Disclaimer: Prince of Persia is not my idea, neither is Farah or the Dagger of Time… All that I claim is mine is the plot, and some additional character's that I made up…

Farah's heart stopped beating for a second. Her first urge was to scream out to her father, ask him what he had really said, because she could not believe that he had said that. But he had, and she knew it. She breathed deeply, and her heart beat again, faster than before to make up for its delay. She was shaking and was sure that her father would notice her like this and scold her for her reaction. She had to seem calm and composed, as if this was ordinary news to her. She attempted to write again, but her hand was still shaking furiously and black globs of ink fell onto the yellowed page, smudging her distracted attempt at a poem.

She did not want to be married. She could not, not now, not with the mystery of the Persian prince haunting her. She felt bound to him and if she married it would be a betrayal to him.

But he did not care for her. Not like that. He had charmed her with his story and left her the dagger to be kind and because it did not belong to him, but he did not think of her nightly like she thought of him. Sometimes, he would think of her in passing but he would not care either way about her, only remembering that day.

But yet he had told her his story and though she believed it to be just that at first, she was having second thoughts. What if it were true? What if?

But it did not matter now, the mystery would go unsolved. She was going to be married.

She did not love the Prince, she could not, she did not know him, but yet it felt like betrayal to do this.

She told herself she did not love him, and she logically could not, but what was this lingering feeling when she thought about him, the need to solve his mystery that was not born entirely out of intrigue?

Nothing about this made sense logically.

If she had been told she was to be married and she had never met the Prince, she would have been indignant; she would have resisted it but perhaps might lighten up if the man was kind enough. But now she knew that for some reason she could not really be entirely happy.

She told herself it was not love. It was intrigue, combined with her own reluctance to do this.

"When?" she said, concentrating on not letting her father know how she was taking all of this.

"When?" Her father laughed in the doorway. "When is not usually the first question brides-to-be ask," he chuckled.

He found this amusing.

"As soon as possible, in ten days, if all goes well. He needs to be back to work soon. He is a soldier, and he needs to get back to work since… war is on." He chose his words carefully, as if it pained him to remember the Persian army was sleeping a few miles away from the city walls, resting after a day of warfare. They had invaded us and he had not foreseen it. It bothered him that he realized their threat too late.

"His name is Amar and he is an excellent soldier, the son of one of the best. He will come tomorrow and meet you, and then within nine days, you will marry."

Farah wondered why her father and Amar, rather, Amar's father, since she doubted Amar himself had much say in the matter, would decide in the middle of a war to marry them. But this thought was tucked away for her to think on later.

"I was going to tell you tomorrow, her father continued, "But I thought I would see if you were awake and tell you now. Come to think of it, it is too late for you to be up, you should sleep."

"Yes father," she said daintily, hiding her true outrage at his behavior. He was treating her like a child, telling her when to sleep, but she wasn't a child, she can't be if he was marrying her off like this.

Her father closed the door softly behind him. Farah thought of his command and considered staying awake to spite him, though he would never know that she had. Sighing, she considered it useless, and since she had nothing better to do, she went to sleep.



The Prince woke up the next morning, not quite aware that he had ever fallen asleep, but suddenly aware of the dawn, and the soft calling of birds flying across the salmon pink sky. He rose from the gathering of cushions and sheets that he called his bed and stretched in the early morning light. He had his own tent, though it was smaller than his father's, and when he looked around it this morning he was filled with a deep feeling of loneliness. He wondered how long it had been since it all happened. It had never happened of course, the whole long adventure of returning the sands, but every morning he seemed to have forgotten it. Every morning he had to undergo the painful process of reminding himself that it really did not happen, that he had turned back time and it was all over.

But it felt so real to him, and it had been, or had it never been?

At night, in his dreams, he lived it again, snippets of what had happened passing through his mind, feeling the pain of the wounds from the Sand Monsters, the battle with his father, and that night in the Baths…

But he would not think of that, as heavenly as it was to remember, it was horrible as well.

But it had to have happened! It wasn't possible. How could she forget all of that? It was real; it could not have been forgotten! How could he have remembered and she had forgotten?

It was real. It had happened. She knew it did. He would go to see her, and tell her everything again and then…

"Prince…"

"Farah!" He turned around quickly, he thought he heard her laughing….

But she wasn't there.

It had never happened. He had turned back time and she did not remember.

He shivered, having finally convinced himself that it had not happened, as he did every morning.

The sooner we end this war, the better, he thought, then I can leave here and forget this whole thing.

But could he forget? He doubted it but it was the only chance he had left.

He pulled back the opening of the tent and looked outside. Though it was only dawn, the soldiers were already awake and moving around, preparing for their missions. There was no doubt that there would be some fight today. The Persians were advancing closer and closer to the city gates, and the Maharajah would definitely not stand for that. The soldiers bustled about, preparing weapons, gathering water for a quick wash before they would go off and work, practicing for battles or perhaps gathering to speak strategy or stage a battle. They stopped along the way now, speaking to each other and smiling, probably speaking about their enthusiasm for the war and their hatred for the enemy. They were ignorant, all of them, all uneducated commoners who said whatever the leaders told them to say, and didn't even think of anything else. Of course there were some educated people, nobles who could afford an education, but they were ignorant now too, biased against the people who were now their enemy, depicting them as horrible, immoral people so it could be easier for them to shove a sword through them. But they were all wrong and horribly ignorant. How could they say that? They did not even know them. They were not like that. She was not like that.

No...

He winced and jumped back, pulling the tent opening closed.

He could not think about her. He could not. Thinking of this was too distracting for him now, when he should be battling. This was his first war that his father had brought him along for, and it should be something exciting. This was taking all of the excitement out of it.

But this was not his first war because he had lived this all before, and had killed more in more gruesome ways than he would throughout this battle. But that had not happened. The timeline changed. It had not happened. He erased it.

He walked to the opposite end of the tent, where a mirror and a basin of water had been set for him to wash. He splashed water in his face to chase away his thoughts and to wake himself up. He gazed at his tired face in the mirror and sighed.

"Son!"

The Prince looked into the mirror and saw his father through it, standing behind him in the entranceway of the tent.

"Good morning Father," he mumbled, wiping his face with a towel.

"Good morning," his father exclaimed, "Though it doesn't seem like a good one to you." He laughed. "You look so sullen, like a little boy who lost in a game of tag! Tell me, what's bothering you?"

"Nothing Father."

"Nonsense! Something is. The entire time we were here you seemed out of sorts." He laughed. "Have you left behind a lovely woman in Babylon?"

"No," The Prince said, not looking at his father, "I haven't. Perhaps…" His thoughts wandered as he decided if and how he should say what he wanted to say.

"Perhaps?" His father said lightheartedly.

"Perhaps it is seeing the horrors of war. It seems to have sobered me."

His father's face turned graver, and his tone more serious. "Yes son. That I could understand. War is quite sobering…"