Tangled Untold

~Prologue~

So it really has come down to this. My once beautiful body destroyed into the fine dust of human ash as I'm left free falling down to my fateful death. In all of my years, I never thought this would be how I was to meet my demise. I could feel my skin stretching and stretching until all that remained was for it to die away, leaving bare bone to also blow away in the wind, soon becoming a powdered matter. I felt cold. I felt distraught... I was betrayed.

I was betrayed by a physical being because I had betrayed something much worse. I had betrayed myself.

In this final moment as I stared up at the refined cloudless morning sky, all that was happening seemed to be in slow motion. There was always a myth that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's why you have to make sure your life is meaningful before your time is up. To me, this process was about to occur. My story and my reasons were about to be foretold. Perhaps I will be seen as one I'm not as my pages could not be read by another; no one else but me will know the truth behind my treacherous actions.

I closed my eyes. It was painful. To feel all of my blood dry in my veins, for my eyelids to close and no longer produce any more moisture. There were no liquids in my body; there was no body for any liquids. As what was once my body collided with the ground below, nothing but an explosion of ash crashed. The only sound was one of cloth floating down.

I had vanished.

~1~

"Pfffft!"

The whistling of the boiling kettle caught my attention quickly. As my fairly soft grip tightened quickly around the metal handle, my silver gaze wondered over through the square gap between the built up muddy walls. It was a peaceful night with the gentle pit-pattering of rain dripping down onto the straw hatched roof and onto the dirt below, the moonlight was hidden behind the beauty of a collage of grey clouds, only to pierce through the few silver linings of the blackened sky. Inside the house was the flicker of a couple of gentle candles, trying to highlight the simplistic home which I had lived. They didn't spend their time waving for attention as the wind did not blow them into a frenzy, but a simple breeze caressed them in a sweet dance. For such an amicable night, the situation at had was all but peaceful.

Slowly the boiled water was poured over a few green leaves. Something was bothering me today, something that had told me to prepare myself properly. The small leaves span rhythmically to the water, turning it into a shade of nature that stood out against the bland greys and blacks of the house. But even the simple rhythm couldn't snap me out of my uneasiness. Maybe I was just over thinking on this dark feeling. After a few moments of staring at the filled wooden cup, I took it out of the poorly lit room into another poorly lit room; this one only lit by what limited light the blue moon had to give.

This room was a bedroom: A double rolled up thatched hay bed was kept on the floor with a small wooden block used as a table prompt up beside it. Every here and there would be the careful scurrying of an insect across the dirt. It wasn't anything unusual, and it certainly wasn't something that crossed my mind whenever I saw one.

Along with the living bugs, there was also a living being trying to stay warm on the hay bed. This being was a fairly tall man. With hair black as the night, and eyes as green as dew-covered grass in the early hours of the morning, he was the charm of this small village. There was never a job he wouldn't at least try to complete. Even as a pair of curious children growing up together, he would be the one to jump up at any opportunity available. Kind by nature, charming and gentlemanly by choice, every young maiden wanted to have his marriage proposal happen to them. Somehow, I was the lucky maiden he had fallen for. At only aged thirteen, I found myself to be no different from the other girls.

Within the years of falling in love, we found our life together to be one of a fairytale. It was nothing but pure magic which had brought us so perfectly in sync. Unfortunately, God did not seem to approve of this love we had. Whatever terrible sin I had done, my price was one that was dishonourable in itself; I was unable to produce a child with my deserving husband. However, he remained beside me. He held me close and told me he loved me, even without a child to prove his love for me. Despite never having that final wish, we were happy together.

But now, it seemed like our life together was falling apart.

My bare feet quietly pressed onto the dampened dirt beneath as I walked to beside his limp body. He was once a robust build - working as a blacksmith for years. Now he was withered and weak from the disgusting presence time had done. His beautiful voice that had once sung silly songs for the children of the village was now hoarse and dry from the amount of coughing he had been succumbed to. The midnight black locks he possessed were falling out and soon lost in the strands of tied hay, and the shining green eyes had lost its glow.

Seeing him so weak made me fear that I would one day become the same.

I stayed silent as I made my way over to the stranger who was once my husband. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of a diminutive clank from the wooden cup being placed onto the wooden table. The sound pricked his hearing. Before I could leave him alone to sleep, his frail body shifted, allowing my silver orbs to lock onto his green.

"Mein lieber..." His ugly voice cracked as he spoke. It made me almost shudder to hear him so incredibly dull and lifeless. This wasn't the man I married.

"Tee." I said coldly, referring to the cup of hot water and green leaves in the cup beside him. He paid no attention to the offering, but continued to stare at me, almost judging my thoughts by baring into my soul. For almost a second, it seemed like the gentle life he once had sparked back into the dying grass green. It caught me off guard. As my heartbeat picked up for just that simple moment, he used up his strength to grasp my hand.

My body flinched at the sudden touch, but soon relaxed again. His hand was large and wrapped around mine perfectly, but it was also cold and so feeble that it would have slipped off if I had not grabbed back. Although holding his hand with too much pressure had made it seem like it would have broken. This is what ageing had done to him. My fixated gaze moved from his hands back up to his eyes, which were again boring into my soul. If I hadn't known better, I could have closed my eyes and felt purely naked in that stare of his. Everything was said through that stare. 'I'm dying' it told me.

"Ich liebe dich." Was what his voice said. It was shattered, but still held the same love as it did the first time he had whispered those words wonderfully in my ear. The love was still strong, even in age, but it still didn't shake the disgust I had of hearing those words that were spoken to me by a stranger who was once a young, devilish handsome man with a heart shining for only me. Where was he all these years later?

I couldn't talk. My voice refused to produce sound, and my tongue refused to move. But my eyes told him my answer. Tears streamed quietly down my cheeks and dripped onto our entwined hands, showing my fear and realisation to the fact that my husband would no longer be there beside me. The realisation that I had lost him years prior. I couldn't shut my eyes; I couldn't remove my gaze. All I could do was watch him twitch the corners of his mouth into a sorry excuse of a smile as his eyes closed, not to open ever again.

I still held his hand. His cold, limp, lifeless hand. He really had left me. Age took away everything and had left me all alone to face this loathsome world. Hadn't I paid my sins with the inability to produce children? If there really was a God, why would he also pain me with removing everything else I loved and wanted in my life? Why was I left as cold and lifeless as this dead hand intertwined in my own?

Why was I cursed with the darkness that time had brought me?

~2~

No matter how much I wanted it, time would have made me a victim all too soon too. I lived on years after my husband's death, using my knowledge to try and find medication and remedies for different conditions. I became the town's Kräuterheiler, using different books on herbal medicine to find my own remedies for those who were poorly.

I stood at my workbench with open books surrounding the space beside me. All of these other so-called 'doctors' believed that they had found the cure to everything. Within my research, I had managed to uncover solutions to the most advanced diseases; but I didn't need fame. My hair had long lost its enchanting black and turned into a horrible white, and my skin had stretched and wrinkled sickenly. Who would want to see the ugliness that age had brought me? Nobody. Instead, I used my potions to heal those who came to me.

Sometimes I would be haversting the plants of my herb garden when another my age - perhaps even somebody familiar from my childhood at times - would come by and request for help. I would listen, check my books, and soon put together a medicine that would ease them more.

"Gott segne sie." They would sometimes mumble. I would smile at them, but always inwardly scowl. I hated mumbling. I hated that sentence too. At this time and age, it was forbidden to go against the Lord, but I couldn't help it. There was nothing that seemed to be logical about the idea of an all mighty judging our actions. But still I nodded them a goodbye with the same fake smile I had used for years. In the end, it wasn't their happiness I was trying to cure, but find the cure to my own.

One day I found myself pulling out the unwanted weeds beside my herbs when a wonderful yet nostalgic sight grazed into my sight. There was a young, beautiful woman linked in the arm of a young, handsome man. They were smiling together purely; they were strongly in love. For a woman who had experienced that love herself, I should have been smiling with the warmth of the memory. But all I could do was cover my face in shame behind a cloak's hood. I was once that beautiful. I was once even more beautiful than her. My husband was once as handsome as him. My husband was once even more handsome than him. But even they would become victims of time one day too. No one could escape it.

I ran back inside the house before they could turn my way. My herbs scattered onto the workbench, and my books pulled out of the shelves and I skimmed quickly. No one could escape time, but perhaps someone had found a way to prolong an individual's time. There had to have been something! I had dedicated my life to try and find a remedy against the effects of ageing, and yet nothing I mixed up had any luck. I was still an ugly old woman.

None of the medical books had anything, so they were discarded onto the floor. I checked everything. Even the fictional stories I had stored away, just hoping for something to base the mixture on. Still no luck. I threw the book harshly at the wall and gripped my head. Was I doomed to die old and disgusting? As I turned to walk and think, my attention was caught by the only book I hadn't checked.

My shuffle over was slow. Something was drawing me over to this book, something which couldn't be explained. When I finally reached the dust covered object, I took notice of the timely dimmed golden pages and ran my fingers longingly down the length. After a few moments of understanding the power this simple book could have had, I carefully picked it up and dusted away the dirt. It was simply titled 'Veterum Fabulae'. Once again tracing my fingers against the fine pages, I opened it and started searching for my answer.

"Aurea Flower..." I whispered almost inaudibly. I remembered this story from my childhood. A single drop of sunlight had fallen from the skies and landed into the front garden of a maiden. She studied the flower and tried to find what magical powers it possessed. One day, she decided to sing while she was studying, and through various words she discovered that the flower began to glow. However, if the wrong word was sung, it would no longer glow. It took her years of trying, but soon she had found its magical properties, and exactly what song would make the flower produce its life-changing pollen.

"Splendidum florem.
Cum autem lux in virtute tua.
Redde mihi nunc.
Mihi quod meum est.
Quod meum est."

After discovering the powerful song of the sunflower, she watched her skin smooth out into its young self once again. Her daughter gasped at the changed she witnessed her mother go through, but found herself growing fearful at the power it possessed. Soon, the fear of power consumed her and she destroyed it. The flower withered and died, and not too long after, her mother was once again the old woman she was before her discovery of the flower's ageing power.

This was my answer.

This was not the first time a sunlight drop had created a flower, but it was the first time someone had discovered the power it possessed. If I could find a golden flower of my own, I could end this pathetic fate of old age for good. It would have been a long shot, and it could have taken me even more years to find such a rare growth, but it was something I must complete. It was the answer to my life-long goal, and nothing was going to stop me on this quest.

~Translations~

German

"Mein lieber" My love/My dear

"Tee" Tea

"Ich liebe dich" I love you

"Kräuterheiler" Herb Healer

"Gott seine sie" God bless you

Latin

"Veterum Fabulae" Tales of Myths

"Aurea Flower" Golden Flower

"Splendidum florem. Flower glowing bright
Cum autem lux in virtute tua. With your power shining
Redde mihi nunc. Give me back my time
Mihi quod meum est. Bring back what was mine
Quod meum est." What was mine