"Had I ever been to the Depths?"
That is to say, she, Zelda.
Link, sorting through his pack for any miscellany left crumbling around at the bottom, had come upon a stray Dark Clump, and looked between it and the princess with a slightly mischievous look. The material's name, with its simultaneously satisfying and unsatisfying bisyllabic rhythm, was far funnier than it should be, especially now that the Gloom Spawn had all shrunk away, and this was literally all that remained: a single, pulsating, dark clump.
Zelda reached out a hand to touch the item, on instinct, because, after all, she was the one who'd shoved a simple frog in Link's face, without any regard for such things as startlement or ickiness. But, then she withdrew, likely sensitive to the way the air seemed to grow inert at each fraying end of cloth and cord.
Not exactly something to write home about.
The Purah Pad's camera feature had come in useful primarily for populating Robbie's compendium again, and Link had been fastidious about disposing of images duplicated in the bestiary, but a few images were left in the album: the first three, of course, Zelda's original snapshots of the murals beneath Hyrule Castle, prior to the Upheaval. Then, the first statue Link had photographed for Josha.
From the angle at which Link had stood, only the fernlike leaves of a tree not constituent to a grove and stalactites protuding from beneath a cliff set backdrop to the statue. None of the gloom coating the ground was visible. Very possibly, all that was present in the picture was still present just beneath them, still and silent.
And now Zelda's face grew pensive. "The Depths had always existed. That much I understand, and based on your descriptions of the ground and flora, as well as the mining Constructs, it appears true that this was a place extant independent of Ganondorf. Perhaps long before even the Zonai descended."
If the Zonai had descended, who was to say that something else hadn't come...up?
"But then, when King Rauru gave up his life..."
She still referred to the Zonai monarch by his title, rather than simply as Rauru, as Link had known him. It served to evidence just how deeply Zelda had connected to him and his wife. Link had never felt that deeply connected to anyone but Zelda (and maybe Sidon...), and the use of honorifics wasn't as common in his signing. Though sometimes the sign of royalty could be employed to substitute for a group of chieftains from this race or that.
It was difficult to say how much of the floating particulate in the Depths' atmosphere was recent, since the advent of the recurring Calamity, and how much had been present since before the Imprisoning War, when Poes were more likely to just be people who'd died of less sinister causes and circ*mstances.
Link skipped past the next several photos, including both a scenic portrait of Gloom-Wreathed Colgera above massive patches of Poes and a collection of Horriblins climbing all over each other in the Desert Coliseum.
And next was...oh! Link had nearly forgotten.
Knowing Zelda, she would be desperately interested in any simulacrum of Link's view (or the view of anyone human-size) throughout his adventure, but still, knowing that she had spent what must have felt like countless centuries, instead of just one of, as the Light Dragon, seeing the entire world and its vistas from every possible angle other than those owned by Bladed Rhino Beetles, Link felt...less enamored with the idea of showing her a sunset, a gathering of Bokoblins.
However, the inhabitants of the Depths, when it had been wreathed in Gloom, Link was fairly confident Zelda had never seen. He'd seen Farosh, Dinraal, Naydra all pass through the chasms and across stretches of stony root, above the gloom's murky tendrils and between craggy Zonaite deposits, but never the Light Dragon.
And while Froxes, Blue-White and Obsidian alike, were much like Hinoxes, if a Hinox were crossed with a Talus and a Dodongo, the Little Froxes were somehow a class all of their own.
No moving pictures, of course, but Link had taken a series, catching the excitable froxlets mid-jump and thankful not to have to suffer a minor spontaneous bout of gloom nausea for his trouble. And, he could and did reenact with his fists and his last spare Splash Fruit.
"Oh, but they're not truly amphibious, are they? What do they do when submerged?"
Link had to confess that he didn't know. Had he the opportunity to dunk a regular-size Frox in a deceptively deep or surprisingly shallow pool of clear, dark navy Depths water, he would have done so in an instant, but not so with the smaller variety. He hadn't served them with the gourd-shaped fruit, either. What if they really did drown?!
Were they pesky? Absolutely. Were they more trouble to dispatch with than they were worth, for the loot (imagine the tiny fangs!) and for the challenge, versus the amount of trouble they gave? For sure. Were they a distraction Link really didn't need when he was just trying to get to the next Lightroot, and in a hurry? You bet your bubbuls.
But they were the only thing welcome about the Depths other than the Lightroots. Well, those and the treasure. Between Muddle Buds and Puffshrooms, Froxes were endlessly amusing, like the Constructs screaming their heads off at those same packs of Bokoblins, every single time.
They didn't bounce Link off of their scaly backs in attempt to swallow him whole from the air, nor did they lurk around Poe clusters and Zonaite deposits he was itching to mine but couldn't, in peace.
If anybody deserved to live in the Depths, it was the Little Froxes.
So Link did not kill- had not killed, the overwhelming majority of the time, the Little Froxes.
Instead, he'd fed them Brightbloom Seeds. He had far more than he knew what to do with, since the caves on and under the surface were never dim enough to merit their use. And if it made the little creatures happy...
"Link! That is adorable."
...then it made Zelda happy, which made Link happiest of all.
