Chapter Text
Judging from the mutterings Link was hearing, other people had a very different impression of Princess Zelda than he did.
“She’s so young and inexperienced. I just don’t know if she’s ready to be queen, yet.”
“I hear she spends all her time at the beach! What can she possibly know about running her country?”
“And I keep seeing that teacher of hers gallivanting all over the place on trains, too. When is he even teaching her anything?”
It was maddening! What did these people even know? Had they even ever talked to her? He’d seen a strength in her from the moment he met her at the engineer ceremony. She’d walked in and he’d felt a jolt just from her presence. He’d expected to be dazzled by her beauty. By the sparkle of her crown, the elegance of her clothes, the way her golden locks framed her face. That’s what everyone else seemed to talk about. But what had struck him the most was the way Princess Zelda’s eyes had crinkled at the edges when she smiled at him, warm and genuine and kind and clearly glad to meet a new engineer at graduation. She must had done this over and over but it wasn’t a formality to her, the ceremony mattered. The engineers mattered a lot to the kingdom, that’s why he’d wanted to be one; that’s how he’d made it through all his training to be standing there that day. But he hadn’t been prepared to feel so seen by the princess. Even with Cole’s snarky commentary trying to rush them along, she’d made him feel appreciated. Valued. Like he was becoming part of something bigger than just himself.
And then of course she’d made an even stronger impression on him, slipping him that note and recruiting her newest engineer to help her. The princess was so clever. She’d already known something was wrong and had been doing research and making plans while her guards were doing nothing more than griping about Cole being too uppity. Sure she hadn’t figured it all out, but she had good instincts and was quick to adapt. How could these people not see how much she was doing already? She’d been protecting them all for as long as he’d known her, and making things better behind… the… scenes.
Oh.
Link suddenly realized why he kept hearing people complain that she was at the beach all the time. He lived at the beach! They were complaining because she was visiting him! But those weren’t social calls. They’d set up regular meetings so he could keep her up to date on things he saw in the course of his engineer duties, and so she could coordinate with him to make sure that, say, bridges were inspected and fixed on time, or the rabbit rescue guy had more volunteers and funding for food in the spring when everyone was over-run with so many baby bunnies. Link took batches of kids over to help and pet bunnies every week last spring because Zelda had figured out when help was needed. She’d been quietly making things run smoothly and these people had no idea! Wait, did they think he was just incredibly good at showing up at the right time and making sure things went well? Did they think he had some great intuition? They were missing on all the planning and coordination that it had taken so he was there with the right supplies or the right people!
And that was his fault. He’d been the one to suggest that she visit him rather than him coming to the castle. She was his best friend, and he thought she needed some time away from the castle and all its rules. Alfonzo and Niko and everyone had learned to treat her like they did him, as person. A person who they could show love to with teasing and food and letting her show off her quick witted snark, rather than an untouchable symbol. He liked that even though they were doing hard work, real work, they could visit like friends and make jokes about giant spiders stealing cargo off the trains without anyone freaking out (no, the spiders didn’t actually steal cargo, they just slowed the trains down). If he was honest with himself, he’d gotten tired of the maids and everyone popping in on them in the castle with increasingly less subtle “chaperone” vibes. It was hard to get anything done with that kind of scrutiny, and it was easier to be somewhere so they could talk without someone taking an offhand comment too seriously. And yes, somewhere they could talk included the beach on nice days. Why wouldn’t it?
But that was just the recent work they’d been doing together. She’d been to every city with him while they were restoring the spirit tracks! Didn’t these people re...mem...ber. Oh no. She’d been a spirit then. Link thought back. He could see her, Anjean could see her, all the Lokomo could, but it was a pretty small group. Most of her citizens had no idea she knew them so well because they’d hardly ever seen her out in the world. Sure, they’d told everyone about how they’d saved the spirit tracks together, but the person they’d seen back then was Link and his train. They hadn’t seen the spirit passenger who’d kept him company, who’d helped with advice, who’d bolstered his spirits. She was smart and funny and bossy and he couldn’t imagine having made it through it all without her. He definitely couldn’t have solved all those puzzles in the spirit tower without her on a physical level, but it was more than that. She was the heart of her kingdom; she cared about things he might not have even noticed.
But she was on the verge of being crowned queen after she came of age and apparently her citizens had no idea what kind of treasure they had, already taking care of them. They should have been excited to have her ascend the throne! Honoured! Instead they were grousing that she was spending too much time at the beach. At the beach! This was wrong. This was offensive.
He had to talk to Princess Zelda. She’d know what to do.
No, wait, he couldn’t ask Princess Zelda to come up with a plan! This was his fault. He’d been accidentally taking the credit for everything, accidentally undermining her by having her meet at the beach! What if she didn’t know what people were saying and telling her crushed her? She was a lot less inclined to over-react to other people’s opinions than she’d been as a kid, but no one needed to hear the uninformed nonsense that people were spouting. He needed to figure out a way to get the world to see her the way he did. As someone who was already making a significant impact on Hyrule and who was going to do great things.
Who was he kidding? Zelda was totally going to see through any plan he tried to make. And then make a better plan. But he didn’t want to hand her a problem with no solutions, so he needed to get started on something.