A/N: So I woke up one day a few weeks ago with this idea and decided to go with it. Always a Moz fan, I couldn't turn this down. Don't worry, for all of you reading What Fate Can Bring, I'm still vigorously typing that story away and it will be finished. Please R/R and let me know if I should continue with this one. Thanks!

Rating: PG-13

Time: Somewhere in the Aladdin Series

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the idea.

The Broken Thread
 By: Ann C.

Chapter One



"What do you remember of your childhood?"

"Nothing."

The figure that had appeared only moments ago at his doorway was now daring to delve deep into his memories. Was he a brave man ... or a complete idiot? The cloaked figure, dressed in dark garbs hadn't set off his magic detectors, and yet seemed to give off some sort of elemental nature that Mozenrath couldn't easily explain or sense. "No, no. I'm sure you remember some things. Some fragments ... whispers in your mind." The man spoke softly, his voice worn and old, seemingly feeble. "They creep on you, sending sharp slivers of fear and anxiety throughout you and tear your mind apart." He paused. "It happens in your dreams, doesn't it? You see yourself as a child, lost and alone? Full of fear, utterly confused."

"Stop it." Was this itself, a dream? Mozenrath turned away, pacing slightly in his expansive entryway. It was a wonder to him that he even let the man inside his Citadel, but then looking back to only a few moments before, he couldn't remember finding any reason to decline his request to speak with him. It was unusual that he let him in without a second thought ... was this a trick? Was there magic being played upon him?

The man ignored Mozenrath's order and continued. "Only, it doesn't feel like a dream, does it? It feels so real. You can feel the sun on your back, the wind in your face. Everything seems like it did so long ago, before everything in your world suddenly changed. And you don't remember how or why it changed either."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Through clenched teeth he spoke, the feelings the cloaked man spoke of were true and caused an onslaught of faded memories. Anger began to boil and simmer within his blood, his temper began to quickly rise and the faint hue around his gauntlet began to suddenly glow.

"Of course you do, Mozenrath. You've been having these dreams ever since you came to the Land of the Black Sand." Casually, the man walked around the entryway, gazing around the room and infuriating Mozenrath. "Yet don't you find it remarkable that you were nearly ten years old by the time you came to live with Destane and yet remember nothing beforehand? No memories of a childhood, of parents, of growing up?" He questioned, head cocked to the side and watched Mozenrath for a response. When he merely stared back at the old man, he pressed again. "It's so strange, isn't it? Almost like someone scratched that part of your life away from you? Kept it hidden. Why would someone want to do that to you?"

"How do you know these things about me? What magic is this?" The glow of the gauntlet began to shimmer into an iridescent shade of red and violet. His temper was being tested and within time he would fail given the right motivation. "I am warning you old man, I don't know what game you are playing, or how you made me let you inside my Citadel, but I won't stay so calm for much longer." He warned, fighting back the urge to destroy the man standing before him. 'It would only take one blast of my power' He thought sardonically, toying with the idea.

"There is no magic, Mozenrath. I am just ... a spirit, here to guide you in the right direction ... to correct a terrible fallacy that was pressed upon you as a young child." He stopped and turned to look at Mozenrath's perplexed expression. "And I can guarantee you that there isn't any possible way you could destroy me with your gauntlet."

Mozenrath shook off the sudden confusion of his words and made a mental note to keep the fact that this cloaked man somehow found a way to read his mind. Letting the power drain from his hand, the glow paled before extinguishing all together. "No. I was meant to be here. To give my right hand for power..." He flexed his gloved hand in response, and although he argued with the man's words, he felt the small whispers of a false life come dauntingly into his mind. "... I was meant to beat Destane and one day, to ultimately rule the Seven Deserts." He threw his arms in the air and looked around his castle. "This is all mine. Rightfully so." He found himself not only trying to convince the man, but strangely himself as well.

"Correct, it is yours. But, no, you weren't meant to be here ... to acquire all of this."

"Do you dare tell me that I am wrong? Do you dare question my power and all that I have achieved?" He approached the man now, trying to see the features behind the cloak. Yet, although his heart began to pound in rage and his sheer will was tested, he kept his gauntlet still and refrained from attempting to threaten the man with it's glow; knowing it would be only a decrepit attempt.

"Do you honestly believe you just wound up on Destane's door step one day ... out of luck? By some remarkable chance?" Behind the shade of his cape and cloak, the man smiled. Perhaps it was all finally beginning to click into place with this young man.

Silence followed.

He continued, watching Mozenrath change from anger to confusion and thought and then reel back into rage and distress. "Someone made sure you ended up here. Sure, it only resulted in some of the most painful years of your life ..."

"You know nothing of pain!" He screamed, feeling the sudden strike of anguish swell down his arm and radiate with a burning scorch of deprivation. He struck out and grasped the man's cloak near the throat, pulling his body towards his own. His eyes burned darkly, memories and painful experiences all rushed at him with venom; leaving a bitter taste within his mouth and a sore heart in its wake. "I gave a part of myself away ... without any return ever promised just for the power I could hold in my right hand. The power that will one day help me rule everything, rule over everyone. Even you, old man."

The man cleared his throat and moved out of Mozenrath's grasp. "All I'm telling you... is that this wasn't the right choice for you. It wasn't the path you were supposed to take. This wasn't supposed to happen. Someone saw who you'd become ... someone looked into the future and they did everything in their power to alter what could have been. For some reason, they didn't want that to happen, so they moved the pieces around and cut a few threads in the tapestry of your life. Changed the cards fate had dealt you. No one is quite sure how or why this happened, but it has only come to our attention recently and we mean to rectify this injustice."

"Who's 'we'?" Mozenrath interrupted suddenly.

"The other's like me; who make sure the destinies that are determined at birth are followed until death. Someone not only changed one little aspect of your life, but shifted the outcome of hundreds of people's lives in the wake of that decision. Your life, affects countless others in ways you can't possibly dream, affecting the original ways their lives were meant to be lived and interrupting the fate that was deemed for them. By correcting yours, we can correct theirs'." He sighed, and felt the weight of the task before him become even heavier on his shoulders. "Someone ... played with destiny. Someone broke the rules."

"What do you mean?" Somehow he was suddenly captivated by the man's words and finding himself wonder if this was possibly true. Anything could happen in his life, and it seemed everything tended to. Perhaps this was just another occasion. Not to mention the fact that he couldn't find the anger within him to stop listening to the man and kick him out.

He sighed and paused for a tentative moment, choosing his words carefully. "Don't you see? You weren't meant to rule The Land of the Black Sands. Ever." Mozenrath frowned at that, sneering at the man coldly. "When you were born, your fate was not to rule over this land ... but another. You were supposed to be a normal person, on the side of good, not the evil man you have become. I know this person still lives somewhere within you, but so many years of suppression have made that man become lost within the vicious incarnate that stands before me today. I hope, one day that man will be freed and return you to your original destiny."

"Oh yeah?" He scoffed. "If this wasn't supposed to be my life, my fate, then what the hell was I supposed to rule?" Crossing his arms over his chest he watched the man skeptically.

"Agrabah."

To Be Continued ...

Please, please, please R/R!