The desert sun beat down on her back as droplets of sweat speckling her forehead threatened to flow down her temples. The tunic she wore clung to her skin in an uncomfortable hug. She sat, hunched, on a dune staring at the faint blue screen of the Shiekah slate. Her research was all for naught.
(It should be right here, this doesn't make any sense!)
Fingers tapped away mercilessly on the screen. Nothing. With a sigh, Zelda clipped her slate back on her belt. Leaning back on her hands, she scanned the horizon. Nothing was here. All of her research suggested that the Winterwing Butterfly population migrated to the Palu Wastelands during the late summer months. She scanned the horizon once more. Absolutely nothing.
(How can this be? The slate is never wrong…)
Wiping her brow, she stood. The butterflies had been her third to last option for Hyrule's cooling elixirs. Seven years had passed since Calamity Ganon had been defeated by her knight and since then, Hyrule has only gotten warmer. Winter held no snow as summer baked the land. Hyrule's denizens had started falling ill to the heat. Some never made it through the second night of the unnatural sickness. Upon witnessing this otherworldly heat and the death that followed, Zelda ordered her assistants to clear as many rooms as possible in the east wing to house the sickly. After a short argument with her head advisor regarding her safety, she sat out to save Hyrule once more.
The wind began to pick up. Gracefully she tucked some rogue strands of hair behind her ear. She tied her kerchief over her nose and mouth, preventing the sand from choking her, then yanked the hood of her dark cloak over her head. Climbing down from the dune, she paused for a sip of water from her pouch. Droplets sprinkled her outstretched tongue.
(Did I not bring more..?)
Examining her pouch, a small tear had formed along the bottom seam.
(Just perfect)
With a huff, Zelda tossed the pouch aside and began to trudge back to the town of the Gerudo. An edge of hopelessness crept into her busy thoughts. The only options she had left were to track down the Cold Darner and take it back to the lab in the castle or find the ever-elusive Hydromelon and begin farming.
(And find Link)
Zelda froze in her tracks. Where had that thought come from? Heat rose to her already flustered face. The ring on her left hand suddenly felt much heavier. Zelda took one last glance back over the barren landscape, searching for a cure and, more importantly, her knight.