Disclaimer: I do not own Aladdin.

A/N: The story won't be that long, guys, it might be over in as little as three chapters, though I hope it won't be. I'll try to add some twist to the plot so that I can elongate it! And I am SO sorry about not updating in an eternity. My cousins and relatives from China are over, and it's been really hectic. 9 people in the house…Apologies again that I forgot to say so in my last update, I really am sincerely sorry. I hope the quality of this chapter is alright so I can partly make it up to you!

Chapter 11

Mistakes

(Jala, Genie of the Lamp)

I hate humans.

I see, you think I'm saying that because I'm mad at Jafar, but it's a general rule. I hate all humans because they will all eventually break your heart. Especially Grand Viziers, and especially especially the ones like Jafar. Curse the world that I was the genie chosen to take that lamp!

That was the state that I was in for several days, refusing to come out of my little golden lamp. Eventually, my anger faded and succumbed to boredom, but still I refused to come out. Jafar was going to get the silent treatment, and he'd be lucky if he ever heard my voice again. Of course, I knew why I was in this lamp. I was a genie, and genies are bound to lamps to serve their masters. I didn't want to be a genie.

Finally, after four days, I thought I was going to go insane. Boredom is a funny thing. It presses and presses and won't leave you alone. When I was sure that Jafar had left on some errand of his, (thankfully in too much of a hurry to take his trusty genie lamp with him), I floated out and took a deep breath of air. Ahhhhhh…I floated around the room and feasted my eyes on every single object that was not the rounded gold inside of my lamp.

Click.

I froze in the middle of my first venture in half a week. The lock on Jafar's door was being picked. I watched as in slow motion, the inside of the lock clicked open. I was too afraid even to make a mad dash back to my lamp. The wooden door swung open. I squeezed my eyes shut. Here was the end.

After five seconds, I popped one eye open cautiously. There stood Jasmine, Sorrah, Aladdin, Genie, and Haillie, looking rather confused at my absurd behavior. I flushed. "Err…hello." Laddie, (as I liked to call him in my head), raised a bushy eyebrow. "Where's your master?" "Jafar, his royal idiotness, is on an errand. If you came here to see him, then you're apparently wasting his time and your time," I snapped.

Laddie looked taken aback. "What's gotten into you, Jala?" "Gotten into me? Nothing's gotten into me. I think, in fact, that there's something wrong with you," I replied shortly, on the verge of shrinking back into my lamp. If only to escape these people that pestered me! It was even worse than the one conversation I had attempted with Iago, who had called me several names that I cannot repeat.

Jasmine smiled warmly at me and sat cross-legged on the unmade bed. "Jala, I know you're upset, but we're your friends an-" I cut her off. "Stop shrinking me! I don't want to talk to any of you right now!" A look of such hurt crossed the fake princesses' face that I instantly felt a sharp pang of regret, but there was no way that I would let her know that. Not in a thousand years.

Quietly and one by one, they left. Genie whispered something in my sister's ear as they went out. She giggled and did one of her elaborate hand motions. Was I even losing my only sister?

………………..

That night, as soon as Jafar came back, I shrank back into my lamp. "Jala, please! You're being completely Iago-like," he said. His voice sounded oddly like an oversized genie's from inside my lamp. There was a protesting, "Hey, I'll give you Iago-like!", and then there were no more comments from Jafar. I sighed quietly and curled up in a ball, wishing for the life of me that genies could sleep.

When morning came, I found that it was still no relief. Jafar didn't have anything scheduled, so he succumbed to trying to persuade me to come out of my lamp. At first, I blocked out his voice. Then, I ignored it. By mid-afternoon, I was so annoyed that I actually came out and screamed, "IT WAS YOUR IDEA THAT WE WERE GOING TO BE ENEMIES!"

The look of shock that I had created on his thin bearded face was priceless. If cameras had been invented in those days,that would have been a Kodak moment.

"Jala, I…" he whispered quietly. "YOU WHAT?" I roared. My heart was only half into the rant I was on, but if I let up now, it made me look like an idiot. That was something that was stored in for my master. Jafar looked up at me. "Never mind. I can see that you wouldn't understand if I told you." I was speechless as he walked slowly out of the room, at a loss of what to reply with.

That night, I had made up my mind. Inwardly, I'd finally realized that I wasn't actually mad at Jafar: I was mad at myself. I hated fighting in general, so I found nobody else at fault but myself for the current state of tension. So, when my master finally returned promptly at midnight thinking that I had already fallen asleep, (genies don't sleep), I popped out to surprise him. "How about I tell you a story?" I asked him.

Jafar looked startled. "A…a story?" "Yes, I made it up," I replied cheerily. "It's told by a princess, name of Maira, living in a magical kingdom called Ariar. I can be your Sharazade, and I'll tell a little each night, and we'll be friendly another day." It was a joke, but he looked the closest thing to happy there was. And that night, I began the tale that I had never told anybody except for Haillie.

…………….

The petal drifted out into the middle of the gently gurgling creek. Clear water tumbled off jagged rocks, and my red petal jumped and somersaulted to the beat of the running water, sticking to a rock here and there. The ripples it caused were like life, I reflected. One small thing causes a big difference.

OK, I was thinking like a philosopher. That's the first sign that I'm desperate, because only desperate times cause me to think like a philosopher. Desperation could also be the only excuse that I would have thought up to be at this creek bed. At the dead of night with a full moon. Throwing rose petals at a creek. This was the first time that it had occurred to me how truly sad this seemed.

"Ma? Are you out there?" I whispered softly. I might have been wallowing in my own despair, and this was not helping to make me feel any less stupid, because I didn't know what to expect as a reply to my plea: I was one of those people who had phobia of the unexpected. Other than a few last dead leaves rustling, my plea received no answer. The familiar plummet of disappointment in my stomach was sickening. It made me feel like an utter and complete idiot.

"Your mother is dead," I whispered to myself.

There. I had said it, the bare, painful truth. I had come here to Ma's place to escape from it and instead it was clearer than ever. It was a long time until the tears, warm and salty, started to stream their way down my cheeks. My mother's old place was all around me: if asked to, I could name where we had picnicked for my eighth birthday, where she had taught me to crochet, (though that was in vain), and a million other things. Slowly, I closed my eyes and curled up into a ball on the ground, letting the relief of sleep wash over my mind, relieving it from the pain of losing Ma.

Suddenly, I awoke to colors of dawn lighting up the sky. Outside of the forest clearing, the vendors selling their wares called out in clear voices. Quietly, I made my way back toward our ranch. Papa would be missing me, and my friends might be waiting.

Sure enough, as the huge ranch came into view, a girl came running toward me, her long yellow plait of hair flying out behind her. "Maira!" she called. "You missed breakfast." I sighed. "Corona, I never eat breakfast out here anyways." She smirked, curtsying. "Oh, I forgot. I'm supposed to act like a proper handmaiden in public." I laughed uncertainly. "Corona, you're not my handmaiden." "Exactly," she replied. Sometimes, I never got her jokes.

"We're going back to the palace today," Corona remarked more seriously as our footfalls brought us closer to the ranch that we were vacationing in. The fact that she was trying to sound casual didn't escape me. I sighed. It was regrettable, leaving this place. It was where my mother had grown up as a girl. Without her, Papa had become a hard, distant man. The palace was even worse, full of stuffy politicians and hard-faced nobles who might as well have had their tongues stolen by the fat cat that prowled the palace grounds. Another sigh: sometimes, (well, most of the time actually), being a princess was quite boresom. I should explain.

In the Land of Ariar, where my friends, I, and family ruled, five joint kings ruled together at a time. Each must marry only one wife. The wife was permitted to have a maximum of three children, but it was the eldest who would always rule in their father or mother's place. The five current kings all had daughters, much to the disappointment of the commoners. This was what I despised, how girls were forgotten and boys were honored. Corona and I were only two of the five princesses, as you might have guessed. The other three were currently waiting outside of the ranch doors, sitting on wooden suitcases. They rose when Corona and I entered, curtsying stiffly but mockingly. This formal stuff was all pish-posh to us.

"Are you ready to leave?" inquired Sheila formally. She was the smallest of us all, her large brown eyes shining with mischief and her long, pale brown hair framing her delicate china-doll like face. I smiled. "I'll go unwillingly." It was only a true statement. "Our" place was so full of freedom that it practically vibrated with it.

The coach moving slowly down the street gave me time to think, exactly what I didn't want. All of the princesses were in one coach, the kings in a much larger, grander one, and the spouses and siblings in a lesser wooden one still: it was a direct representation of how court life distinguished your rank, severely and more noticeably than a commoner's would be exposed.

Corona was in the middle, as usual, because she was "skinny as a rod" and "shot up like a weed", like the cooks loved to complain as they toiled to meet her growing appetite. I was on her right side, and another princess named Autumn with long, raven locks and chocolaty skin was on her other. On the ends of the coach seat were Sheila and Kiki, a dark girl with curly black hair cut at her shoulders. The rounded turrets of our palace gradually came into view on the blue horizon outside. I remembered Ma sketching it when I was still little.

"Announcing His Royal Majesties and the Princesses of Ariar, jewels of this Kingdom's, return!" Bugles sounded, and the crier's voice was drowned out as we entered the palace walls. The familiar sights were too overwhelming. Ma had been alive the last time we were here. We had been out of the palace grounds for 2 months now.

A coachman helped each of us down in turn, and then, I was running. The others flew behind me, our long dresses billowing out from the breeze. "Library!" I gasped. The grand double doors to the palace banged open to admit us. The warmer air of the palace hit me hard and people stared, but we kept running. Up a pair of spiraling, velvet-covered steps, through three corridors, turn left. The places where my feet touched were more familiar than the back of my own hand.

At last, the entrance to the library loomed before me. Quietly, I pushed open the door. Corona, Kiki, Sheila, and Autumn followed me in, our long plaits swinging slightly behind us. Inhaling deeply, I took in the familiar smell of musty, old bound books and rich coffee. Automatically, my eyes tried to find Oggie.

Agatha Pearl Aristadela Primp is the librarian at the palace, but we shortened her mouthful-of-a-name into just simple "Oggie". "Where is she?" wondered Kiki. I didn't have an answer. "Why don't we look at books while we wait?" I suggested. There was a small murmur of agreement as we went our own separate ways to look for books suited to our taste.

I was leisurely browsing along the fantasy section when I saw it: a thick, red volume. Curious, I went for a closer look. It lay innocently on the table, the curly gold script on the cover winking in the light. It was in Ruin letters from the Old Age! I could not read it. Using the tips of my fingers, the pages flew as I skimmed through them. Dust filled the air. I sneezed. "Bless you!" called Autumn's voice. Startled, the volume abruptly snapped shut under my shaking hands.

………………….

"We won't argue tomorrow…" said Jafar's sleepy voice. I smiled. It was barely a smile, the tips of my lips barely curved. But it was a smile nonetheless. "Thank you," I said quietly. Too quietly: nobody was awake but myself to hear it, as the Grand Vizier had already fallen fast asleep. Laughing softly to myself, I also retired into my lamp. Things were turning out nicely.

A/N: It was a sort-of filler chapter in my opinion, but the next chapter should be better. And full of more disturbing-things-in-a-good-way!