Biology and Magic at Work

~•°°°•~

His eyes felt like lead and his body was pressed flat against the floor as if it was being held down by an angry Bo. There was a throbbing pain in the back of his head and the loud pattering of rain around him augmented the pain. When he felt the need to comfort the wound by cradling it, his arms could not move fluidly. It was only a stiff and jerky motion that resulted in lifting his hand barely an inch off the floor. His fingers struggled to wiggle themselves free and support his weight but remained in a single lump as if welded together.

He let his arm drop to the floor, relinquishing the attempt to move the cumbersome weight. Other attempts were made at lifting his body but it would not budge, and so he found himself lying in an immovable heap with the chilly, hard floor beneath him, a throbbing headache, and the annoying sound of falling rain.

Through some method however, Link managed to pry an eye open and look around at his surroundings. When he looked, the sight before him appeared fuzzy. It was likely the result of the pain inside his head, but was it also the reason his vision to seem so much...more? Without even moving his eye, his peripheral vision caught most of the room from the one eyed glance. It was not in focus, and along with blurred details it was impossible to make out, and yet there was so much that was just there. It was strange.

As he glanced around at the golden shaded world, unable to discern details, his eye flashed across surfaces of gray and black. In front of him dim rays of light peeked through pillars of gray spotted with floating black specs that squeezed in between the fleeting beams. His line of sight lazily scanned the room, continuing to see the dots and deciding to consider them dust or dirt, but identifying flying dirt, dispite the anomaly, did not help him confirm his location or even how he got in this situation. Thinking about the options sent his mind in a whirl that forced him to shut his eye and take a deep breath and relax.

He let his eye drift open to observe once again, the dark length at the corner of his vision successfully proving to be annoying. The entire arrangement of current events was quite an enigma in his head, and he couldn't make heads or tails of it. The world around him was so different. Surrounded in its ethereal glow, everything was like nothing he'd seen before. Where was he?

He blinked twice, clearing up the fuzz that had coated his vision and allowing him to see the room in more clarity. The decaying walls that rose up in his peripheral vision could now be identified as a stone wall built of bricks that had been sealed shut by iron bars. The room was quickly associated with a prison, of which he was the prisoner, but while his eyesight was clearing up, the pain and fuzz in the back of his head kept his memories at bay and did not allow him to recall the events before he found himself laying down on the floor. It seemed rather important though. If it wasn't he would not be locked in a cell. But despite racking his brain for answers, Link was unable to recall anything before that afternoon.

There was nothing he could do but sit there in the quiet atmosphere and mope about his pain while his consciousness slowly drifted away. The rain outside continued to pour as if Link's problems were of no concern at all, and the smell of blood was still present in the air.

He scrunched up his face at the metallic smell that permeated his nostrils. It had been there the entire time and refused to drift away. As he felt heavier on the floor, the thought escaped him of why there was blood in the room, and it sent a shiver through his body right before he fell back asleep. The blood might soon be his.

~•°°°•~

When he woke up for the second time, his head had stopped its painful throbbing, and he could think clearly without his brain hounding him with signals of pain. Blood was still ever present in the air and while the ache in the back of his head was nearly diminished, he still felt heavy tensions lulling him into a state of drowsy suspension. However, for the second time since his last sleepy escapade, he cracked open a heavy eye and peeked out into his surroundings.

Nothing had changed since his last attempt a waking up. The room was still lit with an eerie yellow glow and the stone walls and iron bars encasing him loomed high above, making him feel small and vulnerable. His vision on the other hand had cleared up and returned to a state of normalcy. He could clearly see the wall in front of him, the stone slabs, the collection of dirt and dust that congregated in the corners of the room. There was still a slight fuzz on minute details, something he never had problem with before, but he pushed the thought aside. The black blur at the center of his nose did not become clearer and he could not decipher what it was, or why it was there. With noticing the new enhancements in his vision, the blur was soon put out of mind and he hardly noticed it, now realizing instead that he had somehow procured a wide range of vision. It was interesting that despite only having one eye open he could see almost all the way around him. The assessment was a bit of a long shot as much of it wasn't even focused on, but the idea still struck with him: he could see so much differently than before he landed in this cell.

Curious of his newfound abilities, Link took in the bland walls of stones, the large crack that ran across its surface with a trickle of water seeping through, and the black specs that floated through the air like raising feathers. He noticed black and brown fuzz, something that was probably a bug, scurrying off the adjacent wall. Link's vision wandered around the room, not really taking in specific details but his eyes were always drawn to the little moving critters or liquids about the room. No matter where he looked Link was often distracted by the specs of black shadow that seem to be a permanent part of the air. He was curious about the lingering shadows in the air, wondering if there was such a thing as giant particles of dust, and felt compelled to get up and travel to it, almost enjoying the idea of chasing down the dot until he got it in his grasp.

Entertaining the idea of getting up and moving, he proceeded to work his limbs into a useful position. This was a difficult task as his limbs were stiff from a long absence of use. The pain in the back of his head flared up again as he sat up. It wasn't much now, just a cumbersome headache that was more annoying than painful. Ignoring the sting, he continued to bring his hands out in front of him to help support his weight, a light clanking sound following the action. The movement was awkward and he thought something might be wrong. He was concerned he might have broken his arm somehow, but ruled it out because he was not in pain nor was he gasping for air. Perhaps it had something to do with the cold object that weighed down his leg as he moved.

Link was uncertain as to why his arms felt unnecessarily stiff and lanky, so he looked down to see if any visual intake would give him an answer. Instead it left him even more confused. When he looked down for his hands, he couldn't find them. In their place two long limbs covered in fur rested before him. That couldn't be right he thought and looked around to find them but only came back to the fuzzy lengths. Where were his hands? His arms? Were they gone? Link was struck with the thought of fear. He didn't want these things to be his, they couldn't be his, but if they were then what did that mean? He swallowed his fear and made a move to pick up his arm, the chain that circled it jingling. The limb responded.

They were his. All his. This was really happening. His arms had morphed into like those of an animal, yet Link couldn't fathom why. He looked at his new arms, taking in their features: claws, chain, toes, fur. He turned what was his palm skyward to face him, but it wasn't a palm anymore. His breathing hitched when he realized something very important. The arm attached to him wasn't human. He recognized the shape, how could he not? His neighbor in Ordon owned one. This was a dog's leg. And it was his.

No. No. This couldn't be happening. He frantically lifted his newly identified paws from off the ground and pushed himself into a standing position. The motion was awkward and only succeeded in proving his fears. When he stood up his joints aligned themselves in their most natural position: with four legs on the floor. He could feel the ground beneath his paws, on both for and back legs. He didn't even have to turn around and look at his new body to realize it wasn't just his arms that had been morphed into those of a dog's, but his entire body. From the way he stood so naturally on four feet, not even feeling compelled to attempt a two legged walk, to the long thing at the bottom of his face right where his nose would have been. Put everything together and it all made sense. He was a dog. The thing attached to his face was a snout, and he now stood on the pads of his feet at half his normal height, trapped in a body that was not his own.

This was a frightening situation, and as much as Link prayed to the Goddesses that this wasn't real, he still had to face reality. Staring down gravely at his new paws, he lifted them up ever so slightly, like testing the waters, only in this case he was testing himself. This was his body now; he had to live with it. For how long he was unsure, but the new shape was already far past its welcome. He took a deep breath and swallowed, a long tongue sweeping across a set of sharp teeth. He stopped doing that because he was afraid of the fangs that sat in his mouth. They weren't dull like his front or back teeth used to be. No, these were sharp and meant for tearing and ripping.

Link roughly shook his head. He didn't want to accept any of this, no matter how real all of it was. He sat back down with his face beneath his paws, not even able to find comfort in the familiar gesture because of his canine body. He couldn't even cry in his moment of hopelessness, his pitiful body unable to, and the soft whimpers he muttered just serve to drive the nail in even deeper. This was all happening wasn't it? He felt so far from home, from what he knew was real. Everything he knew had been turned upside down. By law of logic this should not be happening, but he was a dog, and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.

He tried to take calming breaths through his mouth to sooth his frayed emotional state. He took one deep breath before opening his eyes and regaining visual stimulus. He stared at the paws lying gently across his snout, the sight unclear from this close and just let out a deep breath, listening to the sound of rain outside. This was his reality and he had to face it. He set his paws down on the icy, stone floor and moved his joints so he sat on his haunches, only to quickly jolt up when he felt himself sitting on something. He turned his head around to stare at the limply hanging tail attached to his rump. Sighing in resignation he tried to kick the thing out from under him this time before sitting down again.

Dully he glared at this paws for the umpteenth time that hour, still trying to accept his new form. When he stared at the paw this time he finally took carful notice of the silver shackle attached. The chain length expanded from his leg to clamp on the floor not too far away. The whiff of air he breathed in from the chain didn't smell ideal at all. It smelled like blood and rotten flesh. He subconsciously wondered if the blood would be his next. He looked up from brooding to stare at the metal bars a few feet off. This was a criminal cell he repeated, and he was a prisoner. A prisoner chained to the floor in the body of a dog.

Link didn't have an inkling of why he was locked up. His head no longer whined with pain, but the events from early where still a complete mystery to him. How long had it even been? And was earlier still the same day? It was impossible to tell when locked in a cell with no windows. The room however, still glowed yellow and was spotted with black dust. Then perhaps it was sunset outside and the color of light had leaked in from somewhere.

Link tried to brainstorms reason he was here, but his mind came blank. It came up even more empty when he tried to reason the cause of his transformation. No one would need him as a dog, and forcing him into one was too much work if whoever was just going to keep him as a prisoner. If he ever wanted to know why he was a dog then he would need to get out.

He picked up his body, standing comfortably on four legs and pausing slightly to accept that he could. Walking wasn't difficult to figure out. It was almost like crawling. Just one foot after the other he told himself, trying to ignore the clacking of nails against floor.

Link brought himself over to the chain clamp welded to the center of the room. The metallic smell of blood was present yet again on the chain, but the smell of blood was nothing new to him, it had been permeating the air for quite some time now. It was something else that made him afraid to near the clamp any further. He didn't know why, but something about the clamp made him back away from a fear that chilled his bones. But even when he did, the sense did not dissipate; it was still very much there. In fact, turning away from the source did not help; it was everywhere. He hadn't realized it before since he wasn't looking for it, but now that he noticed it no matter which way he turned the feeling of fear was drowning in the air.

He wanted to leave. The feeling of fear in the air made himself even more afraid of his trapped situation. Even if he was a dog he had to leave this cell. He would deal with his transformation after he escaped. However, attempting to slide the shackle off proved fruitless; his paw was too wide by the toes. Not even raking his claws across the metal did anything more than make a shrieking noise. He was growing impatient. Fear was still drenching the air as well as the bloody, metallic tang. There was another smell as well, something akin to a light fire, but it was drowned out by other smells.

Frustrated, Link didn't know what else to do so he bit at the chain, his long teeth fitting through the loops in the links. The plan didn't have as much success as he hoped it would have, even shaking the chain roughly with his head only created a rattling noise made of metal that clanked against the hard floor. Link released his grip on the metallic chain and let it drop loudly.

There had to be another was to get out of this depressing situation. Link didn't know what though. All he did know was that he was trapped in the body of a dog, chained to the floor, and locked in a cell that smelt of blood, feces, and a strong feeling of fear that weighed down on him. In no sense was Link feeling well, and all he wanted to do was leave this strange place. He didn't even understand why he was here locked up, or even why he was a dog. What had happened to get him in this situation? He was not able to remember anything past seeing Ilia at the spring. And wait...there was something else...something bad happened. Why couldn't he remember?!

His concentration was stolen when the pointed flaps on his head, ears he corrected, shot up on their own accord. That was something new he never could have done in his human body. Right, not human anymore. He pondered why they had turned; he hadn't told them to, but he was hearing a soft breathing behind him as well as the fiery smell from before. This was concerning; no one was there before. Something strange was happening.

Link whipped his head around to identify the perpetrator. The creature that stood at the back of his square room was a female thing that resembled a human far too well. He stood there, shocked, staring at the black and white creature with an enormous helmet situated on its head. The glowing blue swirls painted across its body provided a different texture of light than the yellowed room had before. Within moments of Link staring slack jawed at the impish creature it jumped and flew over his head. His eyes catching the flowing strands of dirty blonde hair as they settled back down to their original position when the being landed.

Awoken from his trance, his body reacted automatically. His lips curled up onto his face to flaunt his lengthened fangs. He hadn't meant to be on the aggressive when he didn't even know what it was, but something about the ear to ear grin and the air of confidence that surrounded it made him on edge. Even the hair on his back seemed to be in agreement.

Blue eyes locked to gold and Link was stared at the short female, its breathing constant before leaning over and widened the smile, "I found you!" She laughed jovially.

What had he gotten himself into?

~•°°°•~

°So clarification:

•Also I got it wrong in the last chapter. Wolves have babies in the spring. They mate more like late winter. But all will be fixed in later chapters. Kind of.

•Why does he keep calling himself a dog instead of a wolf? Give him a break, the guy hasn't gotten a chance to see his face yet.

•It's hard to know what emotions smell like or really what anything smells like to a dog, but based on human findings the smell of emotions is mainly on subconscious level that we don't realize. So I'm keeping emotions as a non-fragrant smell.

•From what I've researched, wolves see just fine in human standards. Correct me if I'm wrong (science lingo is hard) they can't see very close things well or extremely far things? Maybe... and are much more responsive to motion especially at dim light. They are more or less red/green color blind. I'll be going more into the color blind thing later, I've already described Midna as such (hopefully), but there's not much for him to notice.

-Please though if you're like dog savvy or something and have anything to share or say I'll appreciate the knowledge. Or some story plots are always welcome.

•I know other canine senses are stronger than vision, but I felt it more practical for Link to focus on vision first. Reason being, as a human his major sensory was sight, so in my mind it makes sense his brain would automatically try and do something its most accustomed to, taking visual ques. Also there's that thing where if you're in a room for a while you stop notice the smell. That's kinda there too.

•Yeah, I know. The scene didn't go that way. But in all honesty Link took transforming into a wolf too dang well. No normal person would be like "OMG. I'm a wolf...sigh- this sucks...gotta find a way out though." That's Link's reaction in the game. Normal people would be like "OMFG IMMA DOG NOO~ FFIFNNFRKRRIJRNFNFFN *CRY* WAH MY LIFE, MY CELLPHONE, THE INTERNET- I CANT USE IT WAH." Well at least I would.

All rights of the Legend of Zelda series belongs to its proper creators, Nintendo and such. I'm innocent and own nothing, so don't sue me for being awesome.

Please feel free to say whatever you like. I'll appreciate anything you say.:-) . If you want to review but don't know what to say you could answer some questions.

1) So what'd you think overall? This was a focus on Link's emotions and Wolfy senses; do you think I did it alright?

2) Any questions on why I did what I wrote? I'll probably be able to answer them.

3) What do you think about smelling emotions? Like, smelling fear? How do you think it work? Smelly?