Aladdin - the Arabian Nights

Chapter 14

In an instant, Jasmine was out of bed and pressed against the wall as far from the doorway as she could go, horribly aware that there was no exit here. "Where am I?" she demanded, her voice shaking slightly as the questions spilled out of her. "What am I doing here? Who are you?!"

Aladdin had still been deciding what was the best way to greet Jasmine on first meeting, and her reaction took him off guard. "Just calm down, Princess! I'm not going to hurt you!"

Apparently Jasmine didn't believe him. "Why am I here?" Jasmine's shoulders tensed; her hands were balled into fists. She was glaring at him. "What do you want with me?!"

"I... nothing! I mean... I do want... I just...." Aladdin struggled to compose himself, which wasn't easy with Jasmine looking like she might throw something at him. This wasn't how he had imagined their first meeting would go!

"You want what?" Jasmine's voice trembled, but she remained tensed against the back wall, her eyes darting round in search of something she might use to defend herself if needed. The room was discouragingly empty. "What do you want?! Why did you kidnap me?!"

"I didn't!" Aladdin protested, wondering if it was too late to call Genie in here and ask him what to do. "I mean... I know what it looks like... but I just wanted...." Oh no. He hadn't kidnapped her, had he? He hadn't meant to kidnap her! "You can go!" he finally said, hoping this was enough to assure Jasmine that she hadn't been kidnapped. His heart sank. He had messed up everything if this was what Jasmine thought of him. She was never going to like him now. "The palace is that way. It's not hard to walk there from here; I've done it lots of times." He tried to keep his own voice steady as these discouraging thoughts settled into his head. "You'll be safe now. Jafar won't bother you any more tonight." That was the important thing, he reminded himself, to save Jasmine from Jafar. He shouldn't be worrying so much about whether she liked him or not when she was in danger... Head downcast, not wanting to see Jasmine walk away from him when he'd barely gotten to meet her, he turned to leave the room.

"Wait!"

Aladdin turned. Jasmine was regarding him with a very different expression than before, one he couldn't quite read, but almost dared to hope – wasn't angry? It was the most encouraging response she'd given him so far, anyway, so Aladdin took a cautious step back into the room and was relieved to see that Jasmine gave no objection, but kept regarding him with her head tilted to one side, eyes slightly narrowed. "How did you know I didn't want to marry Jafar?"

At least she had stopped shouting at him. Aladdin explained about his fateful meeting with Jafar as best he could without mentioning the Genie lamp, saying only that Jafar had pretended to be his uncle and asked for Aladdin's help in retrieving a treasure, and then turned on him and tried to kill him. "I didn't think you'd want to marry someone like that."

"I didn't," Jasmine said softly. Her shoulders had dropped and her fists had softened, but she still kept her eyes on Aladdin. "I knew he was... despicable and... nasty and creepy, but I never knew he'd...."

Jasmine couldn't contain herself anymore. Throwing herself onto her bed, she buried her face in her pillow and burst into tears.

Aladdin hesitated, part of him wanting to go get Genie and ask him what to do, but something told him that wasn't the right thing to do right now. Instead he cautiously made his way over to Jasmine's bed, which was so big it took up most of his room. "Jas... Your High... Princess Jasmine?" How was he supposed to address her under these circumstances? "Are you okay?"

The only response he got was more sobbing. Aladdin sat down beside Jasmine's shaking form – her bed was very comfortable; he sank right into the lush silks and velvets – and laid a tentative hand on her shoulder, taking it as a good sign when she didn't push him away. "It's okay," he tried again. "He's not going to bother you any more tonight. Gen – I mean, I got rid of him."