Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Prince of Persia games or the companies that make them.

A/N: I know exactly what I'm doing now, I had a little bit of writer's block for a short while but now I don't!

Resurrected

Chapter 23

"You delay your destiny." The Old Man scolded softly.

"I had to…do something. For a friend." The Prince said in the same tone.

"You've become a sire." The human said, as if changing the subject. Kamal narrowed his eyes, looking down at the ground.

"Yes. But I couldn't leave him dead. You know as well as I how much of a best friend he is to me." The Vampire murmured, sitting down on a silken pillow of the tent and holding his clawed fingers around his knees. The Old Man glanced at him before gathering some kind of strange bottle from one of the many shelves occupying the spacious pavilion.

"Siring a fledgling is not part of your journey. I have foreseen it. You were supposed to leave him dead-"

"How could I! You were there when we were children, Farzan; you were there watching us as we laughed and played and ran like the day would never end, what made you think I would leave him there, to kneel before him with endless, bloody tears and not do anything about it! I don't understand how you can be so heartless! I am changed since Farah died, yes; but at least I still have some feeling left in this dried up prune of a heart!" The Vampire male shouted with anger, awaiting Farzan's expected reply.

The Old Man watched as the Prince swallowed and wearily laid down on the ground on his side facing his old baby-sitter, closing his eyes. He was hungry as well, but felt like he would collapse once more if he got up to hunt. His ears flicked the air repeatedly to emphasize his hunger.

"I'm tired, Farzan. I'm so tired of everything, of always running to and fro from my destiny. I don't even feel like going on. Don't you have a stake somewhere in that cloak?" Kamal asked quietly. The Old Man chuckled, then let a moment of silence take over them.

"You would kill yourself and leave your friends behind, as well as your destiny. But you must remember; you will never be able to become human again and enter heaven to join your loved ones if you do not complete your role in the Prophecy." Farzan said.

"This is far more important than you or any other Vampire would be able to comprehend"

His eyes opened and he realized he was still holding Shahin close to him, close enough so that he could smell his childe's scent. It was unique, like all other smells his keen nose picked up nightly.

His stomach clenched and a short, pained hiss escaped him. How long had he been sleeping? Time passed much faster while he dreamt for some strange reason.

However long he'd remained unconscious in the realm of sleep, he needed to feed. Badly. He hated it when he lost control over himself, something he would never be able to forgive himself for if he ever hurt one of his friends. Or even worse, his fledgling.

He didn't want to leave Shahin, but he had to hunt while he still held his normal state of mind. His Vampiric instincts told him it was night once more, so he didn't have to worry about that. There must have been someone on the streets doing something terrible, or at least he hoped. But crime or no, he would drink his fill of blood before the night was over.

He yawned upon awakening recently and did his best not to wake Shahin from his dire slumber. Fledglings needed a lot of rest, and he knew this from experience. The Prince gently pulled his arms from the younger Vampire and carefully tiptoed out of the room like a mouse escaping a sleeping cat.

He found Arsalan and Roya talking in the living quarters, and the Vampiress' face lit up when he walked in.

"There you are, you've been sleeping for three days! How are you? And more importantly," She asked Kamal jokingly, "How is he?"

"He's fine and sleeping peacefully, but I'm starving. I need one of you to go in there and watch him while I'm out hunting. I should probably make two kills just in case Shahin needs to feed when he wakes up, so this is going to take a while. I really don't want to have to kill any innocents." He explained. Arsalan gave him a look that said, 'Do I really have to take care of the tyke?', but Roya simply smiled warmly and accepted the responsibility.

"I'll keep an eye on him. I like fledglings, you know." She said and patted the Prince on the shoulder as she passed into the bedroom where Shahin was asleep. Arsalan sighed with relief and Kamal rolled his eyes at him as he exited the adobe-made home.

(later that night)

The Prince returned to his house and opened the wooden door as softly as he could, then shut it gently as he pulled something male and unconscious inside. It wasn't a human this time, it was a Vampire; because he'd learned that Vampire blood could rise a wounded fledgling to full strength. He couldn't feed Shahin anymore of his own blood because he was just recovering from his weakness of blood-loss after drinking countless amounts of blood, and he didn't want to have to ask either of his friends to slit their wrists or throats.

Arsalan had fallen asleep on the heavily-cushioned sofa in front of the coffee table. The Prince snorted at the scene of his friend sprawled out in what looked to be a very uncomfortable position.

He entered the bedroom as silently as he could, playing a little game with himself. He'd made himself think that he would explode if he made too much noise, which; in his morbid sense of humor, he'd laughed at.

He saw that Roya had glanced at him upon entering the room with his kill for the night, and walked to the side of the bed to stand beside her seated form in one of his most comfortable chairs he owned. They both gazed at the sleeping form of Shahin, who was lying on his back with his stomach gently rising and falling.

"He breathes." Roya stated out of the blue. Kamal chuckled softly.

"You, Arsalan and I breathe just as much as he does. Getting bored with him already?" He joked. Roya spun on him with a shocked expression.

"Of course not. Why would you think of such things? I should have my own army of fledglings." She countered, and the Prince gave her a suspicious look. "Not an army bent on the destruction of mankind, silly. An army of peaceful looking, sleeping fledglings to look after."

"And why don't you?" Kamal asked her quietly, but a bit more sternly. Roya looked down at her feet.

"Because…because I don't have the right to be a mother." She said, a lone tear trying to escape her eye. Kamal stared at her, amazed at how she could move from such a happy tone to one filled with sorrow and grief.

"Roya…" The Prince knelt beside her so he could look her straight in the eyes, "…What happened to you?"

"It's not…" She sniffled. "It's not what happened to me…it's what happened to my children when I was human. What I did to them…one night, I had a vision while I was sleeping, and in that dream I…I saw my little ones lying on the ground in our very house, slain in cold blood; and I…while I was sleeping, they were being murdered by that bastard of a father they had…and I could have prevented it." She gasped, sniffling her runny nose, "I could have stopped him from killing my babies. But I just had to go to sleep. To just think, that maybe if I had been awake…I could have saved them." She sobbed now with labored breathing and the Prince leaned in his head against her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and cried for what seemed like an eternity.

Kamal's eyes were wide throughout hearing the whole ordeal. "I'm so sorry, Roya." He said as he squeezed her shoulder and comfortingly rubbed her back. When he was a fledgling, he'd always sensed something was wrong in the way Roya looked at him. There had been some small portion of sadness adorning her sparkling, scarlet eyes.

"They're in a better place now…" He whispered to her. She began to calm, but held onto him in their embrace like the world would end any second.

"A better place…" Roya murmured.

A/N: There you have it. PLEASE REVIEW!