The wolf asked what had been inside the room, and Link explained that the main thing had been a pair of trousers.

Then he headed north, resuming his journey along the coast, and making sure he wasn't travelling along sections where the mountainside sloped too steeply into the water. It was a harsh area of the coast, not pleasant, but with a kind of beauty to it, and Link spent a little time to enjoy it.

As he travelled north, however, the coastline began to curve away to the west. Then Link saw a headland ahead, and between him and there the mouth of a bay that looked long and narrow.

Perhaps the mouth of a river?

Either way, a check to his left confirmed that Mount Lanaryu was dipping away to the west, or perhaps that Link had gone almost the whole way along the side of it, and he dropped closer to the sea – then all the way to the sea, spotting some tasty looking snail shells, and picked them up to stow them in his Slate.

Down near the sea, the weather was warmer than it had been up on the slopes – though still cooler than it had been on Eventide – and Link splashed his way along the southern side of the bay, collecting up crabs and snails and trying not to get too distracted by his thoughts of a nice meal.

After Eventide, he knew not to get too focused on a meal you hadn't eaten yet, even if you had already managed to cook it.

As he rounded the northern tip of Mount Lanaryu, dispatching two Octoroks that began spitting rocks at him, Link looked ahead to see what else there was to find… and, to his pleasure, spotted another raft.

It was drawn up on a beach on the other side of Lanaryu Bay itself, and Link checked west before deciding that the best spot to cross the bay was going to be about where the raft was anyway.

He could keep heading west, or take the raft out to sea and continue sailing north along the coast… and right now Link thought that continuing to follow the coast sounded like a good idea.

It was certainly going to be quicker to cover the same distance.


After crossing the bay to the northern side, and easing the raft out into the water, Link found himself questioning that confident idea.

It wasn't the Lizalfos and Octoroks that occasionally pestered him. Those weren't the big problem.

The big problem was that there was a wind, right now, and it was coming up the bay from the east. That meant Link couldn't ride the wind, and he couldn't ignore it either – instead it was making the sail ripple and swing out of alignment no matter how carefully he tried to hold it in place, and by the time he'd turned around to swing his Korok leaf and propel himself out to sea he'd lost track of exactly which direction he was pointing.

And Link had no desire to go crashing into a rock and lose this raft, thank you very much.

That meant that he had to take a different tack. Actually he had to take several different tacks, swinging the sail around and trying to steer the raft back and forth so it made headway against the wind – a bit at a time.

Link's spiritual memories appeared to be quite clear on the idea that the square sail on this particular raft was absolutely terrible for this, and that the lack of a keel was not helping either.


That afternoon, with the raft pulled up on a beach that was notably still in Lanaryu Bay, Link seriously contemplated just going over to the south side of the bay and dragging the raft out to sea with a rope or something.

Then his ears perked up, and the lupine hero stood still for a moment before bounding to the top of a nearby hill.

He was fairly sure he could hear an accordion…


Much to Link's satisfaction, his ears had steered him right.

Not only was there an accordion playing, but the player was the very same Rito he'd met once before, Kass.

Pleased, Link loped down the slope towards him, then paced around so he would approach the big Rito from the front.

Kass was engrossed in his playing, muttering to himself and running his feathers up and down the scales, then looked up with a start. "Oh! A wolf!"

A moment later, Kass leaned closer. "And not just any wolf… you must be the one I met on the Rabia Plain, west of here. How has life been treating you?"

Link shrugged.

"I see, I see," Kass said, nodding. "Well, you enjoyed the last verse, and it was quite a sight to see what you made of it! So if you don't object, I'll play the verse passed down in this region."

Link tilted his head, flicking his ears with interest, and sat down.

Kass cleared his throat, then began to play in earnest.

"He breaks the rocks that serve to bind, above the tempestuous bay. On wings of cloth and wood entwined, he lands on the altar to open the way."

The notes resonated in the air for a long time, long after Kass had finished playing, and Link closed his eyes to enjoy the song before opening them again and looking around.

He could see a pedestal, which… well, there had been another pedestal associated with the Crown of Bone song, hadn't there? And the tempestuous bay…

Link looked out past Kass, towards the main part of Lanaryu Bay, and saw several strong, swirling wind currents among the rock crags and spires that speckled the lee of a nearby headland. They were nothing like the winds that were blowing in the main sound, and as Link contemplated them he decided that they didn't look especially natural, either.

Certainly, their great strength didn't seem normal. And they were blowing in plenty of different directions.

"It's a peculiar one, isn't it?" Kass asked. "This might be the tempestuous bay, but… what kind of wings are made of cloth and wood?"

Link almost felt like giving Kass an unimpressed look, then remembered that the Rito probably hadn't actually seen his glider – or, not much, at least.

Consequently, to explain, he jumped to the top of the nearest little rock spire, then barked for attention. Kass looked up, attentive and curious, and Link jumped before activating the glider to drift gently down into the water.

"Interesting!" Kass said. "So perhaps that is what the song means… though I wonder how such an old song could know about that. Perhaps you're destined to solve these old riddles, wolf!"

Link clambered out onto the rock, shook himself off, then looked out into the bay.

If they were getting this right, then he needed to clear out some rocks.


After a bit more swimming, and another bout of shaking himself dry, Link had the first of the rocks identified. It was a cracked, unstable-looking boulder, and one of the wind currents was beating itself fruitlessly against the rocks and dissipating.

Link, of course, had an excellent solution for that problem. It involved explosives.

True to his guess, as soon as the boulder was destroyed the wind went whipping through unhindered. It swirled into a larger, U-shaped rock structure, and Link jumped into the wind current to investigate the U-shaped rocks.

His glider carried him along without difficulty, and Link landed inside the rock structure – finding, as he did, a large supply of crabs and fish.

Problem solving was put on hold for a moment as he acquired seafood, then for a bit longer as he dealt with some nearby Octoroks flinging rocks at him, then when Link resumed he had three more masses of boulders to smash.

One was to the east of the U-shaped rock, and freed a second powerful current. One was to the north, nearest the pedestal, which allowed a mingled but unstable combined current to blow through, and the final one was to the south.

It was also attached to the roof of the rock, not at sea level, and it gave Link a much larger problem. Rain had rolled in, and that meant his attempt to use an explosive arrow to destroy the southern boulder just resulted in the arrow bouncing off with a plink noise and a distinct lack of explosion.

Link next tried flinging a bomb up high enough, but he couldn't get the height.

Then, after some thought, he realized that he'd have to get up onto the roof of the U-shaped structure. Climbing wasn't going to happen in the rain, not with rock that steep, but an upcurrent provided his glider enough lift to get him there, and Link shoved some rocks off the roof to collect yet another Korok seed before moving to the southern side and creating a round bomb.

He dropped it off the cliff into the wind current, waited a second, and triggered it.

Then he tried again, waiting a bit less time.

A third attempt, with a bit more time, finally worked. The last boulder shattered, and all three powerful currents combined into an intense jet of wind that ran north from the U-shaped structure to the pedestal.

Link promptly jumped, activating his glider, and rode the wind to the pedestal. It went blue the moment he touched down, and there was a grinding, shaking kerrrash as a shrine rose out of the ground nearby.

Kass had flown over while the pedestal was rising, and whistled through his beak. "That's very impressive, wolf!" he said. "So that's what the ancient verse meant, in full."

Link nodded, pleased with himself, then pawed at Kass's accordion.

"Oh – you'd like to hear it again?" Kass asked, and Link nodded.

The Rito played the song again, this time under a rainy sky with the powerful wind current whipping over Link's fur, and this time it sparked something in his heart.

He threw back his head and howled, singing a song that was at once new and known by heart, and the wind answered. It blew one way, then another, pushing rain to splatter against them both, then settled down to a fresh breeze blowing out of the west, towards the east.

Completely different to the wind that had been blowing earlier.

"Now that's a song to write down and learn!" Kass said, deeply impressed. "You're full of surprises, wolf!"


After saying farewell to Kass – it was the thought that counted – Link went into the revealed shrine.

The monk just looked at him.

Nobody tells me anything, he sighed. There's something in the chest, if you want it.

Link checked the chest, and his eyes lit up.

It was a sword… and, specifically, a flaming sword. A solution to all of Link's firestarting woes, for a very long time if he took care of it.

At least you're happy, the monk said. Yes, there's no challenge, I thought the bit on the outside was enough.

Link nodded encouragingly, then took the orb.


With his new windsong, Link could have just gone straight out to sea and resumed his voyage up the coast of Hyrule… but there was that same headland that had blocked him, and now he was curious about what could be found there.

It was still raining as he loped south along the western side of the headland, picking up snails and fish and crabs, then reached a gentler section of the escarpment and began picking his way up the slope.

The sound of monsters – Lizalfos, he thought – ahead of Link made his ears prick up, and he crept closer before checking how many of them there were.

It looked like four or five, of the tougher sort, and he made sure he had one of the good swords available before charging over the lip of the flat section and getting stuck right in.

Fortunately, there was no thunderstorm going on – just rain – and Link made short work of all the Lizalfos, collecting a pair of sharp metal boomerangs for his trouble along with some arrows.

He also took control of a cooking pot, and decided that a cooked meal would be just right – and a good way to use all those ingredients he'd been picking up to boot. So he got out his flameblade, swiped it at the fire under the cooking pot, then made an exasperated whining noise when the rain pattering down extinguished the cookfire before it had even got started.

Link continued to stare at the not-a-fire for several more seconds, then tried the flameblade again, then sighed and put it away.

It looked like the only prepared meal he was going to be able to have right now was cold apple soup, or possibly fish-attempting-to-escape, so Link reluctantly turned his back on the cooking pot for now.

How long could it rain for, anyway? And there was still the rest of the headland to explore.


Several hours later, Link had revised his opinion on several things.

The first was how nice the headland was. There were certainly things to like about it – Link didn't want to be accused of concealing information – but there were also things to not like about it, and one of the most important was that there was a snoozing Hinox right there on the main path from the headland to the rest of Hyrule.

Then there was the Lynel, a class of problem that Link still didn't want to deal with just yet. Especially since he'd be sailing past the headland soon enough, and didn't like the idea of being shot at.

On the other paw, or one of the other paws, there was that it was still raining. And Link had found the weather forecast feature on the slate, which indicated that it was going to keep raining for as far in the future as the forecaster could predict.

Which was where the final thing Link had changed his mind on got involved.

He had decided, quite firmly, that he wasn't going to wait for the weather to clear. Even if that meant missing out on cooking, he wanted to actually use his newfound windsong and see how much easier that made sailing down the coast.

And he had the feeling that he'd be waiting far too long for the rain to stop.


Link's new song turned out to be exactly what he needed.

He'd expected that it would be helpful, but he hadn't really understood just how helpful it would be after the pure sweat of propelling himself by Korok leaf… and yet, at the same time, part of him was satisfied but unsurprised. Like sailing by a wind that he himself was calling from the sky was just as it should be.

The rain cleared up once he was a little way out to sea, of course, but Link just shook himself dry and then howled up a southerly wind – one that blew him north at a steady speed of about thirty kilometres per hour, sail billowing out as it carried him along.

The best part of it all, the best part, was that Link could just close his eyes and luxuriate in it for a long moment… at least, until he was reminded by a splashing sound up ahead of the existence of Lizalfos and had to open his eyes in order to fend them off with a half-broken oar.

It was a half-broken oar after fending off a Lizalfos, anyway.

Once the Lizalfos had been vanquished, Link looked west to the coast and tried not to wince. There was a sheer cliff face, now, with no sign of anywhere to land, and more importantly no sign of any way up the cliff.

Ahead, meanwhile, was a set of islands that were nothing so much as giant, vertically-sided spears that rose directly out of the sea. They looked as tall as the cliff to the west, at least, and Link watched them slowly grow larger with half his attention on the sail.

If need be, he would howl up a new wind or steer himself through the islands, but there was no need to make the decision just yet… then, as he reached the point he had to make the decision, something about the wind around the nearest island caught his attention.

There was part of it that was blowing up. And not in the explosion sense, but in the sense of a quirk of the islands catching the wind to create a strong, roaring upwards current that almost seemed like it could lift Link if he happened to have the glider open there.

Link took about ten seconds to make his decision on that front, then took a run-up and jumped off his raft. He snapped out his glider as he hit the upcurrent, and there was a jolt that felt like it might take his forelegs off at the shoulder as he was yanked bodily upwards.

Below him, the raft drifted a bit, rocking from the sudden lack of Link's weight, then turned away from the wind. It might still be possible for Link to get back to it again, which was good because he hadn't really thought of that.

Still, it looked like it might work out okay.


It felt like Link had been going vertically upwards for well over a mile when he reached level ground. The island spire had a sudden flat top, along with a bridge back to the mainland, and Link sniffed a bit before realizing that what he could smell was a nearby Korok.

Finding that took only a moment, then Link looked north, and saw that all the islands in the group were connected by dubious-looking rock bridges.

If Link hadn't had the glider, he might have been a bit nervous about trusting his safety to the bridges… but he did have the glider, so he had very few concerns on the matter, and he began making his way north to investigate the rest of the islands.

One of them had a chest with five bomb arrows and another with a silver rupee, then the next had a mechanical Guardian sky-construct flying around and scanning around with a spotlight, and Link elected not to find out what would happen if the spotlight spotted him.

Giving that island a miss, he went straight to the next, then his ears perked up in interest as his Slate began to chirp.

There was a Shrine nearby, though it turned out to be not on this island but on the very last one in the chain – the largest and most northerly sky pillar, and one connected to the rest only by the longest and most precarious wooden bridge yet.

It actually made Link wonder how the bridge could have been put there in the first place. It was made of hundreds of logs tied together, it flexed slightly under even his weight… maybe it was all that was left of what had once been a much larger and safer structure, but if that was true Link didn't think testing that idea would be a very good plan at all.

Good plan or not, though, he had a shrine to investigate – and, slipping past the searchlights of two more Guardian Skywatchers, he had his destination.

He did have to move a giant slab of rock with Stasis to get at the cave holding the Shrine, though. Link's respect for the Sheikah Monks… varied, but the amount of work that had gone into making some Shines difficult to access just couldn't be dismissed.


As it turned out, the Shrine itself held a challenge involving weights.

There was a giant set of scales, with a small weight on one of the two sides of the balance to hold that side down, and Link examined it carefully before deciding that – even if he could get onto the other side of the scales, which he could do by using the weight and Magnesis – there was no way he was going to be able to climb from the raised side of the balance to the actual place the monk was.

On the other paw, there was a larger weight on a wooden shelf, and as soon as he saw that – and the ropes holding it up – Link had his solution.

He got out a pair of arrows, then flicked one at each rope, and a moment later he was catapulted high into the air. The sudden impetus took his breath away, but he steered over to the landing spot with the glider.

Then jumped over to get to a chest, which held a diamond the size of his leg, before returning to the main landing spot and walking up to get his orb.

That was awfully quick, the Sheikah monk Kah Mael said. Maybe I should have put a bit more thought into it… it hardly seems worth the weight.

Link shrugged, then gave Kah Mael a vaguely suspicious look.


Once he had his Orb and was out of the shrine, however, Link found that in fact there was a second challenge to Kah Mael's shrine.

Namely, that he was now at the bottom of a deep hole with no obvious way out.

Link paced back and forth, thinking to himself, then went back into the shrine… only to come out again several minutes later, having decided that the metal cube was going to be simply impossible to fit into the lift.

He sat down, looking up, and tilted his head a little.

This was a bit of a puzzler, really…

After giving it several minutes of careful thought, Link had two plans. He started with the cheaper option, crouching before jumping as high as he could manage, and his paws scrabbled on the lip of a ledge before hauling himself up onto it.

It wasn't big enough to support another big jump, but Link tried anyway, and had just enough time to decide that his wedge-himself-across-the-hole plan had failed before landing with a painful oof on the floor of the hole.

Grumbling to himself, Link got out several bundles of lumber, then lit them on fire with his flame blade and waited until an updraft developed. The air in the hole got very smoky very quickly, and Link hurriedly jumped into the swirling air before snapping out his glider and riding it up.

It worked, technically.


Once he was sure his fur had stopped smouldering, and dealt with some unimpressed comments about the smell of wood-smoke from a pair of wolves who lived on the island, Link leaned out over the edge to see if he could spot his raft.

There was no sign of it whatsoever.

There was, however, still that set of precarious bridges linking the islands, and the southernmost island even connected to the cliff tops of the nearby mainland, so with a shrug Link began heading back across the log bridges again.

Really, he couldn't tell if whoever made these had been an engineering genius or breathtakingly unconcerned with life and limb… and thoughts like that carried him most of the way along the island chain, though he did take a break to blow up some hard-looking rock deposits and earn himself some more big gemstones.

As he crossed to the mainland, though, it began to rain again – and as Link set foot on the cliff top, a Moblin with a spear turned in surprise before brandishing its weapon at him.

Link retrieved a sword from his Slate, circling warily, then swiped at the Moblin.

The Moblin swiped back, and Link ducked underneath the spearblow to avoid being hit. He felt the fur on his back whip aside from the force of the blow, which was a bad sign about how strong this Moblin was, and lashed out twice in quick succession before retreating as the Moblin recovered itself.

Link's opponent waved the spear menacingly, then jumped backwards, and Link blinked in surprise as the Moblin fell off the cliff.

Not that he was complaining, but the spear would have been nice…


Link explored the area, heading north and west, and after an altercation with a Lizalfos (and skirting a camp full of monsters, all of them looking quite dangerous) he found a series of cliffs around a deeply-sunk lake.

His Slate chirped, alerting him to a nearby shrine, and Link had to pace back and forth a bit before getting a good idea of where the shrine actually was. He also spotted a powerful updraft, one seething up out of the ground, which was at least a good sign that he'd be able to get back out of the lake without the kind of nonsense it had taken on the islands.

The problem was, Link couldn't actually see a way to get at the shrine, and he contemplated the idea of circling the grotto to come down from another direction before shrugging and just jumping out into the void.

His glider activated, and Link steered it over to the north side of the grotto. His Slate chirped again, insistently, and as Link dropped slowly lower he saw it – a wall of friable rock, under an overhang.

Unfortunately, he didn't have an obvious way to destroy it, at least not immediately, and Link steered himself over to the updraft to rethink.


A few minutes later, Link jumped off the overhang.

His glider activated immediately, and he flicked his head to throw an explosive arrow at the rock wall.

The explosive arrow notably failed to explode, bouncing off the rock wall with a sort of wet bonk sound, and Link wondered why for a moment before realizing that the incessant rain had put the fuse out.

Muttering dark imprecations in the language of the wolves, Link altered course to go back to the updraft.

It was very convenient that it was there, really – even a footpath would have meant Link would be climbing the same cliff over and over and that would get tiresome – and another few minutes later Link jumped off the overhang again.

This time he went all the way to the wall of friable rock, wedging himself awkwardly into the most likely crevice he could find, and flicked through his Slate to find the bomb rune before placing a bomb down.

It immediately fell off the overhang, and Link sighed before hitting the detonator rune and trying again.

This time he managed to find a better spot, but it was right next to where he was balanced on the rock wall, and Link spent a minute trying to spot somewhere else he could go to before bowing to the inevitable and dropping off the overhang.

Since he was sort of interested to see this one, Link landed by the lakeside and turned to watch before triggering the bomb rune. There was an impressive avalanche of debris, crashing down into the lake, and Link wondered for a moment if the overhang was going to collapse before letting out a sigh of relief as it didn't.

It would have been very impressive, but the wave would probably have got him wetter than the rain.


After going off the same overhang for the third time that day, Link steered his glider into the little nook with the shrine, and unlocked it before going inside.

The interior of the shrine looked worryingly familiar, and the Sheikah Monk at the other side of the arena raised their head.

I am Ke'Nai Shakeh, they said. I offer a modest test of strength, and if you're not the destined hero then I think it's probably a good idea to leave now.

Link considered that, then put his Slate down and rummaged through it.

If the monk had said it was a major test of strength, he'd be going back up the lift right now. But because they'd said modest, he had a different plan.

That looks like a Slate, the monk said. I'll be honest, I was not paying attention in the planning meetings, but I didn't think you were supposed to be a wolf.

Link found what he was after, and pulled a large Ancient Axe out of the Slate before taking the haft in his jaws and turning the blade on.

...I'm going to assume that's for the Guardian Scout, Ke'Nai Shakeh said. In you come, then.

Link stowed the Slate, advanced into the arena, then set about the Guardian Scout with the big axe he'd saved specially for exactly this situation.

It was times like this that made it all worthwhile.


Well, I'm a bit intimidated now, Ke'Nai Shakeh admitted, as Link gathered up his trophies from the Shrine – another big Ancient Axe to replace the one he'd broken, an Ancient Sword, several Guardian parts with one previous owner, and a big sapphire from the treasure chest. Do you have some frustration to work out, or something?

Link shrugged.

Anyway, here's the orb, the monk said. Come again, if you want. Or don't. Up to you really.


Feeling pleased with himself, Link took the air current again and then headed north. Fortunately the rain died down as he travelled down the hill and across a road, then towards a shrine in the distance, and as he got closer a pair of horse-riding Bokoblins started waving bows around and making threatening chants.

"Hey," Link said, getting the attention of the horses. "Any chance you could throw them off?"

"Sure," one of them agreed.

The Bokoblin looked briefly puzzled, then got sent sailing though the air by a violent buck from their erstwhile mount. Their bow went flying, and Link jumped up to snatch it out of the air before throwing it at the still-mounted Bokoblin.

That knocked the second Bokoblin free as well, and Link growled menacingly at the Bokoblins as they picked themselves up.

A moment later, the second horse kicked their former rider hard enough to make the creature dissolve back into Malice.

"Did you see that?" he asked, glancing at the first stallion. "I felt like the old stories of Epona!"

The remaining Bokoblin was now looking nervously at the prancing horse that had just slain their fellow raider, which was a very big mistake because it meant they weren't keeping an eye on Link any more.

Link made sure the error was too brief to regret.

"Thanks," the first stallion said. "I wouldn't have wanted to do that without someone around to help out. They're nasty with those arrows."

"They'll come back on the next blood moon," Link warned. "You might want to head somewhere else."

"Thanks for the warning," the second horse replied. "What do you think, bro? Maybe we should see about going to those stables up north? No Bokoblins there."

"Worth thinking about," the first one admitted. "Thanks for the help, wolf… wait, are those apples? Thanks!"

Link picked up his Slate again, pleased to be recognized for his apple-gifting ways, and decided to see what was in that nearby Shrine.


AN:


Given that Hyrule has both metres (Sheikah Slate) and hours (on the clock), I think speed in kilometres per hour is reasonable enough.