Chapter Text
Mozenrath had rarely traveled with any companion other than Xerxes (who was content to wrap about his shoulders and sleep) and as such was surprised by how silence made the hours go by sluggish and conversation, at least semi-interesting conversation, made those same hours pass much more swiftly. Which meant he learned more about Aladdin in a half day than he had over the past few years.
"Tell me, brother," Mozenrath rather enjoyed the look on Aladdin's face every time he used that term. It sprung a delightful mix of pleasure, surprise, and uncertainty. "What did you do in your adolescence besides scrounge around the alleys of Agrabah? That's hardly a full time occupation."
"You'd be surprised, it takes a lot of effort to steal something to eat everyday and not get caught," said Aladdin. He shrugged nonchalantly.
"Really?" drawled Mozenrath. "All the hours of the day and night were poaching bread and running? Come now brother you can tell me. Did you run away from apprenticeship? Get recruited by a gang of thieves for your trembling gazelle eyes to distract marks? Served coffee to men wanting to caress your bottom?"
Judging by the parade of winces that Aladdin suffered Mozenrath was confident that he hit the mark. Or marks perhaps. "Ah, I see. All of the above I assume? If you're too shy to confide in your brother I have no compunctions sharing my past with you. Let me assure you considering our vastly different moral compasses my adolescence was surely more scandalous. Ask away."
"Um," Aladdin hesitated, biting his lip. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to know that much of Mozenrath's past, but they were brothers and he did want to know him better. "So what did you do during your adolescence? I'm guessing evil magic stuff."
"Evil magic stuff? Your worldview never ceases to be a thing of wonder," chuckled Mozenrath. "My mother lived a bit longer than yours, so I was well known in that court as the son of the most powerful jadis. After her death I was able to keep a smaller set of apartments and study under assorted alchemists, wise men, philosophers, and sorcerers. Of course the tutoring had a price."
"Oh," Aladdin's tone was all goody-two-shoes sympathy. "Yikes."
It was Mozenrath's turn to shrug. "It sounds worse than it was. I was temptation incarnate to those silly men. To bashfully accept a few kisses or fondles in exchange for unfettered access to some of the rarest tomes and relics in the Seven Deserts? All in all it was quite the bargain until Destane. He wanted a great deal more than merely a taste of the forbidden and I was rather disinclined to give it to him."
Aladdin stiffened on his mount. He recalled Mozenrath gleefully telling the tale of how he murdered his former master and resurrected the corpse to serve in his mamluk army. Good to know the slaying was somewhat justified. "I'm sorry."
"Do not waste your words or anguish on pity for my younger self," said Mozenrath. "As you well know I took my revenge and Destane did not get off lightly."
"Still I mean, I know you killed him, but that doesn't erase what he did to you," Aladdin frowned. Tried to frown as it came out more a pout in Mozenrath's opinion.
"I was fortunate in that I had the means to make it stop on my own terms and get my own back," he said. "Most young men in my position never could. It's them you for whom you should spend your sympathy."
"Yeah," Aladdin's gaze went forward to where Iago and Abu were bickering on Carpet. "I mean I was lucky. It didn't go beyond much before it ended."
"Ah let me gaze into my crystal ball," Mozenrath permitted himself the affectation of a fortuneteller to get his brother to laugh. "You were a coffee server or a cupbearer at a semi-respectable establishment. One man giddy from coffee or sloppy from wine pinched your backside one too many times and you dumped the contents of your tray all over him and were that hour out of a job."
In spite of the heavy topic Aladdin broke into laughter and nearly started wheezing atop his mount. "You sure you're not an oracle? That's uncanny!"
"You're a first rate flatterer. I've gotten to know you over the last few years and even more in the last few days. You strike me as the type who doesn't mind harmless flirting as long as it's fairly good-natured and with physical contact you find permissible or complimentary to your charms. Once it goes over the line you stiffen up and tell them to cease. They naturally don't listen seeing you as part of the entertainment they're paying for. The proprietor was either out of range or unwilling to censure a guest. And then goes the hot coffee or the sour wine all over a man," he concluded the narration with a flourish.
"Coffee, I hope it burned him through those ridiculous brocade pants of his but I think he had too many layers of robes and coat on to do much," Aladdin sighed. "The other guys didn't mind too much, he was generous with gifts and compliments when he was in one mood."
"Belligerent, possessive, violent, and handsy in another mood," continued Mozenrath. "I know the sort. I hope that wasn't his first lap full of coffee nor his last. With that kind the gifts are never worth the price."
"When I started living at the palace I was tempted to find him. You know the whole confronting jerks who've hurt you fantasy and all. But what was I going to have him arrested on? Doing what a thousand other jerks are doing in every coffeehouse, tavern, and gathering place in the city? Unless he does more than grope it's nothing you can call the guards for," Aladdin said. "If I ever see his smug face again I don't know what I'd do. Pretend not to recognize him? Throw it in his face that I'm a prince now and he's just the same as always. Doesn't change a thing."
"If you were more corrupt I would suggest throwing him in the dungeons for a spell and then turning him loose as though nothing has happened. That he was so insignificant that he completely slipped your mind. However, I sincerely doubt your inconvenient morals will permit such an act. Not to mention the possible displeasure of your wife, though she may encourage you to find evidence of laws he's broken to arrest him," Mozenrath mused. "The princess, be she the picture of compassion and mercy at times, does indeed have a vicious streak towards those who've harmed those she loves."
"Yeah, well you can get why I wouldn't want to tell her about this. I don't want her to feel sorry for me and I don't want her to get angry on my behalf. I didn't exactly end it gracefully."
"You were how old, brother dear?"
"Fifteen years old," Aladdin chewed his lip pensively. "Just turned fifteen I think. I remember because the owner was annoyed I was getting too old for his clientele."
"At fifteen I had a man murdered for mocking me in the Persian royal court," said Mozenrath. "Adolescents aren't patient or wise decision makers. Still as you can see you did rather better overall if we're going by conventional morality that condemns slaughtering one's fellow man."
A small smile tugged at the corners of Aladdin's mouth. "Yeah, you're kinda extreme, brother. I mean I don't expect that you're going to change that much, but if you're going to hang around Agrabah with us maybe keep it to just having really bad people thrown in the dungeons."
"What makes you think I would 'hang around Agrabah?' I am the ruler of the land of the Black Sands. It's not as if I don't have my own palace to return to."
"The way I figure it," Aladdin sidled his horse closer to Mozenrath's in order to pat him on the back. "If we get you cured you probably won't be able to use magic anymore and that makes the Black Sands kingdom too dangerous to live in."
"It'd be a convenient way to rid yourself of me," Mozenrath pointed out. "I go back to a place that will likely kill me and even more ironically by my own servants, but you keep a clean conscience since you did the right thing by curing me."
"How could I have a clean conscience sending my brother to his death? Unless you have a better plan, you're staying with us. Get you a nice suite in the palace and you can be a court alchemist. Spend your days intimidating nefarious evil-doers at court or whatever."
Aladdin made it sound so easy. Maybe for someone who started with nothing getting to live in a palace and not worry about where his next meal was coming from was easy. Mozenrath was a feared sorcerer with his own kingdom, albeit devoid of a court or any population at all besides his undead mamluks.
There's no denying that it'd be a distinct step down from ruler to courtier. He'd been a courtier at thirteen in the Persian court though a lot of that had been with his mother's assistance.
"Why even bother with such arrangements? To be perfectly honest I do not truly believe we will be successful in our quest. My body is dying, Aladdin, and it has been on a sharp decline for quite a while. The logical conclusion to this quest is my ignominious death. The likelihood we will find this father of ours, that said father will lend us his aid, that we will find the relic needed to complete the ritual, and that all of this can be done before my body gives out? Infinitesimally small."
"Then why do it? Why go through all of this if you think you're just going to die anyway?" Aladdin got that stubborn jut of his chin up. "You have to believe that we're going to save you."
"Because I don't want to die. I was not able to sit around my palace and just let this happen to me. I would greatly prefer dying in the attempt of a cure than dying without the attempt."
"You're not going to die from this curse," Aladdin said firmly. "I just found you as my brother and I'm not giving you up. Even if we can't find our father we will find a way to reverse the curse. You know we do know more sorcerers than just you right?"
"Why do you think your friends would be more successful than me? Do you know how many libraries and treasuries I've seized trying to cure myself? How many magicians, healers, and alchemists I've had work for me?" sneered the sorcerer.
"Yeah but if they don't like you they can just destroy texts before you even get to them. If you're going to kill them anyway they have nothing to lose. Besides some of the oldest spells aren't even written down. Genie was telling us how some of the most ancient magic is still only taught from master to apprentice orally. There'd be no paper trail for you to follow. We've also met people from forgotten civilizations, immortals who've wandered the Earth for centuries, and these people Mozenrath? They like us, they owe us favors. I don't like to cash in on goodwill, but for my brother I will and I'll do it happily."
An emotion that was far to akin to hope began to stir inside Mozenrath's chest and he refused to let it surface. "Perhaps there might, though exceedingly unlikely and improbable, that there might be something worthwhile that one member of your bevy of acquaintances might know."
"That's the spirit!" Aladdin's face broke into a wide grin. "We'll have this thing beat before you know it. Okay, maybe not that fast but soon enough. The curse will seem like it was just a bad dream."
"And you and Agrabah will seem like the morning after the dream?"
"I don't see why not," Aladdin said blithely. "You're young, brother. Young enough to start over."
There was a truth there. They were both young enough to be able to start anew. Indeed the world did not seem to take into account one's age or strength when it turned upside down. At least Mozenrath was sound of mind and if he could at last be sound in body it might be worth the step down to courtier.
"Do you ever tire of your relentless optimism?" he had to tease Aladdin. Brotherly teasing was more to his taste than Cain and Abel style brotherhood and they'd certainly done too much of that in the past.
"Not these days," said his brother. "Maybe we'll make an optimist of you yet."
"Megalomania is a flavor of optimism, though perhaps not one you're familiar with," Mozenrath paused. "Or shall I say you're familiar with battling it?"
"Sometimes I forget how funny you can be and then you remind me all over again." It was a good thing they were on horseback otherwise Aladdin seemed as though he wanted to do nothing more than hug Mozenrath and he wasn't quite up for that. Yet. Maybe once he wasn't dying of curse he might be able to put up a better resistance to Aladdin's brotherly overtures.