It is said some lives are linked across time…

"My sweet, beautiful princess," lips murmured against silk, the smoothness of flesh that bristled upon contact. Dastan kissed his way across the expanse of smooth, decadent shoulder, mouth brushing against the dip as his nose nuzzled the supple flesh of his bride-to-be's neck. A soft sound escaped her as she felt the grazing of teeth. "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful." He whispered just below the hollow of her ear like a shaman's mantra. The tip of his nose brushed back a stray tendril of curled hair.

"Dastan…" his name was but a sigh upon her lips, crying out his name as he continued to lavish her with his attention.

He pulled her closer, white linens dragging along with her as she nestled into the crook his body provided. Hazy candlelight filtered through the mesh canopy, dousing them in dim rays, splashing her body in hues and colors along her skin. The prince hissed as her fingers raked and pulled against the roots of his finely oiled hair, massaging his temples as she called out to him once more. Lengthy hair fell around the two as he flipped her over, laying her bare beneath him.

"Princess…Tamina," he sunk his head down into the junction where shoulder met neck - beautiful, elongated neck - that begged to be immersed with whispers of sweet nothings. He groaned as her claws beckoned him deeper, further, without a hint of hesitation. Just as her eyes did when she pleaded, Let go.

Dastan stopped, raising up on his forearms to stare deep into his fiancé's eyes. They swirled with hints of hazel intermingling with delicious chocolate. But all he could see in them now were tears, tears strewn with blood from rocks of a place the two had never been. Not in this lifetime.

"Dastan?" she intoned as he turned away, settling himself against the sudden cold he felt rising within his chest. "Dastan, what is the matter?" she rested her arm across his exposed chest, bare amidst the covers he pulled across himself. "Is, is something wrong?"

Was that insecurity in her voice?

The prince sighed, a long, ragged sound. "No, no, Tamina. It's…it is nothing," he moved his face back to see hers, eyes concerned beneath a furrowing brow. "Really," He gave a quick smile, reaching calloused fingers out to gently wipe away her worry. His reassurance turned to arrogance as he smirked confidently. "Is that concern I see?" he cooed patronizingly, flipping over onto his side and gently draping an arm across the curve of her perfect waist.

"Yes," she answered simply, honestly. But that wasn't the response Dastan had been so hopeful for. At his dismay, she cautiously ventured forth. "Is it so wrong to feel concern over the man I shall one day soon call husband?"

"No…no, there is nothing wrong with that. Come," with his arm he joined her body to fit into his, reveling in the herbal scent wafting from her hair, the texture of it, the feel of her – the sheer reality of it. Of her. "Why the need for such concern? I am alright. Here," he took her hand into both of his, then splayed each finger against his left pectoral beneath the palms of his own hand. There, was the steady rhythm of his beating pulse, thrumming with the energy of his life with her hands as a thin barrier. "Do you feel that?"

She stared down at their conjoined hands, glancing back up to him through lashes with a gentle smile tugging her lips. "It is your heartbeat."

He grinned, teeth glowing as bright as pearls, beneath the scruff of oncoming shadow. He scratched the stubble that coated his jaw and nodded to her. "Indeed it is."

She petted his face, fingers etching his jawline then retracting as if bitten. She jokingly kidded with him, "So sharp! Like a blade!"

He laughed openly at that. "Ha ha, oh yes – like Seso's knives, yes?" at the look of curiosity she graced him with the happy light faded from his eyes, dimming his features as his grin slipped. His face faltered. Coughing into his fist, clearing his abruptly constricted air passage, he continued. "Oh…yes, right."

She leaned her head to one side, hair tossed across one shoulder, leaving a trail his eyes immediately picked up and his fingers sought after. "Now I know something is the matter."

He smiled, eyes creasing with the task as he let out a breath. "Really, you don't trust me? I feel I should really be offended."

"Your words say one thing, my prince, but your tone," she laughed breathlessly, rolling atop him, long tresses tickling his body in a wash of soothing chestnut. "Indicates another."

His fingers curled and flexed at her waist, devouring the sight of her above him. The wavy masses of hair, pulled back by a wreath of vines and pearled orbs, glittering eyes as bright and flawless as any diamond, and lips as full and luscious as the sea, each caress like the touch of the ocean across its shore. And his skin was the pristine beach. He breathed in deeply, inhaling all the smells in the room, of ceremonial incense, of her – sweet, precious, her.

"Mmm," he moaned graciously, lifting himself up and burrowing into her neck. "I love you, Tamina."

She placed his face between her cupped palms and gazed deeply into the cloudy, sentimental pools of his eyes. "And I love you, my prince."

The kiss they shared was wonderful, and as the two broke apart, he rejoiced.

"Then, we shall get married in the morn!"

She slapped his chest. "Oh come off that, you! There will be no marriage in the morning, now stop it!"

She giggled as he wrangled her into a tight embrace, folding her to his chest with corded arms and taut muscles. His teeth gently grazed her flesh as he contained his laughter, as the marriage proposal was a simple joke between the two now. He would always propose the ridiculous notion of a quick marriage, a sporadic spur of the moment event that both knew, as royalty, they could never have.

But he was content to wait, content to wed, content to stay with this Tamina, even if she wasn't the same he had traveled and grappled with, what seemed like so many lifetimes ago.

And that some loves are strong enough…

"Tell me, Dastan – oh you!" Tamina growled, stamping her foot into the sand as her eyes followed her groom as he hitched himself atop a spike and hopped from rung to rung of each spire that jutted from the adobe and clay houses. "Stop that, get down here!"

"Or what?" he teased playfully, skipping off a wooden post, curling his legs around the tier and swooping in front of her, hanging happily upside down. His hair fell away from his face in greasy tendrils. "What are you going to do, hmm?" Dastan waggled his brows mischievously, jamming his arms out and grazing her sides with his unmanicured nails.

"Oh, you vile— woo!" she gasped in mild fright as she was swung from her position flat on the ground, flipped up and away, and landing on a wooden outcropping with the support of his arms still tight around her biceps.

He winked conspiratorially, a conniving smile twisting his lips as he bent at the waist to deliver a kiss upon hers. She swatted him back and made to balance herself on her own, waving and flailing her arms out with about as much good grace as a monkey. And he told her so.

"You have the eloquence of an ape, my dear," at her futile punches and mild curses, he conceded with a tip of his head. "But a very beautiful ape." He grinned widely as he bypassed a badly aimed punch, sidestepping across the gaped platform and grabbing a hold of Tamina's waist from behind her as she nearly toppled off the balcony of someone's home.

She gasped beneath his hand as he slapped his left one across her mouth to silence the scream that nearly tore from her throat. Her eyes swiveled in their sockets to gape wide-eyed at him, his eyes shadowed by dirtied bangs.

"I will always catch you," he breathed into her ear, holding her tighter to him, armor plating against her bare back.

"You there, out on the porch," a light flickered on and the silhouette of a hulking man waddled towards them, holding an oil lamp in his hand. "Cretins, thieves! Be gone from here you –" the house owner, an ugly man with grimy features and evil, beady eyes, yanked back the curtain to his commons area to gain a better view of the two trespassers. His eyes bugged and he began to stammer an incoherent stream of his thought. "P-p-p-Prince Dastan, Princess Tamina!"

Wiggling the fingers still pressed against his fiancé's stomach, Dastan impishly smirked and greeted the man. "Hello."

"Prince Das-? Dastan! Dastan!" a roguish voice called from far down below. Peering about, Tamina's head followed in the prince's motions, forgetting the man whose property they stood upon. "Dastan, you mad fool – get down from there! You and the princess are not to muck about in this sort of fashion."

Squinting his eyes, Dastan gazed down below and saw a noble man in regal cloth and armor shouting to the trickster prince. Dastan's face glowed, cracking under the weight of the huge smile he now bore. "Tus? Brother! Oh, hello, Brother! Yes, yes, how are you?"

He could hear the faint groan emit from his eldest brother. "Dastan, you get your arse – pardon me, Tamina – down here right now, or I'll have it shot down, d'you hear me?"

"Dastan, listen to your brother…"

He rolled his eyes in retaliation. "What, have you such little faith in me? This proves very troublesome for our marriage – and my manhood! My pride is hurt, Tamina, hurt I say." He kneaded his fingers into her side, tickling her to no avail.

"It won't just be your pride that is hurt once your brother gets through with you, my love." She shoved his hands away, called down to Tus, and jumped off the ledge.

The owner cried out in shock as he watched the dainty princess leap from a balcony many stories up, but with a placating pat to the air, Dastan silenced the man and listened for impact. The 'oof' he heard was enough and he too jumped off the outcropping, twirling around on a clipped heel, saluting the gruff man, and then flipping off the balcony. Three aerial summersaults later, and the Prince of Persia landed before his brother and a few palace guards. Tamina crossed her arms before her chest and Tus frowned.

"Brother, you aren't a street rat anymore, you can't just go about hopping from place to place. You have to stay in the castle." Tus warned, tone a scold and shy away from fatherly, irking his youngest sibling to no end.

"Tus, it won't matter that I am no longer of the street. It was once a part of me," he pleaded with the man, looking much to weary for his early age. Preparation for the throne had shortened his life by years and gray was creeping up the sides of his hair in a steady growth. "I can't just give it up."

Tus hmphed, clapping his brother's shoulders and forcing him to gaze out at the sand and homes of his people. "This will be yours one day."

Dastan laughed, shrugging his brother's hand off him. He punched him for good measure and chuckled in good conscience. "Tus, listen to yourself. I'm not your son, this will never be mine!" he was the one to place his hand upon his brother's arm, bracing it as he had in childhood. He looked intently, directly into Tus' coal eyes, shadowed by an indescribable emotion. "And I am all right with that. I will be content to serve and fill your goblet with wine for the rest of my life. The gods know I'll probably be saddled with that with Tamina as my wife!"

She scoffed haughtily. "I do not drink!" but she was promptly ignored as Dastan took his brother and walked off, smiling jovially with outstretched gestures.

"Now then," he turned the full effects of his grin onto his brother, widening as he saw the corners of Tus' lips twitch. "Let us find our dear brother, Garsiv. He should be…ah, where should he be, Tus?"

Tus chuckled, a deep resounding sound low in his chest. "Garsiv will probably be found in the general's wartime chambers. He likes to spend his time there more and more now, ever since you bested him in finding that gate in Ala—" Tus sheepishly ducked his head and continued at a brisker pace, allowing Tamina to take his place. "Ah, um – never mind. He should still be there, I'm sure. Come along. I shall lead the way." He chanced a smile back and beckoned them forward with a two fingered wave.

Tamina tinkered after him, leaving Dastan to watch his eldest brother's departing form. It was still a jarring thing to him, having his brother – the both of them – still alive and with him. The Sands of Time were a magical thing. They brought back the bond of brothers that nothing could shatter. They gave him back his love, his family, and the safety of his kingdom. His father was alive and well, albeit in the city of Avrat – being carted around by his own free will and not by Death's untimely hand. His brother Garsiv was leading his warriors in a coup to dismantle the Hassassins once and for all, to abolish the subtle tyranny his uncle had set forth. And Tus, Tus was well on his way to becoming a king worthy of Persia; but every so often, Dastan would find his eyes trailing down to his brother's neck as he would have the odd tendency to rub or itch the spot where it had been sliced in that other lifetime.

The fates had deigned Dastan worthy of this life, of the life he shared with the people he loved. It was a funny thing, Destiny. And Dastan hoped that he could keep laughing with it until his dying day.

It is said some lives are linked across time… that they are connected by an ancient calling that echoes through the ages...just as surely, as there are two loves that may transcend the sands of time. True love, and the love of a brother. For if you possess that kind of love, it will sustain no matter the trial, and no matter the date.

A/N: So, d'you like the line(s) i added to that? I hope so. Haha, did I fool anyone - did you all think this was completely Dastan/Tamina-centric? I had to put in the sibling love 3 How could I not? I loved them all~ Except...well, it's a bit obvious isn't it? That traitor should have burned for what he did, though the punishment at the end was suitable enough. Anyway - please review. I live and breathe because of them, and you don't want me to die, do you? You cruel people - i bet you do! D: