Jafar's World

Of course, fate could not find the heart to grant him a peaceful, soundless trip. Rapunzel spent her time either screaming until her voice was hoarse, or passing out from all the screaming. In the time few and far between, she glared as deeply as she could with her bright, green eyes while her voice recovered for her next spree of attacks. Occasionally, to make his trip even better, she started to tremble with teary eyes. Of course, she tried her best to hide them from him.

He only found it mildly annoying. Jafar had handled much worse. At least, that was what he thought before he found himself cut off by a familiar duo.

"Well lookey here? The bounty we were looking for came waddling right into our hands."

"Hehehe. I guess it's our lucky day."

Stocky build. Disgusting sideburns. They seemed to be quite a bit younger than he remembered, but their identities were unmistakable. It helped that one of them held up a bounty poster on weathered, yellow paper, confirming their identities.

'Stabbington Brothers. Wait. I thought one of them didn't talk?'

It seemed one of them hadn't received his eyepatch yet. If he had to guess, whatever attack he endured also caused him to willingly or unwillingly lose his voice.

Perhaps in her delusional state after hours of screeching, Rapunzel helplessly floundered against Jafar's grasp.

"P-please! You have to help me! This man's a pedophile! He's— mmph!"

He quickly clamped a hand over Rapunzel's lips.

"Friends, let's not get hasty. I assure you, a great reward awaits you both, merely if you escort—"

Shinnnk

The also unmistakable sound of a weapon being drawn echoed through the forest as one of the Stabbington Brothers pulled out a thick hunting knife.

"A pretty girl is asking for our help," he sarcastically chuckled. "How can we refuse?"

The other brother also sneered, drawing a sharp sword from the sheath on his back.

"Hand her over and we'll kill you more painfully."

Jafar sighed.

'I... don't think that's how an offer works.'

"I'll unfortunately have to refuse."

"Hmm. Can't say I didn't offer."

The grin on the man's face suggested he wasn't too disappointed.

Whoosh!

Patchy without the eyepatch chucked his knife towards Jafar with one hand while pulling out another knife with his other hand.

With quick reflexes, the Royal Vizier threw Rapunzel unceremoniously to the side and ducked down.

Thunk

The knife sunk deeply into the thick tree behind him.

And before Rapunzel could even think about escaping, Jafar threw a rope at the young girl. The piece of rope bent and twisted like a wild snake, quickly wrapping around her waist and sticking the end in her mouth as a makeshift gag.

"Nope. Stay," he commanded, pointing a stern finger towards her.

She stuck her tongue out in return — at least she gave her best effort to stick her tongue out with a gag stuffing her mouth.

Ignoring the infinite source of insufferable pain that was the royal princess, Jafar pulled out his staff with surprising dexterity and put on a menacing scowl.

"The people who put out that bounty are the ones that hired me, you dumbasses!"

"We don't give a fuck. Whoever cashes in the bounty is the one that gets the money, as far as we're concerned."

"That's… Honestly I can't argue with that."

"Hur hur. That's right."

The brothers began to draw even more weapons from their coats.

Jafar clicked his teeth and considered the options. He could try hypnotizing them, but it wasn't suitable for multiple targets. While they didn't seem to be the smartest of bounty hunters, Jafar doubted the other brother would kindly wait while the other was getting hypnotized.

He raised his staff.

"Looks like we're doing this the hard way."

One of his opponents raised a knife to his face, licking the flat edge in a way that Jafar assumed was supposed to come off as threatening. In his opinion, it only made the man look stupider than he already looked, if that was even possible. The world was a mysterious place.

"That's the way we like it."

…

"Hrrgh!" one of the brother grunted loudly as he hurled another series of knives at his opponent, the Royal Vizier.

The fight had gone on for several minutes now, with each side exchanging a flurry of attacks. Jafar was relatively unharmed, but the Stabbington Brothers were missing a few parts of their clothing and bits of their hair were singed or coated with frost.

"Come on, folks. Let's be civil about this. I can still let you two walk out of this."

'How are they not out of knives???'

"Hah! We're not even close to tired!"

"That's right! We can do this all day!"

Jafar sighed.

"You asked for it."

Flash!

From his staff, a dark beam emerged and hit one of the brothers square on the face.

"Urggh!"

'With that, he'll be blinded for the rest of the fight and a few hours after that,' Jafar confidently thought.

But he miscalculated one thing. Taking away his eyesight only meant the panicking man would attack anything he could sense.

And, of course, that was the exact moment a certain blonde princess decided to make her location known.

"Mmmm!" she cried against her gag.

Before anyone could say anything, the blinded brother whipped to the sound with shocking accuracy and chucked the knife in his hand.

"No, you dolt!"

The other Stabbington brother realized what was going to happen too late.

Jafar's eyes bulged as he saw the thrown knife draw a perfect beeline towards the princess.

'What the fuck?! Did this guy only practice throwing knives at sounds while blinded? He's more accurate like this than before!'

Rapunzel could only watch with wide eyes as the dagger that aimed straight for her face.

With only regrets filling her mind, her heart thumped so loud all other sounds drowned out. Her pupils dilated with fear and her face turned pale.

"Dumbass, at least move!" Jafar barked at the frozen princess. 

Shhhnk

The horrifying sound of knife burying into flesh quietly echoed through the forest. However, Rapunzel's gasp revealed it was not her who was hit.

… Cough

Blood spurted from Jafar's mouth, splattering at his feet.

He angrily glared at Rapunzel who just sat there with a stupefied expression. However, he couldn't afford to chew out a child at the moment. Quickly turning back and taking advantage of the pause, Jafar pointed his staff at the non-blinded brother.

"Stop!"

Whoosh

The hypnosis was practiced and immediate.

"Now hit your idiot brother."

Smack!

The hulking Stabbington Brother slumped to the ground — fully knocked unconscious

"Now hit yourself."

Thump

For the first time in a while, Jafar breathed out a sigh of relief.

"A… are you okay?" a timid voice asked.

The Vizier pulled another one of Elsa's weaponized frost emitters with a pained noise. Praying that he had made the safety mechanism properly, Jafar pressed it under his clothes, over his wound. Luckily, it seemed it would be a successful makeshift ice pack rather than a point-blank explosion.

'Are you even supposed to ice wounds like this? Fuck, it hurts too much to care.'

"I'll live," he grunted.

Rapunzel watched Jafar treat his bloody wound with a still-stunned expression.