Alibaba had come to check on Aladdin the absolute moment that he had heard that Yunan had brought his young friend back with Morgiana quick on his heels. Practically dogging every step he took to Sinbad's tent where he found the man sitting in an overly large wooden wing backed chair with plush red and violet cushions.

And carefully sat in his lap was a strange looking little kid dressed in a nice soft blue and gold dress made of the finest of silks.

Sinbad looked up from Aladdin's new self and blinked as Alibaba and Morgiana entered his tent with a flourish. The blond looked as if he had definitely seen better days, and after the nightmarish ten days and nights he had just spent falling into a deep depression- Sinbad supposed that he had actually seen better days. The poor young prince was pale, looked as if he had lost several pounds of weight from not eating, and there was dangerously dark bags underneath his eyes from the lack of sleep.

"Aladdin." Was all the boy said as Sinbad shifted his weight slightly so that he could bounce the child on his legs a little bit.

He had been an adopted father for all of ten minutes before he had accidentally fumbled the child and dropped her on her head in front of Yunan whom had just finished yelling at him like a deranged mother hen and left in a snit- so now he was trying to keep the little one from crying and throwing a tantrum by bouncing her on his legs.

Children liked bouncing. Or at least that was his experience with the younger ones.

Although right now he didn't exactly know what to do with the child that Yunan had given to him as a ward. She was just slightly significantly older than an ordinary small child. Even if it was only by two or so years.

Yet she was not yet what one would consider an adult.

At least by Sinbad's standards.

Although he didn't know what he was going to do once she started blossoming into a woman. He doubted that he would really notice any physical changes in her unless he woke up one day and she was taller and had a big, noticeable bust- in which case he may just hand her over to Ren Kouen to see how he would possibly handle her.

After all, he'd gone through the joy of watching two of his sister's become young women. So surely there must be a trick to it?

And then there was the fact that as his ward/daughter and a powerful magi that had saved the world- she would be famous enough in the right circles to be targeted for capture and forced into arranged marriages and so on.

Dear god what the hell had Yunan signed me up for? He wondered in dread as those things finally occurred to him. If any of that happened, he'd wind up going to war every other week or so...

"Aladdin?" Alibaba said again, this time his tone was slightly more hesitant. Yet it cut through Sinbad's thoughts like a knife, causing his amber eyes to flicker away from the little one (whom he had yet to even figure out a name for since none of them could continue calling her Aladdin- it simply wasn't a good name for a little girl) as he replied,

"Oh right. Sorry Alibaba, Morgiana. Please come meet Aladdin's new form."

The two stood there for a moment in utter silence as the little one turned her head to look at them with her electric turquoise colored eyes as Sinbad used his long fingers and blunt nails to finger comb her long hair. He hadn't noticed before, but between the wind and everything else the girl's hair was becoming tangled. And if it got tangled badly enough, it would have to be cut to prevent injury to her when the knots were being taken out.

"What do you mean, meet Aladdin's new form?" Morgiana asked in a slightly suspicious tone as she moved forward to stand directly beside Alibaba.

"Come see for yourself. Yuana told me what happened but even I cannot make sense of it. All I know is that the Aladdin that we all knew is gone, and this child had somehow taken his place in the world. Yunan claimed that this little one is in essence Aladdin, himself, in his truest and most purest form. I can only assume that he meant a new physical form as well as a new mind. Both are untouched by the horrors- pain, grief, hatred, and sorrow- of the world in which we live."

Alibaba made a slightly distressed sound in the back of his throat as Morgiana thought for a moment before stepping forward to sniff the girl. Thinking if she were really their friend Aladdin then she would smell like him.

She wasn't entirely wrong. The child did still smell like Aladdin to her.

She carried the scent of a growing storm, lightening, and rain. But she also carried a little bit of an extra scent to her person as well. Flowers and wind.

It was old and new, but not entirely unpleasant to the fanalis sensitive senses.

It was certainly enough to have her convinced of who the child really was. Besides, she doubted that Yunan would have taken Aladdin away and hidden him somewhere simply to let him die so that he could roll this child around in his blood or something and then bring her before them and claim that she was him.

That would be just stupid and Yunan simply wasn't a stupid person. Much less a liar.

"Morgiana?"

"She's Aladdin alright. No one else can smell like a growing storm. Though there is a slight difference in her scent, it's subtle enough that it could simply be because of the change in genders."

Sinbad and Alibaba both looked at the little blond as she lifted her little arms out towards Alibaba and wiggled her fingers some.

"I think that she wants you to come to her Alibaba."

The young prince hesitated for several heartbeats before reluctantly moving to come closer to the child and then bent down at the child's continued urging until he was close enough for her to wrap her little arms around his neck and nuzzle her face against his cheek and said in a broken garbled sounding voice, "My...Ali-baba."

Alibaba blinked back tears for a moment as he carefully lifted the girl up off of Sinbad's lap and hugged her as he cried, "It's him. It's Aladdin. Only he would call me his Alibaba." As Sinbad gave him a wry smile before saying gently.

"Yunan did say that Aladdin still retains his memories and knowledge even in this form. Every thing is simply jumbled and fragmented for the moment. It will take a little bit of time for everything to return to a normal state."

"What happened to him after Yunan took him?" Alibaba asked, feeling suddenly pissed about everything.

"From what I learned from Yunan... Aladdin was mortally wounded from the heaven's spear. And before his life could completely die out- he began changing himself internally and externally in order to remain alive in this world. The reason it took so long for them to return here, may have had something to do with Aladdin needing to heal himself while changing. I believe that this was no easy task even for a magi of Aladdin's caliber."

"When I was on the dark continent with Yunan, he told me stories of people capable of cheating death by changing themselves into another person while their former selves died. But I had thought that they were just mere stories." Morgiana said as Alibaba sank down to the ground and settled himself there with the girl in his arms.

"I've come across such stories myself off and on during my travels around the world. But I never believed that I would come across someone actually powerful enough to pull it off. I for one can't wait for Aladdin to regain her memories and such so that I may pick her brain a little bit about how it was done." Sinbad said before leaning down to take the child from Alibaba, only to have the prince growl at him like a feral animal and startle the king into freezing up before he could so much as touch the girl.

"Aladdin is staying with me."

"Be practical Alibaba, you are pretty much dead on your feet and are in desperate need of sleep and food before you become ill."

"Aladdin is staying with me." The prince said again, this time in a firmer tone. He wasn't asking that Sinbad back off, he was pretty much demanding that he back off. He had come to the conclusion that regardless of what form, or what little memories the child retained at the moment- Aladdin was Aladdin, and she belonged with he and Morgiana.

Besides, after ten days and ten nights, dying and being reborn; he imagined that Aladdin was in desperate need of some food and rest as well. How else would she get better?

"Has she eaten anything? Rested?" Alibaba asked.

"No. Not that I'm aware of."

"Then she can come with me and Morgiana and be taken care of. If you want to check in on her later, fine, but for now she stays with us."

Sinbad sighed knowing that the boy would fight him on this if he felt that he must. He was simply that stubborn. It was both a very fascinating and irksome quality. But then Aladdin was much the same way, he noted as he looked at the girl. She was clinging to the prince as if he were her only life line in the world.

So perhaps it would be for the best to allow them this?

"Very well Alibaba, but I warn you- Yuana has given Aladdin into my care as my ward. As of today Aladdin is a princess of Sindria and is to be considered my own daughter. I do not have to tell you what will happen if she is injured, kidnapped or lost, yes?"

Alibaba stared at the man wide eyed for a moment before slowly nodding his head in understanding before quickly having Morgiana help him up to his feet and with a quick nod in Sinbad's direction, the three left the king to his own vices.