Morning came much faster than Sinbad had expected it to. One moment he had been looking over some papers that he'd brought with him to work on. New bills and such, he thought with a slight sneer. And the next thing he knew, there was light filtering into his tent and into his already bleary eyes, making him hiss in discomfort and move to avoid it like Sharrkan on a really bad drinking binge.

The noise of which had managed to awaken Selene as he hit the ground, wedged between the bed and the back of his tent...glaring towards the entrance of his makeshift home and seethe.

How dare the sun rise at such an early hour! Why, he hadn't even managed to go to sleep yet. And he was tired after being up all damned night with those stupid papers!

Selene rolled over on the bed and looked at him with those eerie eyes of hers as he gave her a somewhat strained smile as she reached out and laid her tiny hand on the side of his face and- Well to be perfectly honest, he didn't know what happened.

One moment he was looking at his adopted daughter and the next he felt something incredibly warm being pressed into his skin and before he could so much as jerk back away from her, his vision began to swim and he...woke up with Hinahoho in his face and screamed as he scrambled up over whatever he'd been laying on and placed it firmly between himself and his general who was looking at him strangely before saying slowly, "Well, that was something."

Sinbad could only press a hand to his chest in an attempt to keep his heart from leaping out of his fucking chest since he couldn't exactly speak at the moment. He simply didn't trust himself to at the moment.

"You look much better now than you did when Ja-far found you." The blue haired giant said. Unknowingly answering at least several of Sinbad's questions as he finally managed to calm down enough to try speaking.

"W-What happened?"

"Dunno. What do you recall?" Hina asked as he grabbed a cup off of the table across the room where Sinbad often ate when he wished to be alone, and poured some water into it and then made his way back over to his king and held it out to him.

Sinbad hesitated for a moment and then took it, briefly muttering a weak sounding 'thanks' to his old friend before drinking any of the liquid. The moment that the cup was away from his lips, he looked around in confusion and noted that he back in Sindria, or more specifically, his room at the palace.

"I vaguely recall Selene touching me and then...nothing."

"Selene? You mean Aladdin's incarnation?" Hina guessed, his expression puzzled. Though he had been appraised of the situation, he didn't know all of the details since no one had seen fit to tell him. Making his job as Sinbad's proxy somewhat difficult.

"What? Oh yes, yes- Sorry my friend, I forgot that none of you knew of her new name."

"And Aladdin's new name is Selene?"

"Yes."

"Very well. So she touched you, and you racall nothing after?"

"No."

"She must have put you to sleep for some reason." Hina said as Sinbad finally came out from between the bed and the wall. There was a small puzzled frown on his handsome face as he seemed to be mulling over Hinahoho's words for a moment before slowly saying.

"I didn't sleep all night."

"Then maybe that was the reason why she put you to sleep. Yam certainly seemed to think so when she examined you."

Sinbad seemed to consider this as well before finally asking, "Where is Selene right now?"

"Ja-far handed her off to someone else and told them to keep her away from you until you awakened. I think he was worried that there was some suspicious reason behind why you were put to sleep," Hina replied before then asking, "So this... Selene person is really our young Aladdin?"

"Hn? Oh, yes. Have you seen her yet?"

"No."

"Then you and the rest of the generals will be seeing her once I do. Can you tell me where she may be?"

"Tough question there, I think that the person that she was handed off to is out on the garden."

"I see. Thank you Hina." Sinbad said as he started towards his bedroom door only to pause briefly to turn and tell the man to follow him as he headed for the door. It took them a short time to walk the halls to reach the garden, and along the way there, they were met by Ja-far who worriedly fell into step beside his king and babbled endlessly as Sinbad took the white marble steps down to the first level where the garden was located.

He could hear the faint sounds of talking and laughing coming form there. So obviously whoever Selene had been handed off to was keeping the child entertained.

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************)

To say that she had been upset by being separated from the tall man with the amber eyes would be an gross understatement. To try saying that being chastised by the weird man with the light blond hair and freckles had been a pleasant experience, would also be a gross understatement.

She didn't know what the weird man with the blond hair and freckles was upset about. She had merely put the other man to sleep because she could sense his anxiety and his slight exhaustion.

It wasn't like she had set out to scramble his brain or anything.

She could have, if she had truly wished it. But she refrained from doing so because he didn't deserve to have his brain scrambled. Besides, it wasn't as if he had hurt her or threatened her in the past month she had been in his care.

"Selene, do you want to play a game?" A nice lady with slightly longer than her shoulder's length hair that was an oddly colored vivid pinkish red asked kindly. She knew this woman. Just as she seemed to be aware of knowing everyone else that she had come into contact with thus far.

The man she had put to sleep, his name was Sinbad. Or at least that was his name in this place. In actuality, his true name was David. And though he didn't seem aware of it, he wore the embroidered crest of her household upon his clothing.

As did the man that had yelled at her and several others.

Feeling her hand being gently taken, she glanced at the nice lady again and blinked as she was jolted out of her thoughts for a moment to see that another blond man- this one younger than the one that had shouted at her before- was kneeling down next to the lady, staring at her with an expression of concern even as he gave her a small smile and reached out to pat her head.

"It's okay if you don't feel like playing right now. Try not to take anything that Ja-far said before to heart, he's just worried about Sinbad."

She blinked at him as he grinned at her and then slowly dropped his hand away from her head as he seemed to sense what she had known all along.

Sinbad was up and on the move. In fact, if she turned around- she'd bet she'd find him standing...

"Selene." His voice held no anger, no contempt, though she could swear that she detected a little bit of a question in his tone as she turned around to look at him. His coloring was better now, and he didn't have such dark circles underneath his eyes. In fact compared to how he looked this morning when she had first put him to sleep, he looked much, much better.

He knelt down and held his arms out to her and used his fingers to bid her to come to him. She did so with only a little bit of hesitance due to the fact that the blond man that had yelled at her was there, looking at her funny and scowling.

The jerk. She thought feeling just a little bit irked by the man's attitude towards her when just the other day he had been warm and kind. She didn't understand the sudden shift in how he was acting towards her, but she didn't like it.

Not. One. Little. Bit.

Walking over to where Sinbad knelt, she watched the man for a moment before stepping within his reach and letting him close his arms around her small body and hug her as he slowly got back up, taking her with him as he went. He kept her locked in his embrace as he spoke softly, his breath tickling her ear slightly as he did so. "I will have to keep on my toes much more than normal from now on. Especially if your going to pull fast ones on me like you did earlier."

She giggled and buried her face against his shoulder for a moment before lifting her head and kissing him on the cheek, startling him somewhat. Or at least that's what she thought from how quickly he almost dropped her.

He stared at her with wide amber eyes.

And she stared right back, confused by his reaction to the little peck on the cheek when he suddenly cleared his throat and hugged her against his torso again and then turned to a really, really, really tall man with long ocean blue hair and eyes just as blue as the sky.

"Hinahoho, this is Selene," Sinbad said as the giant leaned down a bit at the waist to look at her up close. Causing her eyes to widen in a comical expression of awe before she realized just how close to her his face was and squeaked and quickly buried her face against Sinbad's shoulder again to hide herself from his scrutiny.

However the giant was having none of that. His questioning gaze flickered to Sinbad for a moment, almost as if to ask if the child before him was truly the little magi that each of them had grown so fond of, and got a subtle nod from his king before he reached out and tapped the little one on the shoulder to gain her attention and then once he had it, he smiled and introduced himself to her.

Selene though didn't seem able to grasp his name just yet and simply pointed to his hair and said in a broken voice, "B-lue?" Causing Hina to frown somewhat at the broken garbled sound that escaped her pale lips.

Gods! The child sounded as if she had suffered years of nearly endless torture!

Her voice was beyond unrecognizable and broken to the giant.

She sounded as if her voice was irreparably damaged! How was she to communicate with them all if they could not understand her? And what if she found herself in danger? Her voice was hardly in any condition to call out for help if she should need it.

And from what he had understood of her condition, her mind was all but fragmented. Leaving her in an far more innocent and almost infant-like state than Aladdin himself had been in when they had first met him.

His concerned gaze studied the child for a moment, noting that the girl's face- was exactly as it had been before, it was merely more feminine, the eyes a little bit wider, the lashes a bit longer and the skin and hair coloring was simply fairer. So he didn't totally doubt that the child was Aladdin, however he would feel a tad bit better if she could do a small magic demonstration.

Perhaps something that only Aladdin was known to do? It would help to reassure him greatly. However he knew that in her present condition hat was out of the question.

It didn't stop him from greeting her in a warm and friendly manner though.