"You mind repeating that?" Eden said, her eyelid twitching. Genie and Xerxes looked at the green-skinned djinn, uneasily. Genie knew first hand of how great his beloved's fury when she gets angry, namely when he took her to Pompeii that morning to find the House of Faun was not only in ruins but had absolutely no service.
"You mind telling her the news, buddy?" Genie turned to Xerxes. The serpentine familiar stared at Eden, gulping.
"Well?" The genie shot a fiery glare at him.
"Uh, Master in Dhandi's body," the eel said quickly. He flinched, expecting the worst.
"Well, when we find him," Eden growled, but her tone suddenly became lighter, "I got a little message for him."
"Uh?" Xerxes gazed quizzically. Genie followed suit.
"I'm gonna tell him that he can suck me AND my beau dry, but when he messes with my little girl, I get eleventh-century on his pasty little butt." Eden formed a fist and hit it against her palm.
Xerxes squirmed anxiously in the blue Genie's fist. He glared the djinn and bared his teeth, ready to bite into the hand of his captor.
"Oh no, you don't!" Genie said, noticing the eel's plan and, pointing his finger at its mouth, a muzzle appeared, tightly wrapped around the familiar's jaws. Xerxes protested, muffled.
"But now, the million dinari question is," Eden said thoughtfully, placing her finger on her temple, "what does evil boy wizard want with Dhandi?"
Genie scratched his bearded chin. He glanced at Eden when suddenly his eyes widen, terrified.
"We need to find her."
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"So, what do you want to teach me?" Dhandi asked Amir, as she walked down the street market, avoiding the bustling crowds of merchants and shoppers. The mage light followed closely like a bee to a flower. It occasionally bumped into Dhandi's head, inciting a yelp of pain from the girl.
Of course, it's made of fire, she thought to herself, rubbing her sore spot.
"Well, you created a mage light," Amir replied. "I guess we can go on to another step. Say, controlling where it goes."
"How?"
"Well, first pick a place you want it to go. How about that crate?" Dhandi looked straight in front of her. Surely enough, there was a crate of bathinjan (eggplant to non-Arabians) sitting five or six feet in front of her. She looked around. The merchants were immersed with their deals. Hopefully too busy to notice.
"Okay, I see it," Dhandi whispered to Amir. "Now what?"
"Hold on," Amir chuckled, "I'm getting to it. Now, you just imagine it going over there, how fast or slow you want it."
Dhandi stared at the crate, thoughtfully. She imagined the ball of flame hovering towards the crate, like a fly toward a manure cart. Not particularly fast, but not actually snail-speed. She gazed up and her mage light was fluttering lazily towards the crate. She smiled gleefully.
"Come on," she urged it on softly, "just a little further." She was so engrossed in watching it; she couldn't hear the heavy and rapid clopping of horse hooves and the spinning of the watermelon cart's wheels that were coming up from behind her.
"MOVE IT, KID!" the driver hollered, the massive horse screaming like a demonic baby. Dhandi turned and let out a shriek.
No one could explain what happened next, but the horse reared its forelegs, backing away from the frightened child. Dhandi looked up and then behind her. The crate of eggplant was alight with fire and it was spreading, flames already halfway up tent. Several merchants ran from their stalls, carting what merchandise they could save from the blaze. All the while, Dhandi stood there, bewilderment upon her face.
"This would be the part where YOU run," Amir whispered. Without missing a beat, Dhandi turned her heel and ran, pushing her way through an alarmed crowd armed with buckets of sand and water.
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Babkak sighed, his fingers busy with a thread on his shirt. He recalled the girl he knew as Dhandi, the moment he first pulled her out of a rubbish heap, how sad she was. She was crying so much, her cheeks wet with tears.
"They made fun of me because my daddy's dead," he first heard her cry, "and told me that I'm gonna be alone forever." They were so little, parents leaving too soon. That was the life of an Agraban orphan, a lost one, a lonely one.
"But you're not alone," he said to himself, sitting upon a pillow on the hovel floor. "You have Eden, binGud, and…me."
The sound of smoke popping prompted the portly boy to jump to his feet. He stared squarely at the green-skinned Genie of the Bottle and her sky-blue companion.
"Oh, Miss Eden," Babkak spoke quickly, straightening his shirt anxiously, "Iamsorryforinvadingbutiwaswaitingfordhandiand-"
"Calm down, Bab," Eden pressed her fingers against the boy's lips. "Now, enunciate."
Babkak took a deep breath, the djinn removing her fingers.
"I was waiting for Dhandi, when she got back from her alone time-"
"Whoa, hold up," Eden interrupted, concerned. "She's running around Agrabah by herself? Did she say where she's going?"
Babkak shook his head. "I don't know. She seemed really upset." He rubbed his armed. "I never heard her so mad at me before, especially when I asked her what happened yesterday."
Eden kneeled down to Babkak. "She's just going through something right now," she said, gently. "All you have to do is just be patient with her and be a friend to her. Now, if you want to help, please help us look for her."
"I can do that," the boy answered.
The djinn smiled. "Cool. Now try looking in places that she might be and if you find her, bring her back here and we'll pop right back. Got it?"
Babkak nodded and turned towards the door. As they watched the boy run down the stairs, Eden sunk down onto a pillow. Genie hovered above her, worried.
"Why the long face, Babe?" Genie asked.
Eden looked up, distress evident in her face.
"I don't know what Mozenrath's doing to my baby inside," she said, "and I don't know how I can tell her what's wrong without scaring her or even giving him a reason to hurt her." A crystalline tear rolled down her cheek.
Genie floated down next his beloved, catching the tears with his blue bulbous finger. He blew on them and they fluttered into bubbles, floating away with the breeze. The green-skinned djinn smiled, sniffing.
"Al and I faced him so many times," Genie said, placing his huge hands upon her shoulders. "Even when it looked like we're gonna be mamluk chow, we thwarted him then and we're gonna thwart him now. 'Cause if we don't, this show is gonna be way too short!"
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Dhandi slumped against the wall of the alley, the hubbub of merchants fighting a fire lessening. Her body ached as if she hadn't walked in days and was forced to run a mile and keeping her head up was like balancing a load of bricks on her forehead.
In short, she was tired.
"Did I…start that fire?" Dhandi asked Amir.
"To an extent, yes," Amir answered, the girl wincing. His voice was pounding against her head like a drum. "It reacted to your fear. Emotions can be your strength but also your weakness, one that many can exploit. We'll work on that. So, how do you feel?"
"Why am I so tired?" she asked. "I wasn't running that hard."
"It's the lessons. Because you're a newbie, your body isn't prepared for the exertion that magic is putting you through. When you've progressed far enough, you won't feel as tired."
"Oh (yawn)," Dhandi yawned, "How can I (yawn) get better (yawn)?"
"Sit down," Amir instructed. Dhandi sunk down to the ground, crossing her legs Indian-style.
"Then breathe in and out." Dhandi inhaled and exhaled.
"Uh, Amir?" she asked.
"What?"
"Why am I so important to you? Does it have anything to do with that pale man? Can you tell me?"
Amir smiled (though you can't really tell when you can't see him). "Why tell you when I can show you?"
A flood of images suddenly flashed in front of Dhandi's eyes like flipping pictures in a book. Voices overlapped, eerily almost like priests in prayer. One voice she could tell apart- a frightened voice of a child, a boy.
Father, all I wanted to do was make you proud-
YOU ARE NOT MY SON! Another voice, clearly that of an elderly man, entered in her head. Figures of a curly-haired boy, a withered old man, and, regrettably familiar, a young man appeared.
LET GO OF ME! Shrieked the boy, the young man grabbing him by the hair. The old man fell to his knees, shriveling away further.
I will never consider you my son and I will never bow to you! The man said defiantly as he sunk into a pile of dust.
AMIR IS DEAD! The young man cackled. ALL THERE IS LEFT IS ME!
Dhandi grasped her head, drained further by the shrieking and the flashing until it went silent and all she could see was blank.
"Amir," Dhandi whispered, her voice shaking, "did he kill you?"
"Yes," Amir answered softly. "All I wanted to do was make my father proud, but I was cast aside because he became scared of me. All I want to do now is say I'm sorry for hurting him."
"I'll help," Dhandi replied abruptly. "Just teach me how."
"You'll do that for me? But that man-"
"It'll be my thanks for saving me and teaching me how to protect myself from him."
"Okay, but first you need to regain your strength. Now do what I told you, clearing your mind of every little distraction until it is as blank as a piece of paper."
Dhandi composed herself, inhaling and exhaling. Her head was growing heavy along with her eyelids, drooping over her pupils. To onlookers, she appeared to be sleeping, sitting up.
She opened her eyes, suddenly. She looked around, curious. She stared at her hands, amused. A smile appeared on her face, however not that of demure charm and mildness but of deviousness and malice.
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"Dhandi!" Genie hollered, his lips forming a loudspeaker. He hovered above the city, distracted briefly by the rising smoke in the distance and nearly bumped into the dome of a mosque. Eden meanwhile combed beneath the clothesline in the familiar back way of the slums. The djinn collided with a sheet, an angry housewife chattering from her window.
"You really need use a fabric softener next time," Eden retorted, pulling the sheet off her head. "It's waaaay too-"
The djinn's focus switched to a small figure below in a pink top and green harem pants.
"Dhandi!"
Rejoicing, she threw the sheet back on the line and made a beeline towards her young mistress.
"Dhandi, where have you been-" Eden started, but when she took a glance at the child's face, she scowled distastefully.
"Mozenrath."
A/N: Whew, folks. The drama begins. Thanks again to everybody who reviewed, the members of the "Aladdin Central Message Board" for their support and assistance in helping me write this story, past fanfic writers who inspired me and others, and the creators of the "Aladdin" series for providing us the characters that we love so.
Disclaimer: I don't own Mozenrath, Xerxes, Dhandi, or Eden. Babkak, though the namesakeis froma deleted character from the movie, is mine.