Kindness, punishment, an ally

Aladdin wasted no time snapping his fingers and disappearing. The first of Jasmine's subjects was a kind old woman. She brought Jasmine a blanket to cover her nudity, and water that tasted like sand, though Jasmine didn't dare complain.

"I'm sorry, dear Princess, that I can't stay longer," the old woman said before leaving.

Over the next few hours she was brought fruits. Bread. Wine. She saw how much her people still loved her. However great Aladdin’s powers were, he must have limits.

Not that the experience was easy. The metal cuffs chafed her ankles. Her neck and shoulders ached from the position she was **** into. She sweat heavily in the midday sun, covered under the blankets. But she preferred that to humiliating nudity.

My people are still on my side, she thought. And then, a young man with one hand shoved his scarred stump into Jasmine’s face. "Do you see this!" he said, angrily. "'A thief is to lose the hand that steals'. That's what your law says."

She tried to speak, but he paced in front of her, back and forth, screaming and fuming insults in an unbroken tirade.

Eventually, he stopped and directed his next words toward her. "Do you know why I stole? Do you even have the slightest idea?"

At this point, she knew anything she said would only incite more anger, so she said nothing.

He stepped on a stick, stopped to look at it curiously, and then at her. He picked it up and tested it in the air. Jasmine flinched at the terrifying swoosh.

"Wait!" Jasmine said, tears in her eyes and voice. The young man yanked the blankets from her back. "Please, I don't make the laws! The Sultan does!"

She heard the emptiness of her words. Was Agrabah not to become her kingdom? If so, then was she not as responsible now, as she would be as queen? Jasmine felt the weight of failure heavy upon her back.

She shrieked at the first impact. Her knees buckled, and for a moment she hung painfully by her neck and wrists until she managed to regain her strength.

"I'm sorry," she said, through gasping breaths.

"Shut up!" he screamed, before striking her again.

"I was trying!" he yelled, as another line of fire burned her backside.

"To feed!" Another stroke. Jasmine shrieked, tears streaming down her face.

"My dying!" Again, and Jasmine's voice cracked at the intensity of her scream.

"Sister!"

Jasmine flinched at the sound smacking flesh, searched with wide eyes when she realized it wasn’t her own. The young man crumpled to the sand beneath her feet.

"My apologies for not arriving sooner, Princess." The voice was male, though the figure appeared slight beneath layers of brown robe.

"Who are you?" Jasmine said. She felt shame at the weakness in her voice.

"We don’t know Aladdin’s full abilities. Right now, the less you know, the better."

Jasmine wasn’t in a position to argue. She watched the stranger drag away the **** boy until they passed beyond her sight. Jasmine felt sorrow for the one-armed boy. How could she allow such mutilation in her kingdom? Had she not learned her lesson when Jafar had lied about Aladdin’s execution?

"Thank you," she said, when the stranger returned from his task.

The mysterious ally fought off two more would-be assailants before the sun fell. One monstrously larger than the robed stranger himself, though her ally seemed to have no trouble breaking the assailants nose and sending him scurrying away.

Who is he? Jasmine wondered.

Aladdin appeared, and for a moment, Jasmine worried that he would hurt her new ally, but when she looked for the robed man, he was no longer there.

Aladdin saw her blanket, the pits of peaches and an empty bowl of wine. "Well," he said. "I see the people are not yet ready to punish you properly."

His lips peeled back. "I guess I’ll have to do it for them."