Swirls of red smoke form slowly to the massive image of a man with a broad bare chest and slick black hair. The figure's voice booms, echoing against the stone of the massive room.
"I am the great Genie of this lamp! I will grant you wishes thrice as is my lot. Speak, mortal, what is y-"
He stops short, having turned and now facing the woman seated on a cushioned throne. He folds his arms across his chest and glares at her with disdain. "Princess…" he confirms with venom.
Ignoring the tone but not the title, "Sultana, if you please, Genie. I've not been a princess for many years."
"Hmmm the old fool has shuffled off then. What number constitutes "many" years I wonder? A thousand years or a day pass with excruciating tedium while trapped within that piece of antiquity in your aging hands."
Jasmine lifts her head but lowers her eyes, looking down at him as best she can manage, taking into consideration his impressive height. "Your fate is in my aging hands. I would make a deal with you."
"Oh well now, that is interesting. Does the Street Rat know you would make a deal with darkness? I can't imagine he would agree. Has Jasmine learned to be deceptive with the years?" His sarcasm grates against her resolve.
She falters slightly but keeps her head erect, her eyes flashing away from his almost unperceivable. She says simply, "I rule alone."
He holds her gaze, trying to read her. The boy is dead or gone, by her hand or another, he can't tell. It is irrelevant in the end. What matters, is leverage. If she offers a pact, he must have some over her.
"Tell me about this deal then."
"For nearly 20 years you served my Father as his advisor. In the end you betrayed him for your own power. I do not trust you as a man."
"I am much more than a man."
"Yes, exactly. You are a snake and a villain."
He winces. "And that is why you would deal with me."
She smirks a little. "No, merely observations. What you also are, is powerful. But more than that, you are smart and accomplished in politics. When I said I rule alone, I mean just that. I have very little in the way of advisors. My deal is this: I am your Master by rights of the magic of the lamp. I will use your power as I see fit to help my people and my kingdom. Between what I have decided as my wishes, you will be allowed to live as you once did, in the palace. Your absence was never explained to the common people so your return will be equally silent. You will advise me as you did my Father, minus the acute betrayal."
"Naturally," he offers smarmily.
She continues, unphased. "If I see that your advice is given in good faith, and once I have used 2 wishes of my choosing, the third wish is yours to be free of the lamp."
She pauses and cocks her head in, what he remembers to be, a rather Jasmine-like way. "Do you agree to my terms?"
"It would seem, Prin… Your Majesty," he bows slightly, "that I have little choice."
"There is always a choice, Jafar." The man he was reacts to her use of his name for the first time. He remembers a sweet girl who he pushed daily with his taunts until she would say his name with poison in her distaste. A pretty thing with soft eyes. The eyes are harder now, but her visage is more beautiful with maturity. Her petite frame now the body of a woman with full curves.
"Very well. Then I accept the lavish palace life over the limited space of the lamp. I will serve you as my master and Queen in favor of whatever grubby peasant might next possess me." He grates his teeth with the indignity he feels, "We have a deal."
"If you would please, I would like you to look like you did as a man, rather this abomination before me."
He sneers, "Is that a wish, Master?"
"A request. You'll not see me free of the 2 wishes that are mine so soon."
"By your pleasure then, my dear." She shifts uncomfortably as the word pleasure drawls across his lips though she does not know why.
He waves his hand and his form changes. No longer so imposing in size, he returns to the figure with which Jasmine is very familiar. Tall and lean frame draped in black and red robes, he is still imposing in his own right. She almost smiles a little at the familiarity of him. She has been desperately alone.
"Better." She rises and begins to leave. "You will find your chambers rather untouched. I will meet you each morning in the courtyard for tea where we may discuss the issues of the day. Your time is your own unless I need you. Just remember, I can call you to me if you stray. Don't forget who you serve now."
He watches her walk away with a dark expression. Existence here will be preferable to languishing in that blasted lamp, sunk in the dirty sands, but she has made it clear he will be the slave he feels he is. In another swirl of red smoke, he is gone from the room before she reaches the doors.
Jafar appears in the center of a large stone room, circular in shape as his quarters had been high in a tower, looking down over the city and even the palace itself. He scans the space and realizes she had spoken the truth. His spell books, scrolls, and papers remain nearly untouched. However the room has been cared for, no dust evident on the disused surfaces. He wonders why it is so. He imagined once he was banished to this cursed existence that his chambers had been ransacked. The room is full of artifacts from ancient cultures.
Perhaps Jasmine had seen the value of all that he had amassed in his time as Royal Vizier.
Yet, when he takes the stairs to his bed chamber he finds his personal effects equally well preserved. His robes still hang in a wardrobe, his shoes still neatly lining the wardrobes floor. Even his bed, dressed in black silk with red draperies, is as he left it.
Perhaps she simply didn't have the stomach to approach his room.
He sits on the bed and stares out into his old life. The simple act of sitting is something he has hardly done in over a decade. His last master, a peasant in a neighboring kingdom, had never allowed him out of the lamp except when making his appallingly common wishes. He had wanted more wives, more property, and riches to support both. Small dreams from a small, cruel little man. Jafar had not minded when his third wish was phrased poorly, giving the man precious metals and stones instead of simply coin. He knew suspicions would be raised when the previously destitute man tried to sell or trade them and anticipated a difficult future, now burdened with six hungry wives.
He'd felt a little sorry for the wives.
Jasmine does not strike him as the type to wish poorly. He anticipates each will be carefully thought out to assure no mishaps from the tricky mistress that is magic. In the meantime, he feels like he has come home.
He allows a sincere and private smile for himself in the victory of his resurrection.
XXX
Jasmine pads across her bed chamber in dainty bare feet, pacing and fretting like a young girl. She admonishes herself for it but continues all the same. What in the world has she done?
Those cold eyes…She had nearly forgotten. How can she imagine to trust him, to use him?
Yet she feels the smallest flutter of excitement and anticipation. In a world where she has been alone, her family, her lover, everyone from her youth gone, he is so deliciously familiar. In her girlhood she had thought he seemed so... old. The darkness in him felt like a disease, like he needed to be cured of it. Her years have changed her and her own outlook is not as black and white as it once was. There is a lot of grey in this world.
And some of it can be alluring.
She slides into the sheets of her bed and sighs with the relief of it. Sleep will come and the morning always chases the shadows of doubt away, at least to some degree.
A flicker of guilt comes as she imagines Aladdin's disappointed face, but her own disenchantment with him has long since dampened her concern for what he would have thought of her. She thinks maybe he would not like her so much anymore, and fears maybe that would have been mutual.
Their romance had been chaste. He touched her only with reverence, delicately and as though she might break. He looked to her with the same soft expression in matters of state. As if the serious and cruel nature of the world might be more than his lovely wife could bare. For the span of their marriage he had left her in longing at best, bitter on the worst days. But he had loved her with the pure heart of a child and for that, part of her will always love him in return.
She tries to leave the dead where they belong, in sweet memories, and drifts to a sound sleep.
XXX
The morning already scorches with desert heat. Jasmine sits in the shade of a gnarled tree and sips a strong tea, watching the sun begin its climb, the air already hazy as the earth bakes beneath its wrath. She wears the silken pants and cool top that is her favored look. No longer the turquoise blue of her girlhood, nor the blood red Jafar had preferred, she now dons deep magenta with gold embroidery, warm vibrant tone against her caramel skin.
Jafar approaches slowly across the courtyard, walking on tall thin legs as a mortal man.
He stops short of the small table before her and bows. He snarls a, "Majesty" at her then pulls up to his full height and looks down at her with his piercing eyes.
She is not so easily rattled. "Good morning, Genie. Would you like to join me?" She gestures to the empty chair to her right where a second cup of tea waits. "Have some tea."
"I no longer have the needs of a mortal man."
"Oh? I recall you loved a good tea. No needs, but…desires perhaps?"
He raises an eyebrow at her. Is she toying with him so soon? He doesn't answer, only looks at her inquisitively.
She waves it away. "Suit yourself. It is there if you want it. Regardless, I request that you sit, simply so I don't have to look into the sun to speak to you."
He hesitates a moment but has decided that "defiant" is not the way to play this game. Instead he smiles an almost gentile smile and sits stiffly to her right.
"Thank you." She smiles back though there is little warmth. "We have very little discuss today so you will have the afternoon to become… reacquainted with the castle. I do however need you to make an appearance with me this afternoon."
He looks at her in question. Almost without thinking he reaches for the tea and sips delicately, relishing the flavor.
Jasmine tries to hide the self-satisfied smile. He is still a man after all. At least to some degree.
"There is an emissary to arrive from one of our trade partners to discuss the terms of our transactions. They are not entirely satisfied with those terms."
He nods for her to continue.
"I, however, and very satisfied with those terms and would like to keep them. I believe he would not have dared approach us with this when my Father was Sultan, but he believes me weak. I'd like you to help me convince him Agrabah is strong and he needs us far more than we need him."
"Is it Marikesa?"
"It is." She eyes him. "How did you know?"
He scoffs. "Don't take it personally, Sultana. He does this every so many years."
"Don't do that."
"Hmm?"
"Don't pretend to give me respect with a title but use it in disdain."
"Would you have me call you "Master" then?" He glares at her in barely concealed fury.
She shakes her head and sets her mouth in frustration. "Of course not. Anyway you've known me too long. I will give you leave to call me by my given name if you will simply say it with less disgust."
He pauses then nods in agreement. "I have known you too long, little Jasmine." A tiny piece of him softens at the memories of the sweet child she had been. A memory flashes in her mind of a tall man ushering her from a room the day her mother died, his hand urging her gently to look away.
He continues a little more harshly then he means. "But I will not be called "Genie" with condescension."
She smiles a little. "Agreed then, Jafar." She says his name with purpose.
They sit that way for a while, sipping tea in silence.