{A Fork in the Road}
The sound of Epona's hooves touching the ground echoed through the very forest they were trotting through, every step adding to an arrangement of clopping noises keeping the silence surrounding them at bay.
By this point, more than just a single yawn had escaped from the young boy's mouth. Weariness was starting to take a toll on him. His mind was almost as foggy as the atmosphere that he and his horse were caught in. There was no telling what time of day it was, what with the thick cover of the trees blocked any sunlight—or, perhaps, moonlight—from making its way to the land beneath them. The sky was invisible to Link, and he was invisible to the sky.
One thing that wasn't invisible to him, though, was the ground they were travelling on. Of course, it would be silly not to be able to see the dirt underneath his feet, just as it seems odd that he was taking note of it. Fighting the sleep in his eyes from having been forced to travel through such an unknown place for so long, while simultaneously trying to keep focused on the path he was making, he noticed an irritating pattern.
That dark red tree with the crude, hard-to-make out carving he had just passed was giving him a strong sense of déjà vu. Those bushes dotted with bright purple berries were very familiar...
Then there were hoofprints.
Those hoofprints were just as recent in his memory as the surrondings he was faced by. He had ridden for hours trying to navigate through the thickness of this forest, only to find himself back where he started. Needless to say, the thought of continuing was beyonf frustrating, but, at the same time, he felt that he had no other choice.
Even with the lack of supernatural, evil, or just downright disturbing characters he had met in this strange place, Link was still on edge. From past experience, he knew that few things were as they seemed. Even a place a seemingly peaceful as this was eerie to him. Though he had grown up in a forest not unlike this one, where most of the villagers were able to find contentment in just being there, the memories of that same village, those same woods, all teeming with monsters that terrorized the land's inhabitants. Coming back to such a scene was... distressing, to say the least, but he needed to jump right into action in order to fix the problem. That was something he wasn't so sure he could do, in this case.
Even with how unwilling he was to stay awake for any longer, Link figured it would be the best for both himself and his horse if he pressed on, this time taking a new route. The boy still had no real idea as to where he was headed, as most Hyrulean citizens had never traveled outside of Hyrule itself, and, thus, had never made any maps for the land beyond it. While that did give him the sense of adventure, just as it was exciting, it was also quite inconvenient.
At the very least, there was always the hope that Link would be able to accomplish his personal mission. That thought alone gave him just enough determination to push himself forward, following an unclear path to an uncertain destiny.
He prayed that that destiny involved finding one of his truest friends who had been forced to leave him, finally ending a search that, to others, seemed futile.