The Bokoblin Horns let out a cracking sound as they hit the cooking pot and began to split and fracture under the heat. Not a moment later a few lizard tails joined them and added their own sizzling to the strange chorus. Link looked up from his sword which he was in the process of running a whetstone over to observe the ingredients as they cooked. Across the fire sat Zelda who was watching the process as well with considerably more interest.

As the ingredients cooked the pan began to fill with a blue liquid which quickly began to bubble under the boiling heat and fill the air with a sickly bitter smell. Link's nose twitched at the unpleasant smell as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Zelda take out a notebook and begin to scribble a few notes in its pages.

After a few moments she finally seemed satisfied with the progress of her experiment. Digging an empty bottle out of her nearby pack she put a protective mitt on her hand and tilted the cooking pan to the side. The contents poured into the bottle which she held underneath it before she set the pan back down and held the bottle up to the light of the fire.

"This elixir seems to have a bit darker color to it than the ones from the castle alchemists." she said before placing the bottle on the ground and turned back to her pack to begin digging through it in search of something else. Link was distracted once again as she pulled out a bottle filled with a similar blue potion. With a bottle in each hand she held them next to each other in careful consideration of their colored contents.

Link couldn't help but swallow nervously knowing that whatever the cause was for the slight difference in color he was likely to find out first as Zelda's guinea pig. While Zelda wouldn't make him try anything if she thought it might be dangerous there had been more than one occasion throughout their travels where his willingness to let her test out her experiments had lead to some uncomfortable side effects.

Link's mind was filled with fearful thoughts as to what the worst possible side effects could be of her tweaks to the hasty elixir formula when his mind was dragged out of its pessimistic wandering by the very woman he was nervous about.

"Could you grab the slate please? I need a picture of the two elixirs side by side for future reference."

Link gave a nod and placed his sword and whetstone on the ground before standing up and stepping over to her pack which the Sheikah Slate leaned against. Link had never used the ancient device before but luckily the interface was fairly intuitive and he found the camera function after only a short struggle.

With the picture taken Zelda returned to her notebook, reading through her notes on her current topic of study and scribbling in extra thoughts and observations when necessary. Meanwhile Link's attention remained with the device in his hand. The young Knight was never one to be overly inquisitive about the world but seeing the Princess use the slate every day for the past few weeks had gotten him curious. Or perhaps it was simply the inquisitive nature of his traveling companion beginning to rub off on him.

Whatever the reason was however Link found himself toying with the device. Each tap of the screen would bring about an immediate reaction as it followed his every command. It was actually surprisingly enjoyable.

He explored every feature of the slate that he could. From the detailed and incredibly accurate map which he could not help but marvel at for several minutes, to the compendium of creatures and plants which he imagined Zelda found to much more enthralling than he did.

But eventually he found one section of the device that caught and held his attention, the album.

Link had known that the slate was capable of capturing true to life images and he had seen Zelda use that function on many occasions. But seeing the pictures on the screen, seeing them brought to life by the slate was made him realize just how incredible the achievement actually was. Every picture that he flipped through was incredible in its own way. From the grand majesty of a sweeping vista shot of Hyrule's landscape to the more subtle and subdued beauty of smaller moments. Even the close shots of animals and fauna that were clearly made for the sake of Zelda's research had their own charm about them.

However after a while he stumbled across a picture whose subject made him pause out of confusion rather than awe.

It was a picture of himself.

The screen displayed an image of him as he knelt next to a campfire and poked at the contents of the cooking pot above it. It was a moment not too dissimilar to the one the and Zelda were in now. His eyes rose from the slate and to the person who had taken the photo who was still too engrossed in her notes on the elixirs to notice his suddenly perturbed state.

When had she taken this picture? And more importantly why had she taken this picture? Was he among her topics of interest to be photographed and studied? Or was there another reason that he simply wasn't seeing?

He opened his mouth to give voice to these questions but the words died before they reached his tongue. He felt unsure of himself. Perhaps he was simply seeing more in this than there was. It was just a single picture after all.

Link quickly swiped to the next picture, a rather quaint shot of Hateno as they had entered it on the way to the ancient lab nearby. He fixed his eyes on it and tried to let it take his mind off of what he had just seen. It was just a picture after all, no need to let it get to him.

However it wasn't that long before Link stumbled across another picture of himself. This time it was from behind him as he sat atop his horse as they had rode through a forest.

Was Zelda in the habit of snapping pictures of him?

Link shook the thought from his mind. Such a notion was ridiculous. She had probably wanted a picture of the trees around them and he had just been in the shot. Although that did raise the question of what she had been trying to capture in the previous picture.

Link went to continue his look through the pictures only to be almost immediately greeted by yet another picture of himself. He had the Master Sword out and looked to be going through his routine exercises. But that was not what caught his attention most about the shot. It was the fact that he was alone in the center of the frame that did that. If there was any way to deny that he was the primary subject of these photos Link couldn't figure it out.

"Is something wrong?"

Zelda's voice made link jump in surprise. His loose grip on the slate faltered and it dropped to his lap with a dull thud. Looking up Link found that Zelda was close. Not unusually close but his current thoughts made it far too near for his complete comfort.

"Are you okay Link? You look unwell." Zelda continued when she was not given an answer. Her eyes fell to the slate in his lap and her expression slowly changed from that of confusion to that of recognition and then to embarrassment.

"Oh… that's um… I can explain… " She half mumbled as her hands came together and began to play with each other. The Princess wasn't one to avoid eye contact with her Knight, at least once she warmed up to him enough to actually look him in the eye. But at the moment she seemed to find a sudden interest in her hands as they played out their nervous habit.

Link opened his mouth to speak but found words just as difficult to come across as Zelda did. For a moment the only sound was that of the crackling fire. Zelda took a deep breath before managing to look back to Link and speak.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable Link." She paused to bite her lip before continuing, "I just…. I just enjoy taking pictures with the slate and…"

She trailed off before resuming in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

"And sometimes you just look really nice and make a good subject for a picture."

Link was still unable to speak. He had never seen the Princess this flustered before. What could he even say in response to all of this?

Silence returned as Zelda stared at Link, awaiting his response. The pause in the conversation gave him an opportunity to actually figure out how it was he felt about this. It was not as if he minded what she had done. In fact he found it quite flattering. But how could he express this without coming off as inappropriate or making things awkward once again in their partnership?

When the silence dragged on a bit too long Zelda seemed to take it as answer enough and acted.

"I'm sorry, I'll just erase them off the slate." She said, as she began to reach for the device in his lap.

Link wasn't quite sure exactly why he did what he did next. All he knew was that there was something about her embarrassment and the way it almost seemed to border on humiliation that told him that their partnership would take a turn for the worse if he let her do it.

Before he could think about what he was doing and without saying a word he took the slate from his lap. Zelda's eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open. Her look of surprise was still joined by the fluster in her cheeks betraying her lingering embarrassment. Link noted it was actually kind of an amusing expression.

And it was one that was recorded permanently as he held the slate in between them and snapped a picture.