"Hmm, now," King Rhoam said, tending his fire.
He didn't need it, not truly, but it was a nice habit to have. A good way to pass the time.
And someone like him had a need of ways to pass the time.
"Is it exactly a hundred years, or about a hundred years?" he asked himself. "And is that in days, or months, or years?"
Really, it was nothing he hadn't thought of before. A hundred years gave someone a long time to consider all the questions… and it had been a hundred years, or nearly that. By any definition.
Which meant it was nearly time for him to fulfil his final task. Soon, Sir Link would be awakening from the Shrine of Resurrection, and it would be Rhoam's fate to meet him.
To guide him along the way, a little. And then, to make a father's heartfelt plea.
There was a slight ripple in the air, energies that Rhoam would never have been able to sense before, and he looked up before drawing his cloak tighter.
Long ago, decades at least, he'd decided not to introduce himself to Sir Link the moment that the Hero emerged from the shrine. The Hero was supposed to be reborn in the shrine in some way, returned to how they had been before in spirit somehow, and if Link recognized him – well, there would be no harm done. And otherwise?
Perhaps it was a little joke on his part, but it still seemed the best thing to do to Rhoam.
He looked up, waiting for Link to emerge from the door to the shrine, then his regard turned into a stare.
Because, for the first time in a hundred years, something had emerged from the shrine.
And it was a wolf.
There… wasn't really any other way to put that, really. About three and a half feet tall at the shoulder, maybe four, with a mixed pattern of greyish-green and white fur and a pair of pricked-up ears.
It wasn't acting like a wild wolf, either. It paced to the lip of the cliff outside the Shrine, looked around and sniffed, then spotted him and came padding along the path.
Rhoam still wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation by the time the wolf reached him. It sat down on its haunches, looking at him with intelligent eyes, then glanced down at the pot.
"Are you… hungry?" Rhoam asked.
A nod.
"I've got some apples?" he suggested, and got another nod. "Well, hold on a minute and I'll cook them. You're very polite for a wolf."
The wolf tilted its head slightly, and Rhoam blinked.
That look in his eyes… it was familiar, somehow.
Rhoam stirred the pot, buying time to think, and the apples stewed over the course of a few minutes. The solution was right at the edge of his mind, but… it didn't make sense. None of the ideas he came up with made sense.
And surely it was more likely that a spirit-touched wolf would have wandered into the shrine while he wasn't looking, rather than-
The wolf's paw poked at his spoon, reminding him to keep stirring, and Rhoam did so.
Then he noticed something on the paw. A pattern of three triangles together.
He dropped the spoon.
"Sir Link?" he asked.
The wolf's head tilted again, the other way this time. He looked over his shoulder, at the door to the Shrine of Resurrection, then slowly traced out the path he'd taken.
Patted the ground with one of his forepaws.
Then made an inquisitive huff.
"Well, it's not every day the Hero of Hyrule turns into a wolf," Rhoam muttered, aware that by now his pretence of being a random old hermit was threadbare at best. "I don't suppose you remember how it happened, do you?"
Link – it had to be Link – lay down on his paws, pantomiming sleep, then stood up and shook himself out.
He inspected his paws, one after another, then gave a lupine shrug before taking out a Sheikah Slate.
Rhoam had to admit, he was impressed. It seemed to have been concealed in the fluff around Link's neck, though now he thought about it Link had always had an impressive ability to carry far more things than anyone would have anticipated. Or thought would fit.
The apples were ready, and Rhoam stuck them on a skewer before giving them to Link. "Enjoy," he said. "Well, if you're not sure what happened then I don't think I've got any idea… now, I have to tell you, this plateau we're on, I don't think you're getting down without a hang glider."
Link carefully ate one of the stewed apples, then gave Rhoam a curious look.
"Well, I do have a glider, and we won't know if we don't try," Rhoam said. "Though, first, I'd quite like you to gather for me the contents of a few shrines…"
Ears pricked, Link prowled forwards through the grass.
Being a wolf was… not how he had expected to wake up, but at the same time… it wasn't really something that he'd call uncomfortable or unfortunate.
Whatever had happened, he knew he hadn't been a wolf before. He'd been a Hylian. But it had changed the way his body worked and how he thought of himself, and his memories of before the shrine were vague, so being a wolf didn't feel wrong.
Just… different.
And moving as a wolf was instinctual. Or, not quite… it was learned, but he'd already done a lot of the learning.
Storing the Sheikah Slate in his fur was something he wasn't really… sure about, but it had made sense when he did it.
Shaking off that thought, Link crouched a little lower, and moved ahead one paw at a time.
Ahead of him, four Bokoblins chattered to one another as they cooked.
They were… wrong.
Link couldn't tell if he'd known about this before his transformation, but just looking at the Bokoblins he could sense the tiny flecks of Malice in them. That made them corrupt beings… not just twisted to evil, but inherently evil.
He could see it, smell it… Link half-wondered if he could hear it, a sort of thrum at the edge of his range of hearing.
Inch forwards, a little further, then Link tensed.
And charged.
The Bokoblins yelped in alarm, and Link hammered one of them flat with his initial pounce. Another reached for a spiked club, swiping it at him, and the one on top of a guard tower started shooting arrows at him from a crude bow.
Link ducked under the club swipe, growling, then snapped at the Bokoblin who'd swung it and knocked them over. A paw-blow finished them off, then an arrow hit him in the side with a thwack, and Link half-whined half-growled in response.
Then the fourth Bokoblin stabbed at him with a spear.
Link dodged forwards just in time to avoid being hit in the flank, then whirled on one paw. The spear-Bokoblin stabbed at him again, and this time he took the haft of the spear just behind the head.
"Erk!" the Bokoblin complained, digging in its heels and pulling, and Link pulled back.
He might only have had his muzzle to work with, but he was a lot stronger, and he yanked the spear out of the Bokoblin's grasp before opening his jaws for a moment. That let the spear keep moving, and he snapped at it again about halfway up the haft.
Now he had a spear, and he whipped it back and forth to hit both the Bokoblin he'd taken it from and the one who he'd flattened with his first pounce. A third arrow flew, this one glancing off the ground by his rear haunches, and he tossed the cracked spear aside to glare up at the archer Bokoblin.
It looked nervous, then raised the bow again.
Link took a pace back, glancing down at the terrain for a moment.
The Bokoblin aimed right at him – then, in the same moment, it loosed the arrow and Link exploded into a run.
Lope-lope-leap, and he jumped clear to the top of the tower to bowl the Bokoblin right off it and land on top of it with a painful crunch. It dissolved into smoke, like the other three had done already, and Link panted slightly before shaking himself out.
The arrow injury stung, and he needed to treat it, but… apart from that, that had worked out all right.
Maybe there were weapons around here that would last longer than one blow? And he felt strongly like he should work out how to use a bow…
Ten minutes and two bows later, Link had concluded that he wasn't able to use a bow very well at the moment.
Putting it on his back hadn't worked, holding the bow in his muzzle and pulling the string with a paw hadn't worked and he'd bitten the bow in half, just using his paws definitely hadn't worked… the best he'd been able to come up with had been lying on his back and holding the bow with two paws, then pulling back the string with his teeth.
And he'd shredded the bowstring with his teeth in only a few shots.
Sighing, Link picked up an arrow in his muzzle, then tilted his head contemplatively.
His ears pricked up.
He glanced to the side, where there was a deer grazing placidly about fifty feet away, then flicked his head sharply to the side.
The arrow got a direct hit.
Link wagged his tail, pleased, then went over to see if the arrow was any good.
And that cooking pot was still going… maybe he could make some lunch?
After a fur-raising encounter with a Guardian, and a paw-scrabbling climb over a wall to avoid finding out just how painful the Guardian's laser was, Link entered the shine it had been sort-of guarding.
There was a slot for his Slate, so in the Slate went, and after a short delay it unlocked a pair of runes to let Link make bombs.
This immediately presented problems.
Link activated one of the runes, and the Slate dispensed a cube shaped bomb along with providing a clearly marked indicator on the screen to use to detonate the bomb.
Link looked at the bomb.
Looked at his paws.
Looked at the bomb.
Then he gingerly nosed the bomb over to a cracked section of wall, backed away, and hit the detonator rune.
The Sheikah Slate was not really built for someone without hands, but by the time he reached the end of the shrine Link was starting to get the hang of what to do.
It was like with archery. He had to come up with an alternative, and the alternative was the slate on the ground in front of him and using his muzzle to flick the bombs.
He'd even found a sword!
Pleased with himself, he sat down in front of the preserved Sheikah monk at the far end of the shrine.
There was a sort of pause.
"Rrf?" Link asked, feeling like he should prompt them.
You are a wolf, the ancient monk said. Why are you a wolf?
Link shrugged.
Why does nobody tell me about this sort of thing? the monk asked. The Goddess Hylia did not see fit to inform me of this.
The best answer Link could give to that was another shrug.
Please at least tell me you are fighting Calamity Ganon, the monk requested, and Link nodded. Very well… I am Ja Baij. With your arrival, my purpose is fulfilled. You have earned this Spirit Orb.
Ja Baij formed the Spirit Orb.
They both looked at the Spirit Orb.
You can store things in your Sheikah Slate? Ja Baij suggested. It is one of the apps on the home screen.
Link looked up.
Then took out his Slate and checked the map.
No mistake about it, there was definitely one of the Shrines he'd marked up on top of that cliff.
He stepped back several paces, considering, then huffed out a sigh and stowed the Slate before loping forwards.
Breaking into a run, he jumped at the point which his instincts said was right, and his paws scrabbled on the cliff before two of them managed to find purchase.
That lasted only a moment, though, and one slipped. The other held on to the ledge, precarious as it was, and Link had a moment to look for a route up before realizing that his paw was slooowly sliding off the ledge.
Doing his absolute best not to yelp, Link tensed before pushing down hard with his left forepaw. That got him a bit higher, enough that he could use the right forepaw to grab onto the same ledge, and a second or two later he was securely dangling from a little ledge.
Link cast around for his next paw-hold, trying to spot where he could aim for, but places where the rock had looked perfectly climbable from a distance turned out to be much less viable up close. Then his grip slowly began to slip again, and Link sighed with resignation before dropping off the cliffside and landing with a painful thump.
Perhaps another idea would work better.
One destroyed nearby Bokoblin camp and a lot of pulling, pushing and grumbling, Link had a pile of boxes with half a dozen ominous-looking explosive barrels underneath.
Carefully, he nosed a cube bomb next to the barrels, then went around to the side of the pile and clambered up the boxes. He'd found a metal one among the wooden ones, and putting it on top of the pile had been an enormous pain but right now it was giving him a much more confident feeling than being on top of another wooden one would have done.
Double-checking his angles, Link put down the Sheikah Slate, then held onto it with one paw.
He didn't want to lose it.
He took a breath, then nosed the bomb activation rune.
Immediately the bomb exploded, and then so did all the barrels, and Link was flung skywards in a cloud of splinters and metal box fragments. He sailed up as high as the cliff, then a bit higher… then began to drop down again, and he shoved with a paw to get the Slate over the edge of the cliff before bracing himself.
As it turned out, Link had been just about right. He hadn't hit the cliff below the lip, nor had he just dropped right back down again, and air hissed out through his muzzle as he hit the cliff edge with his chest and managed to get both forepaws over the top.
His hindpaws dangled, then he hauled with all his strength, and slowly got himself over the lip of the cliff.
Shaking himself out, Link sat down to get some splinters out of his fur – then froze, as he spotted a way he could have got here with perfectly achievable small jumps and only a bit of climbing a much more acceptable slope instead of going straight up a cliff.
He sighed, then picked up the Sheikah Slate and went to unlock the shrine.
The newly unlocked shrine, the shrine of the monk Owa Daim, granted Link's Slate a second application – the rune of Stasis, which would freeze an object until it ran out.
Crucially, and in a development which made Link prick up his ears, force applied to the frozen object didn't go away – instead, it was all stored up, and the last blow struck to the object would decide which direction all that energy would be released.
Link could already think of a few ways to use that, in future – in addition to the ways that the shrine itself demonstrated it, of course – but once he reached the end, he found out that the Monks could not actually talk to one another and pass information to one another.
Mostly by Owa Daim jumping off his pedestal in surprise, which was funny.
...I am impressed, Owa Daim said, after a moment, and sat back down hastily. I had designed the trial of Stasis for… well, a biped.
Link nodded his understanding.
Well, this is going to spoil the dignity of our entire ancient order, Owa Daim complained. But it's not your fault, I suppose.
He frowned. Is it your fault?
To that, Link could only shrug.
That's the best I'm getting, I suppose, Owa Daim judged, then provided the Spirit Orb.
With two shrines down and two to go, Link found himself with a choice about whether to go up or down.
There was a shrine down near the edge of the plateau, and then another shrine much higher up on the snowfields of Mount Hylia. Link gave the choice a lot of thought, using paw-swipes to scroll around the map on the Sheikah Slate, then decided that since he was closer to the Mount Hylia shrine he should head there first.
That meant getting along the cliffside path he'd noticed first, or – and Link considered this one for only a moment before deciding it was the better option – putting his new Stasis Rune to good use. He froze a nearby boulder with a flash of Sheikah technomancy, snagged the Sheikah Slate, turned around to beat the boulder with both hindpaws in quick succession for several seconds, then thwacked it straight upwards with his tail before jumping up onto the boulder just as the stasis wore off.
It launched him right up to the top of the nearby cliff, and Link jumped off neatly before taking two loping steps and pouncing on a very surprised Bokoblin.
The air was much colder, this high up, and Link loped steadily along the slopes of Mount Hylia.
His objective wasn't actually at the peak itself, it was on the other side, but the mountain was there and so Link only considered a moment before altering his course a little to climb up it.
Maybe he had more trouble climbing up sheer slopes than he would have had with hands, but moving through thick snow at speed seemed to be something he was much faster at now, and there was a vague memory of a horse that tickled at the back of his mind for a moment before fading.
Not sure what to think about that, Link accelerated, and before long he was scrambling up the final slope to the top of Mount Hylia.
The old man who'd recognized the symbol on his paw was already there, and he turned to Link.
"There you are," he said. "It's cold, isn't it?"
Link shrugged.
"Well, however you got up here, it's going to be easier with warm… clothing," the old man said, his voice trailing off.
At that, Link tilted his head to ask a question.
"Dear me," the old man sighed. "I'm not doing very well, today, am I?"
He put a warm doublet on the ground. "I'd been ready to give this to you, but after planning it for decades it's surprisingly hard to remember that you're… well."
Link nodded gravely, since it wouldn't be polite to laugh, then flicked into the item storage mode for the Sheikah Slate and pointed at the doublet. "Rrf?"
"Oh, of course you can have it, Sir Link," the man agreed. "I don't have much use for it."
Link decided not to question that, and gently lifted the doublet before dropping it into the Slate. It went in without a qualm, joining Link's already-sizeable repository of random things, and the old man shook his head.
"I don't think there's one other person in all of Hyrule who could be so… accepting," he said. "You woke up this morning as a wolf, and… it doesn't bother you at all, does it?"
Link made a sort of shrug, then nosed at the old man's hands.
"...except for those, I suppose," he said. "Well, Link, I do hope you're handling the cold all right."
Link considered how to answer that, then stowed the Sheikah Slate and dragged a paw through his fur.
"Of course, silly me," the old man realized. "Fur."
A nod.
Really, it was obvious to Link.
The third of the four shrines on the plateau also had a new rune for Link's Sheikah Slate – the Cryonis Rune.
It was one that created stabilized, surprisingly rough and grippy blocks of ice, roughly cubic in shape and with each side longer than Link's body, and after creating the first one Link hoisted himself up with a bit of scrabbling before using it to get up onto a ledge.
A pair of numeric indicators showed that Link currently had one of three stabilized ice blocks active, and he used the rune again to destroy the ice block before moving on to the next part of the shine – a gate in water, held shut by its weight.
The solution was easy enough, but then Link found himself facing a miniature Guardian. It emitted a warning tone, eye starting to glow, and Link pounced forwards to hit it with both forepaws.
The impact knocked it backwards, throwing off its aim, and Link kicked off to get back behind cover.
He'd have to focus on hit and run… was what he was thinking, at least, before the miniature Guardian made a sort of electronic cough and exploded.
Link tilted his head, peering out from behind the wall he'd used as cover, then stepped all the way out and pawed at the remains of the Guardian.
Somehow, he was sure they were supposed to be more durable than that. Maybe it was faulty or something.
The monk Keh Namut just gave Link a flat stare.
I don't suppose you know why this happened, do you? he asked, lacing his fingers together.
Link looked down, shrugged, then looked back up.
Whatever, the monk grumbled. You've been to another one of the shrines already, I take it?
A nod.
Then here's the orb, Keh Namut told him, creating it with a flash, and Link took it into the Sheikah Slate.
He wondered on the lift back to the surface if maybe Keh Namut had been asleep or something.
Then, as he emerged from the lift, he tilted his head a little and sniffed.
There was a strange scent in the air, something that he'd smelled a couple of times before down in the forest, but… there he'd just thought it was more of the forest.
Up here, on Mount Hylia? Not so likely.
So Link turned, sniffing, and loped off to the side a little. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually he was looking directly at a boulder that seemed quite suspicious.
He nosed it up, and there was a poof and a cloud of leaves.
"Yahaha!" a strange creature said. "You found me! I'm a Korok!"
Then it looked at him. "...hey!"
Link tilted his head.
"Sniffing is cheating!" the Korok complained. "But you found me so I'll give you my Korok Seed. And if you found me that way you'd better find the others too!"
Link inspected the seed, sniffed it, then made a face and put it into the Slate.
"Bye bye!" the Korok said, waving, and Link snorted before switching the Slate to map mode.
Then he looked up at the crest of Mount Hylia.
Back down at the map.
He could go back over Mount Hylia, past the Temple of Time, and get to the last shrine that way. But it was a long way.
On the other paw, crossing the river would be cold and probably annoying. Even using his new Cryonis rune would take time.
Then Link had an idea.
Link double-checked the map, to make sure he was judging the elevation right, then stowed the Slate.
He backed several paces, then took a running jump, and landed on the shield he'd taken from a Bokoblin earlier in the day.
Immediately, he began sliding down Mount Hylia, initially with just the momentum from his run but quickly picking up speed.
Shifting his weight, Link worked out how to turn, and how to slow down a bit by putting his weight on his hind legs. Then he went over a jump, and had to work out very quickly how to land correctly.
Fortunately, Link was a quick learner.
And when he splashed down in the lake not far from the Temple of Time, he found a sword in it. So that was a bonus, really.
By the time he reached the fourth shrine, the Oman Au shrine, Link's fur was mostly dry again.
He'd had a couple of altercations with Bokoblins on the way, but it turned out that they may have been willing to attack a wolf but a wolf with a sword gripped firmly in his jaws was a bit more intimidating. There were still some sharp fights, but nothing to be bothered by, and Link stored the now-dented sword before using his Slate to open the shrine and going inside.
As he'd been expecting by now, there was a rune to unlock, and this time the rune was Magnesis – the ability to hold up the Slate, establish a magnetic connection, and lift metal objects by moving the Slate around.
This immediately posed problems, since like Stasis it was built for someone who could actually point the slate, but unlike that rune there wasn't a grace period of several seconds to then do something with the results.
Link thought about it, then balanced the slate on its side, triggered it there, and pushed it around to move the first metal plate out of the way. That revealed a hole in the floor, and he cancelled the Magnesis rune before dropping down into the hole.
The second puzzle involved a metal block in a wall of stone blocks, and Link huffed before doing the same thing to carefully move another metal block into place – then used it as a springboard to jump over the whole stone wall, landing with as little of a stumble as possible on the far side.
Since that had worked quite well, Link jumped over the third puzzle as well, then fiddled with the Slate to use Magnesis and yank the final metal doors open.
You have… the monk Oman Au began, then stopped. Um.
Link jammed his dented sword into the door's path, to make sure it wouldn't close once he picked up the Slate again, and the monk steepled his hands.
The door won't close by itself, you know, he said. Look, are you the Hero?
Retrieving the slate, Link nodded, and presented his paw with the three-triangle symbol on it.
The monk seemed to recognize it just as well as the old man had.
That all seems in order, the monk decided. Well, I'd heard you were the Hero of the Wild, but I didn't realize it was quite that literal.
Link tilted his head.
There have been many heroes, the monk said. The Hero of Time, the Hero of Twilight, the Hero of Sky… they are all the Hero, but you are not all of them.
He shook his head. Sorry, there was something… oh, yes, an orb. Hold on a moment.
"Ah," the old man said, as Link emerged from the shrine. "You have all four treasures, I take it?"
Link nodded.
"Well, in that case… I did promise you the paraglider, but I think it best we meet to discuss," he said. "Look at your map, draw lines between the shrines, and meet me at the point where they cross."
The old man faded away, and Link sniffed the area where he'd been before sitting down on his haunches and getting out his Slate.
The map came up with a few taps, and Link looked closely for several seconds. The only way to make two lines between the shrines cross was… and that meant…
Link put a marker on the map, dragged it to zoom in, then sighed.
It would have been very convenient if the old man had just had the conversation here, but… he supposed there was probably some reason behind it.
Stowing the Slate, Link loped forwards, avoiding a nearby Bokoblin camp to save time and making instead for the ruined buildings near the centre of the plateau.
Getting through the buildings was fairly quick, and Link double-checked his map before pacing into the main hall of the ruined temple.
There was a large statue, and Link approached, and a soft light drifted down towards him.
You who have conquered the shrines, and gained their power… I will amplify your being. What is it you desire?
There was then a long pause.
One bark for heart container, two for stamina vessel.
Rhoam heard a muffled, grumbling whine and then a thud.
He took a step forwards, to the window, and saw Link shaking himself out before pacing backwards several steps.
The lupine Hero was roughly facing in the direction of one of the destroyed Guardians that littered the plateau. This particular one had been destroyed or disabled right up against the wall of the Temple of Time, and as Rhoam watched Link broke into a loping run – building up speed until he was flying across the ground, then gathering himself to spring-and-leap, and using the top of the Guardian as a springboard to reach higher on the wall.
His paws scrabbled for a grip, then found one, and Link hauled himself up onto the second floor ledge. That still left him at least one floor to climb, and he got a sword out of his Slate before re-stowing the Slate and taking the sword in his muzzle.
Rhoam watched over the next few minutes as Link slowly eased himself up the side of the Temple, hammering the sword into the stones to give himself a little purchase and then shifting his weight up three paws at a time, until he finally reached the top of the wall and hauled himself over with main strength.
Link grumbled something, then threw the sword away, and it smashed into pieces as it hit the ground. Then the big wolf hero just stared at him, and Rhoam shifted a little.
"...in my defence, I did meet you on top of a tower, before," he said. "Though I suppose it did come out of the ground… now, Sir Link, I promised you the glider, and I will give it to you, but there's some things we need to discuss first."
After King Rhoam had said his piece and faded away, Link was left on top of the Temple with the glider.
It was actually sort of interesting, for two reasons. One of them was that it was more like the Slate than anything else, a piece of surprisingly sophisticated ancient technology that didn't play fair with mass and space, so that the user could jump off a cliff and instantly have the glider ready for use without having to carry around a glider as big as they were all day.
The other was that Link still wasn't quite sure how he was going to use it.
The part of the glider which was always there amounted to a pair of straps, which any Hylian could easily put onto their hands and tighten, but for Link putting a pair of straps around his paws was… not so easy.
In fact, it involved several minutes of using one paw to keep the strap in place around the other paw while he tightened it with his jaws, then switching to do the same thing the other way, and when he was finished he still wasn't sure if they'd stay on properly.
Then again, it wasn't like he had any other way to check. So Link paced around the damaged temple roof for a minute, looking for a comparatively short drop, then took a run-up and leaped into the air.
His forepaws went up, the glider appeared, and a moment later Link was dangling by his forepaws. The paraglider worked, slowing his fall, and he touched down gently on his hind paws before tipping forwards and managing to dispel the glider before landing.
After some deliberation, Link decided that this qualified as a successful test.
He mostly needed it to get down from high places, after all.
A few minutes later, Link took a running leap off the Great Plateau.
Air whistled around him, plucking at his fur, and he waited a long moment before raising his forepaws and triggering the glider.
There was a sharp crack as air suddenly forced the glide surface itself into tension, and Link began adjusting his weight to see how much he could steer.
Really, it was quite impressive. The glider was a remarkable piece of work, and he had more control than he'd expected. He could even pick just about exactly where to land, or at least he'd be able to with a little practice.
As he drifted lower, Link noticed a group of Bokoblins, and steered towards them. Most of them were lounging around a fire with a slab of meat cooking over it, and as he got closer one of the ones on watch did spot him but just kind of stared for several seconds.
Then Link dismissed the glider, landing right on top of the leader, and the rest of the Bokoblins noticed him.
Briefly.
AN:
So this is happening, at least to all appearances.
The basic concept behind this is that the Shrine of Resurrection bugged out slightly and restored a previous configuration for the Hero, thus ending up with BotW Link (complete with amnesia) but as a wolf.
Naturally this presents all kinds of accessibility challenges.