Fortune Favors the Courageous

Chapter 31: Acquisitive

Hi, before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who reassured me when I started feeling icky about the previous chapter. In my head, the tone was meant to be solemn and sweet, so it was hard for me to see a scene that I felt vulnerable about sharing boiled down into a joke. I'm working on telling myself it is what it is 🤷‍♀️

With that said, the tone of this chapter is *intended* to be much lighter and fun, so have at it!
Now without further ado, let's-a-go!

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acquisitive
adj. marked by an eagerness to obtain and a strong desire to keep
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What came next was research.

And it was a very scientific process, if you asked Princess Zelda.

It required hypothesis and prediction, replicating the events anteceding her first expression of Hylia's power. Analyzing, concluding, and reworking one variable at a time to study how results varied. And there were numerous variables to play with.

It wasn't long before they brought scientific method outside of the Forgotten Temple. In fact, they'd only stayed one full day before considering their task there [COMPLETE] and getting a head start on their journey to Zora's Domain.

For what was environment but another variable to explore?

In the echoing stretch of canyon, on billowy beds of flowers, clandestine caves, and scenic overhangs at sunset. Every experiment was met with resounding success, but Zelda never knew what to do with her power after it was summoned. She wasn't sure what it meant to control the sealing power, and time and time again, it faded without fanfare.

Perhaps a different variable to adjust, then...

When she and Link weren't conducting research, they were having deep conversations or mulling over silly hypotheticals.

"Would you rather be a Goron or a Zora?"

"Zora," she'd scoff, "I hate the heat, and Death Mountain sounds like—well, death."

"But the heat wouldn't bother you if you were a Goron," he'd point out. "If I was a Goron, I would roll for miles and miles to get wherever I was going."

"You could do that anyway, Link."

He shrugged.

"Would you rather..."—she tapped a finger to her chin—"be able to freeze any object in stasis by stopping the flow of time, or reverse the flow of time to recall the object's physical history?"

"What kind of science brain question is that?"

"My science brain question."

"I'd rather, like, be able to jump through the ceiling of this cave or something."

"That's not how the game works."

"Alright, fine, the first one you said. Would you rather be trapped 400 years in the past or stuck repeating the same three days over and over?"

Zelda's expression turned a bit feline. "Do I get to pick which three days I'm stuck repeating?" she purred, crawling overtop him.

"Hm... That seems like cheating," he mused, but she settled on his lap and he put his hands on her hips with a dreamy smile. "But I'll allow it."

Sometimes they forgot it was "for research," and instead, it was simply for a two people in love.

It didn't matter to either of them that Zelda was inexperienced; she had always loved learning something new. And Link—as insane as it was to teach the scholarly princess of all people something new—never once condescended, consistently checked in on her comfort level, and always drew out that golden glow before allowing himself to curl around her body like a sloth to a bough and slip into slumber.