"Jasmine," her father huffed, his eyes low and small (almost completely hidden by dark bags that, Jasmine noticed, he had not had when she'd last seen him). "Did you have to do this again?"
Jasmine's eyes fell to the ground, to her torn clothes and dirty feet. She looked out of place there, in the castle that she had once called home. Her clothes were a mess and her hair fell nearly to her back.
"Do you know how much work it takes to get you back?" He was trying not to sound angry, she could hear it in his voice, but the look did cross through his eyes. "We've done this more than enough times. When will you finally stop? And to think, I actually thought guards could stop you."
A shape moved in the corner of Jasmine's eye. She turned, locking eyes on Rajah. He looked thinner than before, and his yellow eyes lacked their former gleam. The tiger turned and walked towards her, each step looking harder to take than the last.
No, no, no! she thought. She would have taken her pet with her if she could; she had loved Rajah, ever since he was nothing but a little cub.
Her little cub.
Despite herself, she ran towards the beast, wrapping her arms around it. Rajah let out a soft growl, the closest noise that he could make to a purr, and rubbed her neck with his furry snout.
"Oh, I missed you." Jasmine said, combing her fingers through his fur.
It had been so long since she had last seen him. Ever since that fateful night, the one where Jasmine had put months of planning into action, the night where she sneaked past countless guards and carried all that she would ever need on her back... How long had it been since that night? That night where she had run past the castle, until it was nothing but a speck in the distance, a memory from another land...
How long?
It had been a warm night, Jasmine remembered. A warm, windy night, where the world seemed open, so much bigger than it had been before. Not even her pet's pleas could have stopped her.
"There's a whole world out there," Jasmine had spoken, gesturing towards the garden walls. "Mulan and I are going to find it."
Mulan... It had been hard to think of her, at least when Jasmine had been captured. Now, the name filled her mind, the memory of the other woman settling over her mind.
They had promised each other that this would be the last time that Jasmine ran away, the last time either had to worry about seeing the other again.
"This time," Mulan had said one night, right after the two had made camp, "will be the last time that we ever see Agrabah again."
Jasmine had nodded.
Mulan held her sword in her hand, and waved it high into the air, as if daring any hidden monster to come forward and fight her. There had been a gleam in her eyes, something powerful that had made Jasmine never want to look away. The way that Mulan had said it had made the change easier. Yes, she would be leaving her country, but with Mulan at her side it had seemed easier. Mulan, after all, had been everywhere, ever since she herself had left her home country so many years before.
But Agrabah hadn't truly been her home - only its castle. She was the princess, and that was where princesses resided.
At least according to the law.
"Come inside, Jasmine," her father said, tearing her away from her thoughts. "You need to get changed. After that, I have business to attend to." He shook his head and sighed.
Jasmine pulled away from her pet and looked around. The castle garden, so smooth and serene.
So crafted.
So fake.
Already, she could feel the walls closing in on her.
As familiar as the castle was, it wasn't where she should have been. Jasmine knew she should have been with Mulan, knew it in her soul and her heart, knew it even more than the list of laws that she had been forced to memorized as a child (laws that princesses were supposed to know, even when they had not the power to put those laws into effect).
No, she thought.
She was supposed to be in a marshy wetland, a grassy field, or in a dry desert, places that she and Mulan had been to before. She had also offered to show Jasmine deep jungles and dry forests, with trees that seemed to scrape the sky. She was supposed to be in the places that Mulan had promised her father's soldiers would never find her.
But they had, hadn't they? The plains that they had been exploring had seemed so pristine and far away from her former country, and yet that hadn't stopped her father's soldiers from trampling in and finding her.
And Mulan? That was the last place that she had ever seen her. Where she was now, Jasmine could only guess.
Maybe she'll come back, Jasmine thought. She certainly had before, even when her face, both her true face and the disguise she wore (a handsome, at least if Jasmine were to be honest, soldier named Ping, was on wanted posters.
Jasmine looked above the garden walls. She saw only an empty sky and thick, white marble walls. If Mulan had returned, or was yet to, then Jasmine had yet to see her.
"Jasmine," her father said again. "I am serious; we absolutely must get inside."
Jasmine sighed and turned away. With heavy steps, she walked towards her father and into the palace doors. Rajah followed behind her, moving a bit faster than before "Coming, father."
Just as the doors were about to close, Jasmine turned her head to look outside. She saw only her garden, the white walls, and slowly darkening sky. Then, nothing but smooth stone when the doors closed, sending an echoed thud through the castle's walls.