CHAPTER 6
Link, meanwhile, had ridden through the forest for most of that day – but just before sundown, he stopped to gather more supplies. His grumbling belly reminded him that he only had a loaf of sweet bread left in his food-stores.
Fortunately, he'd come upon a grove of fruit-trees with an abundance of berry-bushes flanking the path. Dismounting Epona, he promptly picked as many fruits and berries as his belt-bags would hold, then proceeded to seek out edible mushrooms and pluck them from the ground.
"Would you look at that, Epona?" he asked his horse, who happily gobbled an apple directly from her master's hand. "We shouldn't have to stop again until we're back in Hyrule again – except to sleep, of course. And to eat. And to relieve ourselves."
Epona, being a horse, was likely ahead on the latter account – but he thought it worth mentioning, nonetheless.
Munching on an apple himself, Link sat cross-legged on a large-enough boulder and pondered his next move. He knew that any fairy in her right mind would prefer the shelter and shade of any forest over, say, Hyrule Field's wide-open prairie. (Navi had explained as much long ago, when asked why she almost always insisted on traveling inside his hat.) It stood to reason, therefore, that his old friend would seek out a forest – but, as far as he knew, Navi hadn't been spotted in any Hyrulean forest.
It couldn't hurt to double-check Hyrule's forests, just to be safe – but he knew, deep down, that he might very well have to search every forest in the world. No matter. Navi simply had to be winging about in one of them. It was only a matter of ruling each forest out, one by one, until he found her.
If nothing else, the search would distract him from his troubles concerning Ruto.
A seemingly-concerned whinny from Epona interrupted his contemplation. "What's wrong, girl?" he asked, standing and approaching her carefully, as she looked intently to the southeast and twitched her ears in apparent curiosity. "Is something out there?"
Or somebody?
Epona snorted, ignoring her master, and began to gallop toward whatever had suddenly drawn her attention. Perhaps she was leading him to Navi?
In any case, he knew far better than to question her instinct. So, quickly gathering his supplies, he proceeded to follow her deeper and deeper into the forest, being careful never to let the young mare out of his sight. He couldn't afford to make that mistake again.
By the time that he finally caught up with her, a faint noise had begun to pierce the air. Something like a soft squeaking – though Link couldn't discern, at the moment, whether it sounded more like a Poe's screeching or a Stalchild's groaning. Either way, his left hand cautiously reached for the hilt of the Gilded Sword – but he didn't draw it yet, for Epona didn't seem the least bit bothered by the noise. She was calm (though still attentive) in her strides and, if anything, seemed to empathize with the noise's source.
The deeper they ventured into the forest, the more discernible the noise became – and it wasn't an undead abomination, but simply a soft weeping. Link loosened his grip on the sword's hilt. Whatever – or whomever – was making this noise, it clearly needed his help, not his blade.
"Hello?" he called out. "Is somebody there?"
No response. Perhaps whoever was there, was too far away to hear him properly?
He could hear the continued sobbing noise clearly now, so there wasn't any need to follow Epona to the source. Not that he had any choice in the matter – she had four legs and he had two, so she naturally outpaced him – but once they both found the source of the sobbing noise, he knew that he'd catch right up to his faithful steed.