It was hard to believe that it had only been three short months since their conversation. Since he’d had corned her into unused room in the palace, his large but thin hands splayed out on the wall beside her head. His eyes had glared darkly into hers, but she had just stared back at him, defiant.
“Stop playing these games with me.” It had been an order, not a request, and his voice had curled dangerously at the end of each word.
She had played dumb. “What games?”
His teeth clenched together, and he spat out the words now. “You know what games. Either stop playing or — “
Her laughter cut him off. “Or else what, Jafar? What could you possibly do to me?”
Jafar’s hand clenched, the one closest to her pretty face. He held it in mid-air for a moment, a moment in which her laughter fell silent as both wondered if he was going to punch the wall or her. But then he let his arm drop, and she stepped away from him and across the room to the doorway, letting her hips sway slightly under her shimmering pants. She never looked back once at him, but could feel his eyes burning into her back.
And now, after being thrown across the chamber and into the hourglass, the sand sprinkling lightly on her head, Princess Jasmine had been given her answer. What he could possibly to do her, indeed.
They had been playing their power games for years. Most children would bully their parents, always trying to be one step ahead, but the Sultan wouldn’t let Jasmine try to be one step ahead of him — he allowed her to be leaps and bounds ahead of him. It wasn’t a challenge; it wasn’t fun. It was too easy. So she bullied Jafar instead, and now it was a challenge — the step ahead was always in sight, but she could never make the jump. Jasmine received satisfaction, though; she’d known that no matter how much she irritated Jafar, how quietly furious she made him, that he could not attack back. The Sultan trusted him with blind faith, but both knew that if Jafar were to lay one figure on the Sultan’s daughter, Jafar would be thrown out of the palace and most likely, beheaded.
Iago had, for once in his parrot life, offered Jasmine a serious piece of advice. To stop playing power games with the Grand Vizier because in the end, she would lose. Badly. And being the stubborn princess that she was, Jasmine refused to listen, too impressed by her own action at manipulating the man.
Then Jasmine had turned fifteen, and the childish fun under the games had turned into a simmering, disturbing... energy. She knew it was when she’d turned fifteen, because it was then that the Sultan had brought her in suitors, suitors that couldn’t stand up to her torment, her behaviour. And inside the palace there was a man who not only stood up to her, but for every notch Jasmine pushed their bickering up by, Jafar would push it up yet again, and the bickering would eventually push up to such a level that was inconvincible to Jasmine.
Jasmine knew what the underlying energy was. It was the energy she knew she should feel towards her suitors, but never could. She never would admit it either, and just feebly hoped that the emotion would go away. And yet, she continued to challenge it.
She had hoped that her escape would make things easier, but her love for Aladdin had only gone and complicated things even more. Jasmine loved everything that he stood for, especially his freedom, and it was wonderful to love without power games and hatred fogging the emotion. And Aladdin had almost put an end to the games, indirectly — the hate for Jafar had truly burst when he’d told her that he’d killed Aladdin. The games were over, if he was killing to win.
Even if Jafar hadn’t killed him then, he was truly going to now, Jasmine thought as she watched through the hour glass, trying to fight the sand quickly burying her to her throat now. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Aladdin seemed to be shouting now and Jafar’s face was becoming darker and more twisted as Aladdin carried on and digging himself further into his hole.
Attempting to stand, Jasmine slowly pulled her arms out of the sand heavily and starting banging on the glass, trying to gain Jafar’s attention.
“Jafar! Jafar!” She was screaming his name, but her voice simply echoed around the hourglass. They couldn’t hear her anymore than she could hear them, and his back was towards her.
And then Iago looked over.
Jasmine started to point Jafar furiously, desperately trying to get Iago to reach Jafar. For a moment, Iago stood still, then Jasmine watched in relative relief as he flew to Jafar’s shoulder. He turned towards her, and she begun to bang on the glass louder.
And all he did was stand there, his face the ultimate picture of arrogance, with a smirk of satisfaction crossing his features.
“Jafar, you absolute bastard!” Jasmine fairly screamed, feeling her face flush in anger and frustration. This wasn’t a game anymore, why didn’t he understand that?
And why wasn’t Aladdin going anywhere? She was trying to gain Jafar’s attention so Aladdin could slip away, give him a chance to escape. It crushed her, to know that she needed Aladdin to leave forever, but it was better than watching him killed right in front of her. But either he was as stubborn as she was, or he was secretly stupid at times like these, because all he did was stand there.
The sand was creeping up towards her nose now; all Jasmine could smell was the sand, and she could feel it coating the inside of her mouth. She closed her eyes, Jafar smirking at her, knowing that he had won for the last time, the last thing that she saw.
And then she found herself outside the glass, breathing fresh air deeply through her nose, coughing mouthfuls of wet sand at Jafar’s feet. Jasmine could hear Aladdin screaming her name, but she could hardly hear him; she was too surprised to find herself alive to care.
Jafar fell down to one knee in front of her collapsed body, and she forced herself to look up at his face. He still looked deadly and furious, but despite the anger in his eyes, Jasmine could see the slight confusion that was there when he told her to stop playing their games.
“What is it now, Princess?” he hissed, the politeness gone from his voice from when he spoke to her as she had seduced him, unwillingly and not with her heart.
Jasmine swallowed hard, as hard as she could with her throat feeling like it had been scratched to pieces. “Jafar... please...”
Please, what? Jasmine realised she hadn’t thought this far ahead, as she had only wanted to get his attention long enough for Aladdin to run. And Aladdin still stood there, several metres away.
Jafar’s voice lowered, so the others could not hear him, and his voice had dropped the anger in order for seriousness. “Be my Queen, and I’ll let him live.” At Jasmine’s fallen face, he sneered. “Or do you want him, uh, gone?”
Jasmine felt her eyes water, and whether it was due to the sand or the sheer frustration of the whole situation, she wasn’t sure. “No, please... anything else...”
But Jafar had already seemed to make her mind up for her, as his snake staff magically formed in his hand and raised it to her face, and when he spoke, his voice was trance-like. “You are going to marry me, Jasmine. You will be mine.”
Jasmine felt tired as she stared into the red eyes of the snake. The shouting of her name in the background was increasing loudly, and was now intercepted with the shouting of foul words directed to Jafar, but if Jasmine could hardly hear the noise before, she truly couldn’t hear it now. All she could hear Jafar’s voice echoing in her head.
“Marry you...?”
Her own conscious was pushing into her head as well now, and the conscious had seemed to split in two, both screaming at her. Most of her was crying for her to fight this, that she was to be with Aladdin, despite the fact that he might not stand a chance tonight. This mind begged her to try and understand that if she fell into Jafar’s spell, there would be no way that she would come back to life as she knew it.
And yet, the other part of her mind told her to fall under the spell. This was her chance to give in to the energy under all their games, and who knew if she would get this chance again.
Jasmine felt the tears that had pooled into her eyes slip slowly down her cheeks.
“I will...”
What could Jafar do to her? Win the ultimate game.
An Agreement's Small Print by Lisa Jane
Author's Notes:
Disclaimer: I don’t own Aladdin, and don’t make any money from this story.