"Hateno's not out of my way," Link said, taking one of the sleeves to examine. The jewels dotting the metal arm bands were red, and he knew that the dye shop couldn't change those. He normally wouldn't put much thought into it at all- although he wondered if those were rubies, and if so, why rubies were being used for clothes meant to be worn in warm weather -but he was pretty sure he'd never seen Zelda wear anything red in her life. She always wore blue.
Of course, blue was the royal color, so that could've had something to do with it.
As much as this was ultimately for no other reason than to keep her identity secret so he could keep his secret, and therefore didn't need to adhere to some crazy high standard of fashion, he knew better than to throw a jewel at a woman when it wasn't one she liked. He knew the sapphire circlet had been a safe bet because of why he'd picked that.
So he made a show of thinking, turning the arm band over in his hand. "I'm trying to remember if this was one of the stones she liked," he said. "It's been a long time since we've seen each other."
It bought him a moment to silently beg the Sword to just ask Zelda, because he didn't want to have to deal with bringing the whole thing back for an exchange, or Zelda taking the option of dealing with it and potentially being unhappy with the choice.
All right, all right, yes, he goes way too far for her sometimes.