Disclaimer: Prince of Persia does not belong to me.

A Life Relived: Chapter One

It took every moment he had left in him and yet no time at all. That was the terrible beauty that he had accepted both long ago and at that very instant. Winds howled and tore their unforgiving claws straight through his body, leaving nothing intact. Fire ravaged his world and turned the air around him to molten glass. His body broke as it was pulled in every direction and twisted in intricate patterns. He was in the epicenter of the Sandstorm of the gods.

His life flashed before his eyes. Lives he had not lived flashed before his eyes. He witnessed every life on the world in the same instant and yet could remember none of it. He found himself mourning for the souls who would be lost for his uncle's treachery. He became part of the storm herself at some point, having no existence beyond destroying all in his path. He separated from her sometime later and mourned again for the pain he had caused.

He became nothing, little more than a disembodied soul washing over the world's surface. In that nothingness he was everything. He was a part of every living thing and he felt as each thing died a sandy death. All was swept away, until only the barren earth remained. His soul cried out – the only sound on a grave-silent world. He cried for all he had known and for all he had lost. He cried for his lost love and for his broken trust. He cried for the mistakes of his past. He cried and the gods heard. They heard and made a decision that changed the course of history.

Dastan jerked awake. He was on a horse. He wasn't alone. Looking back, he saw his treacherous uncle. Frozen with absolute terror, he almost didn't notice that he was much smaller than Nizam. Dastan did notice though, because he was first and foremost a child of the market and observation was a necessary survival skill.

"Is something the matter, boy?" Dastan did not mistake the concern in Nizam's voice as concern for Dastan. He heard the dark tone behind the question as he would not have before.

"N-no." His voice shook a bit in his answer, but Nizam appeared to accept it anyway. Looking ahead once more, Dastan saw the horse of his father Sharaman. That was impossible though; Sharaman was dead. Nizam's treachery was the cause of that. Nizam's treachery and Dastan's naïve trust.

Surely this was a dream, thought Dastan, brought on by his imminent death. He looked around though and took stock of the surrounding area. He was in one of the poorer marketplaces in Nasaf. The nearby potter's booth was one he recognized and had used as a landmark for rooftop travel in times past. Scents of cloying herbs and smokes and of illness and sin hung heavy upon this area of Nasaf.

Dastan took stock too of the people. Nasha was crouched on top of a nearby roof. Dastan gave him a small signal to tell him to get Bis and gather the rest of his group home for the day. In an alleyway not half a minute's walk away from Nasha's roof stood Radwan. Dastan's hot-blooded friend stood stock still at the sight of Dastan riding a noble's horse. Dastan repeated his signal. Radwan nodded and left the alley as silently and unnoticed as a shadow.

There was simply too much detail for this to be a dream, he decided. As he reached that conclusion, a sort of bone deep fear settled on Dastan's shoulders. Had he suffered a heat related delusion that invented fifteen years of life? Or was something else at work this day? Something beyond simple understanding…

The path that Sharaman chose on the path to his palace was the same one as Dastan vaguely remembered. The looks from the guards made him nervous. They were acting as he remembered. Dastan sat quietly in the saddle of Nizam's horse and bowed his head. He needed to think. Perhaps he was in the throws of heat-stroke but, excitement began to gather in his gut and he forced it down before he could do anything foolish, perhaps he was actually being given a second chance. He had, after all, meddled with the Sandglass. Not even Tamina knew fully what the Sands of Time could do. How far they could take a person without killing them.

He did not know the answers to his questions; could not know, but he had hunches. Gut feelings, really. Most men would not trust these feelings. Dastan had learned long ago, however, that his gut could save him a lot of grief and conflict. His attention was diverted for a moment by Nizam muttering almost inaudibly.

"The next time Sharaman wishes to personally buy his beloved sons a few new trinkets, I shall personally advise him against it. Strongly." Interesting. Dastan had always wondered why the King of Persia had been in a market in the slums of Nasaf. Thinking on the matter though, he found that the explanation of his father's presence fell within the wise king's way of acting. Sharaman always looked for ways to please his two, soon to be three, beloved sons.

Startled out of his musings again, this time by the horse stumbling on a stray rock, Dastan realized that the king and his royal entourage had entered a different part of Nasaf. While it was a place that neither Tus nor the more open-minded Garsiv would ever consider welcoming, it was still closer to the palace than most of the people Dastan had grown up around would ever come. Guards would have turned them away. Saddened by his thoughts, Dastan tuned out the world until Nizam's horse stopped in front of the palace gates.

In the stables just inside of the gates stood several servants waiting to care for the king and his group's mounts. They all started slightly at the sight of Dastan. Then they relaxed. A few of them looked on him with pity and curiosity. Dastan read their thoughts from the look on their faces. Young boys who returned home with nobles from the slums were not usually meant for anything good. It was odd, though, for one to be allowed to ride on the horse of a noble instead of walking.

Sharman dismounted his stallion first, as was customary, and the first servant took charge of it. The king stayed behind as the rest of his guard dismounted left the stables. Nizam got off of his horse quietly and helped Dastan down. Grudgingly, Dastan accepted the help. He did not want the traitor to touch him but was at the same time unable to safely dismount on his own.

"Brother," the king addressed Nizam, "I want you to see to the boy's cleanliness. Find a servant to give him a bath and clothing and a room."

"What do you plan to do with the boy?" Nizam spoke quietly. Sharaman looked Dastan over one more time as if measuring his worth. Dastan apparently passed whatever test was set to him.

"I mean to adopt him into my family." Nizam's face showed pure shock.

"Adopt him? Do you not already have enough sons and daughters?"

"None of my children are quite like him." The king paused, as if not wanting to give a full explanation, "Just see that what I ask is done. A bath, clothes, and a room fit for a prince." Dastan's eyes were wide. This conversation was exactly as he remembered.

"I will do as you say, brother."

"Excellent. I will go now and summon my beloved sons to me so that I may tell them of their newest brother."

The remaining few servants stared at Dastan as he and Nizam left the stables. Dastan understood and didn't need to read their faces. He already knew their thoughts.

The king's brother led the street rat through the palace. Dastan recognized the path they took as being a string of back passages that almost guaranteed an unseen journey to wherever in the palace the walker intended to go. In this case the destination happened to be the bath chambers of the palace. Once Dastan had a room he would take his baths in there, but for now he had to do so in the bath chambers shared by all without residence in the palace.

A servant was in the chambers already. Nizam looked unsurprised to see him – the king had most likely sent him there whilst on his way to his private study.

"The king has ordered this boy be given a bath. Then you are to find him clothes and lodgings," Nizam swallowed thickly like this sentence hurt him terribly, "fit for a prince." The servant nodded mutely and Nizam turned on his heel to leave.

"Bye." Dastan felt compelled to bid farewell to the man. Nizam turned slowly with a fake smile plastered to his face.

"Goodbye, Dastan. I will see you later." Then he was gone.

Still silent, the servant (whose name Dastan never learnt) motioned for him to remove his clothing. Dastan did so. Moving as efficiently as any child of the market, the servant led Dastan to the bath pool and again made a motion similar to those Nasha and the rest used to communicate. Dastan slipped into the hot water. Watching the man outside the pool, he decided to speak and hopefully diffuse some of the tension in the sweet-smelling room.

"Where are you from?" The servant remained quiet for a time, but eventually answered.

"I was raised in the markets. Much like you, I assume." Dastan nodded. The servant motioned again and Dastan leaned his head forward to allow the servant to pour clean water from a pitcher over his head. He then picked up an odd container of odd soap. The servant began washing Dastan's hair. He decided to speak again.

"You look familiar. When did you leave the markets?"

"Not more than a year and a half ago, my lord."

"Just Dastan, if you please."

"As you will."

"A year and a half you say? Did you know Bast, son of a soldier?" The servant paused in his cleaning.

"Yes, I believe so. I grew up a few streets away from a boy called Bast whose father was a soldier. Why?"

"My best friend is his younger brother."

The remainder of the bath went much easier. Once the tension was gone, banished by the peace brought by mutual acquaintances, the two males breathed easier and spoke freer.

As the servant finished bathing the new prince, another servant – a girl – brought in a set of clothes for Dastan. The first servant helped Dastan dress once the servant girl had left the room. The outfit was simple, white linen shirt and soft dark pants, set to Dastan's taste as a street rat and at the same time good enough for a prince to wear on a lazy day.

The first servant remained at his station in the bath and Dastan exited the room. The servant girl stood patiently outside the door. Nodding, she began to lead Dastan in a direction he recognized as being a fairly direct path to where he remembered his room to be.

A sense of déjà vu fell upon Dastan. He recalled with almost perfect clarity his first trip to his chambers. A servant girl, very possibly the same one that led him now, had led him through the then-confusing halls of the palace. It did not take too long to reach the door of Dastan's chambers. She opened the door for him, told him to make himself comfortable, and to wait for a servant to bring him to the evening meal with the king and his two beloved sons.

"What does that mean?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Everyone talks about his two beloved sons. Why not just say his sons?" He knew the answer already, but wanted to seem as though he was truly new to palace life. She smiled at him.

"The king has many sons and daughters, but the Princes Tus and Garsiv are the only two borne by the king's first and best loved wife, may her soul find peace." She paused, "They are his favorite children, in a way. They are the two most eligible for the throne." She paused for a long time, until Dastan realized she was waiting for his signal of understanding or confusion. He nodded. She smiled again, repeated her instructions, and let him alone in his new chambers.

The moment the servant girl left him alone, Dastan broke into a brisk walk over to the eastern-most wall of his main chamber. He located the small carving near the floor and pressed it firmly. A hidden cabinet popped open a few paces away from him. He moved to it and deposited in it the few treasures he carried always, including his few copper coins, a tiny carving of a leopard given to him by Kaysar, and his mother's woven hair-band.

Mission accomplished, Dastan walked calmly to his bed. He sat down on the many cushions and thought. If he were to do anything for his friends in the near future, he would need to be able to leave the palace. The last time he had lived this day he had sought out all available escape routes. He quickly decided that this course of action was one that he should retake as his knowledge of the routes had faded. Dastan had not needed to sneak out of the palace for many years now.

He rose from his soft bed and crossed the floor to his balcony. It was a nice balcony, smaller that Tus and Garsiv's to be sure, but plenty large enough for the peasant-prince of Persia. Dastan looked over the marble railing of his balcony. His chambers were high enough off the ground to make leaving both more difficult and simpler. Now, how to go about leaving...

His deliberations took so long that the sun grew to be quite a bit lower in the sky before he was finished. In fact, he had barely ended his thoughts when the promised servant arrived to take him to his evening meal with the king.

It was many hours later that Dastan returned to his rooms, troubled. He almost wished that he had not grown to have such good people-reading skills. It was quite clear to him that Tus was wary of the boy his father had taken off the streets and that Garsiv vaguely hated him on principle. Garsiv had trouble liking anyone new and anyone that could be labled street rat. Dastan was both.

He was tired and he was emotionally drained. With the walk of a man, boy now, who had felt the deep ache of those seen as family disliking him, Dastan shuffled to his bed. There was a set of nightclothes on the top of his pillows. Below them lay a warm looking blanket. Dastan smiled softly, the servants of the palace always had been kind to him. After changing, the youngest of Sharaman's beloved sons, whether his brothers knew it or not, fell into his bed and into a deep slumber.

Then the nightmare started. He saw his father burn more than once that night.

A/N: Alright y'all. This is my first try at a PoP fic. I want your honest opinions. Should I continue this story or abandon it? Keep in mind that my updates will not be regular by any stretch of the imagination due to school, work, and life in general.