The princess just couldn't take the thought of another suitor saying the same damn things, poems with the same damn rhymes, songs with the same damn chords, bouquets with the same damn roses. A feast of unappetizing meals, and despite her lack of hunger she had to eat one. Was it any wonder she'd run away?
Not far. The establishment she found herself in was frequented by many in the palace, but she doubted any of the customers would recognize her away from her tower, without the fabulous costumes her father provided her. She didn't actually own any clothes that were simple, plain, practical, like normal people wore, so she was naked under the coarse robes she had borrowed from the palace serving girl. She didn't mind it scraping against her skin. It felt real.
She walked through the building's miasma of hashish smoke and perfume, masking the unmistakable odor of sex. It was much like the palace in its construction: nothing slapdash or crude. But where her home was stark and pristine, this admitted the presence of physicality, sensuality, in a casual way that appealed to her. The colors of the place were deep, varied, almost gaudy. They inflamed the senses.
And the women—employees—they wore loose, semi-translucent garments that seemed to caress their skin as they lazed around hookahs, ate bits of succulent fruit, and other activities that were enticing enough not to be saved for the privacy of their own rooms. She almost felt she could be a customer; she wouldn't have minded spending some of her coin on one of the beautiful, willing ladies.
But that was not what she'd come here for. She knew she couldn't stay; within the night, she would have to be back at the palace. But she would not return the same woman. Her father could force her to marry, even demand she provide him his precious male heirs, but her first time (her most important time) would happen as she liked. And if her only choice was to pick a man at random—for who would lie with the Sultan's daughter, knowing the penalty?—then at least it was her choice.
Finding the harem-keeper, Jasmine decided once and for all she would lose her virginity here.
***
"No. We're not doing this. Not happening."
Regina looked at Emma. Emma had come to recognize the face she made when she wanted to cry but never dared. The mirror image of the one Snow made, but with every tear coddled, every sob mollified. Regina had never had that. Never been a princess. Not even a child, really. Never had anyone besides Henry, and now she was losing him and he was losing her.
Opposite the sun, the Curse was aborning in the sky, a second moon of malevolent color. "Emma, don't make this harder than it has to be," Regina choked out, gesturing to the town square around them, all the people who had volunteered to pack up the Bug—a quick attempt to give her souvenirs, tools, some remnant of anything to take with her.
Emma just shook her head once more. "You're his mother—"
"Don't!" Regina choked.
"You're his mother and I'm not taking him away from you. I don't want to be some foster mom who takes him away from his home. There has to be another way."
Regina gritted down the sob she wanted to let loose. "Yes! We wait until the Curse gets here and then we're frozen in time for all eternity. That's a bit too much family bonding for my taste."
"There has to be something." Emma stepped into Regina's space, almost nose to nose with her, and begged. "You've never accepted your fate. You've brought the dead back to life, you've moved the moon, you've banished your own mother to another realm. Tell me there's something that can stop this and I will get it. I don't care if it's Gabriel's trumpet, I'll pack an overnight bag and kick down the Pearly Gates."
In counterpoint to Emma's determined headshake, Regina's head moved from side to side, slowly and softly. "The price of magic is always paid. All fates must be met. I deserve this. And you deserve Henry."
"Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself. We've already done the impossible once this month, what's one more time?" Emma took Regina's hand, trying to push her determination into Regina. She even ripped off Regina's glove and took hold of the bare hand underneath in both of hers, pressing her warmth into Regina's cold fingers. "Please. Help me. Do this with me. You said traveling the realms was impossible, but then there were magic beans and Peter Pan's shadow and who knows what else? So there has to be something to stop this Curse. Anything."
Regina closed her eyes. She wouldn't let herself hope. Though she knew she shouldn't, she would tell Emma just to discourage her. "A wish."
"A wish? Like, wish upon a star--?"
"No." Regina's eyes shot open in irritation. "A genie's wish. A genie's magic can do anything, short of bringing the dead back to life or—"
"Or making people fall in love, or killing someone. Yeah, I saw the cartoon."
Regina's brow furrowed in familiar confusion. "What cartoon? Never mind. It's hopeless. There hasn't been a genie besides Sidney in the Enchanted Forest for over nine hundred years—"
"What about somewhere else? Some other realm? IDIC!"
"What?"
Still clinging to Regina's hand, Emma pulled her along. "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations! I've worn glasses, I know what I'm talking about! Where's Sidney?"
"I—the ice cream parlor, I suppose, with everyone else. Why?"
"He used to be a genie? Let's ask him where his old frat brothers got off too."
***
Prince Achmed walked the halls of the brothel. Such an odious place. No stimulating murals on the walls, no band playing to increase the libido, and a paltry collection of wine. The women were no treat either. Some had their hair done up in the most displeasing styles, others wore clothing that could've been calculated to offend him, many spoke inarticulately—oh, they were lucky he was gracing them with his patronage at all.
If he weren't courting that prudish, teasing Princess Jasmine, didn't need the release from his burdensome duty, he wouldn't have come at all. As was, he would probably have to take one of the less offensive ones and have her from behind, just to keep his stomach from revolting. Probably gag her as well, lest she blister his ears with her whining. Such an inconvenience. It seemed he'd been made for suffering.
And what's more, he'd had to put up with all the beggars and children and lepers asking for money as he went inside. It was a wonder he'd restrained himself to lashing only five of them as he passed, but he hadn't wanted to get blood on his good riding crop.
"Madame! Madame!" he called, too annoyed to deal with the long-held custom of wandering the brothel's so-called sultry environments and finding a companionable woman for the evening. Why bother? He wanted the best and he was willing to pay.
Far too late for a reasonable customer to bear, the harem-keeper made her way to him—a thick-set woman in robes meant to conceal her bulk. A pity they did such a poor job of it. "Yes, effendi, how may I assist you this fine day?"
"No need for pleasantries. Just give me a woman; your finest whore. And have her bathe first, so long as she be quick about it."
The harem-keeper's eyes narrowed with distaste, but she was too greedy to turn down his gold, as Achmed well knew. Living in Bagdad was an expensive pastime. "Yes, effendi. Of course. And how will you be paying?"
"How do you think, idiot woman?" He reached for the purse hanging from his belt.
It was not there.
Prince Achmed turned to see a man disappear around the corner, the only sign of him the end of a white pant leg and a bare foot.
"Stop! Thief!"
***
The ice cream parlor was packed with fairy tale characters wanting to enjoy a last pint of Rocky Road before being transported back to medieval times forever. Emma pushed through them, not making much headway through the Stabbington brothers enjoying waffle cones until Regina calmly cleared her throat and said "Excuse us."
They parted, as did the rest of the store. Sidney was on one of the stools. Always one to keep his ear to the ground, he'd worked out what the Curse meant before most others, and decided he wanted a serving of mint chocolate chip before he went.
"Sidney!" Emma called.
He looked her way. "Sheriff—" Then lit up. "Madame Mayor!"
"Stop calling me that," Regina chided. "Although technically I wasn't impeached..."
Emma barreled into the counter opposite him. "Sidney, you know about any other genies?"
"Not really. In all my centuries, I've only ever met one, and—"
"Where?"
"Bagdad. Not all that dissimilar to my own Agrabah, except for—" He eyed Regina. "You know. The thing."
"And there's a genie there?"
"Last time I checked. Though that was one or two millennia ago."
"Alright, perfect, thanks!" Emma rushed out, then slapped a twenty on the counter. "His cream's on me!" Then, realizing how that sounded, she hurried out even faster.
Sidney didn't watch her go. He was far too focused on Regina. "Regina, since this might be the end, I have to tell you—"
"Hold that thought," she said, running after Emma. "Wait up, Ms. Swan!"
Sidney morosely turned back to his ice cream. And they wondered why he'd tried to get elected sheriff. Clearly, Regina had a fetish.
***
It wasn't that Aladdin had meant to rob anyone. He'd already made enough to eat for a week working odd jobs the last day and night. Work was scarce, but it did come every so often. He preferred that to running from the city guards, as much fun as that could be.
He'd gone to the brothel not because he could afford it, but because the women there made good drinking partners and a bottle of wine he could afford. And, though it was unreliable at best, his charms and looks could be brought to bear on even the hard-hearted women of the red-light district, and on occasion he had found a few to 'practice' their trade on him for no more reward than him doing the same for them. Something they rarely encountered in their line of work.
It'd been total coincidence that Aladdin had arrived by rooftop at the same moment as a nobleman arrived atop a majestic stead. And that that nobleman had proven himself a complete jackass, even by the standards of noble blood. Aladdin just couldn't let a woman subject herself to a man like that, even for pay. So he'd swiped the prince's purse. The gods would probably be pleased with him, removing temptation from so many parties in the would-be transaction.
He probably should've noticed that the prince had been accompanied by a private guard. Who were very fast. And very athletic.
Of course, being foreigners, they didn't know the city like him. Especially not the rooftops.
Aladdin ran and jumped.
Whatever happened, he had to keep one step ahead of the lawman.
***
"Emma, could you please try and restrain yourself to a light jog?" Regina called in the demanding tone that came with her polite requests. "Some of us are wearing heels!"
"Some of us aren't so sensitive about our height that we wear stilts everywhere we go!" Emma shot back.
Without missing a beat, she stepped out in front of a moving vehicle, in keeping with Regina's assessment of her mental acumen. But this moving vehicle, unlike the one in Regina's fantasies, skidded to a stop within feet of Emma. She charged the driver's door, throwing it open and him out.
