Yuletide Reveal
I wrote Five Times Tamina Used the Dagger of Time (And One Time She Didn't) for the Prince of Persia- Sands of Time movie fandom
This might have been the first my recipient ever posted a Yuletide letter, though in this case it basically said they wanted the two main characters in the story. And- well. I think what came out was a very different sort of story than what was likely expected, though the recipient did say she liked it, which was a relief.
Five Times Tamina Used the Dagger of Time ended up being a character study focussed on Tamina and her life in relation to her focus on her gods. Because of this, the story ended up being one I did a lot of research for (maybe not the story I've done the most research for, but certainly up there). Now, I doubt religious and/or historical accuracy was ever one of the franchise's major goals. As it turns out though, the Persian empire at the time the film takes place in is Zoroastrian, not Islamic, which saved me the trouble of explaining why Islam is never mentioned in the film, and why, in fact, most of the scant religious mentions seem to focus on good versus evil. However, Tamina makes mentions of gods- as in more than one. And her religion ended up being a bit harder to get a handle on. No one will be surprised to find the movie seemingly makes up a mythology for her when she tells Dastan about the Dagger of Time. But I am not so creative a to come up with an entire mythology wholesale. Still, at the time I started writing, I knew I'd mention religion since the Dagger is essentially a sacred item, but I didn't suspect the whole story would revolve around mythology and religion.
So, rather than make something up, I researched. As it happened, I was reading the book Don't Know Much About Mythology at the time, so much of my initial research was from that, trying to find what mythology I wanted to pull from. There seemed to be no mythology that had destroying sandstorms. However, initially, I was drawn to Egyptian myth because of their clear connection between the desert and death, and because I thought Isis would make for a powerful female goddess. But, in the end, I settled on Mesopotamian mythology for several reasons. First, Alamut- which was a real city as well as fictional Tamina's home- is located in Mesopotamia not too far from present-day Tehran. Secondly, though both civilizations are old, Mesopotamia boasts the first civilizations, and- in the world of the movie- there is a strong indication that Tamina's gods do really exist due to the fact the Sands of time really exist. Soooo.... in my head the gods of the first civilization made sense to use. Plus, I grew to like as a character their main goddess Inanna, and felt Tamina had several personality traits in common with this goddess. I switched Inanna's name to Ishtar-which is what she was called in later centuries- because of when the story takes place. It makes sense Tamina would use the most recent names. So began all research into the Inanna/Ishtar myths.
After all this research, I knew I wanted to include the religious aspects more in the story, especially since, after thinking about it, it seemed like a marriage where the two people do not share the same religion would create some interesting confrontations. In fact, I knew right away that Tamina would use the dagger to erase a fight with her husband, but until the research, I hadn't decide what the fight would be about (Tamina and Dastan do argue A LOT, so it seemed natural to have them fight). I also knew the first scene would be Tamina finding the dagger by herself, so I needed a reason why she- and the Dagger- would be alone. So- a religious festival to keep all the other citizens of Alamut busy.
The rest of the religious references were added in to create cohesion of theme, and also to try and give some exposition about the myths in-story. I was worried that the story would not be as powerful or even make much sense without the audience knowing the mythic background. Despite the additions of religious references (so many, I almost feel like it is a crossover of fandoms!), I'm still not sure it is clear to reader.
As for the structure of the story- I knew almost right away I wanted to do a "Five things" style story, and I love time travel, so the dagger made sense to use. The title is a bit boring, but it acts as its own summary too. The one time Tamina doesn't use the dagger seemed obvious- from her point of view the end of the film is the time she didn't use it and Dastan does. As I mentioned earlier, I already had the first time she uses it in mind and the time she uses it to erase and argument in mind. She obviously needed to know how to use it in a fight because she explains its uses to Dastan in the film. So there was another use. I had two more times I needed her to use it. I chose to have her reject a lover via dagger for several reasons. First, I wanted to show a life before Dastan. Secondly, the man she gave the dagger to at the beginning of the film intrigued me. It also gave a chance to foreshadow her using it in a non-combative way with her argument with Dastan. It foreshadowed the theme of Tamina coming into sexual awareness too, and gave me a chance to talk about Inanna/Ishtar. The last time Tamina uses the dagger in the story is to show her daughter how to use it. This was the last section I wrote. At the time, I had several issues with the story I needed to solve. I wanted a sense of closure/coming full circle, which was lacking, and, well, Dastan isn't in the story much, and the previous scene was mostly a heated argument. Creating a daughter for the couple helped imply that they did have a happy ending.
Five Times Tamina Used the Dagger of Time (And One Time She Didn't) will probably never been my most popular story- a rare fandom and obscure mythology added to that. Still, I rather like it for the world-building.