Chapter Text
Getting home after it all wasn't difficult. Nor was driving the Spirit Train back to the castle– the controls creaking beneath his white knuckles– or saying farewell to Zelda when they got there.
Nothing changed after. Nothing anyone noticed.
For all the world knew, Malladus had been a minor threat, one a mere child could've— did— handle.
They praised him, yes, but it was muted, awe and excitement saved for the returned princess and her approaching birthday.
Link didn't mind, really. In fact, he preferred that outcome. He wasn't made for the spotlight, and the citizens ignoring his ‘adventure’ only made it all the more easy for him to slip back into normalcy.
Niko welcomed him home with a smile and spread arms. Alfonzo ruffled his hair.
Neither said anything. So Link bit his tongue.
Only a day later had Link back at work. Or rather, beginning work. It took a long time for Link to fully wrap his head around the fact that he had never technically started as an engineer before it all fell apart; his first day had been forgotten in the transparent face of Zelda .
All in all, being an engineer was— as much as he loathed to admit it— boring. The days blended together into a monotonous grind; Link woke before the sun, choking down stale bread and cold coffee as he raced to make it on time, then spent the rest of the day being told he was doing it all wrong, or being completely ignored.
Whilst Link loved the work— more than enough to practically relish in the constant headaches and aching joints— he despised all the asterisks tacked onto everything.
Some were unspoken rules, things he picked up over time after receiving one too many harsh looks. Others were things written in cold ink and passed to him during stuffy meetings he had to attend alone, Niko waiting outside. Link had been told he was miles above his peers in intelligence since he was little, often praised for being incredibly bright for his age, yet he always found himself lacking in those meetings. The men and women in those meetings always towered over him, using language and phrases he had never heard before, urging him to sign the papers before he had a chance to fully decipher the unnecessarily difficult words that infected their contents.
Link scratched his name on the line every time with a quick flourish of his wrist. Niko used to let him practice his signature on scrap pieces of paper all the time, even on the back of bills and napkins at restaurants.
(“Your signature will have weight one day,” Niko grinned, passing Link more paper. “Make sure it's a good one.”)
So, suffice to say he had perfected it. His signature was simple, however, just his last name with a swirl. It made him proud to see what was essentially a mark of his heritage printed onto such important documents.
It did not make him happy to see it later— when said documents showed up in his mailbox— bills and invoices stapled to the back.
Each day, he would wake up, and there they were again. Bills, invoices, signatures. Even when his name started to feel foreign, he scratched it out without hesitation.
And maybe it was everything— or maybe it was just everything about him— that had Link perched on a bench some towns away from the city in the dead of night, no jacket or shoes. He couldn't remember how he got there, but since the Spirit Train was not with him, his sleep-addled brain could only assume he had walked. Vaguely, Link recognised the train platform as one that had been put out of use a number of years ago, plants overgrowing the fencing, tree roots snaking beneath the concrete and cobbles. A few train lines still included it in their path. Even more distantly, Link remembered being on that same bench a number of times before, but couldn't for the life of him focus on that fleeting thought to recall when or why.
It was at times like those that Link was reminded of his ridiculous ability to see the dead.
“Are you going to jump?” A voice startled Link from his thoughts, almost sending him careening off the bench and straight onto the railway right as a 0-6-0 tender engine powered past.
It looked older, paint flaking on the sides, the steam engine well over a few decades in use by Link's estimation. It was Tim's train— the Noble Darling. A rather sweet locomotive, all things considered, even if at speed it was a little shaky. It was probably going to be scheduled for replacement soon. Poor thing.
Link spun on the bench a moment later, delayed, trembling from the sudden fright— the feeling far away.
A man— or rather, a boy – stood just a few feet away, equally as unprepared for the weather as Link.
“Well, are you?” The other pressed, tilting his head with a scrunch of the nose.
“No.”
For all Link had thought about what death would be like since finding Zelda's disembodied Spirit that fateful day, he had never once genuinely considered the idea of being hit by a train. Drowning and falling had slipped into his mind once or twice when he couldn't sleep, but the idea of one of his beloved trains taking his life had not occurred to him.
The boy scoffed, dropping into the bench next to Link with an exaggerated huff. The old bench creaked beneath the added weight, splintered wooden legs buckling just so with a groan of effort. He hunkered down into himself, shoulder curving inwards towards his torso as his gangly arms tried to shield his body from the cold unsuccessfully.
“Boring,” he mumbled, head leaning back to rest against the backboard of the bench.
Link offered a sympathetic shrug that the boy only half acknowledged with a grumble.
They sat in silence for a while, the moon dipping beneath the horizon before either said anything. Distantly, Link thought about Niko, who would be waking around that time— never quite able to shake that old habit of rising with the sun. He wondered how quickly the old man would realise he was gone. Briefly, he considered how Niko would react if he really did lie on the tracks. Maybe Niko had noticed his absence already and was looking for him. Or maybe Niko didn’t care.
His feet had gone numb. Had he even been walking before he sat down? Had he slept?
“I'm Finn,” the boy spat out at last, teeth chattering and breath visible against the brisk early morning air.
“Link,” the response was equally as snappy and short.
The boy– Finn– gave Link a once-over, blue eyes catching on Link's face and neck, then his hands. “Suits you,” he said after a long moment.
“Does it?” Link's head tilted, leaning ever so slightly in Finn's direction.
“Yeah,” came the answer, Finn tipping forward towards him, too, almost instinctively. “Link,” he tried the name, the sound burning his tongue as it flicked and rolled off into the air. “Like a lake. Your eyes, I mean. Kinda pretty.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence for a while longer. This time, it didn't feel like a heavy pressure crushing Link's spine and constricting his lungs.
Then, “Your eyes are kinda pretty, too,”
“Thanks,” Finn blinked in surprise, eyes widening as he took Link in again, focusing this time on the slope of Link's nose and curve of his cheeks. “Say, Link,” the words were spoken softly, but Link heard them echoing in his head, ears ringing. Finn shoved himself off the bench and walked backwards until only the balls of his feet were on the platform. Another train— this time a much younger 0-6-0ST tank engine— flew past, sending Finn's hair flying around his ears, the last rays of moonlight flooding over the horizon, lighting it like a halo. “Wanna try something dangerous?”