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Zelda had learned not to distract Link until they were well on their way, shooting smoothly towards their destination. She waited, legs crossed under her, while he charted their course, checked the cannon, and eased the train into a steady trundle before finally leaning back in his seat, satisfied.
“I never realized that conducting a train was so tricky,” she reflected. Link hummed softly, and she continued, “Chancellor- um. That is, Cole didn't exactly give me a chance to see any engineers in action.”
There was a touch of bitterness in her voice, long familiar to Link's ears now. He reached for the brake, slowed the train as they rounded a corner, and then pushed it to speed up again before he tilted his head up to Zelda to give her a small, reassuring smile.
“Asshole,” he said lightly, and smirked when she let out a startled laugh.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Yeah... I know I've told you this a dozen times, but it's so freeing to be away from him. Even without my body, I don't know if I would trade back if I could. I always felt like I didn't have the room to even breathe around him. If I'd let him...”
She trailed off then, but Link knew. Cole had been a strangling, awful presence in Zelda's life even before he tried to kill her, and it was only the strength of Zelda's will that had kept her in power.
Zelda gave him a strained smile at his lingering look. “Well! Papa did always say I was my grandmother's child.” Her expression melted into something more thoughtful. “You know, we've been traveling together for months and you've never told me about your family.”
“Niko, Alphonzo,” Link reminded her. She nodded, eyes narrowing in intent as she locked on to the topic. He smiled uncomfortably, looked down, and set the tracks for the next right turn.
“But you must have had parents,” she pressed. “You know what happened to mine.”
Link did. Cole had happened to her parents.
Not that anyone had known that at the time.
The next few minutes passed in silence. Link readjusted for the next left and then leaned out the window, closing his eyes to let the wind ruffle his hair, and kept an ear out for any approaching monsters. The train made one left turn, and then a second, before he pulled himself back inside, combed his fingers through his hair, switched it to right again and looked at Zelda.
My parents didn't want me, he signed at last. They wanted a normal kid. One that liked festivals and talked a lot and ate more than one kind of food. Eventually Niko lost his temper, yelled at them, and took me away. We've been roommates since then. He clicked his tongue a couple of times, uncomfortable with Zelda's wide-eyed expression. Niko had a friend like me when he was young. That's why he got so mad about it.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Is that why you go back to see him so often?”
Link smiled fondly. Yeah. He's a bit daft, but he's more family than the folks ever were. He reached out to slow the train again, yanked on the horn to scare off a cow, and leaned back against the train wall. You won't meet them. Word got around of Niko blowing his top, and people started avoiding them. They took a train within a year and never came back, and good riddance to them.
A few more minutes passed in silence. Link put his head out the window again, smiling into the wind, and watched the landscape sail past. They were in the desert now, and they would be for a while.
“You've never mentioned it before,” Zelda said at last, and she sounded small and vulnerable enough that Link turned to look at her.
He had to wait for her to finally lift her gaze again before he replied, as gentle as he could. It wasn't really like you and Cole. I had no power for them to take away. There wasn't much they could do to keep me from wandering. I wasn't lying when I said I can't imagine what it was like, living with him.
Color flooded her transparent cheeks, and she held his gaze, still looking painfully uncertain. Link shrugged.
They didn't love me, that's all. I don't think they even really tried. I was a stranger in their home, and an unruly one at that. He still remembered. Niko had felt more like family than his parents ever had even on his very first day living with him.
“That's sad,” Zelda said quietly. Link chuckled.
It's okay. I've had Niko and Alphonzo, like I said. And now I have you too, don't I?
For a moment, he couldn't quite restrain his own uncertainty, the flash of loneliness and fear at the thought of Zelda turning her back on him once all was said and done. They wanted to get her body back – and they were so close – but what would come after that?
“Of course,” Zelda said, interrupting his thoughts. She smiled at him, eyes crinkling. “Who else is going to go with me on a wild goose chase all around Hyrule?”
Link had to laugh, relaxing against the wall, and fiddled with the controls for another few minutes to give himself the time to regain his composure. He reached for the cannon controls, aimed, and fired at an oncoming monster before it could get too close, and then turned around in his seat to reset it.
Anyway, trains, he signed when he was done, kicking back, deliberately casual. I thought it would be simple when I first started too. Alphonzo made it seem easy. But it also looks more complicated than it really is, once you learn what everything does. I like it.
“You're pretty young for a train conductor,” Zelda pointed out, allowing him the change of topic. “And I would know.”
There was a touch of humor in her voice that made him smile. Yeah. Alphonzo is a good teacher, and I was pretty excited. Driving a train, it's kind of peaceful. He stuck out his tongue. When you don't have demon trains to avoid, anyway.
Just the mention made Zelda stick her head through the wall and look around, searching the tracks anxiously, and then she pulled back in and scowled at him.
I literally just mentioned them, Link pointed out.
“That's the problem,” she complained. “...You respect Alphonzo a lot.”
Link softened, leaned out the window to check the tracks ahead and then the fields, and leaned back in. Yeah. You know he didn't even hesitate to take me on as a student? He knew sign already, I guess because of his time in the guard, so he said there wasn't any problem. And I think he even meant it.
He hadn't been sure at first, that Alphonzo had meant it. But for all his exasperation and chiding, he'd never been anything less than tolerant of Link's quirks. The same way Link would never know what it was like to live under Chancellor Cole, Zelda would probably never fully understand how much Alphonzo's easy acceptance meant to him.
I'd have asked him for sword lessons if I'd known I'd need them, Link added, and Zelda laughed.