The scene begins the sandy dunes of the desert, a glorious stone palace could be seen along with countless buildings to match the design even to the poorer districts. As the frame moves around to explore the architect, the design of such a place, it then pans to a seemingly simple looking merchant setting up his newly-made market stall with his camel sleeping next to it. The view of the merchant, which is of a 4'5 in height Arabic man with a large turban covering his head, finishes placing a large cloth over his table spelling "Sale" onto it's surface as he then turns towards the screen with an eerily knowing look gleaming from his hazel eyes.
"Ah! Salaam and good evening to you worthy friend! PLEASE! Please come closer!" The screen smashes into the man's face, causing him to fall flat onto his back. Off screen, you can faintly hear his voice, "Ok….maybe not…THAT close…" the screen zooms back out to show the poor merchant lying in pain on the ground and trying to catch his breath.
"Jeez, trying to kill him already?"
A voice interjects as a heavily robed figure appears into frame with only their visible chocolate eyes to be seen whilst they use their slippered foot to heavily nudge the merchant on the ground, causing his body to twitch sporadically. "Yo~ You good?" the robed figure asks nonchalantly, as if the random assault on the merchant wasn't weird in the slightest.
With only a pained groan to answer, the figure huffs impatiently as they whip out a script from nowhere, "Let's see…where is–Ah! There we go!" they mumble to themself. Pausing momentarily, they grab a pair of glasses to wear as they spoke up towards the camera.
"Ahem. Welcome to Agrabah, the city of mystery, of enchantment and blablahblah…" They then grab a blue crayon from, once again out of the blue, and scribble onto the pages of the script. As if on cue, the merchant springs back up and looks towards the figure in horror, "NO! YOU DIDN'T" he then rips the script from the figure's hands and skims over it.
The merchant flips the script up, down, sideways–even inside out, but his expression went from fear to extreme confusion at whatever the figure had done to the page. "Why did you scribble all of this, Otto?" he looks to the robed figure, or "Otto" just raises their hands up high above their shoulders in defense. "I just added a few forgotten details, is all~" They say cheekily as they literally slide out of frame of the scene with just a side step to the left.
The merchant exhales before looking back on the script, then after a few moments, gets back "Into Character" with a sheepish smile. "I deeply apologize my friend! It seems that my–er…associate…decided that you should get a more detailed tale than the one I was supposed to tell you." he shrugged with shoulders, "Why not, huh? It makes things interesting!" with a snap of his fingers, the scene goes black.
Another snap rings out in the air, revealing a new scene. Where the backdrop was originally a dark yet cool night in a stone town based in the desert, was replaced by the inside of an expensively furnished, large tent covered with the softest yet sturdiest cloth as it's walls and roof along with comfortably shaggy carpets on the sandy floor.
Trinkets litter the solid gold shelves ranging from simple ceramic pottery to modern technology such as a landline phone and mini TV. A medium sized round marble table sits in the middle of the "room" with books and a tea set as two large plush chairs are seated along it.
Seated in one of the chairs is a middle aged caucasian man with blue/grey eyes and dark brown hair (with a light tinge of blue if you looked closely)–who, if he stood up, was around 5'7 in height with an average body type–with a handsome yet soft appearance. Whilst he wasn't traditionally handsome with large muscles or with a chiseled jawline, the aura surrounding him was radiated with warmth as he looked towards the screen.
"I apologize about my disguise, the big honchos upstairs said it would be less "intimidating" then it would be if I was in this form." The man sighed, looking at a peculiar golden lamp in the center of the table for a few moments before looking back to the screen. "So, sorry about that. You can call me–uhhh…damn. What's a good name? Errr…"
He doesn't respond for a brief moment before he caught a glimpse of a tiny chibi-style bird plushie lying on the ground next to the leg of his chair. Picking it up quickly, he cradled the plushie in between his hands as he looked back to the screen once more with a more confident smile. "Robin. You can call me Robin. And I'm going to regale you–a slightly different tale. One that is quite well hidden to many, including myself for a time." He places one of his hands to his chest with a comically flabbergasted expression, with more enthusiasm, he uses his other hand to place the bird plushie on the table and lean closer to the screen. "However, it seems that if my friend–who you saw for a moment–was allowed to mess with the script…" he smiles widely with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
"I can tell you about the tale…that changed the lives of many, but, this tale is far more intricate that what it may seem." He reached for a pouch on the table, placing his hand inside, he then tosses the blinding white powder into the air, transforming it into a view of the stars in the limitless night sky.
"While the tale didn't start here, it was where a young woman's fate finally began to take hold after 19 years of searching for her very soul…"
On a giant sand dune, a lone horse stands alone as if waiting for something–or someone in the middle of the ice cold desert. Upon the horse, is a figure dressed in dark blue robes from head to toe with nothing but their bright green eyes seeming to glow in the moonlight. They tuck away a piece of their hair–revealing a shade of maroon red–back into the robes as they tap their fingers upon the leads attached to their mount impatiently.
As they almost contemplate leaving, sound of shifting sands and light clinking of metal reaches their ears as another horse approaches with a short man wearing rags riding it to the robed person. The short man dismounts before the robed individual moved their horse slightly closer to glare down at him from where they sat, "Late again Gazeem?" they sneer as they rolled their eyes.
"Gazeem" looks up at the person in annoyance, "A thousand apologies, however, I can't seem to go from one part of the desert to the other at a moment's notice. Oh patient one." he shrieks in fear as large bird talons grip the front of his shirt to raise him towards the robed stranger…the talons seem to be coming from one of the legs of said robed person.
"Cut the attitude, pipsqueak. Remember…" they lean forwards a bit more to the frightened Gazeen, revealing their green eyes to be more bird-like than how it looked just moments ago, as they whispered to him with a malicious intent. "My associate ain't here. So, noone can hold me back."
Noticing something, they use their right hand–not talons, thankfully–to pick something up from underneath Gazeem's shirt, which turned out to be half of a golden scarab. The odd-birdlike person chuckles, "Well, looks like you bought yourself an extra minute of life…"
They leaned back from the man a bit, "You should consider yourself lucky…for now." dropping Gazeem roughly, he exclaims loudly in pain, before the robed person took out another half of the scarab beetle.
They carefully pieced together the pieces…
*SHING*
Completed whole, the beetle shines brightly as it flutters it's metallic wings and speedily flies away. "DON'T JUST SIT THERE! FOLLOW THAT BUG!" yelled the robed individual as they got their horse moving quickly through the sands of the desert, Gazeem following not too far behind.
They rode on for miles upon miles, starting to lose distance as their steeds began losing energy the longer they ride, Gazeem's mount more so as it hadn't rested long before it needed to continue once more, "KEEP UP YOU STUPID CROOK!" the robed person yelled in frustration at the man, not noticing the beetle splitting up once again only to pin both it's halves onto a sand mound.
The sand mound rose, causing the mounts to be startled and forcibly dismount both riders. Sitting on the ground, Gazeem looks on in fear whilst the robed person's revealed eyes were gleaming with anticipation.
The mound had risen to take the shape of a tiger's head, it's glowing yellow eyes made of the two halves of the beetle as the rest of it's body was purely made of sand. It's mouth was wide open–large enough for an entire army to enter, in fact–with a bright light coming from it's "Throat" as the sound of it's apparent breathing echoed throughout the silent desert night.
"Finally…" the robed individual sighed, "All this sneaking around, all the blackmailing–all the bribery…we found the LEGITIMATE entrance to the Cave of Wonders." they paused before crossing their arms. "Huh…much smaller than he had guessed…"
Shaken out of their musings by Gazeem's unsure footsteps shuffling beside them, they gripped the back of his shirt and turned him to face their covered face. "You know the deal: Get in, grab the lamp and give it to me. Then–and only then–will your debt to us be repaid." They dropped the man on the ground, who turned to the entrance with a determined yet nervous aura as the person behind him sighed, "I swear, why do we always go for the weak ones…?" they murmured to themselves, watching Gazeem approach the mouth to try to take a step in–only to be pushed out by a gast of wind from said mouth.
"Who disturbs my slumber?" The Tiger Head asks, it's deep tone reverberating through the two people's bones as the man–on the ground once more–trembles in fear before he answers. "It–it is I, Gazeem, a humble thief…" he then bows, unsure of how else to approach the threatening, somehow living doorway.
"Know this: Only one may enter here…one whose worth lies far within…the Diamond in the Rough…" The Tiger Head replied, not replying directly to the thief but instead spoke this as if to question if Gazeem was certain he wanted to attempt to enter.
Said man turned to the robe figure in confusion, but they whipped out their arm to reveal a red wing–with some feathers being slightly different shades of blue amongst the bright red–and sharp talons that shine menacingly in the moonlight. "We don't have time for this. Either you go in that Cave or I'll toss you in." they snarled at the thief, annoyed by the strange riddle received by the magical entryway. Despite the hesitation seeping in his bones, Gazeem knew it would be better to carefully tread into the unknown rather than potentially dying from being tossed into an endless chasm by…that person. So, steeling his nerves, he approaches the entrance once more and steps onto the first step within the Cave.
Silence covers the surrounding area like a fog, with not even the sound of the Cave's breathing breaking through this time, it is as if time stood still.
*ROAR*
Screaming, Gazeem tried to jump out of the entrance only to be crushed under the weight of the Tiger Head's sand, burying him alive as a wave of sand is sprayed everywhere. Some covering the robed figure who covers their face to prevent sand from entering their eyes. "Seek the Diamond…the Diamond of the Rough…" The Tiger Head's final words faded into the open air as the desert winds carry it.
Taking a moment to cough out some excess sand, the figure tries to wipe away some of it from their robes but fail–in frustration, they take off the majority of their robes to reveal their feminine form. The figure was a tanned young woman wearing bronze hoop jewelry with a red tube top–matching in tone as the wings seen earlier–that have see-through dark blue sleeves with see-through dark blue harem pants. Her maroon red hair fell to just below her thighs, conveniently covering the majority of her behind despite the revealing pants. She growls in frustration–her right hand abruptly becoming a giant red and blue wing with talons once more as her sleeve seemingly disappears during the transformation–before she rakes her taloned hand through her hair to dislodge some sand remnants.
"Damn it to the underworld…all this planning, all this ridiculous running around–" Expression becoming more agitated, she raises both human & winged hands in the sky in resignation, "AND FOR WHAT?! SOME RIDDLE WE NEVER EVEN HEARD–" she then paused, continuing to rake her talons through her hair whilst she paced.
"It's fine…it's FUCKING FINE–it's just a bit of a setback, but we waited longer before.." she hummed in thought, leaning down to pick the pieces of the scarab back up–but not pieced together just yet. "Step 5: Access the Cave of Wonders is still a bit of a WIP, but, so was Step 3 and that turned out ok." Nodding to herself, she resigned herself to fly back to report what happened–wait…
"DID THAT TIGER MAKE A GODDAMN "GULP" SOUND?!"
A/N: I was originally gonna do a full-on origin story before the events of the movie, but tbh I feel that it would be simpler for me to instead pop in some interludes to give the LORE without burning me brains out :P Want to apologize again if I seem a bit odd with my writing style, never tried to fully write out fics before, so please be patient with me! Hope you enjoy! Also, yes, I do know about the thoery of Genie being the Merchant; so I decided to add onto that. I love Robin Williams, he was always my Genie and I wanted to give him some love there ^^