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arnoldmoyoyo(Ariel/Jasmine femslash, if you will. Rated T, also on ao3)
(The text formatting is seriously wack, and I spent a long time trying to fix it lol, I'll give it another go later)
They’d found each other by accident.
Jasmine had been living away from the palace for a while, in a place far from Agrabah, and she’d grown to love the coastline, the salty air and the glimmering ocean, stretching out with the promise of forever on the horizon. Ariel had been hiding in a cavern, away from her own palace, close to the land she yearned to belong to.
For Jasmine, that first look had been hypnotic.
Aladdin had once told her that she was all warm sunsets and tumultuous sandstorms, and Jasmine had scoffed and told him find some words that actually meant something. She didn’t care for metaphors, and the desert sand made her freeze up whenever she so much as touched it. When Aladdin ran a finger down her arm and compared her skin to the rich gold of sand dunes, all she could think about was the way the sand had filled the glass and her lungs, slowly, so painfully -
Beach sand is wet, it’s hardy, it sticks, and it gets everywhere, but not in your lungs, and Jasmine likes that. She likes that it’s tough. Not flimsy, like desert sand and Aladdin’s flowery words. She didn’t think that, three years on, she’d actually understand what he’d meant when he’d said all those things to her, because she cannot begin to describe Ariel without lapsing into poetry.
Arial is cold, colder than the sharp winter nights, even when she’s caressing Jasmine with her freezing hands, leaving damp imprints on her skin that never seem to grow warm again, even after she’s long gone. She tastes like salt, briny and biting, and her laugh clears Jasmine’s mind of all sense, filling her with the insatiable desire to fling herself into the ocean and immerse herself in the darkness with Ariel.
Ariel never lets her. Ariel never lets her touch the water when they’re together, always hauling herself up on the sand to see her. It’s dangerous, she says, her voice echoing in the cavern where Jasmine always goes to find her. You’d die. And I couldn’t live with myself if you did.
Maybe I want to die for you, says Jasmine, and Ariel stops laughing.
That’s the sirensong talking, she says. Don’t make me laugh anymore.
To that, Jasmine says nothing.
******
Drink this, she says, and Jasmine raises an eyebrow at it. The vial glows green, the light glimmering on Ariel’s scales, and it looks like everything Jasmine has learned the hard way to avoid.
Will I regret it? she asks.
No, says Ariel. It makes you immune to sirensong.
Maybe I don’t want to be immune, says Jasmine, shifting on the sand and placing a hand on Ariel’s waist, pulling her closer. She’d never thought she’d be able to bear the smell of fish, but on Ariel, the faint musk of it is interlaced with that ever-present scent of salt that’s sliced through her consciousness and made her weak.
Maybe so, says Ariel. But I want you to be.
Jasmine will do anything Ariel asks of her, so she takes the vial and she downs it in one swallow. It burns on the way down.
Reality slaps her in the face, freezing wet. The smell of fish suddenly grows too pungent to bear. Jasmine backs away from Ariel, retching slightly and covering her nose and mouth. Ariel slips into the water, her blue eyes glowing, burning into Jasmine’s brown ones.
She’s still so beautiful, but Jasmine is suddenly seeing her as she is for the first time; feral, foreign, red hair in thick strands, straggly and uneven, her teeth just a little too sharp for comfort, glistening skin melding into a seamless blend of turquoise scales - and she shudders.
You do not like me this way, says Ariel quietly. Her voice is a harsh echo against Jasmine’s ears.
You are different, she says.
In a bad way?
No, says Jasmine, and means it. She inches towards Ariel again, breathing through her mouth, and Ariel doesn’t move away.
She doesn’t move closer either.
******
Jasmine goes down to the cavern every night after this, but Ariel doesn’t come.
She wonders if she should have tempered her reaction. The smell of fish is something she can get used to. People have gotten used to so much worse.
She grabs fistfuls of damp sand and flings them at the low tide. She never thought she’d be able to stand the sand again, not since Jafar… and the hourglass...
It had been part of the reason why she’d left. Part of the reason why her father had let her leave at all. Watching her grow scared of everything had been too painful for him to watch.
She clenches her fists and presses them into the sand, hard, relishing in the sting of it. The cavern cuts off sight of the rest of the ocean, leaving her with only a small pool of water to stare at. In the beginning, it had been freeing. Now she wonders just how much of it was the sirensong. She could steal a boat, she surmises, and row off - but where to?
She wishes she had the carpet, but that was Aladdin’s, and he’d taken that when she’d told him to leave. A thread of guilt needles its way through her sternum, and she digs her fists even harder into the sand.
She shouldn’t have told him to leave. She’d wanted him gone, but she didn’t think he would listen. No man ever had. But he had. He’d gone. And she’d lost her only friend.
Now, as she stares at the pool of water, unyieldingly silent, frustratingly still, she wonders if she will ever find someone again.
******
One night, when Jasmine comes back to the cavern, she finds a redheaded girl on the sand.
Swearing, she pulls off her shawl and rushes to help her and cover her up, but the girl raises her head and looks at her. Blue eyes lock onto brown.
Jasmine stops. The shawl slips from her fingers.
Ariel lifts herself up on her new legs, smiling, unsteady on her feet, and she wobbles and falls into Jasmine’s arms.
You came back, Jasmine whispers, her eyes stinging with tears. You came… you have legs. Why do you have legs?
Ariel just smiles at her. Jasmine helps her sit on the sand, noticing the way her skin still glimmers and her legs look like they’re glittering gold if you glance at it just right - but she’s no longer freezing cold. She’s warm and dry - and shallow, Jasmine thinks. A shallow shadow of the girl she knew. She tosses the shawl over Ariel’s shoulders and wraps it around her tight. Ariel’s lips twist into a frown and she squirms out of it.
Is that not comfortable? she asks. Ariel shakes her head, eyeing the shawl warily, and moves close to Jasmine, who wraps her arms around her, but then she squirms away from this too.
So Jasmine does the only thing that makes sense and takes off her own clothes.
She pulls Ariel into her arms, burying her nose in her hair and taking a deep breath. Ariel smells like nothing. Jasmine’s heart stutters and grinds to a halt. She feels like paper, dry and smooth and certainly not human, and Jasmine misses the freezing touch of her skin. That was something tangible. This feels too much like a genie’s flimsy wish, ready to fall apart at her fingertips at the slightest breath.
Talk to me, she whispers. Ariel smiles again. Her hair, Jasmine notices, lies in smoother waves around her head now.
Ariel points at her throat, and then at her legs, and shakes her head, and Jasmine backs away again in horror.
You told me I wasn’t to drown with you, she says, because she can still remember everything she’d said when she was affected by the sirensong. And you bartered your voice for legs?
Ariel’s blue eyes are heart wrenching, and Jasmine’s own eyes sting. This time, the tears fall. She sniffs and wipes her nose. I wanted to figure this out with us like us, she says.
Ariel points at herself again and frowns, and then she holds her nose and points at Jasmine.
I could have gotten used to that, says Jasmine. I didn’t want you like this. I want you like you.
Ariel’s face crumples, but no tears fall. Jasmine cries enough for the both of them.
******
Ariel doesn’t come back every night, even though Jasmine does. On the nights that she does come back, Jasmine strips off her clothes and holds her close, though Ariel can’t stand to be held for too long. Jasmine supposes it’s the heat that she can’t take. It never used to be a problem before.
What can I do for you? she asks every night. How can we get you your voice back?
Ariel just shakes her head, and Jasmine understands, from one princess to another, that this is a journey Ariel has to take on her own.
Jasmine doesn’t admit this, because she knows that Ariel has been beating herself up about this since she traded her voice for legs, but she misses Ariel’s mermaid form. She loved tracing her finger over her translucent fins, loved looking at the way her tail shimmered whenever she shifted. Perhaps that had been the sirensong too, but Jasmine would give anything to have that again.
They cannot speak to each other, they cannot hold each other, and every night they meet, Ariel closes her eyes in a vain attempt to cry, but all she has been granted are legs, and she is still, in every other aspect, very much a mermaid.
Legs don’t make a man, Jasmine had told her, and Ariel had huffed in a way that meant you don’t have to tell me.
Ariel likes to trace her fingers over Jasmine’s skin, feeling the way it’s dry in places and damp in others, in a way her new skin isn’t. It is dry all over and it never gets wet, and it’s too sensitive to heat and everything’s wrong, and Jasmine just wants to talk to Ariel, but she can’t, and she hates it.
******
Jasmine always comes to the cavern at dusk and she always leaves at dawn.
Rubbing her eyes and yawning, she steps out, only to bump into Aladdin who is crouching on a large boulder. I heard you were here, he says when she stills. I know you asked me to leave. I wanted to see if you were safe. And I wanted you to know I was living here. So you wouldn’t feel weird about it. Jasmine just stares at him and Aladdin straightens his legs, dropping to the ground with a soft thud. He scratches the back of his head and smiles a little. I live here, he says again. So you might bump into me sometimes. I’ll try to stay out of your way.
No, says Jasmine, her voice crackling out. Don’t. I - I need your help.
Aladdin looks curious, and Jasmine gulps, tugging her shawl tighter around herself and her hair. I know you freed the genie, she says. But I need to help my friend. And I don’t know… I don’t know how…
I’ll see what I can do, says Aladdin with a small nod. Jasmine feels a rush of gratitude - but the thread of guilt slices through that and it all falls apart around her head. She shudders.
I’m sorry for asking you to leave, she says. Aladdin shakes his head.
You shouldn’t apologise for wanting your space, he says. Jasmine nods and he holds out his hand. She takes it and shakes it and he smiles at her. I will let you know if I find something, he says, and then he bows. Your Highness.
He walks away, and Jasmine’s thoughts shift back to Ariel again. She’d never have to call her Highness. And Jasmine would never have to call Ariel that either. They were princesses. Equals. Starting on the same foot (or tailfin, rather), even when they were worlds apart.
She laughs at the irony of it all. Just when she thought she was free, here was her heart, trapped in the net of an unsolvable situation. Even if Ariel did find her voice, Jasmine could never live in the sea. Ariel could never live on land. That cavern would only sustain them for so long. A liminal existence is not what she wants.
******
Ariel doesn’t return again for a while. Days stretch into weeks, and then a month passes. Then two months. Every minute Jasmine waits feels like sand in the hourglass she was trapped in, slow-rising, suffocating panic that makes her want to scream - but what good will screaming do when she’s so trapped in her pain?
She comes back every night to wait. Sometimes, Aladdin walks her there and waits for her, and walks her home again. He never asks, and Jasmine never tells.
Most nights, she’s alone, tracing patterns on the wet sand, letting the echo of the waves lull her to sleep, waking up at the slightest sound, heart racing with hope till they trip and stumble at the sight of the empty cavern.
She starts getting too used to it. Her bed becomes too dry and too soft for her to sleep on. The imprints of the sand on her cheeks start taking longer to go away.
And still she feels Ariel’s cold embrace when she slips into her dreams.
She thinks she can hear the sirensong sometimes, lulling her into the tide as it washes over the sand, but she stays well away. Losing herself in the ocean will just land her in an even bigger conundrum. This is already difficult enough. She doesn’t know how much longer she can hold on for.
One night, she sits with Aladdin just outside the cavern, one ear out to listen to Ariel.
I thought coming here would free me, she says, hugging her knees close to her chest and staring at the sand. I thought being away from the palace would free me. Father no longer calls for me, I am allowed to do as I please.
Aladdin only watches, listening intently.
What good is it being free if I’m always longing for her like this? she asks. It’s the first time she’s let on that there is someone else - not that Aladdin wouldn’t have guessed. He isn’t stupid. He never was.
I used to ask myself that, he says. Jasmine looks up.
What did you do? she asks.
I lived, Jasmine, he says, eyes filled with sympathy. I stopped waiting. I started living.
What if she comes back and I’m not here?
If it’s meant to be, she will find her way to you again, he says. I found you, didn’t I?
But it’s not the same, says Jasmine.
No, says Aladdin. But it’s still good.
******
Two weeks later, something good comes back, but it’s not Ariel.
It’s a close second though. It’s the genie, fresh off his very long holiday, wanting to find his old friends again. What he finds is a sad shell of a princess, and a former street urchin turned tradesman who tries to make sure she eats enough and finds her way back to the world of the living again.
Jasmine can barely muster up a smile at the sight of her old friend. She leans against the hard rock of the cave and closes her eyes, listening to Aladdin explain everything that’s happened over the past three months.
Then she hears it. The whispering in her head. Like she used to.
Her eyes snap open and she scrambles to her feet, and Aladdin and the genie glance up at her.
Jasmine…
She rips her shawl from her head and starts to run, not into the cavern, but out, out onto the shoreline, to the pier that’s still too far away. Her sandaled feet thud against the sand. Aladdin sprints after her, shouting for her, but Jasmine’s running like a woman possessed, heart racing as she pants.
Jasmine, Jasmine…
Her clothes are too restrictive, too difficult, they’re slowing her down. Jasmine unravels her second shawl that she’d wrapped around her shoulders, letting it whip out of her hands. She unbuttons the top of her blouse. The pier grows closer.
Jasmine…
I’m coming, she thinks, panting as she shrugs off her blouse and lets that fly behind her too. I’m coming to you. I’m coming for you.
She reaches the pier, shakes off her shoes and sprints to the edge of it.
She doesn’t bother trying to take off her trousers.
She doesn’t hear Aladdin’s shout, nor does she see the genie’s attempts to pull her back. His magic is weak, and indefensible against sirensong.
Jasmine doesn’t pause to look at the never ending horizon before she hurls herself into the ocean. The impact is bone shattering.
Jasmine…
I’m here.
******
She wakes up and retches, and a stream of water gurgles out of her mouth.
She retches again and starts to cough hard. Her throat burns. Her nostrils burn. Her eyes feel dry and sandy, but she’s wrapped in something freezing.
And then… that same old fishy smell.
Jasmine heaves and vomits all over the sand. Gasping, she crawls up the beach, growing faintly aware that her clothes are nowhere, and that there’s sand in absolutely every orifice of her body.
She swears.
If that is the first thing you’ve got to say, I can assume you are well.
Jasmine would recognise that grating echo anywhere. She turns. Ariel is smiling at her, her sharp teeth glinting in the dim light.
Jasmine doesn’t smile back.
You lured me in, she says. You made me wait and you almost made me die.
I didn’t lure you in, says Ariel. That was another siren.
It was you, Jasmine insists. It was you in my head.
You are no longer susceptible to my song, says Ariel. I made sure of it when I got you that potion. You would be able to sit by me otherwise. She shivers a little, her smile fading, and all her scales seem to flicker. You wouldn’t be disgusted by me otherwise.
Jasmine doesn’t move or react. She simply watches Ariel. Waiting for an explanation.
I had to get my voice back, says Ariel, flipping her tail up. It splashes in the water. Jasmine’s eyes flick to it before returning to her face. It wasn’t easy. My father was unhappy with me. But my sisters agreed to help me, if only I’d promise to give up my claim to the throne.
Jasmine bites her lip. She can’t imagine giving up the throne, even though she wants nothing more sometimes. That experience with the hourglass, Jafar trapping her in there, so willing to let her die - she can’t see herself giving up the rest of the life she has left to serve a thankless populace. She’d wanted to extend herself for the people once. To serve them well. To be fair and just and good. She’d wanted to help people. Now she just wants to survive.
So what now? she asks. Ariel chews on her bottom lip. There is no answer. Not yet.
******
The genie only has a partial solution. He cannot turn Ariel into a human forever, even though Ariel would like nothing more than to dance upon the sand with Jasmine in her arms. He cannot turn Jasmine into a mermaid forever either.
Then have us take turns, says Ariel, but Jasmine places a finger on her lips.
Genie, she says quietly. You are free now. I can’t take a wish from you.
The genie gives Jasmine a warm smile and asks her what she truly wants. Jasmine can’t say it in front of Ariel. So she goes outside the cavern to talk to him. Aladdin is standing there, leaning against the boulder, kicking at the sand, and he looks up when Jasmine comes outside.
I want to be free, she says. Like you, Genie, and Aladdin too. I want to be free.
Free of her responsibilities, free of the pain that’s dragging her down, free of longing for a love she can’t have.
The genie asks her if she wants Ariel. Jasmine’s heart aches, but her tongue is more cautious. She knows a little too well what a wish gone wrong can do.
I want her, but I would not wish for her, she says. I don’t know if that’s right. What if it’s not right? What if we’re stuck together forever and we’re miserable?
The genie pats her on the shoulder, and Jasmine feels a warm comforting heat spread down her arm. The longer he keeps his hand on her, the more content she feels. A flicker of strength ignites inside her heart, and she takes a deep breath.
I want to be free, she says again. And I want… I want… I want someone to enjoy that freedom with. If I’m meant to be with them. For as long as we’re meant to be.
She glances at Aladdin for confirmation. His lips quirk up. Sounds pretty solid to me, he says.
But it’s two wishes, says Jasmine. The genie smiles and Aladdin laughs. Don’t you remember how it goes? he says. We all get three wishes.
Jasmine looks at the genie and takes a deep breath.
******
Jasmine rolls over in her bed and buries her nose in the pillow next to her. The slight musk of salted fish lingers on the fabric. To anyone else, this would be a clear sign to wash the sheets. Jasmine has no such inclination.
It has been four years since her wish. Four years since she began to heal, aided by Aladdin, and by her father, now ailing and elderly, but wanting to make sure she was strong and healthy once again before he moved onto his next adventure.
She slips out of bed and walks barefoot on the marble floors. Her feet leave imprints over the thin film of dusty sand that’s settled in the night, but she has long since stopped recoiling at the feel of it. The palace is beginning to feel like home again. She no longer fears running into Jafar in every corner, or worse, having to sit through suitor after suitor, rejecting them all, fear rising in her throat like bile at the thought that one day, she will run out of excuses and be forced to marry one of them.
She will never be forced to do something ever again.
She reaches for her robe and pulls it tight across her body. The palace is quiet at night, and moonlight gleams against the marble. Jasmine tiptoes out of her bedchambers, barefooted, rushing down to the gardens right below her quarters. The Sultana’s quarters. Because that is what she is now. The Sultana of Agrabah.
There’s a splashing in the reflective pool, and Jasmine smiles, her steps slowing down. She brushes her hair over her shoulder and shivers in the night breeze.
Couldn’t sleep? she calls.
Ariel turns to her and smiles. Her robe is fully soaked through, and she’s reclining in the pool, her hair under the fountain, her shimmering golden legs outstretched.
I wanted to see the moon, she says. Jasmine steps down and sits at the edge of the pool, putting her feet in the cool water.
Ariel beams at her. Her teeth are still a little too sharp for comfort, her eyes too icy to put people at ease, and her skin glimmers in all the wrong ways, but she has a kindness and fire about her that helps Jasmine convince people that she can be trusted. And people do trust her, because they trust Jasmine, and Jasmine trusts Ariel. Ariel saved her life after all, and never once let her throw hers away for the sake of their relationship. Ariel slips closer to Jasmine and puts a hand on her foot. Her hands are still cold, but not in that freezing way, but that is only for six months. The other six months of the year, Jasmine has to make do without her when she returns to the ocean. In those months, Aladdin as her Chief Advisor, steps in to fill Ariel’s role as Princess Consort, though he will never replace her status as Jasmine’s wife and partner. That is a privilege granted to Ariel alone.
Jasmine takes Ariel’s hands and kisses them. The dampness lingers on her lips. You should rest, says Ariel.
Come back soon, says Jasmine. Ariel beams at her again and nods.
I will my love.
She straightens up and walks back to the bedroom, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She licks her lips. They taste like salt.
Jasmine smiles.
She wonders if she should have tempered her reaction. The smell of fish is something she can get used to. People have gotten used to so much worse.
She grabs fistfuls of damp sand and flings them at the low tide. She never thought she’d be able to stand the sand again, not since Jafar… and the hourglass...
It had been part of the reason why she’d left. Part of the reason why her father had let her leave at all. Watching her grow scared of everything had been too painful for him to watch.
She clenches her fists and presses them into the sand, hard, relishing in the sting of it. The cavern cuts off sight of the rest of the ocean, leaving her with only a small pool of water to stare at. In the beginning, it had been freeing. Now she wonders just how much of it was the sirensong. She could steal a boat, she surmises, and row off - but where to?
She wishes she had the carpet, but that was Aladdin’s, and he’d taken that when she’d told him to leave. A thread of guilt needles its way through her sternum, and she digs her fists even harder into the sand.
She shouldn’t have told him to leave. She’d wanted him gone, but she didn’t think he would listen. No man ever had. But he had. He’d gone. And she’d lost her only friend.
Now, as she stares at the pool of water, unyieldingly silent, frustratingly still, she wonders if she will ever find someone again.
******
One night, when Jasmine comes back to the cavern, she finds a redheaded girl on the sand.
Swearing, she pulls off her shawl and rushes to help her and cover her up, but the girl raises her head and looks at her. Blue eyes lock onto brown.
Jasmine stops. The shawl slips from her fingers.
Ariel lifts herself up on her new legs, smiling, unsteady on her feet, and she wobbles and falls into Jasmine’s arms.
You came back, Jasmine whispers, her eyes stinging with tears. You came… you have legs. Why do you have legs?
Ariel just smiles at her. Jasmine helps her sit on the sand, noticing the way her skin still glimmers and her legs look like they’re glittering gold if you glance at it just right - but she’s no longer freezing cold. She’s warm and dry - and shallow, Jasmine thinks. A shallow shadow of the girl she knew. She tosses the shawl over Ariel’s shoulders and wraps it around her tight. Ariel’s lips twist into a frown and she squirms out of it.
Is that not comfortable? she asks. Ariel shakes her head, eyeing the shawl warily, and moves close to Jasmine, who wraps her arms around her, but then she squirms away from this too.
So Jasmine does the only thing that makes sense and takes off her own clothes.
She pulls Ariel into her arms, burying her nose in her hair and taking a deep breath. Ariel smells like nothing. Jasmine’s heart stutters and grinds to a halt. She feels like paper, dry and smooth and certainly not human, and Jasmine misses the freezing touch of her skin. That was something tangible. This feels too much like a genie’s flimsy wish, ready to fall apart at her fingertips at the slightest breath.
Talk to me, she whispers. Ariel smiles again. Her hair, Jasmine notices, lies in smoother waves around her head now.
Ariel points at her throat, and then at her legs, and shakes her head, and Jasmine backs away again in horror.
You told me I wasn’t to drown with you, she says, because she can still remember everything she’d said when she was affected by the sirensong. And you bartered your voice for legs?
Ariel’s blue eyes are heart wrenching, and Jasmine’s own eyes sting. This time, the tears fall. She sniffs and wipes her nose. I wanted to figure this out with us like us, she says.
Ariel points at herself again and frowns, and then she holds her nose and points at Jasmine.
I could have gotten used to that, says Jasmine. I didn’t want you like this. I want you like you.
Ariel’s face crumples, but no tears fall. Jasmine cries enough for the both of them.
******
Ariel doesn’t come back every night, even though Jasmine does. On the nights that she does come back, Jasmine strips off her clothes and holds her close, though Ariel can’t stand to be held for too long. Jasmine supposes it’s the heat that she can’t take. It never used to be a problem before.
What can I do for you? she asks every night. How can we get you your voice back?
Ariel just shakes her head, and Jasmine understands, from one princess to another, that this is a journey Ariel has to take on her own.
Jasmine doesn’t admit this, because she knows that Ariel has been beating herself up about this since she traded her voice for legs, but she misses Ariel’s mermaid form. She loved tracing her finger over her translucent fins, loved looking at the way her tail shimmered whenever she shifted. Perhaps that had been the sirensong too, but Jasmine would give anything to have that again.
They cannot speak to each other, they cannot hold each other, and every night they meet, Ariel closes her eyes in a vain attempt to cry, but all she has been granted are legs, and she is still, in every other aspect, very much a mermaid.
Legs don’t make a man, Jasmine had told her, and Ariel had huffed in a way that meant you don’t have to tell me.
Ariel likes to trace her fingers over Jasmine’s skin, feeling the way it’s dry in places and damp in others, in a way her new skin isn’t. It is dry all over and it never gets wet, and it’s too sensitive to heat and everything’s wrong, and Jasmine just wants to talk to Ariel, but she can’t, and she hates it.
******
Jasmine always comes to the cavern at dusk and she always leaves at dawn.
Rubbing her eyes and yawning, she steps out, only to bump into Aladdin who is crouching on a large boulder. I heard you were here, he says when she stills. I know you asked me to leave. I wanted to see if you were safe. And I wanted you to know I was living here. So you wouldn’t feel weird about it. Jasmine just stares at him and Aladdin straightens his legs, dropping to the ground with a soft thud. He scratches the back of his head and smiles a little. I live here, he says again. So you might bump into me sometimes. I’ll try to stay out of your way.
No, says Jasmine, her voice crackling out. Don’t. I - I need your help.
Aladdin looks curious, and Jasmine gulps, tugging her shawl tighter around herself and her hair. I know you freed the genie, she says. But I need to help my friend. And I don’t know… I don’t know how…
I’ll see what I can do, says Aladdin with a small nod. Jasmine feels a rush of gratitude - but the thread of guilt slices through that and it all falls apart around her head. She shudders.
I’m sorry for asking you to leave, she says. Aladdin shakes his head.
You shouldn’t apologise for wanting your space, he says. Jasmine nods and he holds out his hand. She takes it and shakes it and he smiles at her. I will let you know if I find something, he says, and then he bows. Your Highness.
He walks away, and Jasmine’s thoughts shift back to Ariel again. She’d never have to call her Highness. And Jasmine would never have to call Ariel that either. They were princesses. Equals. Starting on the same foot (or tailfin, rather), even when they were worlds apart.
She laughs at the irony of it all. Just when she thought she was free, here was her heart, trapped in the net of an unsolvable situation. Even if Ariel did find her voice, Jasmine could never live in the sea. Ariel could never live on land. That cavern would only sustain them for so long. A liminal existence is not what she wants.
******
Ariel doesn’t return again for a while. Days stretch into weeks, and then a month passes. Then two months. Every minute Jasmine waits feels like sand in the hourglass she was trapped in, slow-rising, suffocating panic that makes her want to scream - but what good will screaming do when she’s so trapped in her pain?
She comes back every night to wait. Sometimes, Aladdin walks her there and waits for her, and walks her home again. He never asks, and Jasmine never tells.
Most nights, she’s alone, tracing patterns on the wet sand, letting the echo of the waves lull her to sleep, waking up at the slightest sound, heart racing with hope till they trip and stumble at the sight of the empty cavern.
She starts getting too used to it. Her bed becomes too dry and too soft for her to sleep on. The imprints of the sand on her cheeks start taking longer to go away.
And still she feels Ariel’s cold embrace when she slips into her dreams.
She thinks she can hear the sirensong sometimes, lulling her into the tide as it washes over the sand, but she stays well away. Losing herself in the ocean will just land her in an even bigger conundrum. This is already difficult enough. She doesn’t know how much longer she can hold on for.
One night, she sits with Aladdin just outside the cavern, one ear out to listen to Ariel.
I thought coming here would free me, she says, hugging her knees close to her chest and staring at the sand. I thought being away from the palace would free me. Father no longer calls for me, I am allowed to do as I please.
Aladdin only watches, listening intently.
What good is it being free if I’m always longing for her like this? she asks. It’s the first time she’s let on that there is someone else - not that Aladdin wouldn’t have guessed. He isn’t stupid. He never was.
I used to ask myself that, he says. Jasmine looks up.
What did you do? she asks.
I lived, Jasmine, he says, eyes filled with sympathy. I stopped waiting. I started living.
What if she comes back and I’m not here?
If it’s meant to be, she will find her way to you again, he says. I found you, didn’t I?
But it’s not the same, says Jasmine.
No, says Aladdin. But it’s still good.
******
Two weeks later, something good comes back, but it’s not Ariel.
It’s a close second though. It’s the genie, fresh off his very long holiday, wanting to find his old friends again. What he finds is a sad shell of a princess, and a former street urchin turned tradesman who tries to make sure she eats enough and finds her way back to the world of the living again.
Jasmine can barely muster up a smile at the sight of her old friend. She leans against the hard rock of the cave and closes her eyes, listening to Aladdin explain everything that’s happened over the past three months.
Then she hears it. The whispering in her head. Like she used to.
Her eyes snap open and she scrambles to her feet, and Aladdin and the genie glance up at her.
Jasmine…
She rips her shawl from her head and starts to run, not into the cavern, but out, out onto the shoreline, to the pier that’s still too far away. Her sandaled feet thud against the sand. Aladdin sprints after her, shouting for her, but Jasmine’s running like a woman possessed, heart racing as she pants.
Jasmine, Jasmine…
Her clothes are too restrictive, too difficult, they’re slowing her down. Jasmine unravels her second shawl that she’d wrapped around her shoulders, letting it whip out of her hands. She unbuttons the top of her blouse. The pier grows closer.
Jasmine…
I’m coming, she thinks, panting as she shrugs off her blouse and lets that fly behind her too. I’m coming to you. I’m coming for you.
She reaches the pier, shakes off her shoes and sprints to the edge of it.
She doesn’t bother trying to take off her trousers.
She doesn’t hear Aladdin’s shout, nor does she see the genie’s attempts to pull her back. His magic is weak, and indefensible against sirensong.
Jasmine doesn’t pause to look at the never ending horizon before she hurls herself into the ocean. The impact is bone shattering.
Jasmine…
I’m here.
******
She wakes up and retches, and a stream of water gurgles out of her mouth.
She retches again and starts to cough hard. Her throat burns. Her nostrils burn. Her eyes feel dry and sandy, but she’s wrapped in something freezing.
And then… that same old fishy smell.
Jasmine heaves and vomits all over the sand. Gasping, she crawls up the beach, growing faintly aware that her clothes are nowhere, and that there’s sand in absolutely every orifice of her body.
She swears.
If that is the first thing you’ve got to say, I can assume you are well.
Jasmine would recognise that grating echo anywhere. She turns. Ariel is smiling at her, her sharp teeth glinting in the dim light.
Jasmine doesn’t smile back.
You lured me in, she says. You made me wait and you almost made me die.
I didn’t lure you in, says Ariel. That was another siren.
It was you, Jasmine insists. It was you in my head.
You are no longer susceptible to my song, says Ariel. I made sure of it when I got you that potion. You would be able to sit by me otherwise. She shivers a little, her smile fading, and all her scales seem to flicker. You wouldn’t be disgusted by me otherwise.
Jasmine doesn’t move or react. She simply watches Ariel. Waiting for an explanation.
I had to get my voice back, says Ariel, flipping her tail up. It splashes in the water. Jasmine’s eyes flick to it before returning to her face. It wasn’t easy. My father was unhappy with me. But my sisters agreed to help me, if only I’d promise to give up my claim to the throne.
Jasmine bites her lip. She can’t imagine giving up the throne, even though she wants nothing more sometimes. That experience with the hourglass, Jafar trapping her in there, so willing to let her die - she can’t see herself giving up the rest of the life she has left to serve a thankless populace. She’d wanted to extend herself for the people once. To serve them well. To be fair and just and good. She’d wanted to help people. Now she just wants to survive.
So what now? she asks. Ariel chews on her bottom lip. There is no answer. Not yet.
******
The genie only has a partial solution. He cannot turn Ariel into a human forever, even though Ariel would like nothing more than to dance upon the sand with Jasmine in her arms. He cannot turn Jasmine into a mermaid forever either.
Then have us take turns, says Ariel, but Jasmine places a finger on her lips.
Genie, she says quietly. You are free now. I can’t take a wish from you.
The genie gives Jasmine a warm smile and asks her what she truly wants. Jasmine can’t say it in front of Ariel. So she goes outside the cavern to talk to him. Aladdin is standing there, leaning against the boulder, kicking at the sand, and he looks up when Jasmine comes outside.
I want to be free, she says. Like you, Genie, and Aladdin too. I want to be free.
Free of her responsibilities, free of the pain that’s dragging her down, free of longing for a love she can’t have.
The genie asks her if she wants Ariel. Jasmine’s heart aches, but her tongue is more cautious. She knows a little too well what a wish gone wrong can do.
I want her, but I would not wish for her, she says. I don’t know if that’s right. What if it’s not right? What if we’re stuck together forever and we’re miserable?
The genie pats her on the shoulder, and Jasmine feels a warm comforting heat spread down her arm. The longer he keeps his hand on her, the more content she feels. A flicker of strength ignites inside her heart, and she takes a deep breath.
I want to be free, she says again. And I want… I want… I want someone to enjoy that freedom with. If I’m meant to be with them. For as long as we’re meant to be.
She glances at Aladdin for confirmation. His lips quirk up. Sounds pretty solid to me, he says.
But it’s two wishes, says Jasmine. The genie smiles and Aladdin laughs. Don’t you remember how it goes? he says. We all get three wishes.
Jasmine looks at the genie and takes a deep breath.
******
Jasmine rolls over in her bed and buries her nose in the pillow next to her. The slight musk of salted fish lingers on the fabric. To anyone else, this would be a clear sign to wash the sheets. Jasmine has no such inclination.
It has been four years since her wish. Four years since she began to heal, aided by Aladdin, and by her father, now ailing and elderly, but wanting to make sure she was strong and healthy once again before he moved onto his next adventure.
She slips out of bed and walks barefoot on the marble floors. Her feet leave imprints over the thin film of dusty sand that’s settled in the night, but she has long since stopped recoiling at the feel of it. The palace is beginning to feel like home again. She no longer fears running into Jafar in every corner, or worse, having to sit through suitor after suitor, rejecting them all, fear rising in her throat like bile at the thought that one day, she will run out of excuses and be forced to marry one of them.
She will never be forced to do something ever again.
She reaches for her robe and pulls it tight across her body. The palace is quiet at night, and moonlight gleams against the marble. Jasmine tiptoes out of her bedchambers, barefooted, rushing down to the gardens right below her quarters. The Sultana’s quarters. Because that is what she is now. The Sultana of Agrabah.
There’s a splashing in the reflective pool, and Jasmine smiles, her steps slowing down. She brushes her hair over her shoulder and shivers in the night breeze.
Couldn’t sleep? she calls.
Ariel turns to her and smiles. Her robe is fully soaked through, and she’s reclining in the pool, her hair under the fountain, her shimmering golden legs outstretched.
I wanted to see the moon, she says. Jasmine steps down and sits at the edge of the pool, putting her feet in the cool water.
Ariel beams at her. Her teeth are still a little too sharp for comfort, her eyes too icy to put people at ease, and her skin glimmers in all the wrong ways, but she has a kindness and fire about her that helps Jasmine convince people that she can be trusted. And people do trust her, because they trust Jasmine, and Jasmine trusts Ariel. Ariel saved her life after all, and never once let her throw hers away for the sake of their relationship. Ariel slips closer to Jasmine and puts a hand on her foot. Her hands are still cold, but not in that freezing way, but that is only for six months. The other six months of the year, Jasmine has to make do without her when she returns to the ocean. In those months, Aladdin as her Chief Advisor, steps in to fill Ariel’s role as Princess Consort, though he will never replace her status as Jasmine’s wife and partner. That is a privilege granted to Ariel alone.
Jasmine takes Ariel’s hands and kisses them. The dampness lingers on her lips. You should rest, says Ariel.
Come back soon, says Jasmine. Ariel beams at her again and nods.
I will my love.
She straightens up and walks back to the bedroom, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She licks her lips. They taste like salt.
Jasmine smiles.
<3
Date: 2018-12-07 02:14 am (UTC)Re: <3
Date: 2018-12-07 03:01 pm (UTC)