Usually, an apple to split between the two, but on the good days, they were able to snag a loaf of bread.
Aladdin blinked at Jasmine, who gave him a rapid flutter in return. Then her eyes widened, and she began to shake her head. With a twitch of her head, Aladdin carefully looked over, where he saw Razoul and his guards patrolling the street.
“Not him again…” Aladdin groaned.
Jasmine lowered the rags from her face and smirked at her brother. “You’d think he would learn from last time.”
Aladdin chuckled as the memory of the guards landing in “fertiliser” returned to him.
“Say, want to give him a reminder?” Aladdin asked.
Jasmine looked down the street at the Captain as he locked eyes with her, his face contorting into rage as he began to literally turn red.
“As always.”