Round 5 - Fairytale
Fairytale: Aladdin
Prompts:
(easy) (dialogue) "If you believe in yourself, anything is possible"
(medium) (location) Whale Tail Island
(hard) (song) "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" - Disney song
Word Count:
"Did you get what it is I sent you for?" Ozai's voice booms out over the dunes and into the night, demanding recompense for his son's petulance.
"Yes, yes of course Father…" Zuko got down on one knee, head bowed, hands out stretched toward his father with the other half of the medallion sitting in his palms for the taking. "...though I had to chop a few heads in the process."
Ozai wastes no time snatching it up and matching it with the half in his possession. The ground begins to tremble and off in the distance the sand shifts, out rising a golden vulture lion from its depths.
"WELL! What are you waiting for fool! Follow that trail!"
Zuko scrambles to his feet and back onto his mongoose lizard. "Yes s-sir!"
"All my life I have been waiting for this…." Ozai mumbles to himself as the pair pull to a stop just outside the mouth of the monument. "Now remember boy, go in and get me that lamp. The rest of the treasures are yours, but that lamp is mine."
Zuko hesistates as the Vulture Lion's mouth opens, turning into the mouth of the cave.
"WHO DARES THINK HE WORTHY TO ENTER MY TOMB!?"
"It is I, Prince Zuko," comes the meek reply, unsure of how to continue on.
"KNOW THIS, ONLY ONE MAY ENTER. A DIAMOND IN THE RUFF!"
Ozai, obviously becoming impatient motions for Zuko to continue on into the cave. "What are you waiting for? Go on, boy!"
The young prince takes a tentative step into the mouth. Once nothing happens, he takes another and another.
A roar rings out across the desert as the cave closes shut, and the monument sinks back into the ground as if it had never risen. The medallion in Ozai's hand snaps back into two…
With a growl he turns back towards the city, watching the lights spill out of the palace. There was only one way to fix this problem, and finally get the lamp, he had to find the one worthy… The diamond in the ruff.
"Stop, Thief!" The member of the Royal Guard called out, tailing after the bald urchin boy running away with the stollen bread.
"It's not theft, consider it a loan!" The boy hollers back at the puffing guard, laughing the whole way.
It's the middle of the day, high noon and the market is packed. Merchants and mongers selling fish and finery, housewives heading out to find the finest vegetables to take home for supper. It was easy for the short boy to weave through the legs of the people around him and lose the bulkier guard.
"This isn't over Street Rat! Ya Here!?" Aang hears behind him as he climbs up the side of a mud brick building to the loft he calls home.
Yeah yeah yeah… That's what you say everytime… He thinks to himself, settling down in the large open window overlooking the busy market below.
A flying lemur glides down from the rafters, landing on Aang's bald head. With a laugh the boy breaks the loaf of bread he managed to swipe, handing half of it up to his companion.
"One day we won't have to live like this, Momo… I promise…"
"Father! Why won't you listen to me! I don't want to marry any of these men." The exasperated shout rang through the empty corridors of the palace and out into the gardens. Any servant within earshot knew exactly what was happening.
For the past several months suitors from all across the Earth Kingdom had been coming to present themselves to the princess in hopes of winning her favor, and her hand in marriage… Though all had been turned away empty handed.
Lao took a long calming breath before answering his daughter. "You must pick one before your next birthday, or you will force me to pick for you my daughter. I'm sorry to have upset you, but this is the way things are…"
"I never asked to be Princess! All I want is to live alone and practice my earth bending." With that being said, Toph stalked off, barefoot as usual, to her favorite place.
It was located in a wayward section of the eastern garden, in a small grove easily overlooked by anyone just wandering through on an evening stroll. Thorned vines covered the entry into her hiding place, and the shrub walls that were well tended by the gardeners gave her all the privacy she needed to practice in peace.
I'll show him! Toph thought spitefully. I'll run away, and he won't be able to marry me off to whomever he so chooses.
Later That Evening…
Dusk and dark were slowly creeping in, shadows expanding out of darkened corners to hungerly engulf everything it could reach with it's long tendrils. The princess, dressed in a commoner's cloak, quietly stalked through the long corridors toward the front gate. Ever so often a guard would walk by, causing her to take quick cover and making her heart race with adrenaline at almost being caught. Finally, she slips out the door and onto the front lawn, taking cover in the elaborate shrubs that line the path to the front gate.
The closer she got, the louder the din of the market could be heard. Though the Princess was blind, she could sense the vibrations of what was going on with her feet. Two young children racing through the stalls, a merchant making a deal with another man, a woman packing vegetables into her basket.
Under the cover of the darkness, and her cloak, Toph easily integrated herself into the crowd, no one taking notice to where she had come from. Her senses were sent into overload, as she was fully immersed in what was going on around her as she had never been before. Quickly, she shuffled forward weaving through the crowd with almost the same adeptness of the children she had picked up with her seismic sense earlier.
"WOW Momo, look at her! She's gorgeous.." Aang says, sitting on his perch high above.
He and Momo, his trusty flying lemur, had made it a regular haunt, sitting here to eat their daily spoils well out of the reach of guards.
As the princess walks by, merchants call out to her, offering her different products from brass and silver pots to sugar dates and figs. She chooses to ignore most, until one thrusts a fish in front of her blind eyes. The smell assaults her nostrils in such a way as to make her nearly lose what was left of her dinner, and she stumbles backward into another man, a firebender it seems.
"Oh, excuse me ma'am!" He says, belching fire into the air just above her head. "Didn't quite see you there."
Toph walks forward, continuing onward. At the edge of an alley, she senses a young