Chapter 3: Call Me a Prince
The next morning, Jasira walks through the dark dungeons. Desdemona flew ahead where awaits a servant and a couple of guards holding three prisoners.
"Make way! Here comes the mistress!" Desdemona announced.
Jasira inspects the prisoners. All women. Dirty, dressed in rags, and barefoot. One is a young woman, one is an elderly woman, and one is a female child. They all look down in fear, with the child crying. Jasira inspects her closer, grabbing her chin and forced her to stare at her.
"Please, I wanna go home. I want my mommy."
"You should have thought of that before you stole that apple."
"But I was starving!" The child bawled.
"It's always something, isn't it?" Jasira then turn to her servant. "You bring me the rough but never a diamond." Jasira said to her servant, then turned to the young woman. She grabbed her chin and get a good look at her face. "Though I suppose I could sell you for a few coins. With you all cleaned up, you would make a splendid harem girl, men will be all over you in no time." she said with an evil grin.
"No, please don't!" The young woman pleaded.
"SILENCE! Take them away." she ordered the guards.
"Move!" One of the guards said, as they drag the screaming prisoners away.
"Yeah, get rid of them!" Desdemona said.
"Mistress..." The servant replied nervously, "perhaps this diamond in the rough does not exist."
"She is out there. I know she is." Jasira insisted, as she looks out on the city through a barred window.
"But we've searched for months! I do not understand what could possibly be in that cave that could help a woman as great as you. You are already second only to the queen."
"Second?" Desdemona said. "Now you've done it."
"And you think second is enough?" Jasira asked angrily.
"Well, of course. I mean, you were not born royalty."
"Oh, you idiot." Desdemona said.
"Do you know what I had to do to get the power that I have? The years I've spend as a lowly servant girl? The sacrifices that I've made, the bodies that I've buried? People need to understand that they will pay for underestimating me! Second is not enough! And it will never be enough! That's why I need the lamp, and why I no longer need YOU!" Jasira slapped him so hard that he fell down into a nearby well.
In the palace of Agrabah, the backdoors slammed opened and the very snooty princess Aicha burst inside.
"I've never been so humiliated!" Princess Aicha screamed, as she storms past a confused woman wearing a white regal dress. She is the Sultana.
"Princess Aicha, you're not leaving so soon, are you?" Sultana asked, trying to stop her from leaving. Then she noticed Aicha's dress was torn, showing her bloomers.
"Good luck to whoever marries that loaf!" Aicha cried as she walked out of the palace.
"Jamal!" The Sultana groaned.
The Sultana walked outside to the courtyard looking for her son. "Jamal, Jamal!" She called out. Then she spotted her son, a fifteen-year-old boy wearing a blue outfit. "Jamal!" The Sultana called as she walked over to where her son was sitting by the fountain.
When she got there, a Bengal tiger stood in front of her, with some tattered piece of cloth in its mouth. "Confound it, Raya!" she scolded, and tried to yank off whatever it was the tiger got in her mouth. She managed to rip a piece off, and noticed it's the same cloth as Princess Aicha's skirt. "So, this is why Princess Aicha stormed out!"
"Oh mother, Raya was just playing with her. Weren't you, girl? You were just playing with that overdressed, vain Princess Aicha, weren't you?" Jamal cooed. Then he and Raya burst into laughter. Only when they noticed the Sultana is giving them angry glares did they stop.
The Sultana sighed at her son. "Jamal, you've got to stop rejecting every bride who comes to call. You should've chosen your wife months ago!" she said as she followed Jamal to the horse stall. "In order to inherit the throne, the law says..."
"I must be married..." Jamal and the Sultana said together.
"...and to a princess." The Sultana finished. "My regency won't last forever. It's your duty that the lineage is preserved."
"So, marriage is my only duty?" Jamal asked as he pets one of his horses.
"Not only. It can be for diplomatic or commercial reasons..."
"For love?"
"Dear, no! For average persons... but not us!"
"Mother, you know I hate being forced into this!" Jamal said, raising his voice, "The law is ridiculous, wrong and outdated, and I shouldn't have to marry someone I despise to appease a piece of parchmment! I want it to be for love if I marry, but why can't I have that?"
"Jamal, darling, you have to understand that it's not just the law we have to consider. It's just that I'm not getting any younger, and I want to make sure that the city will be in excellent and capable hands when I'm gone. You'll be sultan one day, and don't you think having someone by your side will serve you well? Helping you when things become overwhelming, someone who'll love Agrabah and it's people just as much as you do?"
"I can take care of myself." Jamal replied. "I could be sultan by myself..."
"But it has never been done in the 1,000-year history of our kingdom."
Jamal groaned exasperatedly. "Mother, try to understand..." Jamal said as he walked back to the fountain. "I never went out unaccompanied. I never had any real friends..."
Upon hearing that, Raya grunted as if to say, 'What about me?'
"Except you, Raya." Jamal said. The tiger is satisfied with the answer.
"I've never even been outside the palace walls!" Jamal continued. "You can't rule a city from the throne room, you know, you need to be out and about, to see what is going on behind closed doors."
"But Jamal, you are a prince. You're supposed to reign!"
"Then maybe I don't want to reign! In fact, maybe I don't even want to be a prince anymore!" Jamal shouted, angrily splashing the water in the fountain.
"Oh Allah, why was I given such a defiant and disobedient son!" the Sultana wailed as she hastily made her way inside, practically close to tears.
"Huh?" Raya looked confused.
Jamal sighed. He felt somewhat guilty about his outburst. He never meant to upset his mother, but he knew he couldn't bottle it up any longer.
Then he got an idea. He walked over to the bird cage and let all the birds loose. As they flew off, Jamal sighed. "What I wouldn't give to be free..."
Back inside the palace, the Sultana had retreated to her private quarters to do some weaving whenever she felt stressed or overwhelmed. Weaving makes her feel better as she stopped crying, but still upset.
"I don't know where he gets it from." She sighed to herself. "Well, his father wasn't that bad-looking..." Just then a shadow loomed over her. Startled, she quickly turned and she saw that it was only Jasira, with her parrot Desdemona on her shoulder. "Jasira!" she said as she relaxed a bit. "My most trusted advisor. I am in desperate need of your wisdom."
"My life is but to serve you, my lady." Jasira bowed.
"It's this suitor business. Jamal absolutely refuses to take a bride. I'm at my wit's end." The Sultana explained as she sat up from her seat.
"Ack! Wit's end!" Desdemona squawked as she perched on what the Sultana's weaving.
"Whoa! Not here please, it's fragile!" The Sultana yelled, shooing away the parrot who landed back on Jasira's shoulder.
"Perhaps I can divine a solution to this thorny problem." Jasira remarked.
"If anyone can help, it's you." The Sultana pleaded.
"Ah, but it would require the use of the mystic blue diamond." Jasira said with an evil smirk.
"My ring?" The Sultana looked down at the giant diamond ring on her finger hesitatingly. "But it's been in the family for years..."
"It is necessary to find the prince a bride." Jasira said, then smirked wider as she held her staff in front of the Sultana's face when the eyes of the snakehead glowed. "Don't worry, everything will be fine." she said smoothly as she began to hypnotize the Sultana.
"Everything will be... fine..." The Sultana repeated in a trans-like state.
"The diamond..."
"Yes... whatever you need... will... be... fine..." The Sultana said as she took the ring off and offers it to Jasira.
Jasira quickly snatched the ring from the Sultana's hand. "You are most gracious, my liege." She then gently had her sit back down in front of her weaving loom. "Now, go on with your knitting, hmm?"
"Yes. That would be pretty good." Sultana droned happily, as Jasira walked off.
When she was out of the room, Jasira then rolls her eyes. "That woman." she muttered. She then looked at the ring again, now she could use the ring to find the mysterious Diamond in the Rough.
She opened a secret passage revealing a staircase leading up to her lair. "Soon I will be queen, not that old shrew." Jasira told Desdemona.
"And then she will be my perch. Ha ha!" Desdemona laughed evilly at the thought. Then the two walked into the room and the door slammed shut.
Later that night, a robed figure sneaks through the courtyard towards the high palace walls, avoiding the patrolling guards. Jamal had put on a plain brown garb of a commoner over his jewel-toned royal clothing, covering his crown with a light brown shawl.
He looked over his shoulder to ensure that nobody was following him. He ran over to a tree that was tall enough to jump over the wall. As he started to climb, he felt something grabbed his robe. He looked down to see a sad-looking Raya grabbing his robe with her teeth. She didn't want the prince to leave. "I'm sorry Raya, but I can't stay here and have my life lived for me." He climbed back down to give his tiger a hug. "I'll miss you."
Jamal climbed over the palace wall to freedom. Raya helped him out a little by giving him a lift. "Goodbye." Jamal whispered sadly before slipping down the wall.
Raya can only look on sadly, and lays her head down.
Author's Notes:
The chapter title is a reference to the cut song "Call Me a Princess".
I included the dungeon scene from the live-action remake to show Jasira's despicable side.
While the servant is the same one from the live-action remake, his position is also similar to human Iago from the Broadway version.