Heya! Thanks to all those who visited, put this story on alert, and reviewed.
My muse loves the attention.
Wait, warning though, this chapter contains a teeny-tiny bit about drinking.
So, without further ado (save for the disclaimer), here's chapter 3!
Disclaimer: This fanfic is based on Disney's Aladdin.
Chapter 3: We Adopted A Crazy Sister
Al and I spent the night on the palace.
Yes, my friends, you heard me right. We, the lowly thieves of Agrabah spent the night on the Sultan's palace.
The catch, though, was that were in the dungeon; which was to be expected. I mean, The Palace guards were onto us for several months now; they would have caught us sooner or later. But the annoying part is (yes, there is a much, much more aggravating part than being caught by the guards and sent to prison to be executed the next day!) is that we were accused of abducting the princess!
Pity, isn't it? And to think that we started the day quite normally.
Well, normal for my brother and me, that is.
[Earlier that day]
Al and I woke up kinda late. He's still downcast with what the Prince said, about us being nothing more but filthy street rats. He almost got caught by the shopkeeper when we went out to get some snacks that I realized being called a 'street rat' one too many times got to him. Bad. So I went out again and borrowed a jar of wine, took it home, and Al, Abu, and I drank to our heart's content. There, Al vented out, drowned his sorrows, and drank some more.
The result is all three of us sleeping in (not to mention the terrible, terrible headache). The upside, however, is that Aladdin is back to his old, care-free self. We then set out to go pilfer our breakfast.
Hasaan, the fruit vendor, has some new crops today. They are called 'melons'. I've tasted one before. It was red, and sweet and juicy and watery. Perfect if you're living in the desert. But melons don't grow here. So cactuses are the next best thing.
Anyway, we crept up atop the fruit stand's awning. I was dressed up as Amar, of course. The plan was that Abu will distract the vendor. And while our good man's attention is diverted to our furry friend, Al will dip down and grab a fruit. Easy, we could do this in our sleep.
"Try this, your taste buds will dance and sing!" Hasaan below was busy commercializing his, "Fresh fruits from a foreign land!"
"Okay, Abu. Go!" Al said, motioning for Abu to distract the merchant. Abu saluted and hang by his tail, off to annoy the vendor.
"Hey, get your paws off that!" The merchant said angrily. I can hear Abu's chattering and was trying not to laugh. "Why, you! Get away from here, you filthy ape!"
Aladdin dipped down, grabbed a rather large melon, and tossed it to me. Abu zinged back up to us.
"Nice goin' Abu!" Aladdin said as they did that weird handshake-applause combination thing again while I broke the melon in three.
"Breakfast is served, boys!" I said happily, handing them their shared before sinking my teeth into my melon. The flesh is green in colour this time but it still has that sweet, refreshing flavour. We went on to watch the people in the marketplace, selling a variety of furniture, food, weapons, jewels and whatnot. My favourite though, is the man that eats flames. I mean, how awesome is that? He usually goes and does his fire-eating at noon. He rehearses during the morning, and right now he's just a few stalls away from us.
A woman in robes bumped into the fire-eater, startling him into swallowing his fire unexpectedly. The lady seemed to be saying her apologies to Mr Fire-eater, who then gulped and belched fire from his mouth. The lady jumped in surprise, this is probably her first time to see someone who does that.
"Wow…" Aladdin breathed in awe.
"I know, right? And here I thought his internal organs will explode." I muttered in agreement.
"Not him, her." My brother said quite dreamily. My attention was then diverted to the lady. She's beautiful, I'll give her that. Then, the unexpected happened. My brother sighed, gazing at the girl. I felt my eye twitched, while Abu jumped onto Al's head, waving his tiny little paws in front of my brother's face.
Okay… so my brother's… clearly infatuated with the girl. I'll let him have that moment.
"Helloo..? Hello?" Abu lightly screeched.
"Let him have his moment, Abu." I told the monkey, picking him up and placing him on my head instead. Abu grumbled some incoherent things.
Then, the lady stopped at the fruit stand next to ours; she might have taken pity on a kid looking longingly at the apples (the same kind of look al was giving out to her. Creepy.)
"Aww, you must be hungry." The Lady cooed. She then grabbed an apple and handed it to the kid. Good she's got dough. That's nice, some lady treating a little orphan to some apple—whoa! She started walking away!
The merchant (who, in fact was menacing) stepped out of his stall, and growled, "You'd better be able to pay for that."
"Pay?" The girl turned, surprised. As if she's only heard the word 'pay' for the first time.
"No one steals from my cart!" The merchant grabbed her arm. Meanwhile, I felt my brother tensing up. People were starting to notice the bubbling commotion.
"Oh, I'm sorry sir. I don't have any money." She tried to reason. Man, I feel like smacking my hand onto my face right at that moment. How naïve can you get? Even our first time stealing went better than that! We weren't even caught!
"Thief!" The Merchant bellowed. Aladdin sat up, ready to spring into action.
"P-please, i-if y-you let me go to the palace, I can g-get some from the Sultan-!" The poor, pretty little lady was stuttering. Man, if I wasn't irritated right now, I would have taken pity to her.
"Do you know what the penalty is for stealing?" The merchant grabbed hold of her arm and held it down on the table, taking his sword out. I felt all the blood rushing out of my face. Damn conscience!
"N-no, n-no p-please!" The lady was struggling, looking out on people, silently pleading anyone to help her. But here on the marketplace, not many people will risk their necks out for you. Only stupid people will risk their lives for you.
"C'mon!" Al grabbed my hand and we raced down to stop the be-handing.
Well, that puts Al and me onto the 'few stupid people' category. Al swiftly caught the merchant's hand, and said, Thank you kind sir. We're so glad you've found her." Al grabbed the sword and handed it out to me. I have to improvise… And fast!
Then, an idea hit me, square in the head. "We've been looking all over for you." I told the girl.
"What are you doing?" She whispered to me.
"Just play along, princess." I snapped quietly, dragging her away from the apple stand. Was it just me, or did her eyes widen at the sound of 'Princess'?
"You know this girl?" Mr Menacing merchant asked.
"Sadly, yes. She is our sister." Aladdin said., then he leaned in to Mr Merchant and not-so-silently whispered, "She's a little crazy." He circled his finger around his ear for emphasis. The little lady scoffed. But I kept on dragging her off.
But the burly merchant grabbed MY brother by the front of his vest, and uttered, "She said she knows the Sultan!"
"She thinks the monkey is the Sultan." I deadpanned, stifling a laugh. Little lady turned quite irritated at me, but I gave her a 'go-worship-the-monkey-if-you-want-all-of us-to-live' look. She blinked a couple of times, before catching my drift. Abu straightened up.
The lady finally bowed at Abu, saying , "Oh, wise Sultan. How may I serve you?"
And the haughty little monkey chattered some more incoherent things, and then patted her cloaked head.
"Tragic, isn't it?" Aladdin said in feigned sadness. But I can see how He leans forward, picking up another apple from the cart with his foot. He handed it to the Merchant who now has his mouth hanging open. "But, no harm done." He motioned me to go while he helped up our 'crazy sister' back on her feet.
"Now come along Sis. Time to see the doctor." Al said with a small grin while I shook hands with the merchant for the last time.
"Oh, hello doctor. How are you?" Our 'crazy sister' said to a random camel. I turned to check on the Merchant, and he was back to his stall, muttering about crazy people.
"No, no, no. Not that one." Aladdin said. 'patiently'. "Come on, Sultan." He called Sultan Abu.
Abu bowed and said parting words to his… 'People', but then, everything he nicked from the people spilled out of his vest. He then chattered in a panicky way. The people started laughing, getting the attention of Mr Apple Vendor back to us. He noticed the apples on the ground.
"Huh? What the-," He noticed Abu pick up the apples he can carry, I didn't turn around. I ran laughing.
"Come back here, you little thieves!" He bellowed.
I ran faster and laughed some more.
We took the lady back to our house.
Man, this is the first time I saw Al taken by some lady. I climbed up the roof first, with Abu on atop of my head. Al came next, supporting the frail little lady.
"Almost there," he said to her. She climbs over the top, but trips and falls into Aladdin's arms. They stayed like that, cuddling for a few seconds. I rolled my eyes and cleared my throat. They looked at me and broke off.
I was sure that the girl's face flushed violent shade of red. I just didn't see it, no thanks to the darkness. "I want to thank you… both of you, for stopping that man." She said.
"Don't mention it." I smiled at her. I vaulted a head of them. The romantic air was suffocating me.
"Uh, forget it." He walked away from her, probably to hide his blushing face. He grabbed a pole, and said, "So this is your first time in the marketplace, huh?" And then he vaulted over to another roof top, leaving us behind. Show off.
"Is it that obvious?" The girl said, amused.
"Well, you do kinda stand out." My right eye twitched when I saw him looking… romantically at her. She stared back at him at the same manner. I grinned. She seemed to like him back.
"I mean," Al faked a cough. "You don't seem to know how dangerous Agrabah can be." He placed a plank between the buildings for her to walk over, but as he is leaned down to steady the plank, she surprised us both when she vaults over our heads. Well, whaddaya know. The frail little lady isn't so frail after all!
She tosses the pole to Al. Honestly speaking, I felt my jaw dropping. I'm starting to like her for my brother.
"I'm a fast learner." She shrugged. Aladdin was starting to gaze dreamily at her again, but then I nudged him back to reality. He nodded.
"Right. C'mon, this way." He led her through the entrance of our home, telling her to occasionally dodge a random wooden plank or something.
"Is this where you live?" The girl was in awe. If Al had taken home some other girls, they might have scoffed, and turned away with disgust. But she seemed okay with our living condition.
"Yep. Just me, my brother, and Abu." Aladdin said. "We come and go as we please."
"That sounds fabulous." The girl said. Yep. She definitely gets my vote.
Al's eyes lit up. "Well, it's not much," He pulled back the curtain and revealed the view of the palace. "…but it's got a great view. Palace looks pretty amazing, huh?"
"Oh, it's wonderful." She sighed, turning around so as not to face the palace.
"I wonder what it would be like to live there, to have servants and valets..." Al said absentmindedly.
"Oh, sure; people who tell you where to go and how to dress." The girl's voice turned bitter, as if she was speaking from experience.
"Well, it's better than here. Always scraping for food and ducking the guards." I commented, leaning on the wall, snatching two apples from Abu. "Remember what happened earlier?" I tossed one to Aladdin, who caught it without even looking at me. His eyes were fixed at her.
"You're not free to make your own choices." The girl said.
"Sometimes you feel so…" Aladdin began.
" You're just…" The girl piped up.
"…trapped." They said in unison, completely forgetting my existence.
"And then they forgot about me, well, that's it. I'm outta here." I muttered. I turned to the girl with a smile. "Well, miss, there's a spare… couple of sheets for you to sleep on in. I'll be back late, okay?" And with that, I jumped off the roof.
I heard the girl gave a worried gasp, but I'm sure reassured her that I'll be fine. I had to leave. The romance in the air is suffocating me again. I'll take a walk for a while.
This is weird… it's like; I can feel my brother leaving me slowly. Call me selfish but I don't want that. I mean, I'm happy for him, for them, he's finally found a beautiful girl and all. But what if Al wanted to finally marry her? Settle down and stuff?
I was brought out of my musings when someone pinned my arms behind my back. "Gotcha, street rat!"
Damn. I was thinking too hard I didn't even feel them creep up on me. I turned my head to look at my captor. It was Razoul and his buddies with smug grins on their faces. I tried to play it cool, joke around…
"H-hey Razoul, ol'buddy! How are ya?"
"No use joking around, boy," He growled ominously. "Where's the Princess?"
"P-princess? What princess? Is it a piece of jewellery? You know my brother and I only steal food!"
His eyes widen, as if he got some sort of brilliant idea. "Your brother! Where is he?"
"I-I don't know. Out?" I struggled. I do not like this. Not at all. "What's the deal with the princess?"
"Don't play dumb with me, boy!" He bellowed. "What did you do to her?"
"Dumb? I'm not playing dumb; I just am!" I retorted. "And we didn't abduct your princess! We can't eat her, well, we can, but we won't, because we're not cannibals—humf!" they muffled me by gagging me. Then, Razoul handed me to another of his cronies, a younger palace guard.
"You! Keep an eye on this one," he ordered. "And whatever you don't take the gag off, you hear?" The newbie nodded. He, the newbie, tightened my restraints and followed the other palace guards. They were marching towards the direction of our home.
The only thing I can think of right at that moment is my brother.
To Be Continued.