{First Impressions Count} TAG: KIda

With a tight grip, the guard half-dragged, half-pushed Aladdin along the hallway. Aladdin huffed, but didn't make any effort to try and escape, apart from the occasional stopping in his tracks to try and trip the guard up. It wasn't long before the guard had stopped outside a cell, and the door opened with a creak. Once he had been shoved in, he tried to escape through the door, but it had already been slammed shut by the guard. He slammed himself against the door, not caring how much noise he made, but was disappointed when they failed to open. He sighed, and looked around.

There was a young woman lying on the floor, but long white hair hid her face, so he couldn't see anything else about her. He crouched down against the wall, and watched her, wondering who she was, and when she was going to wake up.

So this is my cellmate then... he thought to himself

Kida grunted moments after hearing a loud noise, and pushed herself off the floor and into a kneeling position. She lightly shook her head, getting the hair out of her face. With just one look, she realized that she was now in the same room that she had shared with Esmeralda. In that instance, every fiber of her body wanted to throw off her jumpsuit and take a hot shower and then sprawl onto the soft bed.

However, she could feel the presence of somebody behind her. Who could it be now? Turning her head, she locked eyes with a man against the wall. He looked young; like a teenager. "Oh?" The last couple of cellmates that she had were all female. He was the first male she had to share a cell with, after Tobias. Her blue eyes scanned the man up and down quickly before standing up to face him. She didn't recognize him that well, so she deduced that he could be a newer prisoner. "You must be my new cellmate."

Aladdin nodded from his position in the corner, then rose to his feet swiftly, and slowly walked over to the young woman. He tried to show manners, instead of immedietely rushing over to one of the beds and throwing himself on to it. He stopped when he was standing beside her, and he held out a hand for her to shake.

"I'm Aladdin Bashar, nice to meet you," he said sincerly, but without any emotion in his voice. He studied her pale blue eyes as he spoke to her.

If he was going to share a cell with the girl, he might as well make a good first impression.

For a moment, Kida merely stared into the man's dark eyes with an emotionless face. Okay, she thought.

Suddenly, her entire face morphed into a wide grin. She put one hand on her hip and grabbed his hand with the other. She had a very firm grip and shook his hand with a lot of force. "Aladdin Bashar," she repeated as she locked dead into his eyes. She retreated from the handshake and flipped her hair back with her arm, getting more of it out of her face. "Kida La Reine. The pleasure is all mine." She felt her spirits revived, much stronger than how she felt after the deadly card game. Raising an eyebrow, she gave a teasing wink to Aladdin. "So you are new here, correct?"

Aladdin felt a little bit surprised when she suddenly grinned, but he was relieved that she seemed quite friendly. He liked her voice, the way she said his name, it sounded smooth and silvery, unlike most of the other voices he had ever heard in his lifetime.

"Kida la Reine," he let the name roll over on his tongue, and searched his mind for something it could connect with. The name sounded French, or Italian, which matched her accent.

"Yes, I am new here," he replied, letting himself smile. The sides of his lips tingled; it had been a while since he had last smiled properly.

"I was only caught a few days ago. I didn't get that much of a trial, and I was immediately proven guilty. I just got here this morning," he shrugged, speaking in short sentences, with a matter-of-fact tone in his voice.

Kida brushed off some dust from her shoulder as Aladdin spoke. "I could tell," she playfully tapped her nose with her index finger. "It comes with your presence; your poise." That, and he looked young and as if he wasn't affected by the steel exterior that prison gave you.

She felt like the tour guide of the prison. She had met Tulio and told him a little about the prisoners and the prison, and now she was the cellmate of a younger inmate who had came in that very morning. The thought of this made her grin even wider.

Putting both arms on her hips, she gave a sympathetic nod. "Pity. The justice system is awful here. What was it that you did?" Kida looked over her shoulder at the black book on the table. She'd know if he lied--which was good.

"Erm..."

Aladdin wondered whether to lie about his crime or not, and he was silent for a few seconds as he thought.

".....A little bit of this and....a little bit of that..." he answered, shrugging his shoulders and turning his gaze away from Kida. He took a breath, as if he was about to say something else, but he was quiet. Better to not tell her my crime, he thought to himself, she probably woundn't be very interested anyway...

He took a few steps away from where he was, to get a better view of the beds and the other furniture in the room. He saw a wooden table, with a lamp and a small black on top of it, along with two wooden chairs. He realised how tired he was and stared longingly at the beds, but he knew it would be rude to wal completely away in the middle of speaking to someone.

So he turned to Kida, and gave her his best smile, hoping to make up for not answering her question.

"Have you been here long?" he asked.

Kida's smile faded. "Oh," she said out loud, making it clear to him that she was disappointed in his answer. She wasn't sure if she could trust him, or maybe he was too embarrassed to state his crime? Whatever the reason was, her curiosity would eventually tempt her to sneak a peek in the black folder.

Placing a hand on the wooden chair beside her, she sat down in it and crossed her legs. Her eyes locked onto Aladdin's again, inspecting him once more. "Well, you could say that, yes. Long enough to be branded and pitted in the warden's little games, anyhow." Her expression was blank and she stated it casually, with only a tiny bit of annoyance in her tone. She had dodged around the edges on what this prison truly entails with Tulio. However, she didn't feel scared anymore about the recent events she had witnessed. Now, it was almost as if she almost felt nothing.

Aladdin wasn’t surprised that her friendly smile faded when he didn’t give her the answer she was looking for, but he didn’t want to say anything else about his crime. He let his smile disappear from his face too, so that they had matching blank expressions. He tried to figure out what she was thinking, searching her eyes.

He was still searching them when she started to talk again. He noticed a slightly irritated tone in her voice, behind the words she spoke, and wondered if she was annoyed because he wouldn’t tell her his crime. If so, she would have to stay annoyed for some time.

Branded? At first he thought he had misheard her, or maybe she was joking. He felt a mixture of surprise and curiosity. He wondered if any expression of surprise was showing on his face.  He’d heard many stories about prisons, but not of the prisoners being branded.

“They branded you?” he asked, in a voice that even sounded shocked in his own ears. Is that even legal?

He imagined being branded, but quickly pushed the thought away. The thought of a red-hot piece of metal against his skin made him shiver a little.

Kida tilted her head a little bit. Shit, I've scared the kid, she thought. She knew that she would of had a similar reaction to a sudden declaration like that, but things were so different now. The words rolled off of her tongue like her own name.

Instead of saying anything, she put all her hair behind one shoulder. Kida slid her fingers up the back of her neck, pushing the rest of the hair out of the way. Turning, she revealed the grotesque indentation carved onto her neck. "S99224," she read. The words felt like daggers in her throat; she had never addressed herself by that before. "It's my number."

She slowly removed her fingers to let her hair hide the brand after a moment of letting Aladdin view it. Almost immediately, she opened her mouth so to not end that thought on a depressing note.  "The warden and the guards will call you by your number, and there will be times here where it will feel like your name. But it isn't, and you are yourself--Aladdin Bashar." Kida looked him dead in the eyes, making sure her words were heeded. She knew she would feel guilty if she caused him to have night terrors at night. Leaning back into the chair, she crossed her legs again and folded her hands.

Aladdin didn't want to look a the scar that had been left on Kida's neck when it had been branded, but he found himself staring at it in horror. He subconsciously ran his finger along the back of his neck. He had forgotten most of his number, and he had decided that there was no reason to remember it, and no way to be able to stop it from being forgotten. He heard how dispirited Kida sounded when she stated her prisoner number.

"S99224..." he read the number off of her neck, then gave a feeble smile, " 'Kida' is much better."

When she let her hair fall back into place, and turned to face him, Aladdin stared into he eyes again. They were much more serious and dark than they had been the last time he looked into them. He sighed, but nodded, as a sign to tell her he understood what she had been saying.

When she had stopped talking, he wandered over to the nearest bed, and sat down on the edge of it, still facing towards Kida. He ran his fingers through his hair.

It could have been any prison in the world, and you managed to get stuck in this one!

"What have I got myself into?" he groaned to himself.

Kida humbly smiled when he said that her name was much better than her number. Tucking her hair behind an ear, she watched him as he sat on a bed. That was Esmeralda's bed, she thought.

"Mmm," she hummed in an agreeing tone. Casually, she looked at her nails as she leaned back a little more. "This prison is maximum security, for the worst criminals, yet a young man like you managed to find his way in here." She looked back to him. Her tone was hinting, but still friendly. "You must of had gotten yourself into quite a lot of trouble."

She was bluffing, of course. Kida had remembered seeing a man get in here for simply paying prostitutes. However, she desperately wanted to hear Aladdin's crime from his own mouth, instead of the pages of a book. It's much more interesting to see someone's eyes light up as they describe their craft, rather than read the dispassionate fact in ink.

{OCC: I'm soooo sorry it took so long to reply! I'm such a bad person, I know DX ! I've been really busy for the last few days, but now it's a holiday break from school, so I hope to be posting more }

Aladdin noticed the curious tone in her voice, and sighed. He stared at the ground for a while, thinking, but after a while his eyes flickered up from the floor and he made eye-contact with Kida again. She doesn’t seem that bad..... he thought to himself, She seems friendly enough..

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you what I did,” he told her, sighed again, and then continued in a soft, gentle voice.

“I stole things at first. Though really, it was just food from market stalls and things like that. It wasn’t my fault; I was living on the streets, and I had to watch my own mother starve to death in front of my own eyes. But just doing that wasn’t helping a lot. So, I got involved with....other things....”

Aladdin stopped and ran his fingers through his shaggy black hair. He didn’t want to pause too long, and make Kida suspicious, but he was wondering the best way to explain his main crime.

“...I used to kidnap children, then hold them for ransom, to get money off of the parents. It was never something I was particularly proud of, but let me tell you one thing;” Aladdin subtly leaned a few centimetres forward and stared deeply into Kida’s eyes, ”I never harmed a single one of those children. Not physically anyway...”

((Ooc: Please don't beat yourself up! Real life always comes first and it's completely understandable ^^ I actually took a longer time than you respond so I hope that's okay with you too, sorry xD))

Kida tried her best not to smile when he finally decided to say his crime. Internally, she was proud of herself, but on the exterior her expression hadn't changed whatsoever.

She parted her lips a little bit when he began talking about his crime, looking at him with some concern. It was a horrible story and she could relate. They had both watched their mothers die. When the next words came out of Aladdin's mouth, Kida's eyes widened a little bit. She broke her gaze with him and looked down to her feet. "Kidnapping children," she repeated quietly. Thinking about it for a moment, she crossed her arms. "Well, that is not what I was expecting." Looking back up to him, she tilted her head a little bit. Her tone was calm, not angry whatsoever, just trying to understand him. "If you say you were not proud of it, then surely there were other methods you could have followed rather than kidnapping children, were there not?"

Aladdin wasn’t surprised that Kida turned her gaze away from him when he had told his crime. Kidnapping children was nothing to be proud of. But, when he hadn’t really thought about that when he had accepted the job. He had just been thinking about money, and how to get some. Maybe Kida just didn’t understand that.

“If I had the chance to go back, I wouldn’t have done that, but I can’t change the past,” Aladdin shrugged, trying to keep it casual,” That’s one thing I can’t stand about myself; making decisions too fast, and then I eventually regret it.”

He sighed, and fell back on the bed he was sitting on. His back sunk into the soft mattress behind it. He studied the ceiling for a while, quietly. He wondered if telling Kida his story was a good idea. She probably judged him by his crime now, and thought him a heartless, mean person. That’s how he sounded when the words came out of his mouth. But then again, Kida was also a prisoner in a high-security prison, which means that she wasn’t innocent either. He thought about this for a while.

“So.....I’ve told you my crime, am I going to have to guess yours?”

Kida furrowed her eyebrows a little bit. "No, I can understand why," she said as she unfolded her arms. "Desperate times," she said with a heavy tone in her voice, as if recalling a memory.

She immediately stood up when he asked about her crime. "I will save you the trouble." Walking leisurely towards the empty bed, she laid on it, mimicking Aladdin. "I was a thief. Similar to your story actually, my mother had just passed away, my father was dying, and we fell into deep poverty." She made gestures with her arms to try to make the story as grandiose as she had remembered it. "At first it was cars, but then it became bigger; better, it was a game. Life was a game." Her eyes lit up as she remembered the good old days.

As quickly as her eyes lit, the spark vanished. "However, one day, Icarus got a new pair of wings." Raising her hand, she put her thumb and index finger close together, as if she was holding something tiny. "He thought he could fly too close to the sun and then," she let her fingers touch as she made a hissing sound, like something burning. "No more Icarus."