Link's dilemma, as he's begun to realize, is that finding Navi will have to involve the kinds of decisions that she always used to make for him—whether he should travel north or west or east or south, whether he should accept an offer of hospitality or sleep under the stars. He doesn't have any overarching plan. He doesn't know how to make a plan. He doesn't even know where he is, though the position of the sun tells him that he's headed roughly northeast, depending on which way the river decides to curve off at any a given stretch. Finding a fairy fountain would be his best option if he had any idea where one might be, and he'd like to go back into a forest soon, because then he'll easily be able to feed himself while he looks for Navi. Until then, he stays close to the water. With no clues to go on, it seems to him that Navi has an equal chance of being anywhere, so he should just keep walking and hope for the best.
There are plenty of fish in the river, but most are tiny darting things no bigger than Link's finger and not worth the effort of trying to catch. He crosses paths with deer at dawn and dusk, but they're too big to kill with his slingshot and the meat would rot before he could possibly preserve or eat it all. Being unable to graze like Epona, he pulls up dandelions and digs for cattail roots, and goes to sleep hungry more often than not. His face looks narrower when he examines his reflection in the water, not quite so babyish. That's good. He's nearly twelve.
He walks past the farming villages scattered along the river, skirting around the groups of Hylian and human villagers carrying water or washing clothes by the flat rocks. There's no reason for Navi to take any interest in such places, and after his conversation with the shopkeeper in the town near the forest, Link isn't sure how far the news of a certain incident may have spread, or which details are widely-known. Miles downstream, there are fewer towns and more stands of trees, or rocky outcroppings jutting up around the hills, and he feels a little safer. Grass and weeds grow tall in these regions where people haven't walked for years and years, if ever.
Once, he stumbles upon the bones of a town, broken stone walls and crumbling houses with fallen-in roofs wreathed one ivy. He tiptoes down what had been the main street like a ghost, through the weeds growing up between the cobblestones. There are unruly patches of carrots and what look like bean plants in what used to be gardens, and he can't decide at first whether to take them or not. After his encounter with the farmer lady, which taught him to keep his Triforce piece a secret, he's decided to establish certain other rules for himself: the Hero of Time took weapons and artifacts from those ancient temples without a second thought, and he felt no guilt about picking up Rupees wherever he found them or plucking fruit from orchards he didn't plant because it was all in service to saving Hyrule, but he has no right to take anything that doesn't belong to him now that he's "off-duty". Does that rule still count if whoever lived here died or ran away a long time ago, though?
Link digs up a small armful of carrots, but feels sorry and drops them. The deed is already done, though. And he's hungry. Link just stands there for a while, sort of hoping that a real ghost might pop out and either give him its blessing or chase him away. The Deku Sprout's story comes back to him then, about the war ten years ago. And Link remembers the Poes that used to wander the graveyard in Kakariko after sundown. There must be some reason why nobody came back. Nobody living, anyway.
But he's hungry.
With a silent apology, he gathers the carrots back up and brings them back out of the crumbling town gate to share with Epona.
He sees no more towns after that, occupied or otherwise. No people. There aren't any monsters around as there had during his quest, or at least he doesn't see any. No Stalchildren rise from the earth at night. He does hear the squeaking of Keese sometimes, though, and he sees small dark fluttering shapes which briefly obscure the stars. Beyond this point, in this region, the land belongs to the animals, the plants, and whatever spirits watch over such places.
Passing around a river bend in the misty dawn, Link sees a bear on the opposite side. Epona sees it too and bolts straight off into the mist; the bear raises its head at the unexpected flash of motion, water dribbling from the auburn fur around its muzzle. Link freezes. The bear snuffles the air and rises up to its hind feet, the huge shaggy shape looming close enough for him to hear its breath. They stare at each other. Then it makes a low huff and drops down to all fours, and Link quietly backs away.
It rains sometimes. Link pulls up the hood of his cloak and his boots leave prints in the mud. The days are getting shorter and colder, so he's taken to wearing his cloak even when the sun is at its peak.
He's found no trace of Navi yet.
He has no idea what he'll say when he finds her, or what she might say. The notion that she might not be happy to see him is unacceptable, so he doesn't even entertain the idea. She's Navi, his guardian fairy. They went on an adventure together. She loves him. Maybe she'll be proud of him for making this long journey all on his own (aside from Epona). The old Link, not old as in physically older but old as in his past self, would never have been strong enough for this. He only ventured out of the Kokiri Forest that first time because Navi was at his side, and because having to live with everyone thinking of him as the one responsible for the Tree's death would have been unendurable.
He's braver now. Smarter and stronger. Drawing that sword from the pedestal and being granted the Triforce of Courage made him into a different person. He fought Ganondorf and—
And.
Thinking about Ganondorf feels like putting too much weight on one foot when a broken leg hasn't fully healed yet, and that shopkeeper's careless words have imprinted themselves in Link's mind like a bruise. "he's under lock and key in the castle dungeon, or dead, maybe". Link doesn't like to imagine the proud Gerudo king sitting in one of those cells beneath Hyrule Castle, wrapped in bandages and shackled to a wall. Or else being tortured with devices like the ones Link saw in the Shadow Temple. Or dead. Despite all reason and evidence to the contrary, Link doesn't want Ganondorf to be dead. He never did. He doesn't know why. It's just that when he thinks about the king of evil, or king of thieves, or whatever else Ganondorf has been called, his thoughts slide away to his own truncated childhood, and to the Gerudo in the fortress who could've jumped on him and cut his throat if they wanted, but instead were more friendly than it made any sense for them to be, even accounting for how he'd won favor with Aveil first.
Link wonders what life would have been like if his difference from the other Kokiri had been spelled out from the beginning, and if it had been something that made him special instead of, well, the weakest link. He wonder how life would've been different if he'd grown up with two mothers, and sisters and aunts and cousins who all loved him as much as Saria did. And what it would be like to live in such a harsh landscape so close to a rich and powerful kingdom. If Saria and Fado and Dodo and Mimi and, say, Malon, went hungry every day, not because there was no food but because the people who had all the food didn't want to share, what wouldn't Link do to make things right?
Ganondorf never attacked first, not even when Link's nightmare came true and he was sitting atop that great armored horse, and so easily could have killed the foolish little boy trying to stand in his way.
He should have. Just killed Link, that is. Then he could have burned Hyrule to the ground or else simply returned home and lived happily ever after with his mothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, nieces, and, if he had any, his daughters. Link wouldn't have hesitated to attack if their roles were reversed. Link never hesitated. And he only fought because Princess Zelda and Sheik-who-was-really-Princess-Zelda and Rauru all told him that's what the Hero of Time was supposed to do.
Link pulls his cloak more tightly around himself.
Craving sound, any sound, and being too practical to waste the effort of words on Epona (a smart horse is still a horse), Link takes out the fairy ocarina and plays the song he made up to please that talking scarecrow, then invents new melodies and plays them while he walks, trying to keep his breath from hitching with each step and ruining the smooth sound of the notes. He hums. He breaks sticks in half and peels away at the dry, crumbly bark. He stomps on dry weeds to make them crunch. At night, lying on the cold ground all wrapped up in his cloak, the sound of the river lulls him to sleep.
For months before the Great Deku Tree sent Navi to him, Link was plagued by nightmares possessing of an eerily unclouded quality, free of the surreal haze that normally let him know on some level that his dreams were only dreams even while he slept: in these nightmares, he saw the forest burning and the sky filling with smoke, a huge man with black armor and a ringing laugh. Sometimes he got so scared that he went over to Saria's house and nudged her awake before crawling in to sleep next to her, the way he did when he was too little to have his own bed. The nightmares stopped after the Great Deku Tree died, as did his dreams in general; the Hero of Time slept like a rock, as if his subconscious mind was just as exhausted as his body and didn't want to put forth any unnecessary efforts.
With those days behind him, Link has begun to dream again. Weird, twisty things that don't make any sense. He dreams that he's an adult and in the Temple of Time, but there aren't any doors and he keeps pacing up and down the length of the hall in search of an exit that doesn't exist, while flames lick at the unreachable windows and Gerudo girls jeer and shout at him. Or he dreams that he's his normal child-self and dead, walking incorporeal in the forest and scattering seeds for new trees, and that mailman with the funny red hat jogs past with a line of slouching teenage boys in mailman uniforms (minus the red hats) following behind him like resentful ducklings. Or he's in a place like the Water Temple and the Fire Temple mixed together, and his mother is there and she looks like a Stalfos with crumbling armor and empty sockets where eyes should be, and he's looking for a key because then he'll be able to get some medicine to make her go back to normal, only he can't find it. He dreams that he wakes up and realizes Navi is back and has been with him all along. Then he wakes up for real and feels confused for the rest of the day.
He never thought to ask Navi what she dreamed about, if anything. He'll have to ask her once they've been reunited.
Does she ever see him in her dreams?
Footsore and hungry, Link is about to stop for the evening when he sees a thin finger of smoke trailing up in the distance. After all this time alone, he wonders if it might be an illusion, like the pools of water seen by thirsty travelers in the desert, but he clicks his tongue at Epona and urges her to keep following. It can't hurt to hope.
Half a mile downstream, they come upon a campfire with three Zora sitting around it. One is lying on his belly with his head pillowed on his arms, while one with tattoos coiling up one arm and down one leg is sitting next to another Zora with tan and white scales and a permanently grumpy slant to his wide mouth. A fourth Zora, who looks more like an oversized ray than a sleek fish, kneels by the river and splashes water over his gills.
The Zora have always been friendly to Link, and he was once engaged to be married with their princess, though he didn't know what that meant at the time. Navi would surely agree that Link can trust this group, so he edges closer to the circle of firelight. One of the Zora is sleeping and the other two are laughing at some joke; thus it's the big round ray, leaving the waterside and returning to his friend, who notices Link and Epona.
"Guys? What's a kid doing here..?"
"Oh," says the tan Zora.
"Whoa!" says the tattooed Zora, who, after a moment of uncertainty, Link judges to be a girl. "What's a Hylian kid like you doing way out here?"
Link is so relieved to hear friendly voices that he doesn't even care what they ask him. He shrugs, then makes a scrunched face, points to the fire, and cocks his head.
"Sure, you can sit," she says, which he appreciates even if it isn't actually what he meant. It's gotten colder now that the sun's gone down.
"You n' your pony lost or somethin'?" asks the tan Zora, as Link pats Epona's neck and settles himself near the campfire. "Closest town we've seen was miles away."
Link looks at his boots, his legs stretched out in front of him. The leather is crusted with whole geologic layers of mud. Off to the side, Epona steps over the sleeping Zora on her way to the river for a drink, which somehow doesn't wake him up.
"Don't wanna say..?"
"Maybe he's just shy," says the ray Zora.
"Or it's a secret," suggests the tattooed Zora.
Link shrugs.
"Heh heh. What, it's a secret whether or not you're even keeping a secret? You're one mysterious kid. Hey, you hungry, little dude?" Without waiting for any response, she tosses a fist-sized hunk of wood at her sleeping companion's head, making him flail. "Hey! Chum-for-brains! This little guy is starvin', why don't you make yourself useful for once, huh?"
"I'm hungry, too..." the ray-Zora adds, and the tan one nods in agreement.
The sleepy Zora groans. "What are you, a bunch of babies? We were in the water all day, you coulda caught some fish yourself."
"No, there's one baby plus your three best most loyal, witty, charming, amazing bestest best friends you love more than anyone in the world. Now scram, or I'm throwing rocks!"
"Huh..?" The sleepy Zora twists around to get a glimpse of Link, then flops back down. "Where'd he come from?"
"ROCKS."
While the sleepy Zora peels himself off the ground and shambles toward the river, grumbling, the tattooed Zora girl turns back to Link. "By the way, I'm Mica! Chum-brains is Jaime, big boy over here—"
"Hey..." mumbles the ray-Zora.
"—Is Taiko. And this one's Evin."
The tan Zora, Evin, raises and drops his hand in a lazy approximation of a wave. "Hey."
Link reflexively waves back, then shrinks down into himself when Mica guffaws.
"Aww," says Taiko, "Don't do that. You hurt the little dude's feelings..."
"It was cute!"
Eager to change the subject, Link frowns as he did before, points to the fire, then the river. For an agonizing ten seconds, this earns him nothing except blank stares from the three Zora, until Evin hazards a guess: "What're we doing here?"
Link nods.
"Migrating, baby!" Mica says.
"Winter's coming and it's getting cold around we live, around everyplace..." Taiko adds. "We're headed south, to the ocean. Gonna hang out with all our buddies where it's nice and toasty!"
"Hey, why don't you come along with us?"
"Ooh, yeah! Come with us!"
"He wouldn't be able to keep up," Evin points out. "And he's got somewhere else he's going. Probably."
Realization comes to Link. He scampers over to grab a stick from Mica's woodpile, then crouches you draw a picture in the bare dirt before the fire. The three Zora crane their necks to see around him while he draws a stick figure with a floppy semi-triangular hat and tried to draw a smaller stick figure, then kicks dirt over the smaller drawing and replaces it with a more recognizable version of the same concept: a little ball with wings. Link points to the stick figure, then to himself.
"You... have a fairy with you..?" Evin asks.
Link shakes his head.
"Had?"
Link nods.
"Huh."
"You're looking for them... is that why you're out here?" Taiko asks.
Link nods again, more emphatically.
"Oh. Uhhh." Taiko looks to his friends for confirmation, and then says, "Sorry, we haven't seen any fairies. They don't like to swim much, so..."
Link sighs, shrugs, and plops back down on the ground. It was worth a try.
Mica gives him a look he dislikes, then suddenly perks back up and slaps her hands together. "Hey, kid!" she blurts out, grinning toothily. "I know what'll make you feel better—want to get stabbed? I love getting stabbed!"
She's hardly able to hold in her laughter at the expression on Link's face, and beside her, Evin rolls his eyes. Mica feels around on the ground behind her and then retrieves a waxed leather bag much like the one in which Link keeps the two ocarinas, then pulls out a handful of what look like quills, black with ink at their sharpened points. Link looks again at the tattoos on her arm and leg, the black designs like fish skeletons and jagged geometric shapes. Though the artistry is nothing special, Link is sort of impressed by the physical flexibility it must've taken if she did all those herself.
Since he already carries a marking of his own, Link politely shakes his head.
"Awwww." Mica tosses the bag aside. "Sheesh. What kind of weirdo doesn't like getting stabbed?"
Before Link can reconsider the wisdom of joining a circle of strangers, the other Zora, Jaime, comes back from the riverside with an armload of fat reddish-gray fish, maybe carp. One or two are still twitching as he tosses them to his friends.
Link smiles to show his thanks as he's handed a fish, then takes out his knife and sets to gutting it.
"Ewww, what are you doing, little dude?" Taiko asks through a mouthful of bloody flesh.
"That's how Hylians are, maaaaan." Jaime says, shrugging. "Gotta respect their ways."
Mica pouts. "Awww, are you gonna put it over that fire, too? We just have it for the vibe, little dude! Fish taste better the way they are! It's, like, natural?"
Link brushes the dirt off the stick he'd used for his drawing and sets to roasting his dinner. With a shrug, Jaime retrieves the pile of fish-guts and shoves it in his mouth, which is kind of gross even by Link's standards.
The four Zora laugh and joke around with each other throughout their meal, gossiping about other Zora and the things they might all do once they get to the ocean. Link still takes the longest to finish eating, both because of the time it takes to roast the fish and because he's the only bothering to pick out the bones. With the sounds of their voices wash over him, the warmth of the fire, and his belly completely full for the first time in weeks, Link soon starts to doze off. Or maybe he actually did fall asleep, because the next thing he knows, Jaime is snoring again and Taiko as well, while Evin tries ineptly to get some more dry sticks onto the fire without burning himself. Mica, now seated next to Link, nudges his arm until he raises his head to squint at her.
"Hey, little dude. I was kidding around before, but... are you sure you don't wanna come with us?" Mica scratches one of her arm tattoos. "You don't have to go all the way to the ocean. Just, like, somewhere else? We can, like, keep an eye on you 'til we find you a good place."
It's the same old song, just a different singer: aww, look how weak and pathetic you are, you helpless baby. Link sighs heavily and Mica frowns at him with an expression alarmingly similar to the one that old lady wore.
"Your fairy pal wouldn't want you and your pony to, like, freeze your butts off, right? It's gonna get cold. I'm serious, little dude. You gotta be careful. We're all grown-ups and we're not sticking around through the winter. It'll be super rough for a little dude like you all on your own."
Link picks at the fur lining the inside of his cloak's hood, twisting the fluffy strands between his fingers. If Navi were here then she could tell Mica just how wrong she is, and he wouldn't have to put up with this. She would've said something to that farmer lady in the town by the forest, too.
Mica sighs. "I can't, like, force you to come with us... but just, like, sleep on it, little dude? Please?"
Evin has finally succeeded in feeding the fire and now it's crackling again. Link nods at Mica, looking into the flames instead of at her, and waits until he hears her walk away. Then he scoots closer to the fire and settles back down on the ground. He likes this noisy, friendly band of traveling Zora, and he'll miss their company once they're gone, but the idea of going with them is completely ridiculous. He isn't going waste a whole season sitting around just because of a little snow. He needs to find Navi.
A part of him wonders if he should just creep away while it's dark and the Zora are all sleeping. Maybe it would be easier that way—it's what he did the last two times. Only he's just so sleepy.
He drifts off, and dreams about home.
The fire is down to cinders by the time Link wakes up. Two of the Zora are nowhere to be seen and Taiko is timidly patting Epona on the neck, though he scoots away when he notices Link looking at him. Mica is sitting next to Link again, giving him the unnerving impression that she was actually waiting there in total silence all night.
"Uh. So." She scratches one of her tattoos, an arrowhead-shaped design on her skinny upper arm. "Did you think about it, little dude? Like, coming with us."
Link scrapes a fist across his eyes and nods, suppressing a yawn.
"And..?"
He flops back down and hides his eyes under the crook of his elbow, seriously considering going straight back to sleep.
Mica gives up on trying to persuade Link after that. She must have realized that he does, in fact, know what he's doing, or she realized she'd have to drag him kicking and screaming. Or she doesn't care. He can't always tell what adults are thinking.
She does, however, insist on leaving him three fat fish from their morning's catch (still not gutted) and lingers near him well after the other three have jumped back into the water, like she wants to keep cajoling him. Finally, she digs around in the little bag where she keeps her tattooing needles and extracts a red Rupee, tossing it to Link. He catches it by reflex and then blinks and holds it back out to her. She shakes her head.
"Towns on land have, like, inns and stuff, right? We passed by one awhile ago. If you keep going the way you're going and you get to it, then... just stay there? Like, please? I'm not taking that money back so don't try, little dude."
Link looks at the red gem in his palm. He's not inclined to keep it, but he's already accepted food from her and her friends twice now, so he can't pretend to be absolutely against charity. Besides, if Mica giving this to him means she'll have no more interest in convincing him to go with her, then it seems like an acceptable compromise. His fingers close around the red Rupee.
"You and your pony better look after each other, yeah?" Mica says.
Link nods.
When Mica finally leaves to join her friends, and the four of them swim away, loneliness weighs down on Link even more heavily than before he saw the light of the campfire.
Navi. He needs to keep looking for Navi.
But first, Link sets to cooking the fish, wrapping them in some leaves and burying them among the hot ashes of the dying fire. He goes off for a drink from the river and comes back to see a young fox prowling at the edge of the little camp, until Epona stomps and sends it darting back. The leaves are blackened and very hot to the touch when Link pulls the fish back out; underneath the leaf-wrappers, however, the flaky flesh is white and soft.
Link devours the first fish and starts on the second before he notices that the fox is still there, crouching low to the ground and watching him with topaz eyes. It's a skinny little thing, hardly bigger than a cat, and its breath comes out as a faint white wisp in the air.
Link rips the fish apart and tosses half to the fox. It flinches and leaps back, then crawls forward nearly on its belly to snatch up its prize. Link smiles briefly and licks the grease from his fingers while Epona snorts and paws the ground. The fox vanishes into the tall grass.
Once he's done eating, Link rinses his hands off in the river and splashes his face clean, shuddering at the flash of cold. As he stands back up, and gazes out at the landscape ahead, he notices something that hadn't been visible the night before: a wide green smudge on the horizon, the outer edge of a forest perhaps half a day's walk away. Meeting those Zora must have brought him good luck.
As he and Epona set out once more, a dusting of snow begins to fall.