Wow, Breath of the Wild is a year old today! To celebrate, here is a story I wrote a little while ago. Enjoy!
In case it wasn't already terribly obvious, Breath of the Wild and all its characters and places belongs to Nintendo.
Blue-Eyed Wolf - by Pseudo Twili
Link felt something wet and rough across his face and instinctively shrugged away from it. The thing, whatever it was, incessantly followed his movements and continued to bathe his nose and cheeks in its warm moisture. He slowly became aware of the piercing, biting cold all around him and recollection came back to him with a jolt. His eyes snapped open and he realized he was lying in snow and on something hard. His head had been throbbing mercilessly since returning to consciousness, and worsened when he tried to sit up.
"Urgh!" he groaned.
Something prodded his arm and he swiveled his gaze to find the source of that touch. By his side was the large, gray-and-white wolf who had inexplicably appeared to travel with him several times. He was plying his nose to Link's shoulder and making little whining sounds in his throat. The hero struggled once more to rise to a sitting position and the wolf pushed at his back.
In taking a moment to let the throbbing of his head ease up and his heart beat to return to something nearer normal, he glanced at his surroundings. To one side was the steep and snow-coated slope leading up to one of Hebra's many peaks, and opposite that was an even more frightening amount of slope which faded down and away into the slackening snowstorm. The only thing that had kept him from crashing still further downward was the small, rocky shelf which had caught his rolling body.
He'd been exploring the vast and unpredictable region of Hebra when a blizzard swept up the powder around him while driving still more snow downward. Link wished he'd remained at the shrine he'd come across earlier, but in trying to turn back for it he found himself completely lost in the storm. As he wandered through the blinding, blowing snow, he had encountered a guardian, its movements only slightly slowed by the extreme cold. In what seemed to be his most difficult battle since the one that had so nearly killed him a century before, he rendered the mechanical monster useless to Ganon's influence. In that battle his shield arm was badly singed and even now it throbbed with a heartbeat seemingly all its own.
After gulping a couple elixirs to give him energy, he had plodded on through the blizzard, trying to find shelter. He stumbled into a little alcove, only to find three grizzlemaw bears curled up therein, huddled against each other against the cold. They growled at him and he backed away, unwilling to fight and kill the animals for what was theirs. All around him was blowing snow and sheer walls of rock. He had no idea where he was or in which cardinal direction he was going. Had he not been wearing the clothing specially prepared with Rito down and the magic of rubies, he would surely have frozen like so much raw meat.
He heard the roar of the lynel before he saw the creature; when he attempted to sneak around it, it smelled him and came charging after him. In slaying the beast he sustained a gash to his leg and from which he did not notice that he was leaving a trail of blood-stained snow; the alarming splotches of red were covered quickly by the driving ice and snow. The last thing he remembered was his leg giving out and beginning to tumble down the mountainside.
The cold surrounded him like hundreds of shrieking voices, tearing at him and whipping the snow into a frenzy. He could feel it seeping through his clothing; he would have been dead already except for the protective magic of the red gems. All he wanted to do was to close his eyes and rest a little bit longer, but the wolf would not leave him be. He kept pushing his snout against whatever part of the hero was nearest, his arm, or his back, and the he even bit into Link's clothing to keep the young man from sinking down again. The wolf growled, fixing his Hylian companion with eyes much too blue to belong to an ordinary member of his species.
Link moaned again. "S-stop pushing me…will you?"
With the wolf alternatively prodding and pulling at him, he finally managed to get to his knees and then to stagger to his feet. His leg almost gave way as he did; the wolf pressed himself against the hero's good side to provide support. Link leaned upon him as his head spun. The beast with the blue eyes then led him unerringly from that treacherous slope, crossing a path which was hardly wider than Link. The hero's boots sank at least a foot into the snow, which made the trek all the harder for him, but the wolf's paws made impressions little more than an inch's worth.
When they were safely away from the steep slope, Link stumbled to a large mound which hid a rock underneath all its snow, and half sat, half leaned against it. He blinked several times, trying to clear the frost which clung to his eyelashes. Everything seemed to ache but especially his burnt arm and wounded leg; both those and his head throbbed incessantly, threatening to send him to the black and dangerous oblivion of unconsciousness.
The wolf left the hero's side for almost a minute, first putting his nose to the ground and then throwing it to the air as he seemed to catch sight or scent of something for which he searched. He disappeared into the blowing snow, emerging moments later and bounding back to Link. Barking once, he again tugged at the young man's clothing. To further drive his point into Link's befuddled brain, he marched away a few paces, stood with his nose pointing in the direction he'd previously gone, and then returned to the hero's side.
"O-okay," he said with a shiver. Letting his right arm rest on the wolf, he limped onward.
The blue-eyed beast led him along the foot of the almost vertical mountainside where there was a little respite from the howling wind. He was beginning to think there was no point to the wolf's insistence except to keep him moving in that never-ending, bitterly cold world of white. His thoughts seemed to be getting fuzzier with each snowflake that stuck, half-melted, to the exposed part of his face.
His companion stopped and he was caught unawares. He stumbled in the deep snow and his leg gave way, but the wolf darted in front of him to arrest his fall. On his hands and knees, Link lifted his weary eyes as the wolf moved away from him and began pawing at the snow drifted against the rocks. It took the hero nearly a minute to realize the darkness the beast was revealing to him was not more of the mountain but of a cave. He was nearly too numb to feel grateful as he crawled through the snow and into the shelter.
The den was a small one, about half the size of Link's house. He dragged himself to the back of the cave and lay there, panting a bit as he tried to feel his fingers and toes. What a relief it was to no longer have the wind calling its mournful, menacing song in his ears! The burning in his arm had not lessened, nor had the throbbing cut on his leg, but his thoughts seemed less jumbled. He was extremely cold, he realized, and he wanted more than anything to find warmth again.
He shifted his head and noticed that the wolf was absent. His heart dropped as he thought the beast must have left him, for each time the wolf appeared, he never could tell how long his temporary companion would travel by his side. Hardly had he time to think this, however, than the wolf in question trotted through the entrance of the cave, dragging some heathery, plant-like material with him. He brought it to Link, set it before him, and then departed the cave once more. He repeated the process several times, until the hero had a comfy, springy mattress of sorts.
Link's lips curved up in a wry sort of smile. "Thank you, friend." He shivered. "I don't suppose you have some wood for a fire, too?"
The wolf fixed him with his decidedly human-like blue eyes and then trotted from the cave once more. He was gone longer than he had been before, time in which the hero tried to move into a better position. He removed his equipment from his back, setting the Master Sword in its scabbard carefully to the side. Peering almost dumbly at the bloody, half frozen mess of fabric and feathers that covered his injured leg, he wondered how he would be able to make his way down the mountain. When he brought his fingers near the area, he bit his tongue at the same time as an exclamation of pain flew across his tongue.
A growl interrupted both his thoughts and his examination. Even before he lifted his head, Link assumed the sound belonged to his temporary companion, though he was also confused as to why the blue-eyed beast would make such an intimidating noise toward him. His eyes grew suddenly as wide as Korok seeds as he saw the creature before him. It was a wolf, indeed, but its coat was nearly white, its eyes yellow, and it bared its teeth at him.
Link didn't dare take his eyes from the wild animal as he reached out, scrabbling blindly for his weapon. Oh, where was the sword?! The only thing that met his half frozen fingers was heather and the rock of the cavern floor. The creature seemed to know he was without defense as it crouched, ready to spring at him. Link held up his arm and narrowed his eyes, preparing for the worst, but it never came.
A dark shape tackled the wild wolf and with a few growls and yowls, wrestled the animal to the ground. Link recognized the shape as his companion, once more coming to his rescue. The blue-eyed beast planted itself between hero and cold-footed wolf, his front paws lowered to the ground, his haunches in the air, and his lips pulled back to exhibit every one of his gleaming white teeth. He growled and let out a few short barks.
If Link knew wolves as well as he did horses he would have heard something like, "This is my human. Get away!"
"You share human with brother?" the other wolf growled.
"No!"
The other animal snarled and bared its teeth, but it backed away, its tail low and ears flattened against its head. Then it turned and quit the cave to locate some food of its own. The blue-eyed wolf lowered his haunches and shook his fur of the snow that had fallen upon him during his last excursion to the outside. He turned to Link, all traces of hostility gone; the hero did not hesitate in reaching forth with shaking fingers and scratching the wolf between the ears. He wasn't sure why he did it, for he was sure the wolf was much too smart to be treated like anyone's pet. Perhaps that was what made the beast so special, for he seemed to smile at the touch, if that was even possible for one of his species.
"Th-thanks," he whispered. The new burst of adrenaline fading from his veins, he shuddered mightily.
The beast scampered out of the cave and was back again in moments, dragging a bough of dead fir needles. He let it fall on the slightly uneven floor of the den and eyed Link expectantly. The hero, however, shivered and closed his eyes, his breaths coming in shaky spurts. The wolf padded to his side and with his teeth pulled lightly at the pouch the young man always carried.
"Wh-what? M-my pouch?"
The blue-eyed beast nodded and Link fumbled to detach the object from his belt. He set it on the ground and allowed some of the things he carried therein to spill out. He usually carried at least a couple bundles of wood for just such an occasion. With trembling fingers and with the wolf's help he tore off some of the brown fir needles and laid them on top of some smaller sticks that he extracted from one of the bundles. His fingers hardly seemed to obey him as he reached for his pouch and searched for something else in what seemed a frozen eternity. His companion jostled his arm and the bag slipped from his grasp, with much more of his inventory spilling onto the ground.
The wolf leaned over and picked up one of those items between his teeth, which he then set in Link's palm. It was a small, cylindrical object covered with runes in the language of the Sheikah. The hero fumbled with its top, finally snapping it off to reveal the flickering of a flame both pure and blue. He tilted it to the prepared wood and held it while the needles caught. He was grateful Purah had given the special container to him and with the flame it contained told him he could build a smokeless campfire.
He extended his hands so close to the rising flames that his gloves were in danger of being singed. The warmth was like a new life flowing into his veins and he shivered still more because he couldn't get enough of it. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the clean scent of the wood giving itself up to the blue flame. He did not notice his companion maneuver more fuel to the fire.
He was forced to open his eyes again, however, when the wolf thrust something into his face. The item turned out to be a roll of cloth which Link used to wind around his leg; it was the best he could do under the circumstances and it was much too cold for him to remove or further cut open the leg of his trousers. The blue-eyed beast then caught an elixir bottle in his jaws and lifted it up to the hero. Link downed both it and the second potion which the wolf brought him. He munched sleepily at an apple tart while his companion devoured some meat which had also so conveniently spilled from his pouch.
The young man stared at the blue-eyed wolf, wondering, as he had nearly every other time he appeared, whence the beast came. He always showed up without warning, when Link was facing a huge camp of monsters with few weapons on his side, when he first encountered a fully-functioning guardian after waking from his Slumber, when he was hunting, or playing with the animals at a stable, and even when he was by himself and feeling lonely out in the wild. He and the wolf had teamed up to fight every kind of evil creature in the land, had romped along the beach, gotten lost in sandstorms, and received more than a few wide-eyed looks from traveler and villager alike.
The beast had certainly proved himself to be more intelligent and distinctly human-like than any animal, even Link's beloved horses. His eyes drifted to the wolf's left foreleg and the shackle that bound it. The hero had certainly wondered why it was there; the iron chain jangled when the beast moved his paw but did not seem to inhibit him in the least. And that mark on his forehead…did it not mean something? He was sure he had seen something like it in one of the princess' old texts that she was forever studying.
His exhaustion rapidly creeping up on him, Link let his head fall to the faintly scented heather his friend had gathered for him. Sleep claimed him quickly and he tried to fight against it, knowing there was something he wanted to say to the wolf, but his tongue simply would not obey him. The blue-eyed beast padded to the hero's other side and lay there, providing more warmth for him. Link let his heavy eyelids fall, and the last thing he could clearly remember was hearing the soft, raspy breaths as they left his companion's throat.
Succumbing to the irresistible embrace of sleep, he hoped the snowstorm would fade by the morrow. Then he would make his way from the mountains of Hebra and he knew the wolf would still be with him. Afterward, he could never be quite sure if he was dreaming or not, but he could have sworn that while he slept there on the floor of the cave the wolf had a conversation with his sword.
~Fin~
I know one of the in-game tips tells us that Wolf Link comes from another dimension and cannot be seen by people of that world. I thought it would be more fun if people did see him and stare as a result. Reminds me of Twilight Princess all over again. Hehe...
See you later...
03-03-2018 ~ Published