Arabian Nights

"Hey Sho, what happened?" A nomad yelled out as he sat on the ground, wrapping his weapons with cloth. "I get back from my patrol of our next area and I get told that somebody was close to finding the cave." As soon as he finished wrapping his weapons, which prevented people from knowing what they were, he opened up a sack and examined the contents inside. Seeing that the random assortment of objects would suffice, the nomad stood up and strapped the weapons to his body and slung the sack over his shoulder. "Anyways, I'm heading to the city now. If you think you want something while I'm there, send a hawk. I should be back by tomorrow or the next day. I'll be sure to write if I see anything interesting." The nomad then jumped up onto a camel and rode of into the desert, towards Agrabah.

-----

"My apologies bread merchant, but your unwitting donation will help feed a hungry young man today." A street rat muttered under his breath as he planned out a way to grab his next meal. "And my apologies to you as well, horse that shall assist me." The street rat scanned the street, seeing the mass of people walking alongside each other.

The plan was simple. There was a path of hot coals nearby that a street performer was walking across as people watched. One of these hot coals were to come in contact with the horse. The pain from the burn would set the horse into a panic and hopefully run into the bread merchant's stand. With all the confusion and the goods scattered about, the hungry man could run by and grab a loaf of bread and escape before anybody could stop him.

Wrapping his hand with scrapped cloth he had sewn together, the street rat grabbed one of the hot coals and tossed it at the horse before the cloth was burnt through. The horse shrieked in pain as the unfortunate rider was thrown off of the horse. The horse charged right through the bread merchant's stand, completely destroying it. The goods were scattered about as the merchant had dived away to avoid being trampled by the horse. Not wasting any time the street rat quickly grabbed a loaf of bread off the ground and ran off.

"Thief! Stop! Guards! Somebody!" The unfortunate merchant yelled as the street rat ran off with his prize.

After running a fair enough distance where the guards wouldn't be able to catch up, the street rat entered an abandoned building and cooled off in the shade of the room as he caught his breath. "I'd rather not make such a scene. But since Kaiden wasn't around I couldn't exactly trick the merchant and just take something. When I find Kaiden I'm gonna have to be sure to bring this up." The street rat took a bite out of the loaf of bread, his hunger demanding immediate consumption of the prize.

 

A boy walked through his home. He had a katana in his hand(s). He looked around for some enemies in the desert.
"Boring, isn't it?" He said. He walked in the peaceful and quiet streets. But the wind stopped for a while.

"It's getting hotter.. I must hurry." He said as he walked out the streets, and a Nasod passed.
The boy's name was Aero. He began to look at the Nasod. They face to faced.

"I thought I was alone. Hello, you there. What are you looking at?" Aero sheathed his katana slowly, but the Nasod ignored. The Nomad leaved with anger. Aero shrugged. He turned around looking for something to do.

 

A young girl stood in the throne room. Attending to cleaning to help around the castle as another young girl, a princess, her best friend as well, came in for a meeting with her father and a possible suitor. She worked absent mindly when she continued scrub the floor. She moved some as the bucket of water spilt.

"Watch it you damn servant! I'm shocked you have poor servants in this palace!"

"My deepest appologies, sir... I wasn't watching." The young girl stood up quickly and attending to him to make sure he wasn't wet. He wasn't but continued to insult her. From there everything fell apart.



The young girl. a servant of the castle, Huda. The daughter of one of the king's best guards and a the royal seamstress. She worked as the princess's personal servant, at least so the title is. To each other, and disliked by almost everybody else in the castle, the two were best friends.

It had to be a good hour since the incident. She sighed as she came to the door to her room and stopped looking across the hall at double doors much more elegant than her room door. The princess's room. She walked over to the door. Usually after suitors have come the princess always wanted left alone, but this time Huda felt bad. A potential husband was ruined by her own faults.

She raised her hand and knocked on the door.

"Princess Azura? Are you in there?" Huda called out quietly but loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door.

 

>Do you mean nomad? If so, there aren't any in the city right now.<

"Calling me a boy, even though he's a bit younger than me. Sho sure has an ego." Gerik thought to himself as he rode off, hearing Sho's last words to him. Gerik assumed Sho was talking about the so called 'Demon of the Sand' that had been gathering a somewhat infamous streak with the nomads. Gerik had yet to meet this individual, so there was no concern about a possibility of being attacked while in Agrabah.

Sho's hawk soon caught up with Gerik and flew alongside the nomad until he held out his arm for the bird to perch. "That was awfully fast wasn't it? I haven't even made it and he already thinks of something." Gerik grabbed the parchment off of the hawk's leg and quickly read what Sho wrote. "Let's see... The food should be easy enough. But smuggling weapons out will take a bit of time. I'd rather not arouse suspicion with the people there." The hawk slowly moved until it was perched to Gerik's shoulder as he silently rode the rest of the way to Agrabah.

Within an hour or two the city walls of Agrabah appeared in front of Gerik. Instead of heading straight towards the city, Gerik directed the camel around the city a bit. This lead him towards the main gate where travelers would enter. The entrance was set up here because the nomads have never been spotted in this direction. Gerik had made sure to orient himself with the main gate before guards could see him, making him appear as another simple traveler. He sent the hawk off towards the messenger tower to wait until Gerik felt he needed to send Sho a message.

Arriving at the gate, Gerik left his camel in a stable right outside the walls and entered the city. His weapons were still wrapped up and he carried the sack over his shoulder. "I wonder what encounters I will have today." The nomad thought as he began his walk through the city.

 

A light breeze blew through the young thief's hair as the thief sat on a rooftop the overlooked half of Agraba. The young only smirked at the beauty of Agraba in the day. "What a wonderful job I work" The thief said as she stood up on the ledge. The young thief looked upon Agraba's vendors and salesmen and smiled. "Looks like I have a lot to do" She said as she dived off the top of the building, then grabbing onto a ledge before falling to the ground. Hanging from the ledge she flipped and landed two feet on ledge with her hands in the air as if she were and acrobat completing a daring jump. She the turned around and took a quick glimpse of Agraba again and said to her " I am the greatest thief of Agraba.". Asaya then smiled and bowed, then flipped off the ledge of the building and landed two feet onto the ground. People stopped and gazed in amazement of what the young thief had just done. Asaya turned around to see people smiling and clapping at her. Asaya bowed and smiled at the crowd and then ran off into a dark alleyway.

 

"Appologizing to me? Please, if anybody should be appologizing it should be me! I wasn't being careful and I ruined another possible husband for you. I'm sure your father will be mad at you and then the news traveling through the palace. It's all my fault. Not yours." Huda rambled on before sighing.

"I'm really, really sorry, Azura." She sincerely apologized. "Has your father been here yet?"

 

For a brief moment Gerik felt as though he was being watched by something. Before he could really do anything to hide his face the feeling left. "Hmm... I wonder what would have caused that feeling just now. I'll be sure to stay alert in case something like that happens again." Gerik continued to wander the streets, looking at the citizens go about their lives.

Arriving near the palace, Gerik witnessed a group of people leaving. He could tell that most of these people were servants to the wealthy man who coincidentally was soaking wet. "And that wench has the gall to insult me like that. Mark my words, that princess will never be married as she is now." The people on the streets cleared out of the way of the princess' latest rejection as he stormed off angrily, his servants hurrying after him.

"I see... So the princess still hasn't chosen a husband yet. Well, I did toss some stuff in this bag that would let me pass off as royalty or something. Maybe I should act like one of her marriage candidates and get a good look at what is going on inside the palace. Sounds like a better option than to sneak inside and risk being caught." Gerik turned and walked down one of the side streets, away from the crowds. Out of the corner of his eye Gerik saw a young man exit a building and run off. Unfortunately Gerik wasn't paying any attention to the young man whatsoever, so he did not notice anything that would reveal the young man as one who was chosen to enter the Cave of Wonders.

As he continued to walk through some of the quieter areas of Agrabah, Gerik saw a young girl who was alone. She had a bit of dirt on her clothes, as though she had been rolling around on the ground recently. Gerik approached the young girl and crouched down to her eye level when he was in front of her. "Hello child. Where are your parents? Are you lost right now?"

-----

Aaron left the building he was hiding in after he finished eating the stolen bread. As soon as he exited the building he passed an odd sort of man. This individual had two objects wrapped up in cloth and a sack that he was carrying over his shoulder. Aaron figured this man was a merchant and walked in the opposite direction. He saw the wealth noble and his servants leaving the city and questioned the people around him as to who they were. "So Princess Azura rejected another man? Wow. She must have incredibly high standards if no man has sufficed so far."

 

Huda laughed.

"Yes, I will admit, it was very entertaining to see his reaction to the water." Huda said giggling along with the princess. "Dogs never like getting wet, plus its unleashing to smell them afterwards."

"Perhaps I can try to get your punishment, or convince your father, or I suppose I can help you sneak away again." Huda said thinking of a way to help her friend out.