It was late night when Buck and I finally decided to call it a day. We had been walking for hours and my feet were sore. I had tried to walk long distances before, but this walk was on the top of the list over long walks, if there is one.

"So, Ring Tail," Buck started as I made a fire with some wood I had gathered. "Are you hungry?"

Until Buck asked me that, I hadn't even noticed how hungry I felt. I also think the loud rumbling of my stomach was enough answer.

"Just stay here, I'll get us some food," Buck told me and wandered into the woods before I could even say anything.

I had nowhere to go, so I just sat down by the campfire and took a look around. The jungle did look prettier and more peaceful at night. I hadn't noticed when I arrived, but the jungle was actually very illuminated by the moonbeams that shone through the ice. When I had arrived I hadn't really noticed that everything was lid up by the moon down here. Again, it must have had something to do with the ice, which apparently made me the light stronger somehow; I'm not really sure…

"I'm back!" I almost chocked on the air at the sudden sound of Buck's voice. I looked over at the weasel and saw that he had brought several fruits and something meat-looking.

"Oh… Yeah…" I said trying not to sound annoyed at the way he had surprised me.

Soon we sat by the campfire, eating our food. The fruit Buck had gathered wasn't as delicious as the one we had gotten earlier today, but maybe it was just the effort that made it taste better.

As we ate none of us really said anything, until Buck broke the silence with a question: "Don't you think anybody will miss you if you stay down here?"

"Not really," I replied. There wasn't anyone to miss me, since I had never had a friendship or a bond with anyone back on the surface.

"Really?" Buck raised an eyebrow and examined my face to look for hidden answers or something. It was a little annoying, but I tried my best to ignore it. "Don't you have any friends?"

"No."

"A girlfriend?"

"No."

"A boyfriend?"

"What! No!"

"Sorry, had to ask…" Buck excused himself. Then he asked: "Don't you have any family at all?"

"…" His last question shut me up because I'd never had any family and the topic always touch me deep. I had been alone and never settled down long enough to make friends and my family had abandoned me as a cub. It hadn't been something I usually talked about, since there was no one around to talk to.

"… No…" I finally said. I sighed and continued. "My family abandoned me a long time ago."

Now it was Buck's turn to be silent. It probably wasn't the answer he had hoped for and he hopefully understood my situation.

Then we just sat there and ate for, I think, two minutes without talking. The silence was killing me, but on the other hand I didn't want to talk about family and all that stuff.

"So where are we heading tomorrow?" I asked and broke the awkward silence.

"We'll most likely find Rudy somewhere around Lava Falls – that's where he headed when we left him," Buck explained. "But to get there we just have to get over the Chasm of Death."

"That doesn't sound like a nice place," I said with a frown. There probably weren't any locations down here that had 'nice' names and it was probably Buck who had come up with their names, since he was the only sign of – I guess – intelligent life down here.

"Well, it's nice at first until the fumes get to your brain," Buck muttered and it probably wasn't something I was really meant to hear and it also kind of freaked me out.

"Fumes!" I asked surprised and also a little bit shocked.

"… Then we'll just have to get past the rests of the Plates of Woe," Buck explained, totally ignoring my question about the fumes.

I just sat there for two seconds and tried to understand what he had said. "What do you mean with 'the rests of'?"

"I guess you'll see when we'll get there," Buck just said, ignoring my question again. It was actually starting to annoy me, but when I asked him about why he held back, he simply answered: "If I told you, then it wouldn't be any surprise when you saw it for yourself, would it?"

I didn't reply, but simply sighed at Buck's kind of logic, since it was kind of annoying, even though he was kind of right – if he warned about certain death, then I wouldn't go and it wouldn't be as… 'Fun'? I didn't know how Buck's brain worked and this Rudy-hunt could easily be my grave if he was going to lead me.

"I guess not," I finally said to Buck. I looked into the fire for a while.

"Don't you ever get lonely down here?" I finally asked after a while of silence. At least I knew that I would feel lonely if I had to spend my whole life alone… Oh wait – I had spent my whole life alone!

"Hmm… Not really. Sometimes maybe, but only when I can't find Rudy," Buck replied.

"When you can't find Rudy?" I asked. To me it – of course – didn't make the least bit of sense, but what could you expect from Buck? It was like he meant that Rudy somehow was his… 'friend', or rather playmate, since he chased him around. A playmate the size of a mountain and equipped with lots of razor-sharp teeth. Just the thought of the dinosaur sent chills down my spine. I didn't feel the same about Rudy that Buck did.

"Yes," Buck replied in a serious tone for once. "Chasing him is what I spend every day doing. If I can't find him it's just not the same."

"Oh… Okay."

"But it's always fun to meet a few tourists now and then," Buck said. Did this mean I wasn't the first intelligent life to get down here while Buck had been here?

"Like last time when I had a whole herd," Buck continued. He then added in a mutter: "Actually that was the only other time I've had tourists down here."

"Why were they here?" I asked. "Did they get here by accident, like I did?"

"No, not what I know off," Buck said. Then suddenly Buck lay back on his back.

"Yes they did." Suddenly Buck stuck his foot forwards and I saw that there was some kind of dinosaur skull on his foot. It looked really weird and the voice Buck had spoken with didn't help at all.

"No, they came looking for their sloppy, green thing," Buck growled at his foot. I, who had never seen anything this crazy, just sat there and watched. It almost reminded me of how I used to argue with my brain, sadly enough.

"What green, sloppy thing?" I asked. I did nothing to stop the weasel from what he was doing, since it was actually kind of entertaining to watch his yell at his foot.

"Oh, he was a sloth, not really a…" The skull – actually it was just Buck himself – interrupted Buck in his sentence.

"He was a sloppy, green thing! He smelled like a buzzard's butt sprayed by a bunch of skunks, remember?"

"Stop interrupting me! You're not real!" With those final words, Buck kicked the skull off his foot and it flew into the jungle. As it did, Buck made some really weird noises, as if the skull was still yelling at him.

For a while I said nothing, but I eventually asked him what had happened back then.

Buck then explained how a group of mammals, two mammoths, a saber-toothed tiger and two possums, had come down to the world under the ice and how he had helped them find their sloth-friend, or, as Buck called him, 'a sloppy, green thing'.

"That sounds… Kind of unrealistic…" I said when he was done explaining. The story had been interesting and all, but also a little hard to believe.

Buck just chuckled to himself at my comment. "Then you should've been there."

"Now, now. We survived so no reason to look like that, eh?" Buck tried to get the stony and angry expression off my face. If you're wondering what had made me mad at him, then let's say it considered me, Buck, a few dinosaur and their breakfast. To cut a crazy story short, Buck and I looked for breakfast in the forest when we eventually found some fruit and vegetables. When we had eaten the food we found out some dinosaur that, according to Buck, claimed that it was his. I don't speak reptilian, but apparently Buck does… somehow.

The dinosaur had been one of those with the big, sphere-like heads, which I'm from now on will call exactly that – Sphere-Heads.

Being as stubborn as he is, Buck kept insisting that it was our food, which eventually led to having an entire pack of Sphere-Heads after us. Luckily we were able to cut them off by jumping off a cliff and into a lake.

Now I was wet all over, but at least not cold; I had almost forgotten what being cold felt like. Buck, of course, seemed to be fine with the fact that he almost got us killed – again!

"Hmm… okay, let's see this from the bright side," I said in a sarcastic and a little angry and annoyed tone as I squished water out of my tail's fur. "Oh wait – there isn't any!"

Okay, Buck was either completely crazy or he had a weird sense of humor; he started laughing at me! I just glared at him, while I waited for him to stop laughing.

"What's so funny?" I asked as his laughter dimmed a little down. By now I was almost over boiling with anger and could go off any second now.

"It's… it's just that you've realized it," Buck said and removed a tear from his eye. Apparently he was even crying from laughter.

"What?"

"… That… life down here doesn't always have a bright side." Now Buck's tone had gotten more serious, even though he was still chuckling a little. I raised an eyebrow at his answer. It was really what I had imagined – actually it was far from what I had imagined to hear.

Suddenly I understood Buck's point – but not what was so funny about it. Living down here for as long as he had, he wouldn't just know almost everything about survival, but also about what could happen if you expected too much and if a plan went wrong and so on.

"… You're right…" I turned to Buck and suddenly I didn't feel as wet as before, but now I simply felt naked. Naked as if he could see right through me and knew how I felt about everything – all the time. At least that's what it felt like. "I'm sorry that I…"

"Nah, don't mention it," Buck stopped me. "It'll probably be one of the last times you'll hear me say something right and certainly something sane."

I smiled a little. Not at the fact that he kind of admitted that he was crazy. No, I smiled at the fact that Buck was okay with me, acting like a jerk a few moments ago.

"Well, if that was it, then let's get going 'Coon," Buck said and started walking. I quickly caught up with him and I could already feel how the tropical heat had dried much of my fur. 'Air-drying' wasn't really something I was used to, due to the fact that I came from a cold and frozen ice-desert. But I liked the feeling.

The open field we walked on was pretty big, and I couldn't help but wonder how big the world under the ice was other than what I had seen this far, which wasn't that much. There weren't that many dinosaurs on the field we walked across – only a few herbivore-ones. They didn't seem to notice us at all, even when we walked close by. Not that I was complaining…

"Are there any other predators down here? I mean other than Rudy," I added as we walked.

"Well there is one other big dinosaur with three babies," Buck explained as we finally reached the woods. When we were in between the tall trees he continued: "And then there are a lot of small ones around the Plates of Woe. And then there are some flying ones."

"That's all?" I asked sarcastically. To me it sounded like a lot, but it probably wasn't a big deal to Buck, since surviving was just his everyday.

"Yes, that's about it," Buck replied, again ignoring my sarcasm. Maybe he didn't know what sarcasm was or maybe he couldn't hear it when I used it or maybe he just didn't care.

"Now there can't be far," Buck said after a few minutes.

"You can smell the fumes?" I asked skeptically. It was the only thing he had told me – or at least hinted – about the Plates of Woe. It sounded kind of impossible, but I didn't know how good weasels' sense of smell was. But to break it to me, Buck said: "No, I've just been here before."

I rolled my eyes at Buck's answer and just kept walking beside him. This part of the forest looked a little more deserted and uninhabited than where we came from.

Suddenly we came to a clearing. What was special about this clearing was that there were some small mountains in it. It actually kind of looked like a volcano or something like that, but I wasn't positive about that theory.

"Is that it?" I asked as we approached the mountains. "I don't see any chasm."

Buck just chuckled a little. "It's there. Prepare for the biggest laugh of your life!" Then I heard him mutter: "Might as well be the last one."