Sorry for the delay. ^^

Chapter 1: The Diamond in the Rough

It was a starry yet moonless night, where a lone figure were seen in the shadows. A tall threatening middle-aged woman with long dark hair, pale skin, cold amber eyes. She was a dark red and black dress. Her name is Jasira. Sitting on her shoulder was her pet parrot with red and blue feathers.

They stood on a sand dune waiting foor someone. Soon that person arrived. It was a woman who appears slightly younger than Jasira. She's a lowly peasant woman in an hijab and abaya, who's struck with poverty since her husband died from illness, forcing her to raise her two children alone. She has a 10-year-old daughter named Yani and a 7-year-old son named Kahvid. Yani wears a gray shawl around her head and a purple robe. Kahvid wears a blue fez and a blue thobe with a tattered off-white vest over it. Like their mother, they too go barefoot. She was forcibly dragged from the streets to do a very important job.

"You are late." Jasira said coldly as she glared at the easily intimidated woman.

"Forgive me, oh mistress." the woman said nervously, bowing slightly.

"You have it?" Jasira asked hopefully.

The woman frowned sadly and reached into her pocket. "I had to... shame myself to get it." she pulled out a golden item that looks like half of a stag beetle. Then Jasira's parrot snatched it from her hand. "Ow!" she yelped as she grabbed her nearly-injured hand.

The parrot dropped the golden beetle into Jasira's hand. "We all have to make sacrifices, uh..." she said unsympathetically, "What is your name again? Not that it's important."

"Yadira." the woman answered despondently.

"Yes, that." Jasira said indifferently. "But don't you worry, my dear, you'll get what's coming to you."

"What's coming to you! Ack!" The parrot squawked.

Jasira then reached into her pocket and produced the other half of the beetle. She slowly placed the two pieces with a fearful glitter in her eyes. Suddenly the golden beetle jerked from Jasira's hands and flew off leaving a golden trail behind.

"Follow the trail!" Jasira ordered, as she, her parrot, and Yadira follow the direction the golden beetle is heading. The golden trail slowly fades behind them as they get closer, towards the rocks.

"Where are we going?" Yadira asked fearfully.

"Time for you to earn your worth." Jasira replied. "You are going to do one simple task for me."

"I'll do whatever you say, just please don't hurt me. I just want to give my children food, as we haven't eaten for days, and it's hard on my own since my husband died-"

"Oh, spare me your sob story, woman!" Jasira shouted, cutting off the frightened woman. "You should have thought of that before you became peasants! I don't care about you or your stinkin' brats! Nobody does! Oh how I loathe those who live in the streets. They're nothing but nasty annd grubby lowlifes who desparately try to sell rotten fruit annd cheaply-made junk! It makes me sick just talking about them!"

She hates the poor with a passion and usually has little to do with them as possible, but this was an exception as long as she gets what she desires.

And she doesn't care what she has to do to get it, and if she has to use this woman and hurt her, it didn't bother her at all. She even felt compelled to have her beheaded, leaving her children to fend for themselves or perish.

The trio eventually reached a rocky valley. They found the beetle has separated and landed on a rocky hill. The three watched in shock as the rocks suddenly began to take the shape of a giant tiger's head with its mouth open as the entrance. The eyes of the cave, formed from the beetle, are glowing and appears to be glaring at the three.

"At last," Jasira said. "After all these years of searching... the Cave of Wonders!"

"Ack! Cave of Wonders!" The parrot squawked.

"By Allah!" Yadira gasped in awe. When fear started to overcome her, she tried to make a run for it, but Jasira grabbed her by the arm as she grinned deviously at her.

"Now Yadira, all you have to do is enter the cave and grab the lamp. You can have any other riches you want, and that will be enough to put bread into your children's bellies, but the lamp is mine. Understand?"

"Yes, madam," Yadira said and nervously approached the cave while Jasira and her parrot watch.

"Ack! The lamp! Ack! The lamp!" The parrot squawked, then turned to her owner. "I'm telling you, Jasira, this will not going to work." Jasira shushed her.

Yadira reaches for the mouth, and looks down to find the tiger's throat shift into a stairway. She barely put her dirty barefoot on the lip to climb up when she suddenly got blown away by a strong gust of wind that came from the cave, and landed on her rear end.

"Who disturbs my slumber?" The cave boomed in a thunderous, yet feminine, voice.

Yadira could only look up, clearly intimidated. But she quickly recovered from her shock. "It is I, Yadira. A humble maiden from the streets of Agrabah." She answered in a shuddered voice, and bows to the tiger head. "I come to seek the lamp."

The cave looked down at her, scowling as it did so. "Know this, only one may enter here. One whose worth lies within. The diamond in the rough!"

Yadira looked at Jasira, worry and confusion written all over her face.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go!" Jasira demanded.

Yadira gulped and nodded. "Allah, protect me and my children." she prayed. Her heart racing with dread as she made her way back to the cave. Jasira and her parrot watched with anticipation as Yadira set one foot carefully and slowly onto the stairs of the cave's mouth. As soon as she did so, Yadira braced herself waiting for something horrible to happen. When nothing did, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Praise be to Allah." Then the cave roared again and began to shake violently. Yadira screamed, with tears gushing out her eyes, and turned to run out of the cave but it was too late. The last thing she saw before the tiger's mouth crushed her to death was the starving faces of her poor children.

A poor peasant woman who's desperate enough to feed her children. Sadly, she's not worthy enough, because she would take some of the treasure, and now she's gone, leaving her children's fates unknown.

"NOOOOO!" Jasira screamed as she was denied the lamp.

"Seek thee out, the diamond in the rough!" The cave echoed as it shrank back into the sand. Soon, the only thing left of the cave were the two beetle pieces.

The parrot dug her way out of the sand, coughing and shouting. "I don't believe! I just don't believe it! We're never get our hands on that stupid lamp! Just forget it! Look at this! Look at this! I'm so ticked off that I'm molting!" She picked up the two beetles with her talons and fly over to Jasira to drop them in her hand.

"Patience, Desdemona, patience." Jasira said calmly, while her parrot landed on her shoulder. "It was obvious that Yadira wasn't even close to being worthy. She was a useless, stupid woman anyway. Those brats of hers will have to learn to survive without her. One less mouth to feed I suppose." She said without a hint of remorse for leading an innocent woman to her doom.

Desdemona groaned. "Oh, tell me something I don't know! I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die from not being surprised! What are we gonna do?! We got a big problem here. A big-" She was cut off by Jasira shutting her beak with her two fingers.

"Yes. Only one may enter...", Jasira said. "Then I must find this one, this... diamond in the rough."

Author's Notes:

The peasant woman is based in appearance on the one from the episodes "Do The Rat Thing" and "The Etheral". Her name means "unclear" in Arabic, which describe her children's fates without their mother.

She's the mother of the two hungry children Aladdin and Abu gives their bread to. Their names came from those two kids in the TV series episode "Caught by the Tale", since it's believed that they're the hungry children from the movie. Thus, Yadira could be a version of the mother of the boy Aladdin gave the rest of his dates to in the 2019 live-action movie.

Even though lady-knight flipped their genders in her fan comic, I feel like keeping the hungry children's genders unchanged here. And they won't be the only characters who'll remain the same.