A tale of Agrabah

The beginning

Once upon a time there was a wonderful kingdom named Agrabah, this Kingdom was ruled by the merciful and good hearted Sultan Hamed. The sultan was married to Rajah a princes from a faraway land, but it only lasted 3 years. Rajah died during child birth together with the baby girl she was to deliver. As death took Rajah and the baby away the sultan fell into loneliness and 3 years after Rajah's death the sultan married Ruby, Rajah's servant girl. Ruby was a beautiful dark skinned woman, with powerful green eyes and full lips. Her skin looked as it had been carved from rich dark chocolate and her hair was like long silk strands flowing from her head. But as beautiful as she was, she was corrupted. Ruby desired gold and jewels, beds made of fine silk and clothes embroidered in gold, and the sultan provided. But his devotion came with a price. The sultan took away from the people to give to his queen, starvation and sickness spread through every wall crack and every alley all the way up to the palace. The queen died of leprosy together with many of the kingdom's inhabitants. Leaving the sultan with Jasmin, their five year old daughter.

The years passed and the kingdom of Agrabah had become a place of thieves and ruthlessness imparted by the kingdom guards. The king had left all business concerning the outsides of the palace's walls in charge of Jaffar his royal vizier.  It had been 17 years and Jasmin was now a 22 year old woman. She was the spitting image of her mother. And the age for her wedding approached, but the sultan couldn't find her a suitor. Jasmin had not only inherited the beauty of her mother but also her cruelty and ambition. And couldn't wait for the day her father passed away so she could inherit the land. But the only problem was she couldn't love the one she wanted, Jaffar. Even though he was 25 years older than her they shared cruelty, ambition and a lust for immeasurable power. The law decreed that Princesses could only marry a prince, so he would rule over the country. Jaffar looked night and day for a solution to this problem desperate to become sultan.

One night he sent his son Iago to summon Jasmin to his personal library, a place where he studied science and dark arts. "My princes, I have found the solution to our problems. Tomorrow you must dress as a commoner and go outside the palace walls, there you will find a boy or a man and he will make himself present to you. When he does I will know and I will take it from there" Jasmin's face went from happiness to a frown "Me? You want me to go out of the walls and interact with those pestilent commoners? HA! You must be out of your mind Jaffar."     "But my dear princes, my dear and future queen. You are the only one who can bring him to us" Jaffar ran his hand through her face and murmured "please my queen, I beg it of you"   and with a wicked smile Jasmin acceded to do the deed. And as the sun was coming up the east, she prepared herself to look like a commoner and Iago to smuggle her outside the palace walls.

Meanwhile, outside of the palace trough all those years a boy named Abu by the people of the market grew into a man. He was an orphan and no one knew where he came from. One day he just appeared in a cart of figs. Abu was raised by a blind old lady who took him in named Alima, she was a fortune teller in the market and when Abu was about to be feed to the tigers from the thief's pit she rescued him. Telling everyone that he would become a diamond of immeasurable worth one day.  When Alima died Abu had to live on his own. Stealing and smuggling where the only way to survive, even though he didn't liked it.

It was a sunny morning and Abu was smuggling carts from the palace full of silk to sell to the market vendors. But when he got there things had changed. He spent half an hour waiting for his friend and when he finally appeared he only brought a small cart full of rags and heavy woven old rugs. "What? What is that Iago, come on! We had an agreement you dirty bastard" Iago ran towards him "Shut up Abu, look this is something very important. It's for my father, I need you to take this cart and just abandon it in crowded area" he lowered his voice to a whisper barely audible.  "Just leave it and go. And don't mention anything about our deals, not a word about them" Abu looked inside the cart and the rugs shuffled a little, he realized someone was inside all that bundle of rags. He nodded took the cart and made his way through the dark underground passage, he didn't need lights. He knew this place like the back of his hand, only he and Iago used this passage in their smuggling deals. He knew the person inside the cart could get Iago in trouble if to know of their deals. Curiosity was killing him, but he knew better than to look, especially with someone even Iago was afraid of.