Chapter Fifteen:
The ten days that had passed after the time spent at the Hylia were the longest and the most eventful in terms of searches, rumors, and grief. The days had gone slowly and stretched out into the wee hours of night before the dawn of the new day slowly made its way onto the horizon; had anything else happened at the lakeside then the ten days wouldn't have seemed so long. It was nothing short of a miracle the days afterward had seemingly started to run as normal, as though Time itself had finished weeping for something that had been lost. The land itself had grown cold during the night, a frosty haze fell before the sun rose and as it melted, the shadows of grief washed upon the land were the haze had once been - this cycle lasted for a few days longer before it evaporated then the normal cycle of the seasons began once again. It was as though the Goddesses themselves had wept for what had been lost.
No more then an hour had passed when the riders had galloped back to the palace when rumors had already started as to where the queen had gone off to or, if she hadn't, what had befallen her at what should've been a protected place. It had started with the Gerudo kidnapping her, since their leader and a small band of them had been seen in the Market the same day the queen, the princess-heir, and the guards had left the confines of the castle-town to go wherever the king had told them to go. This gave into this rumor if any of the Royal Family left the comforts of the township without a legion of soldiers behind them that something tragic would've happened to them; with only three guards and a Sheikah attendant, it would have been easier to have taken the queen away with the Hylia so close to the entrance to the desert. Others claimed Kaya had run away when no one was looking and was somewhere else now, hiding as a commoner in a far away town in another land outside of Hyrule. With guards combing every inch of the town, all of Hyrule, and three miles beyond the border it was easy to assume this since there were plenty of places to hide outside the range of searching. Even the Gorons and Zora got involved in the search, going into places where the Hylian Guards could not; if the Kokiri were approached in helping the search not one of the guards said so, since there were few that went into the Woods and even fewer that came out. Whether or not they found anything was unknown until the eighth day the queen was missing when all searches were called off and the soldiers returned back without the queen or her body. Or so the guards and king said.
On the eighth day the undertaker had been secretly commissioned to create a casket fitting Kaya's height and weight, at least the rumor had said. No one outside the undertaker and gravedigger were supposed to know of this but by mid-day on the ninth day, the entirety of Hyrule knew what no one had suspected: Kaya was dead, or at least that was what everyone assumed the next day when the casket was delivered to the castle during the mid-morning Market rush. Never in the common folks memory did the entire Market freeze like that before dusk, never had been that silent when something had been delivered to the castle. That was when everyone knew something was terribly wrong and that their queen, the one that had rose from a simple farmer girl to royalty, was gone. No one outside of the king and the undertaker knew that the casket had been made on the second day of the search, as the king himself knew that looking for Kaya would be looking for a needle in a field of haystacks. He didn't need to search for her, as he knew as soon as Impa had barged into his study that fateful day that Kaya was beyond searching for even if he could not find her body.
The Royal Family had been silent until the dawn of the tenth day when the guards and a "grieving" king announced that Kaya was no longer among the living and that she would be buried in Kakariko later in the day, after the noon bell tolled. In truth there was no body to bury in the graveyard, no headstone that would truthfully mark where the empty grave would be since there was no way to tell that Kaya was really dead but rather an empty lie of a date of death that wasn't true. The commoners would be able to follow the casket to the entrance to Kakariko's graveyard that day before noon, then the Royal Family would go inside and privately bury the empty casket. No one would know the difference since Kaya had never been found dead or alive and, in the king's mind, it would be wiser to do a more private search for her until otherwise noted. The less the commoners knew, the less of a chance there would be a hope they believed she was alive and less of a chance that he would not lose face with the common folk.
The commoners had little time to prepare for when the empty casket would be moved from the castle grounds and move through the Market square. Until this day not once since the months leading after the end of the wars that broke Hyrule into pieces had the Market been empty; no merchant was selling their wares, no kids were flying kites in the square, no one was going from stall to stall looking for bargains and items to buy. The stalls had been pushed back by merchant and buyer alike to accommodate the amount of people that lined the path from the castle to the entrance of the township all the way to the entrance to the road leading up to the castle. All that gathered there, from the smallest babe to the oldest grandfather, wore black and had their head down in respect for the lost queen that they wouldn't soon forget. The casket had not even made it past the gate leading to the castle when every commoner in the township had lined up to catch a glimpse of the mourning Royal Family and to pay a small bit of respect to the departed queen.
Twenty guards were in front, leading the single horse-drawn carriage that had a simple white cloth draped over it to cover the empty box. The guards leading the carriage glared down at the morning commoners from underneath their helmets as though they dared anyone to reach out to touch any part of the cloth, casket, or carriage; they silently dared anyone to make a move, to make a sound, in grief. They had little reason to be there other then to make sure that the commoners did not follow the remaining Royal Family to the graveyard, keeping any secrets they had inside that very graveyard. Few paid any heed to the sour mood of the guards, tears and sobs breaking the silence of those lined on the streets; the commoners only looked up when two horses carrying Princess Zelda, her attendant Impa, and the King rode past them as they moved behind the carriage.
The princess-heir clung tightly to the Sheikah in an attempt to hold onto the last bit of comfort she had left in this World, both riding the same horse together; the king barely acknowledged their presence and the commoners themselves received no such attention themselves. They took the stoic, emotionless stare ahead as grief and a quiet mourning, so unlike the small child in her attendant's arm's. Zelda knew her mother was gone out of her life and the only one who could protect her now was the one who held an arm around her shoulders and was watching the crowd with a weary eye, as though she expected something to jump out at the procession at any given moment. If any one person present looked closely enough they would have seen near dried tears on the Sheikah's cheeks otherwise both she and the king remained expressionless as the wind as they followed the carriage out of the township and through the field towards Kakariko.
The commoners tried to follow the Royal Family but five of the twenty guards that had lead the carriage remained behind to guard the entrance to the castle-town so that no one would follow the Royal Family to Kakariko. The king and princess-heir required privacy for the burial of the casket, no commoners were allowed to disturb them for the next several hours while they put the casket into the ground and a prayer was sent up to the Goddesses. If they wanted to pay their respects to the queen the grave keeper would allow them to do so a day or two after the burial; for now only the Royal Family was allowed in the graveyard and would remain so for the rest of the day.
This was watched by the Zora when it moved over the bridge that sat not too far from the village and stopped at the steps of Kakariko village. Only a few of the Zora had come out of the river water and were kneeling on the ground, watching as six of the remaining guards took the casket down out of the carriage and begun to ascend the stairs into the village. Unlike the town folk the Zora did not weep for the queen nor look at the king and his daughter as they dismounted their horses and fell behind the casket, keeping their gaze elsewhere. Instead they kept their eyes on Impa, who only nodded towards them as she followed closely behind Zelda; they understood that the burial was more then what it seemed but knew little else outside of it and wouldn't say anything unless the Sheikah or their own king told them otherwise. And, unlike the townspeople, the Zora did not try to follow the last of the Royal Family into the village, even when three of the remaining guards stood as a watch at the entrance of Kakariko.
The villagers of Kakariko had precious little extra time to prepare for the arrival of Kaya's empty casket then the townspeople of the castle-town did but only by a half of a day. Women and children lined on side of the path to the graveyard, the other side was lined with the men; they all had their heads bowed down in respect as the casket went by them but very few wept actual tears for what was lost. Even as the crying princess-heir walked by the villagers did not cry nor look up at the king. The villagers simply fell behind Impa in two straight lines and followed behind until they were stopped by the six remaining guards left to lead. From there no one else was allowed to enter the graveyard until the next day when all of Hyrule could pay their respects to the queen. Where her actual grave was no one would know; flowers and other tokens would be laid at the entrance to the graveyard over the coming weeks, more tears would be shed for a queen that was never found.
Only one person in the small group knew what had actually happened to the queen and she would not speak of it for years to come. What others knew, it was not the time to tell.
XXX
The Zora weren't the only ones that watched the casket enter Kakariko from the outside. From the direction of the desert sat three lone figures on top of three dark horses, all watching as the backs of the Royal Family moved out of their view and into the village itself, their eyes moving along the path the casket had taken. They watched as the Zora stared at the empty stairs for another ten minutes after the remaining Royal Family had long since gone into Kakariko before the ones on land moved back into the water and all of the Zora present swam back towards the Domain without so much as a look behind them. It was a quiet mourning for them, one that would be rattled still in the days and weeks to come by more searching, so silent unlike the searching that had happened over the course of eight days before it was suddenly called off. If they did not find anything then what made anyone think they could find something now?
The riders on the horses sat somewhat patiently, not moving from their spot; all three were female, with the dark olive skin and long red hair of the Gerudo. They weren't there to steal or to make discord with farmers or passing merchants - the passing of the queen did that for them - nor were they there to disrupt the service held briefly by the Royal Family. They were only there to watch and bring back information to their king; what he wanted with the queen was nothing short of mysterious to them and it was none of their business to question him directly, they would know when he told them. They were just there to observe until the king and princess-heir left the village and went back to the castle-town before the three riders would make their move either back to the Desert or to the village where, hopefully, the world started up again as it should.
"Should we follow them?" One of the riders asked, nodding towards Kakariko. "The guards wouldn't be too hard to overcome."
The rider in the middle frowned. "No, we stay here until the Royal Family leaves then we go in. There's no need for them to see us just yet."
"What are we looking for exactly?" The first questioned once again. She was a rather inexperienced thief and did not know that in order to keep away from being caught one must not go into the trap of allowing one to see them. "If we were to go inside..."
"No, we're not going inside just yet!" The third snapped, turning in her saddle to glare at the younger Gerudo. "We're here only to observe and to look into the village as to see where they buried the queen. We are just looking for things our leader wishes to look upon."
"We try not to ask those types of questions, child, only follow the orders given." The second rider pointed in the direction of the retreating Zoras. "If you want to follow something and sneak into someplace, follow the fish. They may know something the Royal Family doesn't. Just don't get caught, it won't be our fault if you get fed to the Zora's big fish."
The younger Gerudo glared at the smirks the others gave her from underneath their veils, muttering something under her breath about staying put and trying not to anger anyone. Turning back towards the village entrance the riders continued to stare at the stone steps. There they would wait until they could go about their business elsewhere then return home to report what they found to Ganondorf. Such was the life of the thieves, always waiting, always watching.
XXX
There was one other presence, a more peaceful creature, that was watching the Royal Family but this one soared easily over the rocky formation that separated Kakariko from the rest of the field instead of just watching from the outside. It had moved from deep within the Lost Woods and flew towards the village slowly; this creature, after all, was an ancient animal and traveling as such took time to get where it needed to go even if it found the body it inhabited to be cumbersome. There was no hurry to get to the village and beyond to the graveyard before the Royal Family, they nor the guards nor the Sheikah would pay an owl any mind as far as he knew. An old bird could not tell secrets to those unwilling to hear.
The owl perched on top of one of the houses inside Kakariko for rest once it had entered the village, tilting it's head to the side as it stared at the graveyard's entrance for a few seconds. To such a creature death did not need an elaborate show for the departed or, for this such owl, a display for the common folk and other assorted creatures of the land. Had the casket been otherwise occupied then there would have been no reason for it to come out of it's rest and it's home, for it knew the casket wasn't occupied just like the Sheikah knew it wasn't. The shifts in the pool of Time ten days earlier had awoken more then just an owl but something much large then that, something that it hadn't expected to happen so soon. It could feel the change already being made and that change would be for better or for worse, depending on if the fate and destiny that had been kick-started would be for better or worse.
The owl pushed itself off of the rooftop several minutes later and glided towards the graveyard, being ignored by the mourning villagers and stoic guards alike. If these mere mortals knew anything about what the owl knew their minds would not be able to fathom everything completely, confusion would set in and they wouldn't know how to cope with the knowledge the owl knew. The Sheikah were the closest to being able to understand and even they, in all of their secrets, prophecies, and darker magic, still could not begin to comprehend what this creature knew and saw. This was the reason why it was out there, to know for sure that the current felt had come from the source no longer in the World and to make sure that at least one destiny was fulfilled before the other came to pass. If the first prophecy didn't happen, if it wasn't fulfilled like it should, then the queen's departure from this World would be for nothing; the owl was there to make sure that everything went according to plan.
By the time the owl perched itself on a headstone as far away from the Royal Family as it could get the casket was already being lowered into the ground. It was being laid to rest into farthest spot from the graveyard entrance possible with no headstone at the moment and no way of telling that someone was buried there except for the freshly dug dirt. Even that would be forgotten once the dirt settled and no one remembered the burial of a queen that wasn't there, at least not until a proper headstone was put there some months later when the king eventually put one there. There wasn't even a prayer said for the missing queen, no one muttering anything to the Three Goddesses to keep her safe from spirits of the other Worlds, nothing other then the lowering of the casket into the cold, dark ground. The king didn't allow that, not even for the sake of his daughter that didn't even know that the casket was empty.
The owl watched the gravedigger carefully as the deformed man crawled out of the hole where the casket lay and stood there for a moment, waiting awkwardly for the Royal Family to give the signal to finish the burial. None of the six guards that had carried the casket bothered to help him out nor did they stay to help shovel the dirt into the hole once the king motioned to continue with the burial. Each guard turned and walked towards the entrance with the king, princess-heir, and Sheikah remaining behind long enough to say their own personal prayers for the queen's soul. The owl did not need to get closer to them to hear the child's sobs or see the Sheikah's glare to the sky above; only the king seemed to be in control of his emotions and did little at best to prove that he mourned the woman that had been married to. When he turned around to walk out of the graveyard the owl took notice that there was a scowl on his face, a deep set anger that radiated from his eyes all the way down to the snarl on his lips. He, like the creature suspected and like the guards before him had, took no notice of the owl sitting on the headstone. Insane curses were uttered as a random mumbling should anyone overhear him, the owl ignoring the king as he did the animal; the man that passed him was of no concern to him and had been of no real destiny that the owl knew of.
The Sheikah and princess-heir stayed at the grave a while longer, the woman picking up the weeping child and turning around to walk out and leave nothing behind. Unlike the king and guards, the Sheikah stopped several headstones away once she was out of earshot of the gravedigger, her head turning towards the owl with an amused look on her otherwise emotionless face as she bowed her head in respect to the ancient creature. This action startled it as few, if any, took notice to a feathered creature sitting in silence, especially one that had seen so many generations come and go as it had. It had not expected the Sheikah to pause and look at it, much less look as though she knew something greater had happened and greater she had seen. Sheikah often did and this one was no exception, even more so that she would be part of several destinies yet to come.
"She isn't here nor is she where the king wants everyone to believe she is," the woman told the owl. "I suppose you know that by now."
The owl blinked as the Sheikah turned and walked away from it; those words were as calm as her face was. She had kept her voice low enough and directed towards the animal so that it would not startle the child in her arms, if the child understood her words at all or had heard them. It took the creature a moment to understand what those words meant and it wasn't a pleasant thought at first but soon it understood what it meant, that eventually would calm whatever nerves it would have. If the owl had facial expressions like the humanoids in this Realm then it would have been twisted in a grimace; maybe next time it would appear as a humanoid creature so that it could contort it's face in dissatisfaction or maybe even annoyance. The Sheikah knew more then she should have, but he also knew that she had a better insight than the rest of the Sheikah did.
It was surprising that the Sheikah had noticed the owl since it had not been in the direct line of sight of anyone that had watched over the placement of the casket and had not called out it's presence to them. It hadn't gone out of it's way to make itself known and the king and his guards had not taken notice of the owl, so why did the Sheikah? Did she know what had caused the waves in Time to shift like that? Or was it's mind finally turning into the creature it took as it's current shape? No, the owl knew but did not want to fully believe that something like this was happening.
The owl turned it's head bleakly around the graveyard, it's aged eyes looking over the headstones. How many of these persons who served the Royal Family - how many generations of the Family itself - had passed since it had last came into this place? The number of headstones did not give an accurate count to the number of bodies that were in the graves and there were several unmarked graves such as the one that had just been filled; even the gravedigger himself did not know of the secrets the graveyard possessed, even as he cared for the land he didn't know the full truth of it. The owls Realm and the Realm of these two-legged beings were different; a minute in it's own little world could be an hour in this one. How many years had passed since it had seen a queen live into her prime and beyond? It feared the princess-heir would lead down the same path as her mother if she was not careful enough and events did not play out as according to plan.
The owl remained on the headstone long enough to watch the deformed man pat down the last bit of dirt on the grave before he started to walk to his shack, shovel in hand and fresh dirt on his clothes. By now dusk was starting to settle in and night would fall shortly; the land was now past it's mourning phase and so was it's people. The owl had no reason to be there any longer, flapping it's wings and lifting off into the sky. It had seen what it needed to see and confirmed what it had already known. Now it had to wait for destiny to finish what had started in this World. Perhaps the Three Goddesses were really looking upon this land after all.