Disclaimer: I don't own Aladdin or any of the characters from it. That's Disney, folks!

A Shared History

By Sindie

Chapter One

Merchants' calls of fresh fish, finest jewelry, and succulent apples drifted across the marketplace, lost among the chatter of the milling crowd. The sun shone high in the sky, its heat beating down on the citizens without mercy.

A young boy dressed in tattered clothing of maybe six or seven years old skittered through the street, trying to hide in the shadows. He reached for a clump of grapes from the nearby fruit stand, only to be spotted by the vendor.

"Keep your filthy paws off my fruit, boy! I won't have you sullying the best fruit in Agrabah!"

"Yeah, right," the boy shot back, disappointed to be cheated out of his lunch. He slunk back into an alley and disappeared.

Next to the fruit stand, another vendor displayed an exotic array of animals, boasting of their rarity and quality. The seller of these unfortunate animals glared at the fruit vendor and hissed, "Do you want to keep it down? All this shouting is bad for business."

"Oh? And what do you call it when you holler for people to come see your pathetic display? It's called trying to make a sale, at least in my case," the fruit vendor challenged.

The animal vendor's ears turned red in annoyance. With a huff, he turned away from the insolent man and surveyed his collection. He stepped up to a small cage that housed a red parrot with blue tips on his wings. The bird's yellow eyes glared back at the man with intelligence behind them. He was cramped and unhappy, his life being wasted as a sideshow for passersby.

"You know what you're supposed to do, my fine feathered friend," the man said in a low and menacing voice to the bird, leaning down to look directly in the cage. "People love to hear it, and if you stop, well, you might just find I have no use for you."

"Awk! Polly wanna cracker?" the parrot squawked, pretending to be dumb. The unfortunate animal knew what was coming next. A dry and dusty cracker was shoved into his beak, and he automatically coughed, choking it down. Beside crackers, a bare minimum of water was given to him daily, so he was dehydrated and starved.

The parrot was half-tempted to bite the hand that fed him, but a tall and regally-dressed man standing in front of the stand caught his attention. As his yellow eyes drifted up to see the man better, the animal merchant turned around to see what the bird was looking at and put on an instant oily smile.

"My good man," he said in a voice as slithery as a snake. "What may I do for you? May I interest you in one of my fine animals?"

The man raised an eyebrow, rubbing his twisty-bearded chin in mock-consideration.

"The parrot," he finally uttered in a deep voice.

"What about him?" the merchant asked suspiciously.

"I want him."

"He's not for sale," the animal vendor protested. "His one and only job is to attract-"

The tall, thin man thrust a heavy bag of gold coins into the man's shocked hands. "I trust that will be enough?"

Examining the coins in awe, the merchant nodded eagerly. "Oh, yes, yes… more than enough! Take the beast! He's all yours! Stupid bird, anyway…"

"Hmm," the darkly dressed man murmured, picking up the cage. He opened the door without pausing and held out his hand, coaxing the bird to step out.

Stunned, the parrot gazed curiously and cautiously at his apparent new owner. He had spent nearly his whole first year confined in that blasted cage, taken from his family at a very young age. His only experience with humans was the awful animal vendor and the idiotic customers who fawned over him like he was a prize to be won. Finally, the took a tentative step onto the man's long-fingered hand, and with a fluid motion, the man gently wrapped his other hand around his body and placed him on his shoulders, walking forever away from the animal seller.

The parrot sat on the man's shoulder, astonished at the view he had of the city. He idly wondered where the man lived, and as he made his way down the main street toward the palace gates, the bird was more surprised than ever to find out the man resided in the palace!

Several minutes later, when the tall man was alone in his chambers, he placed the bird on a table and smiled at him. The smile wasn't entirely unpleasant, but the man's long face and overhung upper lip were awkward.

"What should I call you?" he asked, looking shrewdly at the parrot.

The bird gazed back, trying to figure out whether this man knew there was intelligence behind his eyes. He waited for him to suggest a name, but after a minute, the man posed again, "Well, what should I call you? You know, what's your name?"

He was asking him? Then he must know!

"Iago," the parrot said in a subdued voice, looking down first before he met the man's gaze again.

"I am Jafar," he supplied. "As you may have wagered, I'm an important official in Agrabah. In fact, next to the sultan, I'm the next important man in the city. I'm the Grand Vizier."

Iago wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to all this. He was a bird. What did he knew of the running of a city and its officials?

"How- how did you know I could talk?" he asked instead.

"Let's just say I have a knack for noticing what most don't," Jafar said mysteriously. "No bird has the look in his eyes that you did when that ridiculous man was taunting you."

"Then… why did you free me?" Iago questioned, not understanding why anyone would suddenly care about his welfare. Hundreds of people had passed him by, some stopping to laugh at him as he called out his one line allowed by his insufferable ex-owner.

"Because I know what it's like to be treated like you're nothing… less than nothing, Iago. I could tell that in your eyes was a desire for something more, a need to prove yourself. What a waste of your intelligence to be stuffed in a cage. Believe it or not, I did not always reside in the palace. I started from humble beginnings, but I have worked my way up the ladder over the years. Besides, after all this time, I grow tired of talking to myself. I thought it might prove beneficial to have someone to share ideas with."

"Ideas?"

"The sultan entrusts me with a lot of responsibility for running the city. You, Iago, can help me make the right decisions. The man in charge is not always, shall we say, the ripest fig in the bunch."

"If he's not good at what he goes, why is he in charge?" Iago asked innocently.

"Because that is the way of things. Do I think I could do a better job? Of course, but as long as things remain as they are, that isn't likely to change."

"Do you want things to change?"

"Perhaps… in time."

Jafar smirked, then said, "Enough talk of that now. I'm afraid you will need to play the part of the dumb animal in front of others in the palace, but you are free to speak openly with me, as long as we are alone. Is that understood?"

"Uh, sure… but why?"

"You can't trust others, Iago, except as far as they can help get you what you want. I have had to learn that lesson the hard way, so I'm saving you a lot of time and energy by telling you now. Trust no one but me. I'm the one who saved you, and I will be the one who takes care of you. No more crackers, my friend. We live in the palace. It's time you enjoyed the finer things in life."

"You mean, I could taste… fruit?" Iago's mouth watered at the thought. He had longed to take a bite of an apple or a banana for months now, the sweet smell of the juicy fruit posed tantalizingly close at the stand next door to his cage.

Jafar laughed. "Fruit, baklava, hummus… whatever you like. Tomorrow we shall go into the marketplace and pick out of a perch for you, a proper resting place instead of that stuffy cage."

Iago preened. He smiled. On Jafar's shoulder, he watched the elegant scenery of the palace pass him by as his owner strode through the corridors to the dining hall. He spotted an overweight jolly man with a greying beard, dressed in white, and a young girl of about five years old sitting next to him.

"I still miss Mama," the girl was saying sadly.

Her father hugged her to him. "There, there, dearest. I do, too, Jasmine." Sultan looked up when Jafar entered and smiled.

"Ah, Jafar, good evening. And who's this fellow on your shoulder?"

"His name is Iago," Jafar said smoothly. "I'm afraid he doesn't say much… yet." Jafar gave Iago a meaningful look, so Iago just stared blankly ahead.

Jasmine stood, wiping at her face. She beamed at the bird. "Aw, he's beautiful! You must teach him a few words, Jafar! Can I help?"

"Perhaps," Jafar murmured, thinking no such thing would come to pass. He wasn't very fond of children.

Iago tried not to smile at the girl. From what he had heard, she had just lost her mother. Iago knew how that felt, having been taken from his family by force. She had also complimented him, and her voice was sweet and innocent. Beside him, he noticed Jafar's look of warning on his face. Iago didn't understand why Jafar didn't care for the girl, but he didn't pry.

During dinner, Iago only ate whatever Jafar offered him, but afterward, when the sultan and the princess were gone, and most of the food had been cleared away, a fruit bowl remained.

"You can drop the act now, Iago. It's safe." Jafar gestured toward the fruit, and Iago eagerly leapt from his shoulder to the table.

"I can… really?"

Jafar nodded, half-smiling.

Iago never had been given such opportunity. His new master was kind and generous, and as Iago took a bite into an apple for the first time, he thought Jafar was more of a friend than a master. It was a word he had only heard, a concept he couldn't grasp, but as he wiped the apple's juices from his beak, he felt wanted by someone else for the first time in his short life. That, Iago supposed, had to be friendship.