✉ Partners In Heir ✉ Sidlink ✉

✒11✒

The following week was a hollow dreary one as any week before a funeral would be expected to be. Link had not often spoken now. Back to the way before. To calm his nerves he was usually seen crushing hyrule herbs with a pestle and mortar to put into his pipe. If you ate the hyrule herbs you'd be given health. However smoking them was candy for the soul. Fine once in a while, but you couldn't do it too much lest it make you sick. However the hero was at a high in tolerance. He said that many of his family clan could do better with booze but that didn't change that the herbs were still child's play for him at least.
At last the week met its fourth or fifth day. Link could not know for sure if it were either. But Link knew what was to happen today when he saw the familiar jungle. Today the Zora arrived in Lurelin. The village in which people fished and hunted crab. Which confused Link as to why an entire race of fish people would be in such close ties with the people of this land. However he didn't declare a word of his thoughts. His thoughts ought to be merely in his head as opposed to open air, he thought.

The beach. Today sunny and bright. The correct current predicted by royal scientists so to ensure Dorephan was to be carried north west near the Hebra mountains. How Dorephan did love the snow.
Now was time for Sidon to speak to his people as he released his father. The speech being formal as he could muster. "To my Zora, to my Hylian allies, to the goddesses...hear me out for a moment in remembrance of the last Zora in my bloodline that hath past. Remember him as family as I've. Remember him alongside Mipha. Your rightful, and yet passed queen." Sidon's voice gentle but firm all at once. Link's pointed ears heard mumbled charter nearby. "He calls to us to mourn his father like he were our own blood yet mourns not for our dead young," Link's ears turned pink. Burning as he tried formulating focus on his husband and King as opposed to his peers. "This loss burns me equally if not greater than Mipha's due to our memories. Dorephan was more then my father; he was my friend, my mentor, my King as well your own." He added. Then Sidon remembered in the back of his head that behind him in a big wooden raft twice as long as an ordinary one he was dealing with the dead carcass of his father under a tapestry. As soon as he turned he would see the lifeless lumps of something that will be eaten by time. Something that once taught him to walk and speak. Now a shell that would fade to dust. "I..." He started, but did not finish. It was once his flesh and blood. Bone and scale was all it was now. To add to it, someone caused it willingly. "...I will forever..." He began again. Again not finishing. His eye did not tear up. It just stared at the dead prince. Once a king, then retired to prince, then retired from life. "...forever..." Sidon added. His chest heaving and pounding.
       What was this feeling? What Hylians would call anxiety? Did Zora even get that? Did his father feel this way when the Gorons killed him? Could the Spring of Power do anything to aid him? If he prayed to Din, would she revive Dorephan? Or perhaps the creator Lanayru at the Spring of Wisdom? Why could he not just save the body somehow and present him to her statue and ask for his revival?
        No. As an effort it would be for not. "...I will forever miss my father, friend, mentor, and king," Sidon managed to utter. It was faint however. He was just staring at the blanket. It was white as a pearl, unstained not by blood or the elements. Just white and blank as the Prince's face would be underneath. Sidon need not see Dorephan's wrinkled face to know it was lacking in emotion where smiles and laughter once were.

"Dorephan died unlike himself."
       Sidon said that loud. Out loud. Loud enough and firm enough that all Zoran people went in a hush. Everyone could hear a pin drop. Anyone could. Link felt his heart sink. What would Sidon say next?? Hopefully nothing rash? His heart pounded. "Unlike himself on the account that he had..." His voice stopped. A few clouds had come over time. Something Link's Sheika slate confirmed earlier that it would happen back when the sun graced this beach. Now forgotten behind clouds and rain. Some drops falling down as Muzu, who was standing besides Sidon put a hand on his shoulder in an awkward comfort attempt that did not help one ounce.
       A gust of the winds gave many a gentle kiss before the harsh slap and the tapestry went flying. Children for the most part too small to see that the former king had been clearly burned. Sidon dropped the ceremonial spear on the dock and fell to his knees.
"YES! I FEARED IT WAS TRUE AS I WAS TOLD THE NIGHT BEFORE! DOREPHAN HAD BEEN BURNED ALIVE! HYLIA HEARS US NOT! THE KING WAS BURNED ALIVE!"
Whoever said that, be it Sidon, or Muzu or anyone in the crowd had most certainly created an uproar. People screamed in fear of the horrific sight of Dorephan. When he was first killed and everyone saw him, not a burn could be seen.
However now burns were clear. Not even the autopsy reported on chars or burns. "It was all the fault of Gorons who must've known how to kill with magic burns! They did this cause Bludo had gone mad!" One Zora elderly declared. "He died by Goron hands and they shall pay for this!" Some Zora in fresh adult hood began to cheer. "OUR YOUNG! OUR KING! THEIR LIVES!" On repeat.
       Sidon was too shaken to not be angry. Too horrified and enraged not to act. He ripped his eye patch away and stood tall. "OUR YOUNG! OUR KING! AND NOW THEIR DAMNED LIVES! OUR YOUNG! OUR KING! THEIR LIVES!" He howled along. The faces screaming this chant echoed loudly. Link felt need to retreat to the carriage. The Zoran midwife Nyx carrying a crying baby Arthur. Her face ghost white against the purple of her scales and tentacles. "I must beg that you do not allow my son out there!" Link pleaded. The first time he spoke within that day. With a shaken nod and eyes that focused on her ruler standing on the docks, Nyx made the promise not to run.