The wilted hyacinth: the graveyard

Chapter 1: The soldiers, the tavern and the mirror

Year 1712

A ship docks upon spanish coast, 3 young American soldiers step out onto the dock. As the ship departs the men pick up their luggage and make their way through the crowd of curious villagers who were gathering due to the word of their unexpected arrival.

They follow a pathway through farmland, eventually they are greeted with a wall stretching as far as the eye can see, eventually vanishing into the horizon and a gate of ivory and silver. The men stood admiring the gates elegace. The gates quickly opened, men on horses fled out of the gate blowing darts at the soldiers, they fell to the ground. As they awakened they found themselves in a grand hall surrounded by guards with swords drawn. A king sitting on his throne looking down upon the soldiers "If you wish to see your freedom again you shall tell me who you are and why you have come here!" the king said loudly. "We have come from the Americas." One soldier said. "And why have you come here?" Said the king. The soldiers look hesitant but the guards swords were enough to make one speak. "We were stationed in portugal, we were planning on crossing the spanish border in 3 days time." The king still looks unfazed. "Very well, I shall give you a choice, if you wish to go to the border you shall have find my lost daughter, Princess Hyacinth of Spain, or you shall return to your ship and leave my land." The soldiers stand up, still dizzy from the darts and agree to find the lost princess.

The Americans are taken to an Inn nearby. At the break of dawn, the soldiers set upon the journey to find Princess Hyacinth. The king has supplied them with bread, cheese, Ale, a portrait of the princess and 3 spanish donkeys to aid them in their search, and so the journey begins. The soldiers exit the gates atop the donkeys and rode into the spanish woodlands, they rode until night fall where they stopped at a small patch of grass to set up camp for the night. They pitched their tents and settled in. Around midnight one soldier needed to relieve his bladder , and so left the tent with a lantern to find a bush. As he walks towards the forest he tripped on a pebble and fell into the bushes, he stood up, hes surroundings have changed. It was cold, and the floor was submerged within thick fog, he could only see the very tips of what seemed to be gravestones, and a dimly lit tavern at the very centre of the yard, It was complete silence, except for the slow creaking of the rocking chair on the poarch of the tavern. In it sits a woman, she is old and wears crystals around her neck. He slowly walks towards the tavern, twigs snapping beneath his feet. He calles out "Miss?" She does not acknowledge his calls, instead she slowly stands up and walks into the tavern closing the door behind her.

He walks until he reaches the stairs he steps up to the door and slowly creaks it open. "Miss?" He tries to conceal his fear, but the sound of a whistling kettle startled him, he stepped back and tripped over a loose floorboard. From the angle he was laying he could see the woman through a distant doorway pouring a mug of tea. He stood up and pulled the portrait out from his pocket he walks towards the woman, slowly, and holds it out to her. "I wish to find this woman." He said, his voice shaking in fear. It seemed as if the woman couldn't talk, though in her eyes he saw pain, she holds out her hand and leads the soldier toward a hallway. She stands alongside him across from a mirror, she wipes the dust of the mirror, The soldier drops the portrait in shock. He touches his face, his facial hair has grown atleast 2 months. He watched as it continues to grow slowly, "it is not real, it canot be." though it was. He realised time works differently here, And the woman, she was the princess, the stones round her neck, they were the same as in the portrait, though her hair is grey and her skin is aged, but it was her indeed. He watched as she slowly walked away he stood there speechless, frozen. 

She returned with a book, it was weathered, the leather cracked and the pages falling apart. It was a guide, one to excape from the graveyard its reads as follows: "Im always hungry, i must always be fed, the finger i touch, shall soon turn red." He looks around, confused. He takes his lantern and walks out the door, Princess Hyacinth follows closely behind. They walk toward the bushes he takes her hand and placed his lantern on the ground near the bushes, he closes his eyes and kicks over the lantern, fire catches and the air fills with a cloud of smoke it felt almost instant, he looks back encouraging the woman to keep walking. Though it seems her time was up she had become too frail and so she collapsed to the forest floor. He fell to his knees and letout a cry to her, "HYACINTH!" But it was too late. Her body decomposed quickly and her bones broke down into the soil his tear fell to the ground and out of it grew a flower with satin petals of purple , it was a hyacinth, it quickly wilted and collapsed as well. The smoke cleared and the tavern was gone. Everything was back as it once was.

He knew the death of the princess meant the same fate for the three soldiers aswell, for the king would not take the news lightly...