It was somewhere around midnight on a moonless evening, the wind was coming from the west and a group of hooded figures were gathered on a beach. They stood silently in a circle waiting for their sacrifice to present itself. Everything had been prepared, the knives, the sacred cup, the alter/pyre they would present their offering on, all they needed to do was wait.
The princess of Agrabah was out walking the shoreline trying to clear her head. She and her beloved Aladdin had fought earlier that evening and she needed to let off some steam. Walking by herself always seemed to sooth her, as if the further she wondered the further away the problem would be. She gazed out at the sea and sighed.
Sometimes she thought about leaving Agrabah and everyone in it, including Aladdin. Aladdin wasn't cut out for palace life, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't handle it. Sometimes she wondered if life for Agrabah would have been better if Jafar had won. He had been a refined man, a leader of the people.
She remembered the first time she had met Jafar, she was ten and had been impressed by his elegant and kind words and his funny parrot. He must have been in his late twentys then. Always a kind word, always encouraging her to read difficult books and learn new and exciting things, he had been like an elder brother or an uncle.
A single tear escaped her eye and ran down her smooth cheek leaving a faint black trail. She hoped that where ever Jafar was now that he was happy, that his sanity had returned and that he knew she had never stopped loving him. Even if he had become a monster at the end, he would always be her kind, intelligent adviser, always encouraging her to be at her best.
She knew deep in her heart that the monster Jafar had become had killed the man she loved, and she had a hand in killing that monster. Still, she couldn't get past the remorse, the grief. Guilt swept over her causing her to stumble a bit, but she kept on walking. She looked to the sea again, inky black waves pounding against the shore. The waves crept closer each time. If she were to stand still the waves would eventually reach her. Their forceful impact would knock her to the ground and they would carry her away, from her kingdom, her love, her responsibilities, and her present guilt. She kept walking.
Further along and further into the night she went, she could see a pin points of light and thought she heard singing. A celebration perhaps? She went further up the shoreline to investigate.
There were torches placed in a large circle and within the circle a group of people but they weren't singing, they were chanting in low tones and in a language she was unfamiliar with and swaying back and forth in a rhythm. Jasmine looked on in fascinated horror.
"Ahya Dagon. Ahya Ahya.
Ahya Cthulhu. Ahya, Ahya.
Ahya Byakhee! Byakhee! Byakhee!"
"Hello, Princess." Said a familiar voice, "We have been waiting for you."
Jasmine turned to face the person who had addressed her so casually but something was forced in front of Jasmine's face, a rag soaked in something, and her world dissolved into a deep black nothing.
When she woke the first thing she noticed was that someone had skilfully tied to a carefully constructed bed of sticks.
"She awakens." Said someone with a deep raspy voice.
"Excellent, now we can begin." Said the voice that was so painfully familiar. She could discern that the voice was female but she just couldn't place the name.
A hooded figure approached her, the voice she could not name, a knife in one hand and a shiny bronze cup in the other. The figure made a slice above Jasmine's collar-bone and caught the blood that trickled out then repeated the sickening act on the palm of her hand.
"Thank you." Said the clocked person, "You don't know what this means to us, you really don't" She passed the cup to another cloaked person. Jasmine could lift her head just enough to see what they were doing, but she wished that she hadn't.
They were drinking her blood. Vomit rose up in her throat but she repressed it. The cup made a full circuit and then it was placed back in the first persons hands. The person who had taken her blood to begin what ever ritual they were performing.
The first figure cut their hand and caught the blood in the cup. "Please, Princess, drink."
Jasmine didn't have a choice, blood was all over her face, she tried not to swallow but some of it had to have gone down. She was crying and repeating a name, a name that wasn't Aladdin's.
"Jafar," she sobbed quietly "Jafar, I'm so sorry."
"Don't worry, Jasmine." The cloaked figure removed her hood revealing a very familiar face "It will all be over soon."
Jasmine gasped in recognition. Another now un-hooded figure took a torch and set the bed of sticks, a pyre she realized, on fire. "Jafar! Jafar" she screamed over the groups chanting, "I'm sorry." And then Princess Jasmine was no more.
One hooded follower tentatively approached their high priestess who was intently watching the fire die with the rising sun. The fire was at a low smolder, nothing was left of their sacrifice except for black and charred bones. "Priestess Sadira, were you pleased with the ritual?"
"Yes," replied the Priestess, "More than you will ever know."