Welcome to Waterwheels! See the a/n at the bottom for more.
The lobby of Township Station smells like old paper and mildew, and Link flips through an outdated issue of Caprinology Monthly and tries not to peel at the wall. He should have boarded and departed by now, and the longer he stares at the clock the more his heart knocks in his chest. Eyes bleary, feet jittery with caffeine and no small amount of nervousness, he crumples his cup and throws it at the nearest bin, grumbling under his breath when it bounces off the side.
And he normally has such impeccable aim.
His ears prick up-a metallic echo drifts through the tufts of fountain grass, long and lonesome. It's miles off and the noises of that incoming thing are still distant but getting closer, a series of whistles and clatters in the otherwise quiet night. He doesn't even know if it's the train or his imagination; or, maybe, just another car on the interstate, going too fast as it bypasses Ordon, a tiny torpedo with better places to be.
He clutches his suitcase a little tighter.
—
The train pulls in sixteen minutes late, headlamp as wide as the moon, and the acrid, citrus-smell smoke of the magicoal engines sting his eyes and throat. The conductor has a Lorulean accent that's thick as bee-pollen, and Link barely understands the directions to his seat. He makes his way down the first aisle, and finds himself hesitating when he has to press the button at the end of the car to transfer to the next.
Why am I so nervous?
But, he knows. He's never been any further than Eldin Province, and even then only to a tiny village on the Eldin-Faron border. The two million people of Castle City lived almost as far north as Labrynna, and in a world completely different from the one he knew. Which was the whole point.
A few weeks back she calls him, and the next morning he picks up the box she's left out on her porch, and that is that-except not really, and when Talo asks how's she's doing before remembering, and when the disappointment is written on Colin's face and Rusl offers that maybe it's just like the last two times, Link just shrugs. He'd already found a job and booked the ticket. Oddly, he half-expects to see her there, in coach, a familiar face in a sea of strangers.
She isn't, of course, nor are any of the others. But there is a gaggle of Bokoblins playing a noisy game of knucklebones, screeching when the ball rolls off the table. To the left of them, Gerudo tourists talk in hushed tones, the hisses of the language audible even as they were quiet. The one empty chair is in the far back, next to a lone Twili woman in a long black dress.
He jostles her knee as he sits.
"Shit! Sorry, Miss…?"
"Midna. And it's fine. These seats are cramped." She pauses, gives him a look that's a little drawn out. "You're from pumpkin land, eh? I can tell by your accent. Where you going?"
He blinks rapidly. "I have no idea, really."
"You don't know which station you're getting off at?"
"No, I meant—" She looks bored, he gives a sheepish smile, "—I'm going to Castle City."
She nods. "Good place, hard to get a proper doughnut but the food truck selection is fucking incredible." Her eyes, orange and yellow, settle back on whatever she's reading.
Curiosity wriggles in. "Ya from there?"
She doesn't look at him. "No."
"Live there now?"
A long blue finger slides across the screen of her tablet. "Half the year."
"Oh." How do you live between two places? "Where else do you stay?"
"Lorule for the cooler months, in Roi Gemme. Castle City for the hot."
"Oh, I always heard Roi Gemme was a pretty sight, all those buildings with them shinin' purple spires—"
"I'm not interested, pumpkin-boy."
"...huh?"
Her gaze finally flicks up, burns into his. He briefly considers melting.
"You keep asking these questions, and like I said, I'm not interested in-"
"No, I don't mean that-er, I was just..."
"Then what do you want?"
He exhales and spreads his hands, blood creeping into his cheeks. "I'm moving into Conch Horn the day after tomorrow. And I really ain't got a clue what it's like there. Really," he adds, when she still looks skeptical.
"You could have just mentioned that from the start." Her eyes lose a little of their sharpness, even as she mutters under her breath-it sounds suspiciously like Cabris. "We've got twenty more hours, so just...ask me when it's daylight."
He glances at the clock hanging on the wall of the back of the car. 3:10. The light from his seatmate's tablet is a little too bright. But he'd get some sleep soon-or even if he didn't, it wasn't like sleepless nights were somehow new. The glass is cool against his forehead and out the window, the gray-pink exhaust glows soft.
a/n: Long ago, I wrote a fic called Ordona Pumpkins. I decided to pull it down to work on it, and somewhere along the way the story split into a separate modern AU. So anyway, the two stories are gonna be posted separately on here and Ao3.
Reviews and feedback are always appreciated!