A/N: Oh, hello there dear readers. Is something wrong? You look upset...You say I haven't updated this story in several months? You thought I completely abandoned it!?
Whaaaaaat? Nooooo. That's craaaaaaazy. Next you're going to tell me something equally unbelievable, like there's a worldwide pandemic, or something like that.
Okay, you're right. But nothing gets you thinking about the story you are writing about a pandemic (twirls hair and mumbles) ...which I may have slightly abandoned, temporarily… Quite like an actual pandemic!
I decided to at least go back and reread what I had already written, and I am very frustrated that no matter how many times I make corrections I still can't seem to catch all of the errors, so hopefully I'll do another run through with an update to remove more.
I also listened to the instrumental part of the soundtrack probably, at least… 16 times on loop over the last two days while I tried to write this next chapter, and at one point after ten hours of non-stop writing, I just caught myself staring at empty space, so I just decided to let my brain gestate on my ideas while I watched the movie. I have never done so many rewrites of the same chapter in my life. I must have restarted at least six times. I killed two brand-new pens, and stopped counting at 40 pages of writing and rewriting. I am happy enough with the result, but this was a frustrating process.
As of yesterday, I plotted a very loose outline for the ending of this story. We'll see if I stick to it. Until then, thanks for waiting, and enjoy.
Dune after Dune, golden sand stretched infinitely in every direction, rising and falling, waves cresting in a raging sea turned to dust. Every step took her deeper into the desert, each one heavier, more hopeless than the last. Where she was going, she did not know. How she had come to be here, she could recall. It was as if she had always been here, wandering these endless wastes. Staring at the stark horizon in the distance, a bleak line between empty sand and open sky, she reached into the last reserves of her will to continue, and came up wanting. Overheated, aching, and exhausted, she could no longer endure this. Death would be a sweet release. Eyes drifting closed, Jasmine's knees hit scorching sand, and she canted forward, collapsing.
"Don't you dare close your eyes."
Arms caught her at the waist, and her cheek planted into the firm plane of the chest she had rested her head upon many times, somewhere, in another life perhaps, before she had been relegated to this abysmal place.
"Doneity?" she whispered, clinging to her savior's neck. "I want to go home. Take me home."
Sensing the shift in the world immediately, her head jerked up as soon the cool breeze from the sea hit her face. Gone was the unrelenting midday sun, the scorching sand, and her savior. Now she stood in the middle of the empty moonlit sooq. The city was dark, lifeless, quiet. She was alone again, with only the moon to guide her.
"When the shadows unfold, and the sun hides its gold, when the wind and the cold come calling."
Spinning around, she tried to ascertain the direction of music. In the distance, she could hear the strum of an oud and the same familiar voice that had called to her in the desert.
"When the path isn't clear, and the stars disappear, and an endless midnight's falling."
Luring her like a siren's call, she let her feet move on instinct. Feet pounding on hard packed sand, she sprinted forward, pumping her arms, panting and determined.
"At the edge of the sky, there's a moon hanging high. When you're lost it will try to remind you."
Racing past carts and crates and market stalls, she chased the voice, skirting through narrow alleyways toward a tower that loomed ahead.
"On a dark desert night, you can look to the light, 'cause it's shining there to guide you."
Like the voice, she knew that tower anywhere, and something about it wasnt right. Her memory warred with what she was seeing. The crumbling, dilapidated edifice was all wrong.
"Desert moon, light the way, 'til the dark turns today. Like a lamp in the lonely night, bright and blue."
On the balcony, half obscured by darkness, she could see him playing the oud.
"Desert moon, wild and free, will you burn just for me?"
"Shine down, shine down," she sang. "'Til I find my way to you."
Sliding to a halt at the entrance of the dead end alley, she jumped on the lever hanging to the side. A set of uneven beams sprang out of the wall, leading to the upper levels of the building.
"At the edge of the sky, there's a moon hanging high. When you're lost you can try the view."
The music was louder, the voice closer— she was almost there. Reaching the top of the stairs, she saw him perched on the ledge of the balcony, legs dangling, strumming idly.
" 'Cause it waits for you there, and if you see it too…"
"I can find my way…" she crossed the loft unnoticed. "I can find my way…" Could he not see her? Could he not hear her? Closing in, she realized that he hadn't been hidden in shadow, but rather a black cloak concealed most of his face. Raising a hand she reached for the hood. "I can find my way —"
Her hand passed through him completely.
"– To you." He finished alone, setting the oud aside.
Frantic, she tried again, twice, panic rising in her chest, but she could not touch him.
"Aladdin?" She cried.
On her fourth attempt, he turned, catching her wrist and she froze. Nothing made sense. The world was wrong. She didn't understand. Peeling back the hood with his free hand, Jasmine gasped once the moonlight struck his face. Even under the light, he was shadowed. An otherworldly darkness hung under his eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks, crawling up the veins of his neck. It emanated from him like an aura.
"What are you?"
"Don't you recognize me, habibti?"
When he spoke, his voice was a chorus of whispers. Drawing her hand towards his lips, he gently kissed her knuckles and she fought the urge to recoil.
"You are not Aladdin." She sneered.
"Of course I am," he smirked, dropping her hand as he stood. "I'm the only Aladdin that was ever real." He stalked towards her, forcing her to backpedal. "Fear. Shame. Guilt. Inadequacy. Anger." Each word punctuated by a step closer until she was pinned between him and the wall. "He would rather die than let you see his weaknesses." Leaning forward, he whispered into her ear and the chorus enveloped her. "All the things you burden him with every time you seek his comfort. He pushes all of his down so he can carry yours instead."
Exhaling, she was embarrassed at how she shuddered, trembling as he withdrew.
"What do you want?"
"To bring you home, safe and sound."
"This is not home."
"When the master gives an order —" he raised the back of his hand, displaying a dull iron band on his right middle finger. "— I'm bound to honor it. But…" he shrugged, a gesture painfully reminiscent of the man he was impersonating. "He wasn't specific enough in the details."
Unable to take her eyes off of the iron ring, Jasmine breathed, "You're a jinn?"
"More like… a companion." Another voice, eerily familiar, uncanny even, spoke as it moved from the deeper darkness of the loft to stand next to Jinn Aladdin. "Think of it as the little voice you hear in your head."
Nothing could have prepared Jasmine to stare down the dark mirror image of herself. Fear finally seized control, rooting her to the spot, paralyzed.
"Is this a fever dream, or…" she swallowed. "Am I dead?"
"Somewhere in between for now." He supplied. "But, you're running out of time. I'm holding him together, barely, but my influence makes him… erratic."
Pieces fell into place, memories converging— the outbursts, the mood swings, the distance.
"That was you?"
"He's been weaker lately, easier to bend. Everything's a mess. He's desperate. He can't do this alone. He's already lost everyone he loved, whoever wanted him in the first place. He can't lose you too. That's why he summoned me." The jinn's entire form shifted into dense, black smoke, silver eyes glinting from within as the light passed over them, before manifesting back into his original form. "Magic fixes everything."
"You're going to cure me with magic?"
"No, she is." He cocked his head towards the other Jasmine. "I have other business to attend to tonight. But lucky for you, I know how to find what has been lost. It wasn't just your bracelet you left behind in this place." Walking back towards her jinn counterpart, he placed a gentle kiss at her twin's temple, before extending his arms to emphasize their surroundings. "This was never your home, but it was the only place you ever felt free. No matter how much you longed to be Sultan, some part of you only ever wanted the freedom to make your own choices. To never be trapped again."
Approaching Jasmine, her twin closed the distance between them.
"You've felt it ever since— the void of that missing piece, feeding the fear deep in the back of your mind that you'll wake up one morning and he'll be gone. But, it isn't that he would run away that really angers you. It's that he would leave you behind. He promised you the world. To show you all the places on your maps. Having a ring and a throne doesn't change the fact you can't go anywhere, Princess."
The echo chamber of whispers slithered in and out of her mind, skin crawling as if she were sinking into a pit of writhing snakes. There was harsh truth in her jinn's words. When she had imagined becoming Sultana, the noble part of her wanted to take care of her people, but the bitter, selfish, angry part of her that had been locked away, figuratively and literally, thought it would finally mean freedom. When she realized she would never truly be free, too proud and too honorable to ever shirk her duty to her people, even if it meant sacrificing her own happiness, she had taken comfort in the fact that even if she was still somewhat trapped, at least she wasn't alone… another comfort she had taken an Aladdin. Another burden she'd given him to carry.
"Death is not freedom, Jasmine. It's another gilded cage, one from which you can never escape." She watched her own face soften, an expression of sympathy she imagined she had worn for Aladdin many times. "It does not have to end this way. I can heal you if you let me. And, that's only the beginning of what I can do for you. For us." She turned to look at jinn Aladdin. "For all of us."
"Magic always has a price." Jasmine spat.
"One you would pay a thousand times over. I know both your heart and your mind. What wouldn't you give for Agrabah?" Her twin tilted her head, flashing the look of one asking a question for which they already knew the answer. "What would you do to return to him? What happens to Aladdin when there's no one left to save him, even from himself?"
The snakes were coiling in her gut now, a nauseating sensation sliming its way up the back of her throat. Did she even have a choice? After all, Aladdin had literally gone to the ends of the earth for her. He would do anything to help Agrabah, protect Agrabah, save Agrabah, because she knew in her heart that to Aladdin, Agrabah was simply an extension of herself, and there was nothing Aladdin wouldn't do for her, no matter the price.
"It's the only way, habibti." Jinn Aladdin stepped up beside her own, offering Jasmine his hand. "Do you trust me?"
This wasn't Aladdin— she knew that. It wore his face, and used his voice. It knew their song, but… she was afraid of making a horrible mistake. It wasn't Aladdin, but she believed Aladdin had sent this jinn here, and she would always trust him with her kingdom, and with her life. Implicitly. Always.
Nodding, she took the jinn's hand. "Yes."
"Then all you have to do is let me in." Jinn Jasmine said. "If you want my help, if you want to survive, all you have to do is ask."
Suddenly her mouth felt as dry as it had been in the endless desert, but she managed to swallow down her trepidation.
"Please," she closed her eyes. "I need your help."
Her dark twin smiled, shifting first to fire, then to smoke. The smoke cloud roared around her like a dervish, consuming her, suffocating her. Gasping for air, the smoke invaded her, rushing through her nose and mouth, filling her lungs as if she had inhaled embers. For a split second, it was the most unbearable pain she could fathom. Between this and death, she had chosen poorly. Then, as fast as the agony had seized her, it vanished, leaving her lethargic, feeling small. She felt her feet leave the ground, and realized Jinn Aladdin was laying her atop the ripped cushions in the middle of the loft. Eyes fluttering, she felt him brush her hair behind her ear. The last thing she remembered before she drifted off was a dozen whispers across the shell of her ear.
"Sleep well, habibti. You'll feel much better in the morning."
A/N: I have felt horrendously guilty about leaving the story off where I did. My only excuse was that I hit a wall doing research specifically about the qareens. Any time I looked up information about their powers, specifically healing, I really only found stuff about the actual exorcism practice used in Islamic belief. Once I hit that wall I was having trouble moving forward with the rest of the story. I've had some slight success in finding a few more resources now, but I am probably just overthinking the whole process anyway. Here are some of the powers I was able to find which a credited specifically to qareens/qarins/hamzaads:
(from newtarot . com and mythology . net)
Bring news about a place you want to know about.
It can cause sickness and irritation as well as nnowing how to cure illnesses.
Help your business, bring in clients
Remove a person from your life
Appear in physical appearance as someone else.
Inform about the cause of sickness or black magic suffered by a person.
The Hamzad will find misplaced, lost or stolen objects.
The Hamzad will tell information about enemies, what they are doing, etc.
Obtaining information on any person in the world. Every human has a Qareen so if you make your Qareen your servant it can talk to others of its kind and report back to you.Influencing others Qareen to get that person(s) to do whatever you want.
Being aware of anyone who is coming to see you before they arrive.