Dearly Departed

Konbei quickly left Rausten's office and made his out of the castle to search for Gwene.

(The next morning.)

Rausten had left the castle at first light with a search party to look for Gwene, but also to find where the other kidnap victims are.

Attics joined the search party to find his nephew.

For the next week, Hyrule had mounted its biggest search ever to find the missing people, however they came up with nothing.

Rausten was sitting in his office in the castle, the sun beginning to set. It had been over a week without any possible leads to what had happened to the victims, and it had been almost 6 months since the first victim had been taken. Rausten was left with no choice, if they couldn't find any clue to the disappearences by the end of next week, the entire case would have to be dropped and the missing presumed dead.

Attics threw his helmet on the ground when he heard the case was being closed.

"Like Hell it is!" he shouted at Rausten. "If you're not going to help me then I'll find them myself!"

Rausten was about to speak and explain it was out of his hands and that he had protocol to follow, but decided against it and allowed Attics to leave.

=5 year time skip=

It had been 5 years to the day that Gwene had gone missing, she was the final victim in whatever was taking people against their will.

For the 3 months after the final disappearance the investigations and searches continued, but to no luck, with great reluctance from both Rausten and Princess Zelda, the case was dropped and those missing presumed dead. Throughout the kingdom they mourned for their missing kin, Zelda held a memorial service and revealed a monument in their honour, of the three goddesses holding the triforce above them. The plaque read To the memory of the missing, you will all be sorely missed underneath was the list of names of those that had been missing.

Everyday since the monument was erected, Princess Zelda always took a single red rose and a candle, to honour the missing. Her best friend, Gwene, one of the bunch and final name on the board. Gweneth Longoria. (Yes, that is her true name.)

Konbei stood in front of the monument with his hands in his pockets. He toed the the base of the structure and kept his eyes downcast.

Over the course of the five years, he had tried to move on, he really had. But nothing he had with anyone else ever amounted to what he had with Gwene and so he eventually gave up. Logically he knew she was probably dead, but he still hoped that one day something would point him in the right direction to finally finding her and every day without fail he asked Rausten if anything had come but the answer was always the same.

The thought of seeing Gwene again had simmered down to wishful thinking...

Princess Zelda had made her way down to the monument, a red rose and a candle in her hand, she spotted Konbei and went over to him "Hello Konbei. How are you?"

It had been 5 years to the day that Gwene had gone missing.

"Fine," he said indifferently.

Zelda laid the candle at the base of the goddesses and lit the candle with a small flame she created with Din's Fire. She lay the rose beside it and stood away to look at it. "I really miss her to."

The heat from the candle started to melt the small ice sculpture of a flower Konbei had placed on the monument. He turned and began to walk away.

Zelda sighed. She felt really sorry for Konbei, she really did.

She looked over the names and recognised a few, what had really happened to them? She wished she could find out. She turned to walk away, suddenly a loud bang and a white flash erutped, Zelda screamed unknow what was happening and was thrown across the courtyard.

Konbei was startled by the flash and quickly looked back over his shoulder.

When the flash had died down, a whole bunch of people were standing in its place.

Zelda picked herself up off of the ground and looked at the people. A small crowd had gathered around, unsure of what was going on?

People had crowded in front of Konbei, blocking his view.

One of the bunch was Gwene, she opened her eyes, thinking she had dozed off on the way back home from the lake, but she was standing in Castle town, but how did she get here? Last she remembered was walking back to the Castle along the trail.

Zelda had stood and looked upon the people that were in front of her, she scanned all of the faces and found one she could not believe "Gwene?!?" she found herself yelling in surprise.

Konbei heard Zelda calling Gwene's name. It couldn't be his Gwene, could it?

He started to push through the crowds, knocking some people off their feet in his eagerness. He broke through the fringe of the crowd and saw her standing there. He tried to say her name but found his throat had dried up and his head pounding.

"Gwene..." He finally managed to say.

Gwene heard her name called twice, she looked around and spotted Zelda first and went over to her. "Hi there, what's going on?"

Zelda took Gwene's hands in her own, she didn't know what to say or how to feel, she then pulled her into a hug, with tears beginning to whell up.

"Whoah!" Gwene said returning her hug "What's up?"

"What's up?" Zelda said "You've been missing for 5 years, that's what."

"What?" Gwene pulled away from Zelda "How, I only saw you about 4 hours ago."

Konbei walked up to them, shock written all over his face. He just stared at Gwene in disbelief. "Gwene... your back?"

Gwene spotted him and flashed a smile "Well, hello there."

"What the hell happened?!" Konbei said.

Gwene shrugged "I'm not entirely sure."

Zelda studied Gwene, something was different "You have been missing for 5 years, and yet, it doesn't look like you have aged in the slightest."

"This is too bizarre..." Konbei said. "Don't you remember anything?"

Gwene shook her head "I just remember walking back to the castle for tonight when we were meeting at Kakariko Village." she still hadn't gotten over the fact that 5 years had passed. "I dozed off and woke up back here."

"What? How..." Konbei looked at Zelda, hoping she had some logical explanation.