They were in a forest. Jasmine looked around as Swift rose up on its hind legs with a neigh of glee. It bolted off down the path.
"Well there he goes," said Prince Albert.
"He needs it though," Jasmine told him. She looked up at the canopy. She had been right; it was fall here too. The forest was the strangest thing she'd seen in a long time. There were trees and plants she knew, like birch trees and dandelions, but there were also many she had never seen before. It was a conglomeration of both the familiar and the exotic, so colorful Jasmine didn't know where to look. Everything caught her eye equally; there wasn't a focal point because everything took her breath away. Yet somehow the forest breathed as one, all the yellows and greens and reds molding together to form a unified being. She exhaled when her chest began to hurt, only then realizing she hadn't breathed since taking in her surroundings. There was magic here.
"Hm."
"What?" Jasmine asked the prince. He took off his fedora and stroked the feather. He seemed to do that a lot when he was thinking. He licked his lips, staring off. "What?" Jasmine pestered.
"Well," Prince Albert said, "This isn't anywhere near Castle Albreton. I wonder why the ink didn't take me where I told it to."
"Well maybe it doesn't do what you thought it did," Jasmine suggested slyly, "I mean it didn't take you to your true love either." The prince opened his mouth to protest but then gave up and just looked sad. Jasmine felt the guilt sink in. She sighed, "All right. I'm sorry okay. But like you said even if I was with you all this time I don't remember any of it. I remember my world, my life there. But I didn't mean to-"
"It's fine. It's nothing."
"But I..."
"It's nothing." The prince turned away and put his fedora back on, head down. "It isn't your fault." The guilt grew. He sounded so defeated, yet at the same time noble, determined. He was a man on a quest. "We'll figure it out once we get to the castle. Unfortunately that'll take three days' travel from here. Swift has the tendency to run off for long periods of time."
Jasmine decided to try and lighten the mood. "It's beautiful here," she said, "I've never seen anything like this forest. I know some of the names of the trees and plants but I haven't seen a lot of them."
"It may seem a place of beauty now," the prince warned, "but there are nymphs in this forest. You have to be on guard." He held his hand out to Jasmine.
She took it gently, "Nymphs?" They began down the manmade white pebbled path. It was littered with fallen leaves of all shapes and sizes. The leaves sprawled out like an animal's bedding, making everything look overgrown. A soft wind blew tiny reddish pinwheel shaped leaves out of a nearby tree. They flew like miniature helicopters as they descended into Jasmine's outstretched hand.
"Nymphs are vile creatures," explained the prince, "They eat men."
Jasmine giggled, "So they just let women go then? They don't sound so bad to me." She was enjoying herself despite knowing she would have to walk for days on end to reach the castle. She didn't know why, but that didn't bother her. It was too wonderful here to care, nothing like that bland suburbia back home. She wondered what the castle was like. She wondered if it was anything like the castles she had visited on her trip to Europe, her only reprieve from her dreaded sophomore year in high school. It had been during that study abroad trip that she decided she hated where she lived. She had discovered then that compared to castles and cities on rivers and mountains, the suburbs sucked.
Jasmine had always been an explorer. It was the reason she took up horseback riding. Nothing could compare to that feeling on the trails, running together with her companion, free. This forest reminded her of those days. Instead of training for the show ring in the stables, Jasmine always took her horse into the woods nearby and together they roughed the terrain. They would leap over logs and ravines and all manner of fallen foliage and then at the home stretch they would break out of the woodland and trample down the flatland like lightning. But then the horse threw a rider; that's when the trouble started. Jasmine didn't actually own the horse. As much as she would've liked to, the stable owned him and refused to sell. She was the best rider there and so they never protested when she went off on her own; they figured she knew what she was doing.
One day, another rider came to the stables. Jasmine remembered him well. He had a perfectly fitted riding outfit, all proper looking. He also had, Jasmine noticed, a leather whip. That's the thing that stuck out most in her memory, not his stern expression or his perfectly slicked hairstyle, no; she remembered the whip. It was the whip that stopped her riding days forever. The horse she always rode caught the man's fancy. It was a strong, powerful jumper. It was a majestic animal, black mane and tail with deep brown all in between except one white patch down its muzzle. It was a stallion of stallions, any rider could see that. What's more, it was eager to run. It didn't canter or prance. It galloped. The man asked the stable to ride it out on the trails. Because he was an established rider, they were glad to lend him the horse for a trail ride. It could've given the stable much-wanted attention. This man's champion horse was getting old and he was searching for another to take its place. He had his eyes set on Jasmine's stallion. He saw talent there. So the stable owners let him go off with the horse, hoping he would approve and give them some positive publicity.
As it turns out, Jasmine was a better rider than he was. Halfway through the trail, the horse bolted. It was impatient and jittery up until that point, forced to trot instead of sprinting right out of the pen the way Jasmine always rode him. The man was thrown off and landed hard on his back. He broke something and sued the stable. They got rid of the horse and Jasmine was alone when she argued its case. No one trusted a fourteen-year-old's judgment when an accomplished professional had been injured by a so-called "untrained animal." She never saw the horse again, and seeing this forest in all its beauty made her miss him more than she ever thought possible.
Jasmine slowed and the prince turned around, "What is it?" He asked her.
"Oh it's nothing," Jasmine said and swallowed to buy herself some time to pick the right words, "I'm just missing someone I used to know. That's all. Nothing important."
"Are you sure?" Prince Albert inched closer, his boots crunching the fallen leaves before they scraped the pebbles underneath, "It doesn't seem like nothing."
"Well it is!" Jasmine said loudly, defensive. The prince backed away. Even so knightly, at that moment he seemed intimidated. Jasmine mumbled an apology and suggested they keep moving. She was probably just worn out; maybe it was a side effect of that magic ink stuff. That had to be it.
They continued onward, following the winding trail until Jasmine had to suck up her pride and ask for a break. She sat down on a tree stump just off of the path. Prince Albert handed her a leather canteen half-full of water and she drank. When she was done she offered him some.
"Don't worry about it," said the prince, "We should conserve it anyway. And I'm not all that thirsty."
"Suit yourself," Jasmine said and took another sip before she popped the cork back on. She handed it back to Prince Albert and he tied it back onto his belt, adjusting the hilt of his sword so it would fit snuggly at his hip.
Jasmine couldn't help herself. "So do you actually know how to use that?" She asked.
"Of course I do!" Prince Albert said, offended. "I'm a prince!"
"Okay, okay, it was just a question," Jasmine said.
"Salin-I mean, Jasmine, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be cross with you. I'm just trying to work this all out. This sword was something... something I thought you would remember." Prince Albert looked away. Something caught his eye.
"It's okay." Jasmine shifted her weight on the tree stump. She discovered a bump she could've sworn wasn't there a minute ago, but she just squirmed until she was comfortable.
"Jasmine," said the prince cautiously, "Jasmine I need you to be very calm."
That was the last thing to say to someone you want to be calm, especially someone like Jasmine. "What? What is it?" She stiffened, tensed.
"Relax okay. Take a breath."
Jasmine took a breath.
"Better?"
Jasmine nodded.
"Okay," whispered the prince as he casually placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, "I'm going to count to three, slowly. When I reach three, jump off of that tree stump as fast as you can. Go to your left. Got it?"
Jasmine nodded again.
"One."
The tree stump grew another bump.
"Two."
The prince gripped his hilt firmly. Jasmine looked into his eyes. He was calm. He paused. Jasmine held her breath.
"Three!"
Jasmine jumped as far to her left as she could. It was farther than she thought she could jump, a testament that she hadn't lost all of her leg strength since retiring from horseback riding. When she turned to look back at Prince Albert, he was face to face with the ugliest thing she'd ever seen. It was like molten lava, only instead of lava it was made of mulch and leaves and dead branches. Its hair was like medusa; instead of snakes, it was sticks. It smelled like compost. The breeze blew the scent Jasmine's way. She wrinkled her nose. Prince Albert held his sword ready, not an ounce of fear. Jasmine looked closer and saw that the thing was bleeding from its stomach, or where she thought its stomach might be. Honestly, Jasmine couldn't tell; it was too much of a mass of dead leaves and decay for her to be sure where anything was except its eyes. Oh, its eyes. They flashed like a cat's. It was angry. The prince's sword dripped with swamp water.
Jasmine made the mistake of blinking. Suddenly, there was a clash, the sound of something snapping, and Prince Albert with his back to the ground struggling to get the thing off of him. The prince grunted under its weight. Jasmine's limbs wouldn't move; she was petrified. If this thing could overpower Prince Albert, she found herself thinking, then she wouldn't stand a chance.
Then, just as Jasmine was sure the prince was a goner, he managed to shove the creature off of him, roll to his knees, and impale it fierce and true. It howled and shrieked and backed away, Prince Albert's sword still sticking out of its side. With a quick flick of his wrist, the prince forced his sword out of the thing. As it fell to its knees, Jasmine couldn't help but feel sorry for it all the sudden. It looked pathetic: a pile of dying greenery desperately hanging onto its last thread of consciousness. Prince Albert whipped the swampy water, the thing's blood, off of his blade and sheathed it. He walked over and held out a hand to Jasmine.
"Are you injured?" He asked.
"I'm," Jasmine stuttered, "No I'm fine." She snuck another glance at the creature.
"We should leave immediately. Nymphs are never as solitary as they seem."
"Yeah-Eek!" Something coiled around Jasmine's ankle and pulled down hard. It was a vine. The prince sliced it off of her, took her hand and dashed off down the path.
"Like I said," he said between breaths, "They're never alone."
Jasmine found herself becoming agitated. She snapped, "Obviously!" Before she could be any angrier, fear took over. There was rustling behind them, like flapping birds or clicking bugs or leaves in the wind. She ripped her hand out of Prince Albert's and sprinted faster. Jasmine surprised herself then; the prince was barely on her tail. A newfound pride swelled in her. At this rate, they'd outrun whatever was behind them in no time. She didn't even feel out of breath yet.
Then everything stopped. Prince Albert let out a pained cry. Jasmine halted to look back and saw the prince buckled over, a vine protruding through his left shoulder. The two nymphs cracked out of the dirt, both of them grabbing one side of him.
Not knowing what to do, Jasmine screamed, "Stop! Let him go!" There was a moment of utter silence where her ears rang.
Then the nymphs hissed in unison, "He's murdered our sister. We will not let him go."
"Your sister was trying to kill me!"
They hissed again, eyes clenched shut. This time it was voiceless. Prince Albert took the opportunity to struggle free, but they caught him again as soon as they regained themselves. It didn't take Jasmine long to figure out what to do then.
"Let him go!" She yelled at the top of her lungs. The nymphs shrunk back, covering the holes on the side of their heads that could only have been used for hearing. Prince Albert staggered forward, gasping and holding his shoulder. It was the most blood Jasmine had ever seen. But she knew what to do now. She took a deep, sharp breath and the nymphs lurched back, anticipating what was coming.
And then Jasmine screeched as loud as she possibly could for as long as she was able. The prince winced. It sounded like a monkey being murdered.
"Stop it," the nymphs pleaded. They fell back and rolled in an episodic tantrum, "Stop it!"
Jasmine didn't stop it. She kept yelling and screaming and making all manner of other horrible loud noises. Anything she could think of, she kept at it. Soon enough, the nymphs backed away, cut their losses, and ran back to their dead sister.
As soon as they were gone, Jasmine leaned over to catch her breath and clear her throat.
Prince Albert told her, "Well done." However glad Jasmine was that the nymphs were gone, her eyes fell on the prince's bleeding shoulder. He was sitting hunched like it was taking an immense amount of effort not to fall over.
"You need a doctor," Jasmine said, "If only Swift hadn't run off."
"Don't blame him."
"Yeah okay," Jasmine tugged the prince up by his good arm and let him lean on her. He was shaking. "So how much farther did you say it was to civilization?"
Prince Albert's silence said it all. He and Jasmine travelled until they reached a nearby ravine. They settled there to rest and clean up the wound as best they could. They both decided to spend the night at the ravine's edge and head out in the morning.