#uhhh oops

CHAPTER 1 - A SUDDEN DETOUR

For the past 4 days, Link and Zelda were on a mission to help the people of the province next to them, Great Tides, create a safe and fair alliance with their own province, New Hyrule.

Link refused to take the plane due to some anxiety regarding heights and how he "does not know how the plane works" but knows "everything about the train, so if it breaks down there can be a stable source of recovery", and, despite it taking a bit longer to get to Great Tides than a plane, Zelda understood and respected his concern. Therefore they spent day 1 traveling to the province, and the last 3 laying out boundaries and trade systems and all sorts of legal stuff that Zelda understood (and that Link had to walk away from because of how overwhelming it was), and they were finally heading back home.

At least, they thought they were heading home. But then something happened to the conductor.

Link didn't want to know the details, but eventually the train didn't take the right turn, and when the passengers returned from investigating; did the conductor forget, did they accidentally get distracted and not take the exit at the right time, did they get ambushed by monsters and had to take a work around route, all they got was silence.

So there him, Zelda, and all the other passengers were, sitting in a field at 4:15 PM on the side of the tracks after Link had scurried to the front and stopped the train.

The conductor was still alive, just... unconscious? At least he hoped. One of the passengers, an Anouki dressed in clothes far too warm for the summer weather, said they were still breathing. But Link didnt know how true that was. Regardless, people were calling the emergency unit and everyone was both super concerned and super pissed off that their travels were put to a halt due to the conductor collapsing mid-drive.

Link would have used his phone to contact someone, but there was barely any service out h—

"I got some information." Zelda sat on the ground next to him, making him jump. He didn't realize he was so deep in thought.

Looking at her, she smiled, but even a smile as comforting as hers wasn't enough to drown out the scene in front of him.

Oh. He really shouldn't be thinking sappy things like that in this situation.

"So, luckily someone's phone managed to get enough connection to load a map off of Ooccoo and it's kind of being passed around like a piece of steak in a swarm of starving wolfoz—but—there's a city to the west." She said.

Link waited for her, wordlessly asking her to continue. She seemed to understand his verbal shutdowns seamlessly at this point—Din's ass, they had traveled across their own province, saving New Hyrule from an attack from a group of... what could only be described as cultists who somehow got ahold of the military-level technology that held the spirit tracks together that not only damaged the entire province, but also Zelda herself; separating her body from her spirit with some illegal magic, and Link and the Lokomo nation were the only ones who could see her. So he got overwhelmed a lot, and with the two constantly traveling together on the quest, they were both incredibly bonded and could read each other like books.

Well. Maybe she couldn't read everything. But a silly crush on one of the province's decision makers (monarchy had been ruled out in favor of community votes around the time Zelda's great great grandmother, Pirate Queen Tetra had made an alliance with the Lokomo and essentially decided "yeah we're not doing this colonization shit") was far from the biggest priority at this moment.

Zelda continued.

"People are making their own plans and routes to get to where they need to go," she laughed a bit nervously, "a lot of them asked me for help since im one of "most direct" decision makers—I don't know the area very well, but it's kind of funny how they still expect me to rule them around like I'm a Queen. I just handle the votes!"

She tossed her hands in the air, getting a slight chuckle out of Link.

"Anyway, there's a city to the west across this big river that I thhiiinnk is connected to the ocean but I'm not quite sure—and I think it would be the best place for us to head to so we don't starve, and can, y'know, actually have some resources instead of running around the middle of a huge field with nothing."

The two of them looked back out at the crowd of passengers. Most of them were packing their stuff to make a trek for safety, a couple of them were Rito—they were flying around up high to get a layout of where they were before either leaving or helping others leave. A group of mostly Anouki and one Goron were making it their duty to help get the conductor to a hospital when the help arrives, and overall everyone was just moving forward.

Link nodded. "...Yeah. The city is a good idea. You're sure what direction it is?"

"Yup!" Zelda exclaimed, taking her phone out of her pack to show to him, "I took a picture of the map on the person's phone. Somehow I think I was the first to do that."

Link smiled and made a "hm" sound. "You would be the first to do that."

Oops. Was that too direct? It didn't seem to matter though, the two were already getting up and following the little picture amongst the many things in Zelda's gallery through the tall grasses.

Their goal was to cross a bridge and hopefully not block traffic while doing it, since it seemed to be a car only bridge. The bridge wasn't too far, but it would still take a while.

Eventually they started to pass houses amongst the fields. Link started internally counting how many of the iconic giant "treasure finder" breed of pig he saw until he got to about 5 and pointed out to Zelda that these people must have been a big fan of the Hero of Winds.

"Oh, why though?"

"He's your ancestor, Zel, you don't have to sound so irritated about it!" Link teased.

"I'm not irritated," she responded, "it's just that he was kind of an idiot."

"Who said idiots couldn't found countries?"

"Link, a lot of countries are run by idiots. We don't need more."

Link laughed at that unfortunately true statement, causing Zelda to laugh too.

"Seems like you've cheered up." She grinned.

"I guess so." Link admitted. "I think that whole mess back there was scaring me."

"Yeah. Understandable. I hope the guy gets the help he needs."

"Yeah."

There was a slight pause.

"Oh, Zelda?"

She looked up from the sidewalk. "Yes?"

"I just saw a 6th pig."

...

The bridge was incredibly windy. Zelda had had to stop and tie her hair back into a ponytail so she wouldn't get blinded by it crossing the bridge, and the cars were moving fast across it. At this point the sidewalk had ended and it was just the little ledge on the side of the road that they were walking on.

He looked back at Zelda, who was starting to sidle onto the metal sides on the bridge. Luckily the bridge had many beams they could use for support, and the beams were generally dense enough to the outer side as they stretched up to make the metal roof that there wasn't an instant fear of falling off and drowning.

Despite this, with the wind from the river (which was definitely connected to the sea considering the breeze it carried) and the fact that Link had not yet learned how to swim still made him worry for her safety.

"You sure this is safe?!" He called out from the side of the road, having to stretch his voice to be heard over the cars and the wind.

Speaking of the cars, 90% of the drivers gave the two of them weird and possibly even concerned looks, which were very hard for Link to ignore.

"Would you prefer we don't make it to the city?!" She called back.

Fair enough.

So, through an intense amount of caution, Link and Zelda squeezed between the cars and the beams of the bridge on this little ledge that they could barely fit through.

To say it was stressful was an understatement.

The last thing you should do when crossing a high up bridge is to look down. But yet, here was both the reason he never took the plane, the reason he never went past waist deep in water, and the additional "a car might be slightly off-center and hit you" all in one.

Link didn't even realize he had frozen. He was pressed up against the beams, observing the everything around him with a great level of fear.

You could drown.

You could fall.

If some drunk driver or asshole shows up, what—

His hand was grabbed. He wasn't expecting it in the slighest—he was so laser focused on all of the spiraling fear that he screamed, literally screamed at the sudden contact.

"Hey, hey, it's just me."

Catching his breath, Link looked up at the sound to find... Zelda.

Oh.

Zelda was holding his hand.

...Somehow his heart managed to pound even faster than it was beforehand.

"Follow my steps." Zelda guided, and carefully placed a foot down forward.

And another foot. Another foot.

And another and another, until they had made it across the bridge to the other side.

It took a moment for her to realize that Link was just, staring at their hands intertwined and for her to immediately let it go afterwards.

"There." She said, giving him a smile that Link couldn't tell if she was actually nervous or he was just projecting big time.

Taking out her phone to check the map again, she waved her hand in the direction the needed to head to.

She began to walk away, and as Link looked above her he saw the big city buildings towering in the near distance. Then back at her.

Oh. He should be walking too.

...

"Are you hungry? I still have a decent amount of money on me if you've run out—we can stop at a cucco place—or, uh, maybe get burgers if they have the option here."

Link didn't feel hungry. Especially after... that. Zelda had seemed to let go of everything a few minutes afterward, but Link was left still distracted thinking about all of it. Did she pull her hand away so fast because she didn't like him? Or was it the opposite? Did she even care how either of them felt? He didn't want to ask but the question was nagging at him for far too long than he was happy with. They had been friends for about 2 years at this point, both of them were going to turn 18 within the next 6 months, and even though he really liked the idea of being in a romantic relationship with Zelda, their friendship was something he would never forgive himself for losing.

She was still waiting for a response. Well, he didn't want to eat, but they had been walking for around 2 hours now, and he was absolutely exhausted. Link was good at things that involved short-term strength, he was an engineer, after all, he had to have at least some strength. But walking for 2 hours without falter made him realize that his body definitely needed some sort of sustenance to, like, survive and stuff.

"Uhh, I can eat, yeah." He finally answered. "What are the options?"

Zelda furrowed her brow and took out the map again. At this point she had just given up on tabbing out of her phone gallery to check for service and had left it on the map image so they could have easy access to it.

"Uhh, there's a cucco place, a different cucco place, some restaurant called "All You Can Eat Rabbits..."

She grimaced at that one. The Rabbit Land Rescue was one of her favorite things about New Hyrule, so he didn't blame her.

"Oh!" She spoke up, "there's a seafood place! Wanna try that?"

Seafood? Link did live along the coastline. He never explored the costal aspect of his home much (he preferred to stay inland after all the sea monster stories he heard of relating to New Hyrule's founders growing up), but the times he did get to have some of the scallops and shrimp that the fishermen of his hometown caught was always good. And being so far from home, he needed some extra comfort.

"Sure!" He said, "uh, that sounds good. Not too expensive?"

"Well I dont know the prices now." She said, sounding jokingly irritated but she was still smiling, "we can check when we get there. I'm starving. Plus, I have at least 200 rupees on me right now. If the meal costs 50, so what?"

"50's a lot." He said.

"Mmmm yeah you're probably right." Zelda realized. "Okay, compromise; if its under 40 we stay, if it's over 40 we go elsewhere."

Link nodded. "Deal."

...

The food was surprisingly only 20 rupees for each of them. It made sense, this did seem to be a river deriving from the ocean, so the food was probably local and plentiful at that, so there wasn't much demand without supply.

Zelda got mostly shrimp while Link stuck with the scallops. They were his favorite. But, uh... he couldn't shake the feeling of how weirdly date-like this was. He probably was just projecting—she did offer to pay for his food but it was likely that it was because she has a much higher paying job than him, (and he refused the offer despite the possible romantic context) but it just...

He didn't know what to feel, actually. It was unlikely he would actually do anything about these feelings. He didnt want to risk losing their friendship—but—he couldn't not be panicked at the fact that they were just.

Sitting across from each other.

Eating food at a restaurant.

That Zelda offered to pay for.

If anything, his love was more of an inconvenience to him at the moment than an actual passion—he struggled to eat his food (but made himself anyway) and refused to make any eye contact with her out of pure fear that his face would admit everything before his words. Not that he was ever good at making eye contact with people anyway (he was usually best listening when looking to the side or around the room), so hopefully she wouldn't notice?

Link figured he should say something instead of having the entire meal just be an awkward silence.

"Good food." He said.

"Agreed." She responded.

Okay, so, she wasn't in the mood for talking either. That was good. Less slip ups that way. Less of a chance of saying something dumb like an idiot and feeling stupid for the next year.

After some more silence, the two finished their food. Link had to admit, he was a lot more hungry than he realized, even if his mind didn't feel like eating. Zelda devoured hers it even faster than he did, but she didn't seem to mind taking out a pen and doodling in her notebook while she waited for Link to finish eating.

Then the waiter came over with the bill.

He was a Rito, with an accent Link struggled to understand that seemed to be from even further away than the Rito normally were from New Hyrule. Link wondered where he came from—but of course that would be rude (and possibly interpreted as racist) to ask.

Placing the bill on the table, he began to check his notes on what seemed like a digital notepad of some sort. Possibly invented for doing waiter work specifically—oh, Link had to know the mechanics of how this thing worked.

"Plus tax, that would be 44 rupees." Link managed to understand.

Zelda seemed to understand this even clearer than he did, which made sense, her job did involve talking to people all across the two provinces (and sometimes beyond) through video call. If she could understand it through the lag of server/location delay, she could understand it now.

Oh—uh—the waiter was just... staring at Link. Did he having something on his shirt? What was the side eye for?

He looked around frantically, hoping not to be judged and failing as he heard Zelda fail to stifle a laugh at this attempt, and then he realized it was just because he was leaning way too far to the side and staring at the writer's digital notepad thingy.

Yeah. He was probably being a bit nosy. Oops.

"I uh, I was curious as to how it worked." Link tried to defend himself.

"He's an engineer. And he's probably autistic, I haven't convinced him to get a diagnosis yet though." Zelda teased.

Link shot a look at her. He would get a diagnosis eventually.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to be nosy." He continued to the waiter, averting eye contact.

Luckily the waiter just smiled.

"We all have our own passions."

The two then silently payed the bill (Zelda used her card on the machine and Link dug out some old rupees that looked like they had been around since Niko's time to give to her as payment for his meal. He would not let her win this battle).

Getting out of their seats, Link and Zelda headed for the door.

...It was dark out.

Had they been gone that long already? They were supposed to be back in New Hyrule by tomorrow morning or afternoon at the latest! And they still didn't have a plan to even get transportation back home!

Zelda must have been thinking the same thing, as she made a displeased "mmmmmm" sound.

Link was tired. But the last thing he wanted to do was sleep on a public bench. He didn't even know if the city mayors in Great Tides built the benches in a way that makes sleeping on them impossible (which made him mad just thinking about, not just for him and Zelda but for all the others, too), so for all he knew it might not even be an option.

That train of thought was broken by tapping sounds.

Increasingly rapid tapping sounds. On a phone keyboard. From Zelda.

"Hey uh, good news and bad news." She said, her frustrated expression illuminated in the screen's light.

"Mmmmm... start with the good news...?" Link winced, hoping he wouldn't regret that order.

"Okay," she looked up from the phone to see him. "The good news is that we have service again."

"...And the bad news...?"

Zelda sighed. "Due to the lack of service beforehand, and therefore the lack of responses to calls and messages for almost 10 hours on both of our parts, we have been legally... reported as missing."

Link's eyes widened.

"Oh that's not good—"

And of course, suddenly Link's phone began to buzz in his back pocket a repeated number of times. And not only did it furiously wiggle it's way around while he tried to dig it out, his notification sound was still a quick recording he took of tossing a rock at a random pot. So considering how many notifications were flowing in, that sound played. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And—

Zelda burst out laughing, gathering unwanted attention from the pedestrians roaming the street across from them, as Link hurried to turn his notifications on vibrate only again.

"Is that seriously your notification sound?!" She hollered through laughs, "you breaking a POT?!"

Link hoped she couldn't see how red his face was in the darkness. More so from embarrassment rather than anything romantic (though he hadn't heard her laugh that hard in a long time, and admittedly it was kind of cute).

"I'm never turning my notification sound on again." He stated.

Zelda simply wheezed and then tried to get herself under control.

"Okay okay—that was really funny but we both need to make sure we respond to these messages before people freak out even more."

Oh, right! Niko and Alfonzo must be worried to bits! Niko especially—Link was still subconsciously a tiny kid to the old man! He scrolled back down to respond to the messages from Alfonzo

• how are you two doing • link • hello? • I am going to call. Its been hours • (3 missed calls) • link • zelda isn't responding either. Are you two okay? I dont want to worry niko

Shit. He quickly typed back.

• hi I am so so sorry • the conductor of the train kind of had a medical issue or something and we took a wrong turn and a lot of chaos happened • but me and zelda are safe and we made our way to a city across a river and now we dont know what to do cause its dark out but we're safe • sorry again • we didnt have service for like 10 kilometers so neither of us knew we were being contacted

He started to type another message, but Alfonzo quickly realized he got a response and started typing back.

• okay thank you • are you still in great tides

He turned to Zelda.

"I got ahold of Alfonzo, he wants to know if we're still in Great Tides and I wanna make sure i dont accidentally lie."

Zelda paused for a moment to process what he said to her.

"Yeah we're still in Great Tides. The train didn't make it to the border."

Link nodded and turned back down to his phone. At this point he and Zelda had both gotten out of the middle of the sidewalk so get out of people's way, and we're still hunched up against the restaurant they came out of.

• yeah we're still at great tides

Alfonzo responded instantly.

• okay it sounds like you're in windfall then • big city surrounded by a river connected to the ocean right

Okay, so at least he had an idea of where he was. Link replied.

• yeah that describes it

Alfonzo replied back, still as instant as before.

• okay I will report back to the council • get zelda to respond too • stay safe

Looking up, Zelda was done with her messaging too. She seemed distraught, likely overwhelmed with far more messages than Link was.

"You okay?" He asked.

"...Yeah." Zelda sighed. "Just a lot of concerned people to deal with. I had to get one of the other decision makers to send a public service announcement to the people because I got like, way too many messages for me to respond to on the side of a sidewalk.

Link waited for more. The thing about them being able to read each other like books, was that it wasn't just Zelda reading Link. He could often tell when she hadn't said the entirety of the truth, and Zelda knew that.

Link just waited for a response as she slowly hunched over a bit more into what seemed almost like an irritated defensive coil, and he hoped he didn't piss her off, but eventually she admitted.

"...I just don't understand why they always make a big fuss about me specifically. It's always ME. I mean, I think I can recall around 3 times where the Anouki decision maker—I keep forgetting his name—disappeared for around 10 hours or so and no one reported HIM as missing. I don't get it."

Link rubbed the back of his neck.

"...I think it has to do with the fact that you're a direct descent of New Hyrule's founders." He said. "And... I'm sorry for bringing this up, but those cultists did want your body specifically because of your special blood. You... have this power and kind of... special magic that some people look for, whether its for good or bad."

He was looking away for all of that. Which very much was a mistake as when he finally did look back at her she looked like she was so deep in thought with processing his words that her gaze at him might as well have the intention of blowing his head up with her mind.

Fuuuuucck, that sounded too romantic didn't it?

"Not in like—" Link stammered, "Like to everyone—everyone looks for it! Shit im not helping—uh—I shouldn't have brought anything up—I'm—"

"Yeah I got that." She stated. "I was looking at you because I was deep in thought, not because I thought you were like... seeking out my blood for rituals or some shit like that. It just kind of hit me all at once."

Good. So she didn't take it weirdly.

Zelda glanced at the still busy streets they were standing by. Moths had swarmed to the streetlights, and despite how dark it was outside of those lights, the overall light pollution was so dense Link couldn't even see the stars when he looked up.

"We should find a place to spend the night. I'm exhausted." Zelda said.

"Yeah." Link agreed. "Alfonzo told me he'd report the fact that we responded back to the council, so hopefully that will take away some of your worries." He hoped.

"It better." She half chuckled.

And then the two walked onward amongst the streets, until they found a patch of grass. The cars were still close by, but there was a hedge that Link ran into (he turned on his phone flashlight after that) that was away from some of the streetlights, so hopefully people wouldn't see 2 hopeless teenagers sleeping on the side of the road until dawn hit.

Link took his backpack off and placed it against the hedge to use as a makeshift pillow of sorts. Luckily the grass was slightly softer than a concrete slab, so at least there was that...?

Zelda sat beside him. She turned off her phone flashlight after Link did and the two simply relied on sound to know where each other were so they wouldn't accidentally kick each other in the ribs while sleeping.

Link fell asleep almost instantly. They both were so tired that they didnt even say goodnight to each other, though they both meant to, even if the other didn't realize.

Zelda sighed placing her sweater under her head. She assumed the giant dark blob in front of her was Link, and she hoped he didn't think she was mad at him. Instead she almost, almost tried to wake him to clarify this, but she figured if he fell asleep within less than 5 minutes he clearly needed the rest.