A/N: If there’s a known problem with a certain model of fridge, and something that sounds like said problem is reported, why are you not carrying the part?
Sigh. And Cassim probably still hates me. 😉
Cassim put down the pen before he splintered it. Sharpening quills was a pain.
My gang’s doing okay. That’s what’s important, right? And we’ve got coins and goods hoarded for when the plan goes up in smoke.
Because it would. It had to. Things just didn’t go right for a brat from the slums. Ever.
Even if the brat’s a prince.
Not that most people outside his lieutenants had any clue about that. He’d stomped his foot down about that hard the first time he and Alibaba had come to terms on what the Fog Troupe would and wouldn’t do as part of Merhdad’s plan. Alibaba’s smuggling alias, not the missing prince; because the people needed to stand against the nobles on their own two feet-
Alibaba had agreed with him. Fervently. Which had felt like winding up to smash in a door the hard way, only to have someone open it from the other side. Argh.
It didn’t make sense. Alibaba was born royalty. Why wouldn’t he want people following the third prince?
But he didn’t. Cassim had seen that every time he’d made contact with another merchant or street kid Alibaba had dazzled… just by walking by sometimes, it seemed like. Some of them hadn’t even met him, given the stories Hassan and Zainab had picked up from a few ex-slaves that had made it here all the way from Qishan. They just knew that their sadistic Lord Jamil was dead, dead, way dead, that Alibaba had bought them all free and stuck around long enough to make that stick after a new lord came in – and then he’d vanished.
Where the hell did Alibaba get the coins to free a whole city’s worth of slaves?
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Oh, I hope your fridge is alright!
Poor Cassim. He must suffer from some terrible headaches. Maybe not Ja’far level, but still pretty bad.
Welp. Its nearly two am here, so I should probably actually get to bed. G’night!
LikeLike
Eep. Sleep is good! (I’ve seen 2 and 3 AM too often myself…)
LikeLike
Sorry Cassim but “how in the heck are they doing that?” and “Arghh! Why can’t you make sense? Does it amuse you to contradict my every expectation of how the world and people work?” is very common to anyone dealing with a king.
But Ja’far and the other Generals have assured me that you get used to it. Eventually. Probably. For the most part.
You will never stop getting the urge to kill them yourself and save your enemies the trouble. Or just the notion that if anyone is going to kill this pain in the behind it is going to be you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
*G* And my bunnies state this is the primary reason Sinbad is still alive – his Generals aren’t letting anyone else get dibs!
LikeLike
*G* Yep.
“You don’t get to kill him before one of us does. And we haven’t determined yet which of us has the best claim.”
Don’t know why it popped in my head but something for the Around verse
Jack: “Damnit. That principal of yours is going cause me a lot of trouble.”
Tiburon: “Oh he excels at that.”
Why Tiburon? Because he’s the one with the British accent.
LikeLike
*Snrk!*
LikeLike
Doesn’t that mean he gets to have a snake riding him? Have you settled what Yamraiha’s reincarnation’s background gives her for an accent?
LikeLike
Not yet, no. Darn it.
LikeLike
Out of curiosity does this make Cassim one of Alibaba’s generals? On the one hand it is a pretty generic requirement but it also requires one to be close enough for it to come into effect….
LikeLike
Nope. I don’t see Cassim as a general at all. Still not sure what the story will let me pull off, but I have other plans. 😉
LikeLike
Cassim, did the thought cross your mind that the reason Allibaba does ‘t want to be recognized as a noble is //because// he’s the third prince?
Of course not. Because that would wreck your neat little “Them VS Us” world view certain circles have been gleefully encouraging.
Thought: Given what cannon tells us about how Cassim got this blade, and how readily he did what he did at the conclusion of the Balibad Arc, I have to wonder. Is his sword doing low grade mental manipulation on him, to make him more malleable to the Plan? Or is that… er… characteristic(?) all Cassim?
LikeLike
Hmm. I suspect Cassim was brooding for a very long time, they didn’t need to push him. In this setting, where he actually has the Fog Troupe solidly under him, he’s doing better.
LikeLike
Cassim is gathering clues and not being dirt stupid, I think he’s going to put two and two together and get a Djinn.
Which will probably only confuse him further about why Alibaba is working so hard to be incognito. Traditionally Dungeon Capturers with royal blood do not do things behind the scenes with the plan of vanishing into the mists of history once they are done with the plan*. Or even the ones without royal blood (hello Sinbad)
Through it would not surprise me if some people have convinced themselves that Sinbad’s background isn’t as peasant as he says it is. Because people like to do stuff like that to keep their worldview neat and tidy.
But kings, the genuine h’reg, do not do neat and tidy.
*Or at least are trying to give it a very good go. But the problem with being charismatic and one of the universe’s Fixers of Problems is that you are generally not allowed to be just a face in the crowd. Any attempt, unless it works toward solving the problem, just gets Murphy to all over you like a rash.
LikeLiked by 1 person
*G* Alibaba told him that he stumbled into a nest of monsters and came out with a little silver and a fiery knife. If Cassim ever calls him on it? “Well, it’s true – there wasn’t much silver in the hoard….”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“So what I told you was true . . . from a certain point of view.”
“A certain point of view? I show you a certain point of view. I’m going to certain point of view you from here to Sindria.”
LikeLike
*G* “I just didn’t want things to get awkward?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“I just didn’t want things to get awkward?”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Not very well.”
“Imagine that. Now, what happened? And it better be the truth this time.”
“I was driving a caravan and suddenly there was a blue-haired kid eating melons . . .”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cue Cassim pounding his head on something again, because maybe he really didn’t want to know how impossible things get….
LikeLiked by 1 person
>Cue Cassim pounding his head on something again, because maybe he really didn’t want to know how impossible things get….>
Might get even more impossible for him as he’s probably going to get pulled into the insanity of a King’s life.
Though considering that they are on better terms here, he might end up with a familiar of Amon like Morgiana does. Of course in all likelihood said familiar will burn out the Dark Rukh in his Dark Metal Vessel and then setting up shop. Cue Cassim cursing Alibaba and his stupid Djinn for breaking his weapon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
*Snrk*
LikeLike
Though considering that they are on better terms here, he might end up with a familiar of Amon like Morgiana does. Of course in all likelihood said familiar will burn out the Dark Rukh in his Dark Metal Vessel and then setting up shop. Cue Cassim cursing Alibaba and his stupid Djinn for breaking his weapon.
Oooo . . . me likes. 🙂
And hopeful that after Cassim gets a better look at what Dark Rukh does to people and what it is doing to the world, he agree that it was good thing. If darned annoying at the time. And like heck he is ever going to say so.
But Cassim is getting better about being grumpy rather than actively toxic and hostile and Alibaba is getting better at reading between that type of lines. Between Cassim and Amon, he’s had to get better at understanding the naunces of Grump Speak.
Plus, I think Cassim could get into kill it with fire . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Part of the whole toxicity was having Alibaba as the “leader” of his Fog Troupe. With that stress off, and with a hope of actually improving things in Balbadd rather than just taking revenge… I’m hoping things go better!
LikeLike
This fic finally put Cassim’s name in front of me enough that part of me has started figuring out a FMP cross where he and Sousuke Sagara are one and the same. It kinda doesn’t work at all.
LikeLike
…No, it wouldn’t. I’ve only seen a little FMP, and I can vouch for that. Sagara’s a lot happier.
LikeLike
Cassim’s deal seems to be growing up in an ugly environment, and handling it poorly enough to become a nasty piece of work.
Sagara’s deal is that he grew up in a very ugly environment, and handled it better than many would.
Plus, I’m a cold war buff whose idea of a FMP fix fic most often includes Russian tanks traveling Fulda gap. Replacing the Soviet Union with Al-Thamen does not appeal.
If you keep enough Magi for that side to make any sense, and keep enough cold war and USSR for my taste, the backstory timelines for Cassim and Sousuke are incompatible.
It’s a stupid idea, says Gild-The-Goose, yet foolishly struggling to make it work.
LikeLike
Introduce interdimensional portals? They exist in Magi….
LikeLike
Cassim’s point in Magi seems to have been his relationship with Alibaba. For that to happen, they probably have to be in the same place. If Alibaba grows up with Sousuke, he misses some of the backstory relationships which drive him. If Sousuke grows up with Alibaba, likewise. I get the impression that Alibaba without Balbadd is like Sousuke without the child assassin and child soldier stuff.
I’ve seen part of Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans, and it seems like Alibaba could be imported there, but not Sinbad or the other multi-Djinn warriors. That could possibly work better than Magi x FMP.
LikeLike
Haven’t seen the Orphans series; will have to look up. 🙂
LikeLike
Currently, the Gundaminfo youtube channel, which is apparently official, has Orphans, Build Fighters, Build Fighters Try, and Unicorn up.
LikeLike