Past by senna1
Summary: Third Senna story! Senna comes across a man who seems a bit familiar. He triggers memories in Senna she thought she could not bear to think of again...until now.
Please Please Review :)
Rating: PG
Categories: Aladdin
Characters: Other
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 12/31/07
Updated: 01/26/08
Index
Chapter 1: A ghost sighting
Chapter 2: Victorious Capture
Chapter 3: A Familiar Figure
Chapter 1: A ghost sighting
Author's Notes: I do not own any of the characters, except Senna, Kamal and Cara. And I own Afar, but sadly not Agrabah!
I hope you like it! :)
Senna looked out from the balcony to the city of Agrabah. The sun was just coming up, beautiful rays of pink, orange, and gold lined the skies. Birds who had just woken up to start their hunt for their families chirped as a sign of the rising dawn. A cool breeze flew by and entered her room swaying her hair, moving towards her bed to where Kamal was sleeping. His eyes fluttered open. He walked over to Senna. She was still gazing at the beautiful sight, her city...her home.
“It’s nice so early in the morning, isn’t it?” Kamal asked his mouth near Senna’s ear, his chin resting upon her neck.
“Yes, it is” She replied as if she were in some kind of a trance the city had put on her, keeping her focus entirely on the awakening city.
“I think that’s why I decided to stay here, it was so much nicer than Afar” Kamal said
“Well I’m glad you did decide to stay, no matter what the reason, because if not I might have never found you again.” Senna said turning her attention to Kamal’s eyes which were now looking at the city as well.
“That would have been terrible.” Kamal said making every word softer until Senna could barely hear him.
“Yes it would have” Senna said leaning in closer to Kamal letting him kiss her gently at first then passionately, putting his arms around her waist.
Senna draped her own arms around Kamal’s neck and they just stood there kissing, holding each other, not ever wanting to let go, afraid of losing each other again.
“Ahem” Cara coughed her head poking through a small opening in the door leading to their bedroom.
“Oh, Cara why are you up so early?” Senna asked her six year old niece, pulling away from Kamal, trying to erase all evidence of what had just been going on (something too intimate for a six year old’s eyes).
“I heard something outside, like yelling.” Cara said as she came in the room and went to the window to see if what she heard had been real.
Senna and Kamal hadn’t noticed anything, so the two of them looked as well and saw a poor looking man held by some guards, the man obviously trying to fight back. Rasoul had an apple in his hands, and they could hear distant voices raised above the normal volume of speech. Senna grabbed her shoes, as did Kamal and Cara (following her) and went outside to the brawl.
“Let the man go Rasoul!” Senna said as she walked to the scene of the “victorious capture.” (Something a guard had called her arrest once)
“But your highness...” Rasoul stuttered, bowing.
Senna put her hands in her pocket and took out a coin and gave it to the merchant who had been robbed.
“I assume that this is what it was worth,” She said putting the coin in the hand of the merchant. The merchant bowed as she gave him the coin.
“And as for you,” She continued now looking at the man who had just stolen, who was confused at his current position, and looking down at the ground.
“Here” She put a few coins in the mans hands.
The man then looked up at her and she met his gaze. She took a step back as if something had hit her. This man had seemed so familiar to her. He was in his mid thirties, with slightly gray streaked hair. He had a soft look in his chocolate colored eyes that showed a painful past and much loss to come. He was built as a man who had lived on the street, a bit muscular, hard dry skin, and tanned from the constant sun beating down on his body. She shook her head to get the idea of who he had looked like out of her mind and started to go back to the palace.
The man was silent and just stood there, looking at the coins in his hand. The guards left the man and started their day from scratch, yet again.
“Where did you all go?” Aladdin asked as the three walked through the palace doors.
“Just had to clear something outside” Senna said with a shrug, as she slightly pushed Cara to her mother.
“Alright Senna, oh just so you know we’re having a meeting with the treasury advisor later today” Jasmine reminded Senna and Kamal.
“Thanks, um... I’m going up to the room” Senna said
“Yeah, me too” Kamal said following his wife with a strange look on his face.
When they got to their room Senna went to the bed and just sat on it staring at the door she had just come in from.
“Did you know that man Senna? You looked like you saw a ghost after you saw him”
“I thought I had”Back to index
Chapter 2: Victorious Capture
“What do you mean you think you saw a ghost? Are you alright, are you sick?” Kamal said feeling Senna’s head to see if she felt warm and possibly sick.
“No I’m just...he just...that man looked like someone I knew,” She replied, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“It doesn’t matter, forget it”
“Alright Senna” Kamal said, knowing Senna hated when people made sure she was fine. She could get a bit stubborn about her health.
The day passed fairly quickly, and it had been time for their meeting with the treasury advisor. Aladdin, Jasmine, Senna, Kamal, the treasury advisor and a few others were seated at the conference table in the palace’s conference hall. For Senna the meeting dragged on for ever, and although she heard the attendee’s voices, she did not listen. All she could think about was that man she had helped earlier and she wondered about the man he reminded her of. The meeting drew to a close and everyone left the conference hall. Kamal and Senna went up to their room to get ready for lunch, or at least Kamal did.
“Senna aren’t you going to get ready?” Kamal asked with an incredibly innocent voice.
“You know what, uh...Kamal I’m not really feeling so good, go to lunch without me.”
“Alright Senna, get some rest, you’ve had a big day” He replied coming up with the excuse for her future absence at lunch. He then kissed her lightly on the head and left to go to the dining hall.
“You’ve had a big day...”
* * *
“You’ve had a big day Rasoul, you can take the rest of the day off.” Senna heard someone say to Rasoul, as the door of her prison cell was slammed shut and locked.
“Thank you sir, but I want to be back for the sentencing.” Rasoul said smiling in an evil matter.
“In a few days then, six, seven maybe. Don’t worry we’ll get someone to get you, we know you’ve wanted to get her in here for quite some time.”
Senna looked around the prison cell, her new home. Ha! A prison cell, well she never thought she would end up there. She thought she could do anything, run from anyone, steal anything. She had thought like a child, but now she knew, now she knew she couldn’t do all she thought before. She was just another thief, another street rat. And that was all she would ever amount to.
She hadn’t had anything, no home, no parents, no life, she was a nobody. It had all been taken away from her at birth, without a fight. Although, she did have her brother, she did have Aladdin. But not anymore even he was taken away from her, now she had nothing to live for. She forced herself to stop thinking about her so-called life, and looked around the cell once more.
Dark stones lined the walls spiraling up towards the one window quite a few feet above the floor, a window that barely showed any light whatsoever. Writings had been scribbled on the walls of the cell. It had lines, probably showing the days a person had been held captive in this awful place. One was a sentence which read “In here there is no life.” A sentence which described Senna’s current position exactly, or at least what she felt her position was at the time. As Senna gazed upon her future in the stone walls of captivity she started to feel sick. Her stomach churned at the thought of being there forever. The thought of what the guards would do to her in the near future. They would probably beat her or something horrible and for the first time in her very short, twelve years of life she was scared, frightened. She didn’t know what she would do, if they would kill her or if she would get to it first. The thought of suicide seemed like a good option at the time but she waited for the next day to see what they would bring her way. She would give them a chance to live in the glory of taking her as a prisoner, let them have their fun.
The days passed without food, full of fatigue, sickness, beatings, humiliation, boiling days, and freezing nights. After about a week of torture, (maybe even more) the door to Senna’s prison cell was opened and a gush of light seeped into the black room, now filling it with blinding light. Senna blocked her eyes and squinted from the light she had not seen for what seemed like a lifetime.
“Get up!” Rasoul said, for he was the one who opened the door. Senna didn’t move, first of all she couldn’t, the guards had beaten her mercilessly almost everyday, and she was too sick to get up. Second of all she wouldn’t have gotten up on Rasoul’s orders if her life depended on it.
She spit at his feet.
“You stupid street rat!” He yelled as he punched her left cheek. Her face faced the right and she stayed like that, her eyes locked on the position they were sent in.
“Get her up!” He ordered two guards. The guards picked her up and dragged her to a room where the sultan waited, not wanting to be bothered with such stupidities, he could have been doing better things, for instance playing with his toys, not deciding what to do with a criminal.
“Your highness” The guards said as they bowed and bowed Senna’s head for her quite harshly.
“Hm,” the sultan thought as he pulled his beard.
“Stealing you said?”
“Yes sir” Rasoul said
“Send her to the prison in Afar”
“Your highness, with all do respect, you d...don’t want to keep her...her here, in...in...in our prison?” Rasoul stuttered. Senna’s lips formed a grin. One of the guards saw the gesture and hit her.
“No, send her to Afar at once” the sultan ordered with a wave of his hand. Then he left to his throne room.
Rasoul had a wagon get ready for the journey to the neighboring city. He walked her to
the wagon, regretting every step closer to her departure. He would miss the pain he inflicted on her. The hell he had put her through for the past week. She got in the wagon and got comfortable, well comfortable for a person who had just been beaten for the past week. The wagon started it’s journey.
“Well it was fun while it lasted huh?” Senna called out in an exhausted voice to Rasoul, who was a good twenty feet away. At least in that week of hell she had gotten her sense of humor back (funny how that works out).
Rasoul just grumbled, then turned and walked back towards the prison. Back to index
Chapter 3: A Familiar Figure
Author's Notes: I hope you like it! Please Review :)
The wagon’s journey to Afar only took a few hours. But those few hours were still that hell Senna had been in for a while. There had been two guards watching her in the back of the wagon. Senna just sat there, the sun baking her skin, still sick with fever. To make matters worse the guards wouldn’t stop mocking her, telling her she was going to die soon in the prison in Afar.
“You know they’re sending her to Afar because their prison is a lot worse than ours.” One of the guards informed the other, trying to scare Senna.
“Maybe the Sultan just likes me and is sparring me from you guys.” She replied with a grin, finally getting them back.
“Don’t make me hit you again, I wouldn’t mind doing it!” The same guard said raising his hand.
“You wouldn’t mind or you simply can’t?”
“Shut up” the other guard said as he hit her. Senna rubbed her cheek that was now even more bruised than it had already been.
“Hey, your friend here’s got more guts than you!” she said, coming to a conclusion.
“Is everything okay back there?” the driver asked, which sent the guards silent for the rest of the trip.
Senna lost complete track of the time and just sat there, looking. All she could see was desert. Sand, a few camels slowly making their way to a destination (probably far better than hers) and the occasional palm tree. Then all of a sudden she saw a gate, a towering city behind it, and heard the familiar sounds of a bustling city. Afar. The wagon rolled on towards the gate and the driver talked to the guard watching the gate. He took out a paper the sultan must have given him and they were let in after a few more words were exchanged.
The city seemed just like Agrabah, except a bit less wonderful. Well Senna must have only felt that because Agrabah was her home and that was the only place she wanted to be right now, at home with Aladdin, not in some foreign city she had never been to. The wagon slowed down a bit, to get by the crowd forming around the wagon. They all looked at Senna like she was some sort of animal in a cage on display. To be honest she wasn’t such a big deal, there were hundreds of thieves in cities. It must have been since she was from Agrabah or something.
It was then that she saw him. In the crowd there was a man cloaked in dark watching her, staring at her. He had a hood on so she couldn’t see his face in the light, she couldn’t see any features at all, except his fairly tall figure and what seemed like dark eyes. The thing that caught her attention about this man was not his cloak, tallness, or dark look. He didn’t look at her as if she was an animal, he looked at her with intensity. Trying to understand her and understanding her at the same time. She could see he knew what they were doing to her, what would happen to her, her sad, sad future to come. She kept her eyes on him until she could no longer see him, as did he. Then they stopped. The guards dragged her out of the wagon and brought her into a prison.
“Oh great fun, another prison” She mumbled, more to the guards than herself.
They brought her to another cell, yet again, and pushed her inside the stone walls. The thoughts that had plagued Senna the first day she had been thrown in jail drifted by in her mind. But she really gave them almost no thought, at this point she really didn’t care. She didn’t want to kill herself, it wasn’t worth it. She just sat there a while thinking of home.
“Home...” she whispered, unaware of it coming out of her mouth.
She heard the creaking of the cell door being opened and turned her attention to the guard who stood there. There was something in his hand that she couldn’t recognize, it looked like a bowl or something, but she highly doubted it was food. Why would they give her the pleasure of eating? They hadn’t in Agrabah, why should they here? But to her surprise the man set the bowl on the floor and closed the door again. Her eyes grew wide as she just realized what had taken place. She got up and walked over to the bowl. She was still expecting it to be a trick, just something to get her excited, then make her even more hungry than she already was. She looked inside the bowl and saw some soup-like liquid swishing around in the bowl. She picked up the bowl and started to slurp it. She finished within seconds and put the bowl near the door. She stood near the door now and through a crack she saw the guard still standing there.
“Thanks” she said, but the guard just stood there and grumbled. He was just like the rest of them, not wanting to give her anything but had to, on account of the orders given to him.
She sighed and sat back down against the wall opposite the door, and looked around again at the stone walls keeping her inside the cell. She looked for a possible way out. Any way out. She soon gave up on that and just sat there. She yawned and squinted in pain. The constant beatings had left there marks (and would be there for quite some time after) and yawning had triggered her bruised cheek to burn with a stinging pain.
The sun finally set and it began to get cold. Senna heard the guards saying goodbye to one another, and the changing of shifts. A new guard took his post by her cell and stood there quietly. Senna was still seated on the opposite wall doing absolutely nothing. A few minutes passed and Senna heard something strange. It sounded as if something had snapped sharply. Her cell door was opened. A man in a dark cape was in her doorway.
“Come on” He said
“Excuse me?” Senna asked, dazed, thinking perhaps this was some sort of fantasy or dream she was having.
“Come, before they find us!” He said catching quick glances between behind the door and Senna.
Senna got up as fast as her bruised body allowed her and limped over to the man. He grabbed her in his arms and ran out of the prison and into the street. The noise of guards yelling and running around frantically could be heard by the two escapees. The man carried her to a deserted alleyway and placed her on the floor, upright so she was standing across from him now. She looked at him with confused eyes.
“Come.” He said again, walking out of the alleyway to the other side of the road and continuing onward.
Senna just followed him. She, for the first time actually got to see the city she was in now and would probably be for the rest of her life. The night Arabian air was cold and felt good blowing against Senna’s fevered skin. The buildings were medium sized compared to the ones back at home. There was no palace that she could see, but instead was a beyond big house that could have taken the place of the palace back at home for the sultan while something would have been done to the palace (perhaps a redecoration of the whole palace). After a few minutes of walking they finally came upon an old worn down building, presumably the man’s home. He went inside the crumbling building and she followed. After a few stairs were climbed (something which had triggered the pain in Senna to come out) they came to a room which looked as if was made from a few old scraps of things found on the streets. There were a few pillows on one end making up what seemed like a bed with an old torn blanket laying on the pillows. There was a table with a broken leg, held up by a book, and a chair tucked within the tables open space. There were some books shoved in a corner and some papers on the table, with an ink holder and writing quill.
“Please, lay down you look as if you haven’t slept in days” The man said showing Senna to the pillows, letting her slide on top of them and pulled the cover over her frail, bruised body.
“I probably haven’t...um...thank you” Senna said softly as her eyes closed. The man smiled and laughed/sighed, and went to his desk. The last thing she heard before sleep caressed her was the sound of a quill scratching a piece of paper.Back to index