Fortune Favors the Courageous

Chapter 33: Incipient

incipient
adj. in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop
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Several days had passed.

As suggested, Link and Zelda sought refuge at the Temple of Time. The great, church-like building was hardly used even before the fissure of malice in the amphitheater, and though its structure was intact, much of the stone was crumbling. Some of the stained glass windows had been shattered, like a group of misbehaving teens had thrown rocks trying to get inside. Maybe they had, as several pews had been knocked over and the aisle rug torn and muddied.

It made Zelda sad—for even though places dedicated to worship brought her heat waves of anxiety, the temple was a beautiful, deeply historical monument.

She and Link had arrived just the night before, greatly in favor of the temple's slight draftiness to the bone-chilling winds outside. It was late autumn, and the trees of Central Hyrule had dropped most of their dry, brown leaves in fear of inevitable winter days.

The duo hadn't exercised her power at all, however, because two Zora guards had joined for extra protection should any large waves of monsters appear.

That and Purah had insisted on tagging along too. Although, from an outsider's perspective, Zelda was probably more excited by this turn of events than her lost alone time with Link.

"And so you can make all these colors with just red, green and blue diodes? That's absurd!" Zelda marveled. "The court artist has rarely replicated colors so rich, let alone our print cameras!"

"That's not even the most impressive part," Purah scoffed. "It took several iterations of integrated circuits to create enough storage on the—"

"Storage? You mean the Purah Pad can store images on the device itself?"

"You betcha! Its current capacity is only 64 images, but if I can strengthen the semiconductor memory I can theoretically increase that number to something much greater."

"Link!" Zelda squealed, hair swishing like ballroom gown skirts as she threw her gaze over her shoulder to her knight sitting several feet away. "Did you hear that? Can you imagine the botanical compendium we could make with this sort of technology?"

"We? What d'you expect me to do?"

"I'll need your rock climbing abilities to get close-proximity captures! What about rushrooms? Think of the rushrooms, Link!"

"Alright, alright," he laughed, "I'll take photos for your com-pound-dee-um."

"Yay!" At his response, she felt the faintest swirl of power in her stomach, but she hardly noticed as she gasped again, head whipping between Link and Purah. "Why stop at plants? We could include animals as well! A Hyrule Compendium!"

Purah huffed an amused breath through her nose, like she didn't want to openly show how much she enjoyed the princess' reciprocated enthusiasm for her gadgets. Her fingers danced rapidly across the screen, calling up the two-way communication link between them and the Purah Pad in the Gorons' possession.

"Any sign of Ganodorfs army? -P"

Link rested his chin in his hands, kicking his foot against the half wall he was seated on. "Any word from the Gorons?"

"Believe it or not, that's what I was just checking on, Linky," Purah replied right as the Purah Pad dinged.

"Not yet. But we are ready for them. -Bludo"

Purah shared the message with the group and muttered, "Just how long does it take a bunch of brainless monsters to get to Death Mountain, anyway?"