An Agreement's Small Print
A/N: Enjoy, my loves, a little bit of a longer chapter (with plently of J&J interaction to please three particular reviewers).
As well as my abovementioned reviewers, thanks to everyone who is following along with the story, which seems to be a lot of people based on the traffic. So a shout out to all you readers, and those of which who have added this story as a favourite of theirs – it would be lovely to hear all your thoughts on the story so far, so if you could click the little review box at the end of the chapter and leave a little message (either positive or constructive criticism, no need for purely negative attitudes), it would be highly appreciated!
But for now, onwards...
Chapter Seven
If anything good was coming out of her marriage to Jafar, it was that Jasmine was gaining an education.
Despite her pain, Jasmine wondered what sort of life experience she would gain if she were with Aladdin. How to steal food, and how to jump from rooftop to rooftop without being caught, with Razoul and the others noticing. How the cityfolk of Agrabah lived, and the ability to see the people eye-to-eye, without staring down at them from the high walls of the palace. But she was fairly confident that this was where her education would end – that there would be no life outside of Agrabah.
Granted, in the months married to Jafar, she also hadn't left Agrabah, outside of a honeymoon that she only vaguely remembered. But knowing that Jafar would leave the palace for days, visiting other cities, seeing lands that Jasmine only dreamed about, made her itching to leave, too. Much to her father and Aladdin's bewildement as to why Jasmine would actually want to spend time with Jafar, she would continously ask Jafar each time if she could go with him (but never beg – her pride would not allow her to do so, and she hated the idea of Jafar's head becoming more inflated than it already was). And each time he would refuse to take her, in a tone that meant that his reasons were not to be argued with, despite how pathetic those reasons were – that she wouldn't like where he was going, that it would be too hot for her, that the world outside of Agrabah was no place for a woman like her.
This last reason never failed to infuriate Jasmine.
"And what kind of woman am I?" she'd shouted at him, ignoring any punishment that might be dwelt out to her for doing so, the last time he'd used the reason. "What is so bad out there that I can't handle? The threat is inside this palace with me!"
"Do not shout at me," Jafar warned, in a low, warning voice that Jasmine knew could switch to fury at any moment. "You forget your place."
Jasmine wished that she could be as tall as he was, so she could glare at him eye-to-eye properly. "I thought that you believed that my place was beside you."
Jafar bit back his tongue from what he wanted to yell, and instead hissed at her through clenched teeth. "Here, yes. But I am not your protector, and I will not be responsible for you outside the palace walls."
"I'm perfectly capable of looking out for myself."
"Do not speak of things that you do not understand!" Jafar had finally shouted, his thimble-amount of patience gone with the teenager, and stalked away from her, his cloak bellowing out behind him. Jasmine could only stare at his retreating back, too confused to answer back. She knew she could look after herself, what did he mean by that?
But not being able to leave Agrabah (and she would one day, she'd show him) wasn't a total loss, for Jasmine had managed to gain unlimited access into Jafar's hundreds of books. This was much to the surprise of the Sultan, who had nearly had a heart attack when he'd spotted Jasmine relaxing and reading a rather large volume of Jafar's on a day bed, until Jasmine had gently informed him that Jafar already knew she was reading it. Aladdin was just stumped as to why Jasmine would indulge herself in such a boring pasttime such as reading, and despite the love and pain that cried in her body for Aladdin, she told him acidly that "at least I don't spend my time making up fruitless lies!"
Aladdin had wisely not brought up the subject again, and Jasmine for one, certaintly did not find reading boring, for this was how she was being educated.
She'd gained access to the world by an unlikely way, by another argument with Jafar. Due to the surprise of books, Jasmine could not remember what the fight had been about, except that she must've so strongly about it that she'd absentmindedly followed her husband up the spiral staircase and into his private tower during the argument, somewhere that she hadn't been since she was a young girl, frightened enough by the place not to return.
But at nearly seveteen years of age, Jasmine was spell-bound by the sheer amount of books and journals that were piled around the room, covered in fabrics of every colour and density, some with scrawling Arabic on the spines but many without any print, several with yellowed and curled pages from long, spidery fingers flicking through them and others seemingly hardly touched at all. Ignoring Jafar's heavy stare on her, Jasmine stepped over to the nearest pile and picked up the top book, blowing the dust off gently so that the gold fabric underneath seemed to wink at her. "So many books," she murmured, unaware that she'd spoken aloud.
Jafar's stare slowly softened (as far as he would allow it to soften, which wasn't far) from a dark scrowl to light interest, as he watched Jasmine gently flick through the pages. The selfish girl had never shown any interest to anything outside of herself, and to realise that she was interested in reading about other people and places surprised him greatly. He walked to stand next to her, looking down over her shoulder at the text, clearing his throat at not wanting to scare her.
"I did not realise that you liked to read, Jasmine," he observed.
"It's a bit difficult to enjoy when there's not many books around the palace; children's toys seem to be the norm here," Jasmine noted lightly, and in the back of her mind, realising that this was possibly the first conversation that she'd held with Jafar as civilised people. Jafar swallowed a snicker at the thought of the foolish old man and his tinkets when Jasmine suddenly looked up at him. "Do you enjoy reading?"
"Obviously," Jafar drawled sarcastically, prompting a glare from his wife, and then quickly changed subject with a more calm tone. "You probably wouldn't enjoy that one very much, actually; I can – "
Jafar stopped short. Like Jasmine, no one in the palace knew of his secret love of the written word, and he would be damned if anyone found out; he took strange pleasure in the knowledge that everyone was terrified of him, the idea of him reading would possibly give him a human edge in their eyes, maybe make him seem approachable, and he did not want to be approached by such peasants.
The only one who knew was Iago, who took no notice and still seemed to be fascinated by stuffing crackers in the Sultan's mouth. Pathetic, mindless creatures, the both of them.
But if this kept Jasmine out of his hair, figuratively speaking, and stopped him from being dragged down into pointless arguments every five minutes, perhaps this little secret might be worth it.
Despite this, Jafar's voice stammered as he continued. "I can... select for you some books that you might like."
Jasmine's eyes lit up at this, and Jafar turned away hurriedly, uncomfortable with the look on her face. Selecting what he believed to be a suitable book, he blindly pushed it into Jasmine's hands. "Here," he snapped. "Bring it back in here once you've finished and select another at your leisure. On one condition."
Jasmine's stomach fell. Of course there would be a condition, Jafar couldn't be nice without conditions and it would've been truly weird that he would especially be nice towards her without some selfish reason. "What is it?" she asked in a small voice.
"Do not leave the books lying around the palace. No one else is to stumble upon them. Understood?"
"Understood," Jasmine agreed quickly, in relief that the condition was not bad at all.
"Good, now get out of here."
Jasmine didn't have to be told twice; she didn't want to stay around and wait for the inevitable moment when Jafar would lose his temper for some small reason, and darted out the door, the book clutched tightly in her arms.
But before Jafar could frustrate himself over why he'd done such a thing, he heard a light, happy voice float up the stairs and through the open door towards him. "Thank you!"
*
While Jafar was calm enough with Jasmine entering his private room, returning and choosing books with pleasure, Jasmine was quite certain that Jafar wouldn't feel the same away about... oh, stealing supplies.
Her plan had continued to lurk in her mind, but it had been a long two weeks until Jafar's next trip away and she couldn't do anything about it during that time except read. And what a pecuilar book she had happened to pick up this time.
Potions. Hundreds of potions, to produce effects of every different kind. Potions that made Jasmine smile dreamily about the sort of powers that some potions could create, and other potions that made her skin crawl, especially when she saw Jafar's handwritten notes scrawled alongside the receipe, adding his own touches to already dangerous concoutions. And then she'd found the perfect potion, not too nice but then again not too evil, just enough to push the first part of her plan into place. All she could hope for was that Jafar had it already made and bottled, as the ingredients alone confused Jasmine, and that Jafar would leave soon in order for her to claim her prize.
The day that Jafar had left for another trip – the first leaving in which Jasmine had not thought to argue with him over, as she had plans of her own – Jasmine snuck up to his tower and slipped inside, pleased that he did not seem to lock the door while he was away, and made her way over to where he kept his potions, where she'd spied them on previous occasions. She quickly scanned the small glass bottles, none of which were labelled but Jasmine was relieved when she came across a bottle with a liquid that was the precise colour and consistency that the receipe called for.
Her heart a little lighter than normal, she clutched the bottle tightly in her hand and turned around, only to face Iago, who had been left behind on this trip also.
Jasmine could swear that Iago smirked at her, even though she figured that parrots probably could not. "I'm sure that this is not what Jafar meant in saying that you could just come up here," Iago remarked arrogantly, with a tone that implied that he would tell on her the moment Jafar returned.
Jasmine reached behind her and picked up what she hoped was a rather omnious looking potion, holding it up dangerously in front of the parrot. "One squawk from you," she warned, in a voice that could give Jafar's most cruel voice a run for its money, "and the contents of this bottle go down your skinny little throat."
Iago fell quiet as Jasmine pushed past him and out the door. Damn Allah, she'd chosen the one bottle that he most feared. He'd tasted the poison before and truly did not wish to taste it again – Jafar thoroughly enjoyed using Iago as his test subject and the potion had given some unexpected and sinister side-effects.
Satisfied, and relishing the quietness of the palace, Jasmine slipped like a ghost into Aladdin's room, feeling a sense of sadness about destroying such a beautiful room forever. But the cruel plan plagued her and Jasmine knew that despite how she felt, she truly had no other option remaining open to her because of Aladdin's stubborness. With speed that the book had instructed and covering her nose and mouth with her hand, Jasmine quickly sprinkled the potion around the room before fleeing and discarding the bottle.
Within minutes the liquid had had the effect that Jasmine had been promised – the potent strench of the potion and the deadly powder blue haze left behind had forced the room to become inhabitable. Aladdin had no choice but to find another room in the palace, and he was more than happy to take the one that Jasmine had suggested. The one right next to her and Jafar's chambers.
*
That evening, Jafar stalked through the cool corridors. He'd arrived late into the evening, to find a largely deserted palace – the Sultan had informed him that both Aladdin and Jasmine had retired for the night, then he'd frowned at the smirk that had crossed the sorcerer's face. Hopefully Jasmine wasn' t too retired; he'd been away a little longer than usual, but even if she was asleep, he'd just wake her up – she didn't fight him off anymore.
But that useless street urchin was still there, though a little worse for wear it seemed. The Sultan had advised that Aladdin had switched rooms due to the mysterious atmosphere of his previous room, and Jafar's teeth had clenched angrily in realisation. Only one person would had the gall to break into his tower uninvited, let alone steal. But his fury had suddenly turned into an emotion of which could only be known as impressed – Jasmine, it seemed, had certaintly done her homework; having selected a potion of his that would be toxic to whoever stepped into it, but was too heavy to sweep under doors to affect the palace as a whole. Besides, he could always create more; the ingredients were readily on hand.
As he walked towards his chamber, Jafar wondered if this was Jasmine's latest attempt to throw her ex-lover out of the palace, and while it was an improvement on simply attempting to have a conversation, he knew it would take much more to get rid of the boy; he knew, as he had offered. But Jasmine had demanded that Aladdin would leave on his own terms and not Jafar's, and despite his thirst for the fake prince's blood on his hands (better yet, on the guards' hands rather than his own, Jafar did not appreciate having to do his own dirty work), he had realised that she did have a point.
Halting in front of his chamber door, he smiled a small smile of satisfaction at the glowing candlelight from under the door, and stepped silently inside. His Queen sat in the middle of their bed, a heavy gold blanket drapped around her small, curvaeous body, and her dark hair was pulled back into a long wavy ponytail pulled together with a metal clasp, just the way he liked it.
"'Mine," he called in a smooth voice, attempting to keep his voice light but his accent darkening it, as always. "Face me."
"As you wish," Jasmine responded, with words that she had never used together towards him. She swung her body around on the bed before standing, allowing the blanket to pool around her feet.
Jafar's breath hitched in his throat at the sight of her, and he felt a flash of fire stir up inside deep within him, a fire that began to burn dangerously the longer that he stared at her. Dear Allah...
Jasmine, his Jasmine, all in marvelous shades of red and gold. The tight crimson top only barely covering her chest; the shimmery, see-through fabric of a barely there skirt. The golden snake accessory wrapped around her upper arm... perfection was the only word Jafar had in order to describe the beauty in front of him, and a silent thank-you to all the gods that he knew of for marrying one of the few women in Agrabah who so strongly ignored the conversative Arabic dress code.
For her part, Jasmine willed herself to smile and to resist the urge to want to wrap her arms around herself and dive back under the blanket – so strong was the embarrassment of feeling so naked in front of Jafar like this, despite the fact that she had worn plently less, plently of times now, while under him. But she had noticed the light from under the door connecting her chambers through to Aladdin's room, the door that remained permenantly closed, and after having come so far, Jasmine knew that she had to follow through with this plan, with the most unusual way of showing love for Aladdin.
And so, Jasmine placed the golden crown that she'd left on the bed seductively on her head, this time for real, rather than with the horror she'd felt on that horrific night, so many months ago. She drew herself tall, and forced herself to stare sweetly into the heavily darkened and excited eyes of her lover. Her voice rang out across the room, far too loud than necessary to reach him, but also as loud as necessary to drift across into the adjoining room.
"Welcome home, Jafar. I've missed you."
TBC
