Escaping the palace grounds was a lot easier than what Alibaba remembered. He didn't even need to dig a tunnel this time. It had been a few days after the last of the fever left Alibaba's body and he was able to walk without breaking a sweat. Not that walking was any easier. He still had trouble getting used to smaller limbs and limited stretch length. Alibaba was lucky that he had been excused from his training with Barrack. The general would have wiped the floor on him because there was no way Alibaba was in fighting condition.

Instead of waiting for his sense of balance to return Alibaba decided to head into the city as soon as possible. He wanted to see Kassim. In order to leave the palace, Alibaba had waited until after all his studies were over and it was dinner time. He then feigned a lack of appetite, stating that he was still uneasy from his illness. Rashid kindly excused him from dinner and Alibaba hurried to his rooms where he then changed into slightly less conspicuous clothes. He then sneaked his way out to the courtyard and the stables.

Next to the stables was a large tree with large branches. The first time around, Alibaba was too scared to try and climb it to even consider the tree as an escape point. But that was when he wasn't the twenty-year-old boy who had fought a Dark Medium alongside the most powerful people in the world. Now, climbing wasn't even worth a blink of the eye to Alibaba. Of course, it was difficult as hell to pull himself up the branches when his sense of balance was still woozy.

Eventually, he did it and had shimmied along a branch that passed over the high wall of the palace. Looking down Alibaba gulped, earlier bravado leaving him. That was a long drop, and with his luck, he'd break a bone or two in the fall. Maybe this wasn't-

creeeeaaak

Alibaba snapped his head around to look at where the branch he was on met the trunk of the tree. It was breaking apart from his added weight. As it pulled apart Alibaba made a mental note to find a different escape route.

Snap!

Alibaba bit his lip to keep from screaming as he fell. His body hit the ground with a thud and Alibaba clutched his aching head with a whimper. That was going to bruise. He peeked out to the branch that was innocently sitting beside him. Well, at least he was on the side of the palace that didn't have the moat. That would have been worse.

He let himself wallow in pain for a beat longer before heaving himself up and brushing the dirt off his clothes. The first part of the mission: Find Kassim And Hug The Darkness Out Of Him (FKAHTDOOH for short...Alibaba was still working on a title) was accomplished. Now he just had to find Kassim.

Alibaba walked towards the inner city in the dusk light and prayed that things went better this time compared to when he first searched out for his brother. The first time Kassim had been fourteen, so he was doing this a whole three years earlier than the first time. Maybe Mariam was still alive. If she was, Alibaba would make sure that she lived. He would make sure that the slums wouldn't be cut off from the medicine. He didn't know how just that he would.

As he walked through the city Alibaba stuck to the shadows. He didn't want to be recognized as the King's youngest son after all. That and Alibaba wanted to gawk as Balbadd's streets without worrying about people looking at him strangely. Balbadd was so much different to how he last saw it. The people weren't starving, and the air wasn't heavy with depression and anger to the royalty.

People walked the streets with smiles, nobles held parties in their homes with joyous laughter, and there were even still some merchant stands open to the market. In the alleyways, kids ran like devils and crossed into the streets to nab what they could or act as a distraction for others when they couldn't grab and dash.

It brought a happy smile to his face. Balbadd wasn't the best place in the world, Alibaba knew. But the country was his home, and the city was its heart. Alibaba swore that he wouldn't let the Kou ruin what little happiness this city had.

And what better way to start than to say hello to the man who unwittingly helped Al-Tharman take control of Balbadd? Alibaba found himself stopping in front of a very familiar tavern. Kassim had taken him there to get him drunk and reveal secrets of the palace to attack the treasury. Alibaba didn't know if Kassim had fallen that far into darkness yet, so he had to be on his guard.

He didn't know where Kassim was, so the tavern was the best place to start as any. Mentally preparing himself Alibaba walked into the building and swept his gaze around the room. Things were in full swing already, groups of people crowded around tables with mugs of wine and other alcohols and drunken laughter filling the walls. There wasn't much room left open, and Alibaba was unsure if he could find Kassim in this chaos or not. Debating the merit of climbing on top of a table or risk asking around – Alibaba yelped when his arm was yanked and he was pulled to the side.

"Hey!" Alibaba pulled his arm away and turned to glare at his would-be attacker. He fell short when he met a laughing smirk.

"Yo, Alibaba." Kassim stood tall and proud, head cocked to the side in arrogance and eyes dancing in the firelight. Alibaba's mouth opened and closed silently as he looked at his friend. Kassim seemed...different. He didn't look haunted, or angry, or anything that Alibaba expected. Even the first time when he met back up with Kassim, Alibaba could tell something was up with the older boy. He had ignored it at the time and focused on spending time with Kassim, a mistake that cost him everything.

This time though, Kassim looked happy. Actually happy. He clapped Alibaba on the back and guided him to an abandoned table in the corner, a mug of wine already waiting. Kassim waved his hand above his head, eyes at the bar and Alibaba looked to see the tender nod his head and move to pour another. A server was then sent to deliver the mug to the table and Alibaba found himself in a situation he wanted to avoid. Sitting across from Kassim with a mug of wine at their elbows.

"It's been a long time hasn't it?" Alibaba wondered if he imagined the inflection on the word time. Maybe he was projecting his problems onto Kassim. Alibaba shook his head, that didn't matter. He was here for a reason!

"Kassim! The man who gave you those magic tools ishmph-" Kassim slammed a hand over Alibaba's mouth and muffled his words. Caramel eyes narrowed at him and Kassim raised a finger to his lips. Alibaba nodded his head and Kassim removed the hand.

"Don't worry about that. I threw them into the sea." That was good. No magic tools meant no unwanted influences to evil – aaaaaaandd wait. Alibaba tilted his head to the side in confusion at Kassim's relaxed posture and unguarded eyes.

"You're not surprised I knew about them?" Kassim's lip twitched like he wanted to smile. He shook his head in the negative, not verbally responding. "And you threw them into the sea?" A nod. And then-

"Well, I didn't know how to destroy them without something as powerful as your Djinn-Equip so the sea was the only option." The words fell easily from Kassim's mouth. Like he was talking about the weather or what ships had drifted into port. Not impossible information of things that had not happened yet. Alibaba's world tilted on its axis. How did Kassim know about Amon?

Kassim roared out a laugh that startled Alibaba. He had never seen Kassim so free, ever. Not even when they were small tykes running around and causing havoc for Anise in the slums. Alibaba wasn't sure what was going on, but surely it couldn't be bad if Kassim could laugh like that. The boy's mouth was stretched wide into a smile and tears leaked out the corners of his eyes.

"You should see your face!" He chortled. Alibaba felt a blush take over his face and bristled, grabbing a hold of his mug and looking away in embarrassment.

"It's not my fault you're acting weird! Everything is so strange and weird right now." Alibaba grumbled, giving Kassim a mulish look. Instead of rightfully looking apologetic Kassim just chuckled and grinned with no sympathy whatsoever. Alibaba felt his mind enter a deadpan. That's it. We're no longer friends, I want Aladdin and Morgiana back, they aren't as mean as you.

"You can say that again." Kassim shook his head and took a swig from his drink. Alibaba held his mug in both hands and furrowed his brows as a silence passed between them. He licked his suddenly dry lips and looked back up to Kassim who was watching Alibaba carefully. The mirth was still in his eyes, but so was an edge of steel that was much more familiar with the Kassim of the past. Like a wolf hiding in a field of flowers. One wrong move and you would awake the beast within.

"How do you know about, that." Alibaba could bring himself to say it out loud, not where they were currently. There were too many ears, and he didn't want to endanger himself or others because of his own folly. Kassim shrugged, though the way a serious aura surrounded him negated the attempt at nonchalance.

"After destroying the dark Djinn at the palace, that Magi did something. Remember?' Alibaba nodded his head, not needing Kassim to describe anything more to know what he was referencing. He was talking about when Aladdin had made the Rukh visible and let everyone say goodbye to their loved ones before they traveled back into the Great Flow.

"Well, after saying hello to Mariam and following her to the rest of the Rukh, I said goodbye." Kassim didn't look at Alibaba's surprised face. His eyes were trained on his drink, staring down into the mug as if the wine held the answers of life itself.

"I couldn't just leave, not like that. Not after all I did." Kassim took a shuddering breath and looked up at Alibaba with a shaky smile. "Besides, older brothers look after their idiot younger siblings, and you looked like you needed all the help you could get." Crying. Alibaba was crying. Kassim was too, silent tears tracking down his face in parallel to when they were trapped in his mindscape.

He had always wondered, but never confronted the thought. That Kassim was still there, at his side even in death. No wonder he felt so off since showing up in the past. He finally understood what that old man meant when he said that Alibaba had two different flows of Rukh within him. It was Kassim, helping him along his path.

"Well, then you better step it up." Alibaba said with a scratchy voice. Dear Solomon, he was about to bawl in public and he didn't give a damn because now he had Kassim. "Because I think I need you now more than ever." And Solomon did it feel good to have Kassim watching his back again. He already felt more secure in whatever would come next. Be it bandits to Al-Thaman themselves Alibaba thought he'd be able to face it if Kassim was there with him.

Because he was there all along in first place.

The first thing they did before talking any further was leave the tavern. Kassim paid for their drinks and led Alibaba through the streets to a back alley where a small house was nestled between two buildings. It was empty, and Alibaba looked around in curiosity as Kassim lit some candles.

"You live here?" He asked. The place was pretty bare, but not completely devoid of life. There was a table with some chairs, top littered with playing cards and homemade dice. There was a sink basin with dishes resting inside waiting to be washed. Off to the side next to the wall were a set of bedrolls, three in total.

"With Zainab and Hassan yeah." Kassim lit the last candle and sat at the table, kicking his feet up to rest on top of the facedown cards and scattered die. Alibaba took up a seat across from him and twiddled his thumbs as Kassim lit a cigar.

He never saw Kassim's home when he had returned to Balbadd. Alibaba had his own hole in the wall place, and Kassim only ever talked to him at the warehouse that served as the Fog Troupe's headquarters or on raids against the nobles. Kassim didn't trust him with his home back then.

"They're not going to be here for a while. They got jobs on a ship that was heading out to one of the islands." But now Kassim did trust him, and somehow his two lieutenants had really legit jobs. If Alibaba wasn't so sure of time travel, he'd say he landed in an alternate universe.

"That's..." Alibaba trailed off, unsure what to say without tripping a nerve. Kassim just barked out a laugh, smoke filling the air from the cigar.

"Surprising? A miracle?" Kassim's eye twinkled as he smirked at Alibaba. "You wouldn't believe what it took for them to even consider it. It was like an honest pay was a poison the way they acted." Seeing Kassim so carefree and not angry was still a shock. Alibaba was still halfway expecting Kassim to flip and start a fight, claiming it had been all a trap.

"Kassim, I know you started to explain it earlier, but why...how do you know about the future?" Why was he so, different? Kassim pursed his lips around the cigar, eyes blinking into half mast as he became more serious. Suddenly, Alibaba was facing the Kassim he knew. The Kassim that rose through the ranks and gained control of all of the slums underground and became the undisputed leader of the city's thieves. The wolf was showing its presence.

"I don't know exactly how it was for you since you weren't already dead when it happened." 'It' being thrown into the past. "But for me, it wasn't so much as returning to the past as it was remembering a future that had yet to happen." Kassim rolled his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling in thought.

"There's no good way to explain it, but near as I can figure, the Rukh from that future's Kassim, who had attached himself to your own Rukh, was separated from you in the process of being sent back. Since I wasn't dead yet, the Rukh had nowhere to go but to me. One second I was still angry and frustrated at my own cursed fate in the world and the next I was filled with so much peace." Kassim chuckled lowly.

"I didn't know what to do with it. Anytime I tried to get angry, to stay angry, that peace would just come back and I'd get memories of the future where you fought against the people who were using me, and I get glimpses of another life where I never cursed my fate at all. A life where we stayed friends and I didn't die." Kassim crossed his arms, the muscles flexing as he tightened his hands into fists.

"When I saw what that man was a part of, is a part of, I took all those magic tools and fed them to the sharks. I won't let them do that again." The and I'll make them pay for trying was unsaid. Kassim was always one who believed in returning favors in tenfold.

"Neither will I." Alibaba drew himself up. He looked Kassim in the eyes as he spoke. "I won't let them destroy Balbadd this time. I don't know how, but I will keep Al-Thaman and the Kou Empire from taking our home." It was more than a promise. It was an oath. Alibaba would have sworn it on his mother's grave, he was so serious. Balbadd was his home, and he was going to fight for her.

"Eh? Isn't it obvious how to keep that from happening?" Kassim looked at Alibaba like he was missing out on an important detail. Which, was possibly true with Alibaba still trying to get his bearings on this new reality. Being in the past was hard, and weird.

"No. What do you have in mind?" Did Kassim have some insight that Alibaba didn't? He was in the city when Abhmad practically sold the country away to the Kou during the three years Alibaba was away.

"You become King." Alibaba and Kassim stared at each other blankly at the statement. Kassim had an eyebrow raised cooly while Alibaba felt as though he was frozen. He was probably making a weird face and looked like a duck or something. He did that enough times to know when it was most likely happening. Like now.

"Eh, Kassim, I don't think I heard you correctly." There was no way. Kassim didn't say that. And even if he did, he couldn't be serious!

"I said: You become King. Of. Balbadd. Like you were meant to." Nope. Kassim just kept on saying it. Alibaba shook his head rapidly, his eyes widening with panic.

"I can't do that!" Alibaba screeched. Kassim didn't know what he was proposing! Alibaba wasn't meant to be a King! Sure Aladdin had 'chosen' him, but that was only to be his friend! And Amon had no choice but Alibaba because Jamil wasn't even an option to consider and Aladdin was a Magi and Morgiana was...well she was Morgiana. Alibaba was not fit to be a King. He didn't know anything about being King, Rashid taught him how to be a merchant not how to rule a country!

Kassim watched Alibaba's freak out in silence, eyes still at half mast. Alibaba didn't approve of his quietness. Not when it was the older boy's fault for even bringing up such a ludicrous idea. He was just about to snap at Kassim about it because seriously one does not joke about this kind of thing-

"I don't see the problem." Kassim shrugged. "You were meant to be the next King if I hadn't have gone and fucked things up." Alibaba's mouth hung open. So many things warred inside him at the moment. Annoyance that Kassim wasn't taking Alibaba's reservations on the subject to heart, anger at Rashid for even thinking of naming Alibaba heir, and sadness at the way Kassim's eyes darkened at the mention of the treasury fire.

"Me becoming King will not automatically make Al-Thamen back down, no matter what visions the Rukh gave you." It was a low blow, to both sides. Because as much as Alibaba wanted to think himself as a grand hero, he knew the truth. He wasn't just some magical cure-all. There was no such thing.

Instead of snapping back his own argument or insult, Kassim did something that Alibaba didn't expect. He agreed with him.

"I know." Kassim puffed out a cloud of smoke with an unreadable expression. "But the only reason why Balbadd was captured so fast was that your brothers," Kassim sneered the word like a curse. "Are in no way able or are meant to rule. You would be able to delay them until we can come up with a better battle plan." While Alibaba didn't want to agree, Kassim did have a good point. If by some terrifying and unholy reason, he became King, Alibaba would do his damndest to keep Balbadd away from Al-Thamen and the Empire.

"Besides, not everything is going to be the same. I'm here now, and like hell am I going to let you face those bastards alone." Kassim had a wolfish grin that spelled all kinds of bad news. "You're still going to capture that Dungeon and get back your old strength. And I'm going to train to get stronger too." It wasn't the most refined plan, a more overshoot really, and it had the drawback of Alibaba as King which was wrong – but. Alibaba could agree with half of it. Of getting Amon back, and of fighting alongside Kassim.

There would be other important things as well, like saving Morgiana and finding Aladdin, but this was a good start.