Magic Words {1/4}afterandalasiaSeptember 30 2011, 12:33:57 UTC
Another day, the summer sun baking down upon the Agrabah sands. Another suitor in his silks and gold and some ridiculous pattern of facial hair, smirking and preening and certain that the princess would fall in love with him. Another reprimand from her father when she cuts the man with her tongue and sends him fleeing the Palace with his tail between his legs.
She had known since she was a child that she never wanted a Prince. She wants to marry for love, she told her father, but he could not see her eyes to see that she did not quite tell the truth. He could always see when she lied.
"What am I supposed to do, Rajah?" The whisper was hidden in the tiger's fur as she curled close to him in the cooling evening. "He might as well marry me to you as to any one of those princes... at least you and I could be friends."
She brushed the tears from her cheek and from his fur, and looked out towards the wall, knowing the city that was hidden beyond it. Once or twice she had raised the courage to climb up one of the trees and look out onto the dust-gold city, hear the people and see the world out there. Now determination knit her brows, and rising to her feet she turned towards the Palace and her chambers, to where she had hidden the once-found robes that would do to mask her from the world.
---
There was something about creeping out at sunrise that she liked, in a way that she couldn't quite explain. Watching the world wake up, seeing people throw open their shutters and set up their stalls in the market, slipping as unnoticed as a shadow between them. Nobody shouted 'Princess!' at her, nobody tried to get her to hide from the eyes of men once again, and she was sure that this was the closest thing to free that she had been in years.
It was like watching a carnival, a play acted out in front of her. She did not understand, of course; she would realised in years to come how very naive she had been, in those days. It seemed so natural to take the apple from the stall and press it into the hands of the child with hunger in his eyes. So rarely had she seen hunger that it seemed to strike deep within her.
Things after that went in a whirl. The shout of the stallkeeper, the hand on her wrist, the exposed blade glinting in the morning sunlight. She could not help but scream.
"Please--"
"Thank you, kind sir!"
The words caught her by surprise; they seemed to come out of nowhere, and then she was removed from the man's grasp and a blade pushed into her hands. A figure appeared between them, dark-haired and glib-tongued, wearing simple baggy clothes.
"I'm so glad that you found my sister..."
It was not until they turned and patted her on the shoulder that Jasmine realised it was another woman. Her heart was still pounding in her chest as the girl whispered for her to play along, and the dazed wonder in her eyes might just have been real by the time that they were running, laughter and shouting mingling together behind them, into the mazelike streets of Agrabah.
"You should be more careful," the girl said as they climbed a ladder to one of the flat rooftops of the city. "The men round near notice pretty women. Especially if they try to steal."
She almost asked how the woman avoids being noticed herself, but stilled her tongue before it could be so bold. There are few women around the Palace, and mostly she has seen the ones that appear as illustrations in books: they are pale, willowy, and seem to do little more than sing and pine for their lost loves. Jasmine knew that these were the women she was supposed to emulate, the ones that are patient and kind and gentle, but their stories bore her to tears. Scheherazade at least had a clever mind, she thought, but for the others she had no time.
"I meant to thank you," she said breathlessly, as they stepped out onto the rooftop. "And yet I don't even know your name."
"It's nothing," replied the girl with a shrug, selecting a long pole from a pile that lay across the rooftop like the remnants of a child's game. "I mean..." she hesitated, and gave Jasmine a winning, endearing smile. "I mean, the rescue. I... people call me Aladdin."
Magic Words {2/4}afterandalasiaSeptember 30 2011, 12:35:10 UTC
"Then all the same... thank you, Aladdin," Jasmine said, and the woman's smile turned shy and left her heart fluttering.
---
That night she wept when Jafar told her that the woman had been put to death. Because for one moment, when Aladdin's hand had brushed against hers, and when they had sat in the wide window of her dwelling and looked out over the city, she had not felt as if the whole world was built wrongly.
---
The announcement of the arrival of a new prince two days later left her angrier than usual, anger seeping in where boredom had once made its home. She crossed to her balcony for barely a moment to hear the singing and the music, see the grand parade; it had been many a year since a man had bought such self-certain finery with him, since the rumours had started to spread that the Princess of Agrabah would accept no hand in marriage. A figure in white and gold stood atop the back of an elephant, scooping handfuls of gold coins to scatter among the crowds; one way to make people adore you, she supposed, was to show them a moment of hope which they would never relive again.
She rolled her eyes and made a dismissive gesture with her hands as she returned to her chambers. Let this arrogant prince made a fool of himself on his own time.
---
In the end, though, her curiosity won out. She had developed a grim fascination with the princes who chose to parade themselves in front of her like peacocks; mostly, she wondered what ridiculous thing they would do, or say, or how much of a fool the latest one could make themselves appear. There were passages in the walls that belonged to the oldest histories of the palace, the days of harems and hidden women, and Jasmine knew them well by now. She had learnt at a young age that her life would be at its easiest if she were invisible to the world.
She stood now in a hidden area behind her father's throne, watching through latticed wood and a shimmering veil of fabric as a flying carpet swooped in through the wide windows. She could not help the faintest curl of her lip in disgust at the display. Surely it did not take much to think of magic used to help people, rather than for some display of wealth or power.
The look faded, though, as the figure stepped down from the carpet and bowed before her father. Jasmine's lips parted in astonishment, her eyebrows rising and one hand rising to her breast as if to hold her heart beneath her skin.
"Prince Aladdin of Ababwa."
They gave a dashing bow, then straightened up with a swish of a cloak. Two astonished looks were made clear: the Sultan's and Jafar's. But Jasmine's joined them still.
After all, of all the princes that had come to Agrabah, never had they been female.
Of course, Jasmine's gaze must have been more incredulous even than her father's, or that of the vizier. She was the only one who had seen the woman in the marketplace, the one who had held her hand and run with her through the streets, the one who had laughed at her jokes and stared into her eyes with the wonder that only finally-thwarted loneliness could feel.
"This is most irregular--" her father began, and Jasmine willed for him to be quiet as she ran for the nearest door out of the corridors, one that would take her into the main Palace rooms.
"In my Kingdom," she heard Aladdin faintly reply, "we do not say such things. I have come a great distance to meet your fair daughter, Sultan; the stories of her beauty have travelled far."
By the time that Jasmine reached the door, she could barely remember to pretend that she had never met Aladdin before. Her mind whirled with questions: how could Aladdin live still? How could a woman be a prince? And how could a prince appear in the guise of a street rat?
"Father?" she asked as she entered the room. All three of the figures there turned to look at her, and when she saw the faint smile that appeared on Aladdin's face she could have thrown herself into the woman's arms there and then. "What is going on?"
"Princess, perhaps it would be best if you were not here," said Jafar. His words were meant to be slick, she supposed; they came out downright oily. "This is a matter which needs to be dealt with."
Magic Words {3/4}afterandalasiaSeptember 30 2011, 12:35:55 UTC
"If the prince has come to see me, let them see me," she replied, with the haughtiest tilt of her chin that she could muster. "After all, all of the others have had such a right."
"Come now, Jafar," said her father. "You and I shall talk, and this... Aladdin will have his-- her chance with the Princess."
She could see Jafar's sneer, but it didn't matter as Aladdin cut another, less ostentatious, bow, and crossed the room to join her. Nothing else mattered in that moment.
---
"How is this possible?" Her eyes shone as Aladdin took her hands again. Aladdin's hands were rough and warm and real, and their fingers interlocked to fit just perfectly.
"Magic," Aladdin replied.
It made no sense, not yet, but Jasmine kissed her anyway. Impulsive, uncertain, a clumsy meeting of their mouths. They both paused breathlessly, then Aladdin's hand came up to her cheek and their lips met again, tongues moving tentatively forward, finding something there that was hot and true and boundless.
Somewhere in the hours that they spent together, Aladdin explained about the lamp, about the magic it held, though she shyly refused to bring it forward. For a moment Jasmine wondered whether it was right, using magic to bend the laws of Agrabah; more than that, lying to her father. But then she glanced down into the fountain, and saw their reflections together on the water, and knew that this magic, at least, was right.
---
Aladdin used her second wish to confer safety upon the kingdom of Agrabah. Jasmine laughed until there were tears in her eyes when Jafar appeared to suddenly decide that he was much needed elsewhere, and left the city with a look of confusion still on his face.
The Sultan said, with a soft fond sadness in his eyes, that he had never seen Jasmine so happy. He cradled her cheek in his hands and asked only one question: "Are you sure?"
"More than of anything," Jasmine replied.
Her father nodded, and kissed her brow, and then shook Aladdin's hand before drawing the woman-prince into an embrace. "Then lay your hand in that of this Prince, and be happy."
---
The laws of Agrabah may be strict, but they are clear. All it says is that a Princess must marry a Prince, and Aladdin is undeniably a Prince. She wears a fine suit when they are wed, and Jasmine wears a gown of white silk, and the city celebrates nonetheless. That night, as they watched the fireworks that have travelled the far distance from the Orient, Aladdin rubbed the lamp one last time and wishes the genie free.
They had spoken about this. Spoken about the fact that Aladdin had but one wish left, and what they might have done with it. What they might have given to Agrabah, its people and its poor; their more selfish wishes, and whether they might want a child.
“I promised,” Aladdin said softly, shaking her head, and Jasmine understood and kissed her again.
The Genie exploded into the air in smoke and lights and some sort of strange music and marching movement that neither of them understood but which made them both laugh anyway.
“Master! Mistress! Mistresses!” He gave them an expansive hug, catching Abu and Rajah and the Carpet as well, and at least two of those three looked very surprised at the movement. Both women just laughed. “What’ll it be? Perfect life together?” A peg appeared on his nose. “City sanitation?” In an instant the peg was gone, and he nudged Aladdin in the ribs with a waggle of his great black expressive eyebrows. “Fecundity?”
Aladdin patted his arm. “Genie,” she replied, “I wish for your freedom.”
This time, Jasmine was fairly sure that the tears weren’t just overdramatic acting.
---
There were many things that magic could do: beautiful and dangerous things, great or small things, terrible and wonderful things. But the greatest thing that magic could have done, Jasmine decided, was to have given freedom in each of the three wishes that Aladdin used: in reverse order, freedom for the Genie, freedom for Agrabah, and freedom for themselves.
Magic Words {4/4}afterandalasiaSeptember 30 2011, 12:38:20 UTC
That night Aladdin joined her in the chambers that were finally theirs, and slowly they peeled the clothes from each other’s bodies, revealing the familiarities and the newness in each other. Aladdin tasted of the sun, her skin warm and slightly bitter and rough to Jasmine’s touch, and she whispered exquisite, uneducated words about the softness of Jasmine’s skin, the sweet perfume that clung to her. Aladdin’s hand traced the curve of her waist; her mouth, the lines of Jasmine’s hips. From outside they could hear the music and singing, but louder in Jasmine’s ears were the gasps of breath, the wordless needy whispers, from her lips or from those pressed against them, fingers brushing against the soft sheens of sweat.
“My Prince,” she whispered, pinning Aladdin to the bed and letting her fingers learn the muscle of her husband-wife’s body. “My perfect Prince.”
“My magical Princess,” Aladdin replied, and drew her down to press their bodies together in return.
And all the magic in the world could not have replaced this, a chance meeting that had created their world, their new world. In years to come, Genie would return from them, and sometimes Jasmine would wonder what stories they had yet to create, strange and wonderful. But for now she did not care for the great lengths of their tale, and was content with the scenes they wrote now, searching kisses and learning hands and aching hearts.
“My love,” they whisper together, and giggle at their own foolishness, and curl into each other’s arms. And whenever Jasmine hears the fireworks in the distance, a smile comes to her face again, and she wonders at the magic that a single word can achieve.
Re: Magic Words {4/4}thisismsmercyOctober 2 2011, 05:37:08 UTC
I love this so much, seriously. I only read it out of curiosity, but it was fantastic, one of my favourite genderbent fics I've ever read :D All of the characterisations were spot on and it just totally worked. Also, sweet as anything<3
Re: Magic Words {4/4}crimsongypsyOctober 2 2011, 19:47:45 UTC
I hate you and I love you for this! I love you because this is so insanely well written that it makes me incredibly happy. It's sweet and fun and just so well done. I hate you because I can never emulate your greatness and because I went to work the other day and Aladdin was playing on the break room tv and all I could think was "Why isn't he a chick?" :P
She had known since she was a child that she never wanted a Prince. She wants to marry for love, she told her father, but he could not see her eyes to see that she did not quite tell the truth. He could always see when she lied.
"What am I supposed to do, Rajah?" The whisper was hidden in the tiger's fur as she curled close to him in the cooling evening. "He might as well marry me to you as to any one of those princes... at least you and I could be friends."
She brushed the tears from her cheek and from his fur, and looked out towards the wall, knowing the city that was hidden beyond it. Once or twice she had raised the courage to climb up one of the trees and look out onto the dust-gold city, hear the people and see the world out there. Now determination knit her brows, and rising to her feet she turned towards the Palace and her chambers, to where she had hidden the once-found robes that would do to mask her from the world.
---
There was something about creeping out at sunrise that she liked, in a way that she couldn't quite explain. Watching the world wake up, seeing people throw open their shutters and set up their stalls in the market, slipping as unnoticed as a shadow between them. Nobody shouted 'Princess!' at her, nobody tried to get her to hide from the eyes of men once again, and she was sure that this was the closest thing to free that she had been in years.
It was like watching a carnival, a play acted out in front of her. She did not understand, of course; she would realised in years to come how very naive she had been, in those days. It seemed so natural to take the apple from the stall and press it into the hands of the child with hunger in his eyes. So rarely had she seen hunger that it seemed to strike deep within her.
Things after that went in a whirl. The shout of the stallkeeper, the hand on her wrist, the exposed blade glinting in the morning sunlight. She could not help but scream.
"Please--"
"Thank you, kind sir!"
The words caught her by surprise; they seemed to come out of nowhere, and then she was removed from the man's grasp and a blade pushed into her hands. A figure appeared between them, dark-haired and glib-tongued, wearing simple baggy clothes.
"I'm so glad that you found my sister..."
It was not until they turned and patted her on the shoulder that Jasmine realised it was another woman. Her heart was still pounding in her chest as the girl whispered for her to play along, and the dazed wonder in her eyes might just have been real by the time that they were running, laughter and shouting mingling together behind them, into the mazelike streets of Agrabah.
"You should be more careful," the girl said as they climbed a ladder to one of the flat rooftops of the city. "The men round near notice pretty women. Especially if they try to steal."
She almost asked how the woman avoids being noticed herself, but stilled her tongue before it could be so bold. There are few women around the Palace, and mostly she has seen the ones that appear as illustrations in books: they are pale, willowy, and seem to do little more than sing and pine for their lost loves. Jasmine knew that these were the women she was supposed to emulate, the ones that are patient and kind and gentle, but their stories bore her to tears. Scheherazade at least had a clever mind, she thought, but for the others she had no time.
"I meant to thank you," she said breathlessly, as they stepped out onto the rooftop. "And yet I don't even know your name."
"It's nothing," replied the girl with a shrug, selecting a long pole from a pile that lay across the rooftop like the remnants of a child's game. "I mean..." she hesitated, and gave Jasmine a winning, endearing smile. "I mean, the rescue. I... people call me Aladdin."
Reply
---
That night she wept when Jafar told her that the woman had been put to death. Because for one moment, when Aladdin's hand had brushed against hers, and when they had sat in the wide window of her dwelling and looked out over the city, she had not felt as if the whole world was built wrongly.
---
The announcement of the arrival of a new prince two days later left her angrier than usual, anger seeping in where boredom had once made its home. She crossed to her balcony for barely a moment to hear the singing and the music, see the grand parade; it had been many a year since a man had bought such self-certain finery with him, since the rumours had started to spread that the Princess of Agrabah would accept no hand in marriage. A figure in white and gold stood atop the back of an elephant, scooping handfuls of gold coins to scatter among the crowds; one way to make people adore you, she supposed, was to show them a moment of hope which they would never relive again.
She rolled her eyes and made a dismissive gesture with her hands as she returned to her chambers. Let this arrogant prince made a fool of himself on his own time.
---
In the end, though, her curiosity won out. She had developed a grim fascination with the princes who chose to parade themselves in front of her like peacocks; mostly, she wondered what ridiculous thing they would do, or say, or how much of a fool the latest one could make themselves appear. There were passages in the walls that belonged to the oldest histories of the palace, the days of harems and hidden women, and Jasmine knew them well by now. She had learnt at a young age that her life would be at its easiest if she were invisible to the world.
She stood now in a hidden area behind her father's throne, watching through latticed wood and a shimmering veil of fabric as a flying carpet swooped in through the wide windows. She could not help the faintest curl of her lip in disgust at the display. Surely it did not take much to think of magic used to help people, rather than for some display of wealth or power.
The look faded, though, as the figure stepped down from the carpet and bowed before her father. Jasmine's lips parted in astonishment, her eyebrows rising and one hand rising to her breast as if to hold her heart beneath her skin.
"Prince Aladdin of Ababwa."
They gave a dashing bow, then straightened up with a swish of a cloak. Two astonished looks were made clear: the Sultan's and Jafar's. But Jasmine's joined them still.
After all, of all the princes that had come to Agrabah, never had they been female.
Of course, Jasmine's gaze must have been more incredulous even than her father's, or that of the vizier. She was the only one who had seen the woman in the marketplace, the one who had held her hand and run with her through the streets, the one who had laughed at her jokes and stared into her eyes with the wonder that only finally-thwarted loneliness could feel.
"This is most irregular--" her father began, and Jasmine willed for him to be quiet as she ran for the nearest door out of the corridors, one that would take her into the main Palace rooms.
"In my Kingdom," she heard Aladdin faintly reply, "we do not say such things. I have come a great distance to meet your fair daughter, Sultan; the stories of her beauty have travelled far."
By the time that Jasmine reached the door, she could barely remember to pretend that she had never met Aladdin before. Her mind whirled with questions: how could Aladdin live still? How could a woman be a prince? And how could a prince appear in the guise of a street rat?
"Father?" she asked as she entered the room. All three of the figures there turned to look at her, and when she saw the faint smile that appeared on Aladdin's face she could have thrown herself into the woman's arms there and then. "What is going on?"
"Princess, perhaps it would be best if you were not here," said Jafar. His words were meant to be slick, she supposed; they came out downright oily. "This is a matter which needs to be dealt with."
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"Come now, Jafar," said her father. "You and I shall talk, and this... Aladdin will have his-- her chance with the Princess."
She could see Jafar's sneer, but it didn't matter as Aladdin cut another, less ostentatious, bow, and crossed the room to join her. Nothing else mattered in that moment.
---
"How is this possible?" Her eyes shone as Aladdin took her hands again. Aladdin's hands were rough and warm and real, and their fingers interlocked to fit just perfectly.
"Magic," Aladdin replied.
It made no sense, not yet, but Jasmine kissed her anyway. Impulsive, uncertain, a clumsy meeting of their mouths. They both paused breathlessly, then Aladdin's hand came up to her cheek and their lips met again, tongues moving tentatively forward, finding something there that was hot and true and boundless.
Somewhere in the hours that they spent together, Aladdin explained about the lamp, about the magic it held, though she shyly refused to bring it forward. For a moment Jasmine wondered whether it was right, using magic to bend the laws of Agrabah; more than that, lying to her father. But then she glanced down into the fountain, and saw their reflections together on the water, and knew that this magic, at least, was right.
---
Aladdin used her second wish to confer safety upon the kingdom of Agrabah. Jasmine laughed until there were tears in her eyes when Jafar appeared to suddenly decide that he was much needed elsewhere, and left the city with a look of confusion still on his face.
The Sultan said, with a soft fond sadness in his eyes, that he had never seen Jasmine so happy. He cradled her cheek in his hands and asked only one question: "Are you sure?"
"More than of anything," Jasmine replied.
Her father nodded, and kissed her brow, and then shook Aladdin's hand before drawing the woman-prince into an embrace. "Then lay your hand in that of this Prince, and be happy."
---
The laws of Agrabah may be strict, but they are clear. All it says is that a Princess must marry a Prince, and Aladdin is undeniably a Prince. She wears a fine suit when they are wed, and Jasmine wears a gown of white silk, and the city celebrates nonetheless. That night, as they watched the fireworks that have travelled the far distance from the Orient, Aladdin rubbed the lamp one last time and wishes the genie free.
They had spoken about this. Spoken about the fact that Aladdin had but one wish left, and what they might have done with it. What they might have given to Agrabah, its people and its poor; their more selfish wishes, and whether they might want a child.
“I promised,” Aladdin said softly, shaking her head, and Jasmine understood and kissed her again.
The Genie exploded into the air in smoke and lights and some sort of strange music and marching movement that neither of them understood but which made them both laugh anyway.
“Master! Mistress! Mistresses!” He gave them an expansive hug, catching Abu and Rajah and the Carpet as well, and at least two of those three looked very surprised at the movement. Both women just laughed. “What’ll it be? Perfect life together?” A peg appeared on his nose. “City sanitation?” In an instant the peg was gone, and he nudged Aladdin in the ribs with a waggle of his great black expressive eyebrows. “Fecundity?”
Aladdin patted his arm. “Genie,” she replied, “I wish for your freedom.”
This time, Jasmine was fairly sure that the tears weren’t just overdramatic acting.
---
There were many things that magic could do: beautiful and dangerous things, great or small things, terrible and wonderful things. But the greatest thing that magic could have done, Jasmine decided, was to have given freedom in each of the three wishes that Aladdin used: in reverse order, freedom for the Genie, freedom for Agrabah, and freedom for themselves.
Reply
“My Prince,” she whispered, pinning Aladdin to the bed and letting her fingers learn the muscle of her husband-wife’s body. “My perfect Prince.”
“My magical Princess,” Aladdin replied, and drew her down to press their bodies together in return.
And all the magic in the world could not have replaced this, a chance meeting that had created their world, their new world. In years to come, Genie would return from them, and sometimes Jasmine would wonder what stories they had yet to create, strange and wonderful. But for now she did not care for the great lengths of their tale, and was content with the scenes they wrote now, searching kisses and learning hands and aching hearts.
“My love,” they whisper together, and giggle at their own foolishness, and curl into each other’s arms. And whenever Jasmine hears the fireworks in the distance, a smile comes to her face again, and she wonders at the magic that a single word can achieve.
Reply
All of the characterisations were spot on and it just totally worked. Also, sweet as anything<3
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Aladdin should be female. Lesbians all round!
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