Years passed and the Vase remained on display.
Guards were the only people that walked past for a long time, but at some point another person started frequently entering.
He slowly aged, and, at some point, was replaced by a younger man, but none of them paid attention to the strange Vase.
That was until one day, at least eight generations later, someone came to fetch the Vase.
He occasionally glanced at a list while searching the pedestals, until his eyes fell on the Vase.
He walked up to it and, after looking back at the list to confirm, covered it in a bag.
The bag was removed a while later, the Vase now standing on a new pedestal in a brightly lit room.
It was surrounded on both sides by dignified looking busts, paintings, and statues.
"Please thank his Majesty on my behalf for this contribution to the exhibition. Who would have thought that the royal treasury had a sculpture from an era that we know so little of!" Two Men were shaking hands as the stood in front of the Vase.
"As you likely know, his Majesty is very interested in history, so please inform me immediately should you discover anything."
The well-dressed Man handed the older, bespectacled Man a card. "I am almost always available."
"Of course! His Majesty took such a precious historical artifact from the treasury and allowed us to research and display it,
the least we can do is share our findings with him." The two Men shook hands again, before the well-dressed man left.
The older Man passionately looked at the Vase after the other Man had left. "I can't wait to begin!"
He somewhat absentmindedly stroked a hand along the side of it. "Such a fascinating piece..."
It looked like it was meant to mock the person it was shaped after. "But then why would it have been kept in the treasury?"
His fingers traced the small wrinkles and folds in the 'skin' where the sculpture's torso bent.
"The details clearly show the dedication put into it, and we can tell that it was made in the image of the Queen, based on the treasury's manifest, and we know that she was still in power at the time, meaning it wasn't made posthumously to mock her.
Why was it hollow? If it was supposed to contain something, then why was the face on the bottom?
Was this the only one of it's kind, or was this a tradition? A trend? Did it have a meaning or purpose, or was it just a decoration?"
He slowly retracted his hand. "If only it could tell us what it knows..."