Her Proposal, His Answer

Toyo and Lugal carefully stepped around the perimeter of the strange marking. A distinct shape that appeared as if burnt into the ground. Petrified almost. “Has anyone ever seen a design like this?” Lugal asked. Ohr, the groundskeeper, shook his head, with the warden remaining silent.

“No one has been able to figure it out,” Ohr confirmed, “If you pay close attention, this mausoleum is protected by a mild preservation script. A trade that is a staple of your family, young man. Whatever happened, the script could be what’s causing it to take so long to disappear.”

“So, you’re saying it could have been here for… what? A couple hundreds of years?” Toyo asked. The groundskeeper tipped his head to the side, before faintly handing her an apprehensive nod.

“Even as long as fifteen hundred years?” Toyo pressed with urgency, feeling that she was getting closer each day to uncovering what this world was hiding, though increasingly frustrated with scattered scraps of information.

“It’s possible I suppose,” the groundskeeper replied indifferently.

Toyo began trotting around, murmuring to herself as she questioned what to make of it all. Lugal was equally in a rut of his own, trying to piece together what his family truly meant to the village and why they left.

With her mind idling and her thoughts growing stale, Toyo then turned towards the others, questioning if there were relics still on the land.

“Anything left would have to be inside the house,” Ohr noted.

“Do you mind if I look inside?” she readily asked.

Ohr gave a slight nod to Lugal, shifting the responsibility to him, with him returning a passive shrug. They soon turned back towards the home, with the groundskeeper beckoning them inside.

As she stepped inside, Toyo felt a touch of comfort in the similarities it shared with houses back in Japan. Like with the rest of the village the likeness was imperfect, its parallels only reaching so far, but it was enough to kindle a fragile feeling like she had finally returned home.

The house was moderate in size, spanning two floors with each room mostly filled with old furniture and photographs of Lugal’s family. Notably all taken in front of the mausoleum. Nonetheless, scouring the house didn’t turn up anything that seemed important, which Toyo somehow figured would be the case.

“Have you been here before?” Toyo asked to Lugal, whose face turned eschew.

“I was rather young when we left the village… From what I know, neither myself nor my parents have ever lived on the Enmai Mausoleum land.” Easing his back against the wall, he began to dig into his own thoughts. “I guess my granddad did, but he must’ve moved into the village before my dad was born.”

“Something keep you all away?” Toyo questioned, the detachment she felt between Lugal and his family lineage echoing what her mother left behind when she abandoned the family shrine.

“Memories I guess,” Lugal gently answered. “I think my great-grandfather was a bit of an asshole. For whatever reason my parents never spoke about him, nor does my grandad. But recently he began talking about him more often when word of the incident reached the Uru’s Path. He apparently thinks of this place like the breeding ground for a cult, and our family as brainwashed followers who built this place to worship a fake story. Aside from my parents that I check in with every now and then, my grandad is really the only family I know. Aunts and Uncles… I wouldn’t recognize them from the everyday stranger traveling down the road.”

Toyo had empathy for Lugal’s disjointed family, but the patchwork of answers that continued to plague her search began to eat away at her optimism.

They left the house, with Ohr and the warden still standing at the doorway in waiting.

“I take it your search wasn’t as fruitful as you’d hoped?” the groundskeeper stated, the placid look on their faces telling.

“They call this a mausoleum, is there actually a body buried here?” Toyo probed, still keen on finding whatever answers she could.

“Why are you questioning the integrity of the Ontsu Village?” the warden suddenly bit back.

With Lugal’s story about why his family left the village still lingering in her head, she couldn’t help but see through his grandfather’s eyes as she peered at the warden. “Because if you don’t, then eventually everything becomes hyperbole,” she countered, her straightlaced tone like a dagger pointed at the warden. She knew he wouldn’t take lightly to it, but her conviction was clear. “Like I promised, I don’t mean to disrespect anyone’s beliefs or your history… but questioning things rather than blindly following should stand for something.”

“Be quiet.”

The warden had no interest in entertaining Toyo’s discourtesy, seeing it as a privilege for him to have even allowed her to step foot on a land she had no right to defile with her presence. Ohr, however, didn’t share the same temperament as the warden. Looking to reinsert how Toyo’s words should be welcomed rather than defended against.

“Warden, it’s not often we get to hear the opinion of a third party, please.”

Acquiescing to the groundskeeper’s appeal, it was clear that he held Ohr in high regard. The warden took a step back, opening the floor for Toyo’s suggestions.

“Maybe the mausoleum should be opened,” she shockingly proposed.

“And what would we gain from such an arduous task?” questioned the groundskeeper.

“Truth… I hope,” answered Toyo. “I doubt this location was chosen for this mausoleum just because it was convenient. That crop circle thing proves that. The relics that you said were found here all point to that being the case. This Kaeuku-no-Mai, I’m sure they had a connection to it somehow.”

The groundskeeper shook his head, his entire body rejecting Toyo’s desperate hail mary shot.

“Young lady, none of us are in search of these explanations that you talk of. Defiling the sanctity of this here land for whatever personal affairs you have would be unheard of.”

“What if the owner of the land permitted it?”

Lugal’s interjection bulldozed the groundskeeper’s attempt to draw a line. But more so, it infuriated the warden who decided to no longer sit idly by.

“Enough!”

Slam!

His staff collided with the ground, sending a roaring wave of vibration lashing outwards. Toyo stumbled, the force nearly knocking her off her feet.

“Your visit to the mausoleum has ended. Leave at once.”