This is just a little story that's been swimming around in my head for awhile...I wondered what might have transpired while the Jabberwocky was serving Jafar if she happened to run into the Sultan.
Enjoy~
"True Power Comes from Fear"- The Sultan
He sat hunched over, picking apart the last bits of his wretched excuse of a meal as though it were the finest platter in Wonderland. The Sultan's rugged, withered face scrunched into a grimace as he ate, accepting the nourishment solely because he feared the consequences that would ensue should he try to starve himself to death again.
The dim lights in the prison flickered, catching his attention. Bleary eyes scanned the horizon.
"Who's there?" His voice was hoarse from disuse.
The lights flickered again, accompanied by a burble of…
...laughter.
Cruel laughter.
"Who is there?" He asked again, with more authority.
"He never talks about you," a voice, the one the laughter belonged to, commented. It was feminine...but vaguely monstrous.
"Jafar...that is…" she continued, voice echoing through the lonely dungeon halls.
"Show yourself!" The Sultan ordered, flying to his feet.
She chuckled, "listen to all your silly words,"
The Sultan listened closely, waiting to hear where she might be moving.
"You don't really want me to show myself," she cackled, "but that's too bad, I'm already here.
The Sultan whirled and found himself face to face with a tall, slender woman smirking coldly from bright reptilian eyes. He choked in his breath; this woman - this thing - was not human. She held an air of something that had existed for millenniums, ancient beyond comprehension.
And it had gotten into his cell without him realizing it.
"Hello Sultan," she mocked, enjoying the sound of his accelerating pulse,"or should I call you...Jafar's father."
Rage boiled in the Sultan's belly, for the moment more potent than fear, "He is not my-"
"Oh I know all that," she vanished, appearing behind the Sultan in the time it took him to blink. She tilted her head, "What normal son keeps his father locked in the dungeon, hmm?"
"What are you?" The rage dissolved, replaced by icy fear, rooting him where he stood.
"I...am the Jabberwocky." she smiled and disappeared again.
"But I wouldn't expect you to know that," she now stood just outside the cell, "after all," she waved a hand dramatically, "you don't know much about Wonderland. As for who I am...well...you will see shortly," She smiled. It was not friendly.
The Sultan drew in a fortifying breath, "I saw Jafar bring you in, what does he need you for?"
"Jafar freed me...I think he needed a...woman's touch," She dragged her curved nails across the bars of the cell. Clink. Clink. Clink…
"More like a monster's touch," the Sultan spat.
"I couldn't have said it better myself," she leaned her face close to the bars, "now that we're all introduced, I'd like to move on to...business."
"Business?" the Sultan raised an eyebrow, trying to appear unruffled, "of what sort?"
"Jafar...hasn't said a word about you...not a peep about the mysterious old man he keeps locked away for eternity...not a whim or a reason…" the Jabberwocky paused, "except...I already know plenty about his relationship with you."
"And how would that be?"
She gave an all-knowing glance and continued as though he had not spoken, "I came here today to observe, to get a taste of the wretch Jafar holds so deeply in love and in hate." She gripped the bars of the cage, "what are you afraid of, Sultan?" Her eyes narrowed and she seemed to search the man's wisened face for clues. He shrank back, discomfort growing from her close scrutiny, " Hmmm, even in such a rotten state, you're still an arrogant bastard. Your fears...are foolish and ill placed."
The Sultan finally seemed to realize what she was doing, began to feel her inside his head, and clamped his hands over his ears,"what are you doing?" he croaked.
"Skimming over your fears. I find it strange that you do not fear Jafar and what he's doing. You neither fear death nor pain...no...your fears exist farther in the past. You fear what the kingdom thinks of you, after Jafar usurped you…you fear what will become of your other son, Mirza, was it?, because he died a coward."
"Stop this! I beg you!" the old man hunched forward, clawing at his scalp.
"But I've only begun," her smile widened, "ah, there it comes, the fear. And finally, you have a sensible one: a fear of me. Now then, where are all those memories, those locked away whispers of things you don't want me to hear...memories of how you tried to drown your son-"
"He's not my-"
"Shh, shh," The Jabberwocky shushed him with a finger, appearing inside the cell, "I do the talking, you do the trembling. You don't want me to know your remorselessness - even though I didn't need to read your fears to see it. Look at me, Sultan," she tilted his chin up, "the memory, you're trying hardest to suppress...is when Jafar returned to you. The prodigal son," she snorted sardonically, "You don't' want me to know the specifics...how the only son you ever loved fled like a coward," she stuck out her lower lip, "he wouldn't stay to save his own father. And then, Jafar asked one thing of you, one thing, and what was that?"
"Leave me alone," the Sultan moaned.
"You needed only to say the words, you…" she trailed off, a furrow forming at her brow. This was not a mock frown. "You are despicable...you could have stopped Jafar with a word, yet you in all your pride would not and instead you made him into a villain" She reappeared outside the cell, eyes narrowed dangerously. "The folly that you wrought has caused you unending torment, and set a madman loose across the worlds intent on absolute power. It is you, Sultan," her glowing eyes bored into his, "who is the true villain."
Indignation flared in the old man, "I did not make Jafar become anything! He chose-"
"Ah ah, but you were the one with the power, whose hand chose to twist Jafar from the pleading boy who just wanted a father... to the monster he is today." The Jabberwocky wrinkled her nose, "you disgust me," she glanced about the dank, dripping dungeon walls, "this cage...it is fitting for you."
"And I shall rot in my self made prison for the rest of my days," the Sultan said with infuriating resolve, "and so shall Jafar."
"His prison?" She raised an eyebrow.
"We make our own demons...our own prisons...Jafar is as much my prisoner as I am his," the Sultan voiced shakily, still filled with a crippling fear of angering her further.
"Hmm, I suppose your age has bestowed upon you a shred of wisdom," the Jabberwocky mused, "every monster has a source...you...Jafar...me. It is appropriate that you be a prisoner of your own device," she leaned towards the cell, "I look forward to seeing the fate that befalls the monster the bore a villain. Seems to be a family trait."
The Jabberwocky turned to leave, too disgusted to remain in the same vicinity as the Sultan.
"What about you, Jabberwocky," The Sultan called out, "what is your source, what caused you to be a monster?"
She smiled, that same unfriendly smirk, "people never choose to be monsters, not at first anyways. Sometimes, Sultan, the source is quite close to home." she gestured to her chest.
The Sultan blinked and she vanished. A breeze flickered through the dungeon, snuffing out all of the dim, flickering candles.
"There is a heart of darkness in Wonderland."
The Sultan froze, the voice was behind him, but he was too afraid to move.
"Some ignore it, some try to conquer it, some try to destroy it...others...a very small few...embrace it. Because the heart of darkness is not something external." The Jabberwocky stared down at the Sultan's trembling form, "The monster is always inside of us, waiting, just waiting for the right hand to bend and break us, and set it free." She leaned close to his ear,
"I believe you once said, 'true power comes from fear'...I couldn't agree more. Fear casts asunder even the most brave and resolute...arrogant rulers and ambitious sorcerers...when terror has reduced them to dust, fear will still remain.
And so will I.
Because I am fear.
Wonderland knows it. And you would do well to remember it."
The Jabberwocky's presence vanished an instant later and the Sultan choked out the breath he had been holding in. He shuddered and sank trembling to his knees, feeling like he could not get enough air in the vacuum the Jabberwocky left in the wake of her suffocating presence.
One by one the candles flickered back to life, illuminating the decrepit facets of the dungeon that had suddenly become a comforting sight.
A flurry of laughter rang through the dungeons, sending shivers down the Sultan's spine. He settled into his cell, realizing for the first time that the bars were not there to keep him in...but rather to keep the other monsters out...
Some final notes: the Jabberwocky is my favorite character from OUATiW...I just love her crazy, psychotic, intriguing awesomeness and it makes me sad that she really was the only one who got the short end of the stick at the end of the show.
The Sultan is probably my least favorite character. If he had shown a shred of remorse towards his shortcomings as a father for Jafar...I wouldn't disdain him so harshly.
The quote "True power comes from fear" turned out to be exceptionally fitting for this exchange. Though the Sultan originally spoke the words, the Jabberwocky turns it back on him because of her inherent dominion over fear, making the Sultan realize that he is correct in his statement...but wrong to assume that he is the one with the power.