Impressions
The Graveyard
The path became narrower and narrower… and the general hubbub from the village slowly mellowed to little more than a soft murmur.
So far, he liked Kakariko. It was… calmer than Hyrule City, not quite as crowded. But compared to his life in the forest, it still was a strenuously busy and, most of all, dreadfully noisy affair…
He shook his head, uncomprehending. How people lived with all that clamour, he simply couldn't understand. After the city and now the village he already yearned for a few hours of quiet in the woods back home… stalking through the underbrush with the triplets, or listening to Saria play…
Maybe that was why he was heading to the graveyard… a precious few moments of silence… But no. That would be a lie.
Link couldn't quite explain why he was drawn to it… It wasn't some sort of morbid fascination with death but… well, back at home, there had been no need for such a place. None of the Kokiri ever died… they were eternally children…
The concept of aging, of death, was a new one to his inexperienced mind. Sure, he had seen how animals didn't make it through the winter, how trees went dry inside and hollow… but to think that all of these laughing, shouting, blustering faces he had seen in those couple of days would one day go slack and pale and never more again… It frightened him. And whenever there was fear in his heart, he had to confront it, find a way to understand it, learn until its bite was little more than a feeble nibble.
…But how do you confront death?
The path opened again and behind a mouldy looking palisade, the first gravestones fell into view. By now, almost complete silence reigned… but it wasn't the type of silence you had amidst healthy trees, when wind made the leaves dance above and tiny critters rustled over the earth below. This was a very different kind… One that made his mouth uncomfortably dry…
He thought about how far he'd had to walk out here… It seemed the other Hylians, despite its inevitability, liked to keep death as far away as possible…
With hesitant steps Link passed through the palisade gate, feeling quite tiny facing the wide field of the dead… The whole space seemed to be cut partly from a hill, as all three walls that weren't leading back to the village were of natural rock. He couldn't even begin to guess how many tombstones there were… hundreds? Thousands? He felt reminded of the unending hustle and bustle of the market in Hyrule City with all its many, densely packed people, all its life… except that this was the exact opposite.
A few mourners wandered the pathways between the rows of graves… The paths looked… as if someone was keen and diligent at keeping them neat and tidy, but couldn't quite keep with the natural decay.
The mourners all were quiet… even in the one group of young-ish men, no word broke the silence. Soldiers, maybe? Visiting a deceased comrade?
A little off sat an old man with a walking stick, who had sat down so laboriously that Link had his doubts he would be able to rise again… He didn't seem perturbed, however and just gently petted the earth in front of a simple, granite stone.
A soft breeze tickled his nose, bringing with it the smell of flowers and freshly dug earth… Life and death… None of the people here were happy, but… in their sadness, there was peace. Even the young woman who quietly wept, leaning against a marble tombstone seemed to calm slowly, her obvious grief gradually losing the searing hotness with every shed tear.
It was a sombre image, all in all… but not a scary one.
Tentatively, he left the rickety fence he had leaned against to observe, ready now to walk among the graves, see more… learn more.
"Hat off in here, kid. Show the deceased some respect!" a gruff voice came from behind, making him yelp in surprise. The man who had spoken looked horrific! His skin yellowed and weatherbeaten, it seemed to hang too loosely from his skull and he had a massive overbite, with most of his teeth already missing. He gazed at him sternly, but his expression mellowed when he saw how he had startled the boy.
"Sorry… didn't mean to scare you." he grumbled, actually looking a tiny bit ashamed. "I'm Dampé the Gravekeeper! My face may be scary, but I'm not a bad guy…"
Link's heart immediately opened for the poor old man when he heard the sorrow and regret of decades in his voice. And the shame… He tried talking to him, to learn more about the 'Gravekeeper', a man who has chosen to watch over the dead. The blonde boy quickly understood how uneasy Dampé was about speaking to others, especially strangers, and soon curbed his curiosity so he wouldn't cause undue stress. Only when the old geezer brought the conversation to something he called the 'Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour' did he briefly open up, burbling his advertisement excitedly and cordially inviting Link and all his friends. When he talked with such enthusiasm, Link could see that, once, this man must have been of impressive build… and that the years may have bent his body, but not his spirit, odd as it may be.
With a slightly forced smile, he agreed to meet after sundown, feeling decidedly queasy about it…
Holding his green cap in his hand now, he meandered through the graveyard once Dampé had resumed his work. He read many of the uncountable inscriptions. Most of them were in loving memory of the old, a few of terribly, terribly young people.
A grieving widow, all in black, about 50 years of age if he was any judge, which he really wasn't, glanced askance at him, probably expecting him to be some sort of troublemaker. He awarded her one of his open smiles, to which, after a moment, she answered in kind, albeit sorrowfully.
Slowly but surely, his feet carried him to the very back of the cemetery, to a section that was clearly separated from the rest by well kept hedges and fences. Unable to resist his innate curiosity, he strolled around until he found a hole in the hedge, through which he quickly snuck after a quick glance around, making sure he wasn't observed.
There were tombs here as well, but much larger, more ornate, some were even in the shape of tiny cabins one could enter.
The largest, however, was at the very back, up on a little mound. Link immediately spotted the Triforce symbol, which, he had learned, was the insignia of the royal family. Three perfect triangles forming a larger one…
His minds instantly wandered to his encounter with the princess… Zelda… he actually mouthed her name as he thought it, liking the way it rolled off his tongue. A tiny grin made his lips curl up as he remembered her, how despite her magnificent dress she had eagerly sat down into the grass with him, how they had spoken so normally, how she had known and understood so much…
He shook his head free of the mellow, balmy memory, wondering what the heck was wrong with him. Stretching up, he gingerly touched the relief of the Triforce in the stone… he wasn't quite sure why…
A raindrop pattered onto his cheek, a second later another one on his hand. All around, he could hear the rich splashing of heavy drops, playing an interesting concert on stone, wood, earth and leaf.
He gazed at the tombstone again… These were Zelda's ancestors… the royal families before the current one. She had in passing mentioned that she only had her father the king as family… the only time her blue eyes had seemed sad…
With a sudden sense of guilt, Link wondered whether he had somehow disturbed her mother's peace by coming here… He still knew so little about, well, anything outside of the forest… The idea bothered him immensely and he tried to think of something he could do to appease anyone he might have disturbed.
The rain fell more densely now, a rising crescendo of sounds, the smell of wet earth tickling his nose.
Following a sudden impulse, he took Saria's highly-valued Ocarina from his bag… The song that scary woman Impa had taught him still rang crisply in his ears. 'An ancient melody passed down by the royal family', Impa had called it. 'There is mysterious power in these notes…'
A slight shiver ran through him from head to toe. He closed his eyes to focus on the melody. The rain was pouring now, drenching him through to his skin, but he didn't care. He had to prove he was a friend of Princess Zelda's, so the dead wouldn't be angry.
With his fingers already numb from the cold, he began to play…