A Day of Madness [Mini-Quest, Complete]

That's, erm, rather unexpected. I guess you calmed yourself a bit too well.

[X][Grandmother] recently
[X][Do] try to find a spot for stargazing
Edit:
And
[X] [Do] Try to find your way back to make sure your mind isn´t playing any tricks on you.
with the amalgamation @EihE suggested.

No, your mind must be playing tricks on you. You're tired and the book made you unreasonably nervous. Clearly you had spaced out a bit and walked farther than you thought you did.
The trees around you are clearly not the ones at the entrance of the path, you know them too well not to recognise them at a glance. That you don't recognise them at all doesn't have to mean anything, you haven't made a habit of committing every tree along to the path to memory, and you have rarely seen them in lantern light.
All you have to do is walk back until everything is familiar again. You already turned around, so you just need to walk straight ahead.

After around ten minutes you are starting to become unsure again, and once you lose focus on your task, the feeling of being watched returns as well. For now you ignore it though, whatever it is, it hasn't done anything yet and you have a more pressing problem before you.
You're clearly still on the path, or at least on a path. While the ground might be covered with fallen leaves everywhere, there are only two directions where it is well tread and even, the one you come from and the one in front of you. But by now you should have recognised at least something, the lantern light can't change how everything looks that much.
With no other way available you continue on, eventually you will have to either get back or to a fork in the path you know.

It doesn't take long after that to indeed reach a fork. Contrary to your expectations though, it is not one you recognise at all. Or contrary to your hopes, really. You don't know what to expect anymore.

Just as you start considering to hunker down for the rest of the night, your grandmothers words come to mind. She had been confused in her last days, speaking even more of the forest's will and the spirits within than before, but in one of her rare moments of clarity she had told you that, if you ever get lost at night, you should look for the stars. Made you promise to do so, even.
Of course she had immediately followed it up with you having to make sure that they are the right stars, but the idea had merit anyway. The stars should at least help you to orient yourself, and if nothing else, you at least have something to look at while you wait for morning to come.

Finding a place to see the stars properly is a challenge in itself. Even well into the autumn and the ground littered with leaves, there are still enough on the trees to nearly completely block out the sky. And that is even before considering the massive evergreens every now and then.
With no other clue to go on, you consider another thing your grandmother said not long before her death. It can't be worse than guessing, after all.
Besides insisting on you always staying on the path, which is just common sense in a situation like this, she had also claimed following the same direction into the forest would lead you to the heart, whereas any branches would bring you to the eyes. She had never explained what the heart was supposed to be, but you are reasonably sure the eyes were glades similar to the one you live on.

The fork before you has one path going nearly straight ahead and the other taking a sharp turn to the right. You
[X] try to reach an "eye".
[X] try to reach "the heart".
[X] decide to wait out the morning after all.
[X] no longer think common sense applies to this situation and leave the path.
- [X] (write-in: where to?)
[X] (write-in)

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Sorry for how long that took, I couldn't start writing immediately after the vote ended.

[X] try to reach "the heart".

Okay then.
And here I thought questers avoided risks at all cost
Well, I meant it when I said that none of the ends is objectively bad. (And they are still all possible, though one became very unlikely.)

Truth be told, you do think at least some of what your grandmother told you mirth actually be accurate. Nothing else you have seen or heard in your life could explain anything about your current situation.

However, eyes? This whole mess started with you feeling watched and seeing eyes in the dark, the last thing you want right now are more eyes upon you. Or you upon an eye, whatever.
No, if there's one thing you want, it's getting to the heart of this situation. The heart of the forest sounds like a good point to start for that, whatever it might be.
And if nothing else, going mostly straight ahead makes it less likely to walk in a circle. Not impossible, of course, you didn't know if your path was perfectly straight, but it was something.

So you walk.

And walk.

And walk.

You come across more forks in the path than you thought it ever had before, though that doesn't surprise you anymore. Every single one of them has one path going mostly straight ahead, with one or two splitting up to the sides, and every time you pick the first.

Wandering the forest is something you are well used to, so it takes you a while to notice that walking this far doesn't exhaust you as much as you would expect. If anything you feel less tired, refreshed even.
And it's not only you. The forest around you changes from its autumn colours to be greener and greener. Moss and vines are everywhere, covering even areas no sunlight would ever reach.
The sights are gorgeous, though you do not take the time to stop and look. Your situation is weird enough as it is, and getting distracted from the one goal you set yourself would just let you realise it more.

Farther and farther you walk into what now more closely resembles a green cave than a regular forest. Coming here appears to have been the right decision, at least in regards to the eyes upon you. With each step the feeling of being watched lessens, as if whatever is following was not allowed to enter this place.
Wherever this place might even be. You have been outside the forest, needed to to get new books, but even from the surrounding hills you have seen nothing that could hide trees as gigantic as those surrounding you now.

And suddenly the path stops. It had long changed from leave covered dirt to a carpet of moss, and it seems this was the place it lead to.
Before you is the singular most massive tree you have seen in your life. A statement that would be true for nearly all trees you have seen in the past several hours, but even those were utterly dwarfed by the immense ash in front of you.

For several minutes you just stare, trying and failing to comprehend the scale of what you see.
When you finally manage to actually perceive rather than just look, you notice that there are tiny holes all over the trunk, pulsating in a green light. Tiny in comparison to the tree, in any case. You could likely drive a cart through with room to spare.
At least you know now why your grandmother never even attempted to describe what the heart is.

[X] (write-in)

[X] walk around the gigantic tree and take in the surrounding area
is the only vote with two voters, but it should be possible to consider (some of) the others too.

Like so often since you left your house, you think of your grandmother's words. It was become increasingly clear that she hadn't become crazy in her last days, but rather tried to warn or prepare you. Which of those you're still not sure, but it shouldn't hurt to follow her advice.
That doesn't mean it doesn't feel weird to do so. You quickly check your surroundings, and when you see nothing but plant life, you bow to the enormous tree.
"I greet you, Great Heart of the Forest," you try, not sure what it even is.
Of course your grandmother has told you about various spirits, nymphs, and fae, but you didn't exactly study how to tell them apart. They were just myths to you, after all.

After no response in several minutes, you raise your head again. The surrounding area appears to be unchanged, just unmoving vegetation bathed in the pulsating lights from the tree in front of you.
Still, you stand there for a while longer considering your options. There are really only three things you can do.
First, go back where you came from. This seems pointless after all the time you spent walking here.
Second, examine the tree. While likely more productive, you do not want to offend whatever creature it is or inhabits it.
Leaving only the third option, walking around the tree, exploring the area.

So, that's what you do. Or attempt to, anyway. It is more accurate to say that you walk along the tree than around it, though you like to imagine there's a slight curvature to your path.

Like before, you do not seem to get tired. By now you're fully awake, and it doesn't seem to change at all.
What does change are your surroundings. The ash tree, moss, and vines are a constant, but everything else slowly changes. First to plants you're faintly familiar with, then ones you have only read about, until you reach vegetation so utterly unfamiliar, you're only sure they're plants because everything else so far has been.

You do not know how long your exploration lasts. The tree you walk along remains the only source of light, but you're sure it must have been several days.
It still surprises you when your hair starts to reach your eyes. Has it been that long? You don't think it has grown faster than usual, and you're very familiar with how often you need to cut it to hide it easily. One of the things your grandmother has always been most insistent about is that people would not react well to its green tone, and given that you have never seen anyone in the city with even remotely similar hair, you have always followed her counsel in that regard.

Suddenly you notice that you have stopped walking, the musings about your hair having interrupted your trance-like state.
You had noticed before that the vegetation is unfamiliar, but the implications only hit you now. Sure, you have been lost ever since you left your glade, but now you're farther away from home than ever.

Next to you is the end, or possible the start, of another moss pathway, like the one you followed here. There may have been many more along your way, the last weeks or months feel more like a dream than a memory.
You
[X] continue walking. What else would you do?
[X] try to find your way back to where you started.
[X] take the moss pathway next to you, wherever it may lead.
[X] examine the ash tree closer.
[X] sit down and cry.
[X] (write-in)

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One of the three endings I imagined has become impossible.
Another has gained sub-options I did not consider before.