Sorry for the delay...many things have happened to me in this last few months. But here it is, the new chapter. :)

Hope you enjoy it. :)

"Let me get this straight..." I began as we made our way in the outskirts of town in a taxi. I rubbed my forehead a bit, feeling the forth coming headache. This was borderline stupid. Stupid, unnecessary, tiring and more time spent with Truant. I massaged my scalp as well. "You are saying that our project would not involve any investigation whatsoever, but...field work?" I sighed in an exasperated manner.

"Yup." He answered with not even sparing a glance at me while he chewed on his annoying gum. His lack of reaction was bordering on annoying. I gritted my teeth in an attempt to repress my anger and desires to beat him to a pulp.

"How come you are so calm about this? We could find nothing and fail the course!" I hissed, mi hands clenching with contained frustration.

"Why not?" His blue eye still didn't look at me. He made a tiny bubble with his gum that soon burst. He chuckled lightly as he cleaned it up with his tongue. Apparently he hoped that I would drop the conversation with his answer-question. But the fact that I didn't stop looking at him as if I could make him catch fire forced him to change his mind. "Look...the fact that nobody except me knows of this legend, doesn't mean it didn't happen. That the things I related to you didn't occur. I don't know why people don't have knowledge of the existence the village, of the land I told you about. But I do. And I know it was real. The fact that nobody else knows, doesn't mean it wasn't true, that it wasn't real. That's how ignorant folk are born, you know? Ignoring what it is achieved by putting effort on it." Something in the way he said that didn't click well with me and I was pretty sure that it was directed as an insult to my person. Stay calm Cloud. That's what he is looking for. To make you explode and look like a fool. "You are not an ignorant...are you?" He mocked. And I lost my bearings.

"To begin with Mr. KnowItAll, you don't even really know if the legend its true. You just know of it, but nothing indicates it actually happened. To make things worst, just like you said...YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS! How do I know you are not pulling my hair?! And I don't know why you are sharing with me such a legend, such a discovery of yours?" I panicked. "If it is actually true, you could have full credit. All for yourself! You'll be famous and avowed. Everybody would know your name! Why share it with me? Why did you decided to involve me in this investigation? You are practically searching for a needle in a haystack! It's a fool's quest! In fact it isn't...It's just...Why don't we do something different? Something simpler! Something that can be proved! Why don't we do our project about...I don't know...Something like I don't know...Prove the relationship between the economical crisis in the United States and Roosevelt and the Keynesianism. The crisis in Chile and the relationship between it and the copper based economy. PROVE WHAT IT IS LIKELY TO BE PROVEN! Instead here we are; in the middle of a God forsaken lands looking for God knows what like archeologists below the scorching sun, alone and with nothing but idiotic suppositions from your part to guide us! How do you know where to look? How do you know what do we have to find? HOW CAN YOU PROVE THAT WHAT YOU ARE TELLING ME ITS TRUE? I have so many questions, not even an answer to one of them. To make things worst...I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I ACCEPTED TO JOIN YOU ON THIS STUPID ENDEAVOR TO DISCOVER SOMETHING THAT COULD BE POSSIBLY FABRICATED BY A MAD MAN!" I swear that while I ranted on my frustrations, Truant kept on that lazy and uncaring attitude of his, blowing and chewing his gum while his bored gaze remained on the field outside the car window. The poor chauffeur looked every now and then at us, his gaze weary and frantic. I couldn't blame him. He had just allowed a mad man to get on his car to take him to open land. At least he didn't have to spend the entire day with him. I sighed and thought about the price this silly trip could take. And that's when it hit me. Who cared about the monetary price this trip would cost...my grades...my score. "GOD! MY SCORE! MY PERFECT AND IMMACULATE SCORE BLOWN TO PIECES BECAUSE OF A STUPID PROJECT ABOUT A STUPID MOON! MY PERFECT SCORE BETTED ON A GAME! A GAME I WAS SURE TO LOOSE ALL THANKS TO A MOTHER FU..."

"It's here." Truant interrupted, his voice even prosier. And that just pissed me off even more.

"Arrghh!" I pulled at my hair in desperation. He was just a pretty annoying person.

"Stop your tantrum and childish snobbish attitude will you?" Truant remarked and paid the chauffeur. "Thank you very much." And with that he opened the door and got out.

"Childish snobbish attitude?" I hissed and got out, closing the door with such force I believed it may have fused it with the rest of the car. "I a snobby child?" The chauffeur didn't even wait a moment to bail out. He felt the imminent war at bay and made a smart choice. "You! You are the only snobby child here!" I took a few steps closer, imposing my threatening aura upon this fool of a man. "Here we are! In the middle of nowhere just to satisfy your lunatic ideas about a moon and an ancient village that sounds much closer to rubbish than a legend to me and...

"Look." He took my arm with force successfully shutting me up. With his finger he pointed towards a forest before us. It was quite an ill welcoming forest. Its trees thick and strong with long and leafy branches that managed to stop any kind of light to trespass, reducing the inside of the evergreen forest to shadows. I shivered. I didn't like the look if it at all. It screamed danger and mischief with such strength that my knees felt weak and useless. The wolf's snout all right. I took a step back and turned to look at Truant. He was paler than usual and I could see his ever ice cold eye looking with fear and apprehension the greenish tomb. A slight breeze, cold as ice came to us from the thick foliage. Truant trembled and fell to his knees. I kneeled beside him and held his arm. He looked paler and his breathing was frantic. "Tr...Link?" His ice cold blue eye stared detached towards the forest of doom. "Link?"

"Where this forest is once stood a swamp. In its deepest parts laid a kingdom called Deku Kingdom." His voice was languid and lifeless. His gaze lost to his mind and own world. I felt a pang deep within my heart. Why? God knows. "They called them Dekus for their strange appearance and for their eagerness to plant a big rosy colored flower named Deku Flower. They respected the trees and the waters as if they were their sisters and brothers, father and mothers. Even deeper within the swamp they raised temple in which they begged the ancient spirits for peace, protection and an abundant harvest." Now...I was certain Truant was even crazier than what I gave him credit for. A swamp? A swamp where the forest stands? I didn't think so. It was impossible for a swamp to have existed here. It would have taken hundreds of years for the swamp to disappear. And even more for such a forest to grow. No. Truant was irrevocably insane. His eye now looked at me and I guessed he most have read my mind for his next action was to hold my arm. He made it slowly, as if afraid of me, and with such a feeble strength that it could have very well been a child's grasp. "Listen..." He said hesitantly. Now he looked like a totally different person. His gaze was fearful, vulnerable and with a touch of something I couldn't quite realize what it was. He resembled a kicked puppy. A 180ยบ turn of personality. It was when it came to me that kiss in my living room. How he looked so helpless, so small and fragile that I just wished to take him in my arms and caress his hair. He had that same peculiar shine in his eyes as he had that time. "I know this sounds a tiny bit...demented."

"You don't say." I snarked, and it came out even more aggressively than what I had planned. But...who cares? Truant was crazy and I don't have to stand it...although...With how he looks now...Maybe I should have a bit of mercy and pity. He looked so...lost.

"But I wouldn't lie to you. I swear I wouldn't." His tremors returned and he looked downwards, his golden mane obscuring that ice cold blue eyes that held such despair and fear. "I know the legend to be true. That's one of the main reasons I shared it with you. I know...for a reason I know...I just know that...Argh...I just know that..." A shivering hand combed his hair back and his ice cold blue eye looked at me. "I knew you would believe me. And I need you. I need your help with this." His words came out trembling and almost in a whisper. "I really do need your help with this project." His voice and the way in which he spoke left me in confusion and a speck of worry. He then looked everywhere, his iris never posing in a particular place, nervous and tentative, his body convulsing with tremors. Such was his wrecking state that I held his shoulders with firm hands. "I need your help. I need your help. Please. Please." He began to sob silently.

"Link..." I couldn't avoid the urge to hug him and so I did. Trying to hold him together as his bony body shook with the force of his sobs. What was happening to him? What reduced him to this? This wasn't Truant. This wasn't the strong yet lazy boy who bickered with me until I couldn't help but wish he burst to flames where he stood. But even the biggest incognita of them all...why was this project so important to him? And also...why did he need my help?

"Why?" I asked him delicately, my eyes searched his. Yet, his blue teary eye avoided my gaze and looked at the grassy ground, biting his lower lip. He seemed hesitant to answer my question, and yet he did.

"Because..." He gulped slightly, for a second our eyes crossed; mine firm and strong, his teary and saddened. But as quickly as it began, it ended. "Part of it...I knew you would believe me...as I already said." His voice was low and fearful. So low I almost didn't hear him. It almost seemed as if Truant trusted me. Why did he? I never gave him anything to trust me by. Other than saving his sorry ass...I have done nothing to prove myself trustworthy to him. So why? "And well...the other reasons...Could you give me time?" He asked and his hand landed on my left shoulder. "Please? I swear I will tell you...I'll tell you everything. Please. I swear. But I need time. Please." He sounded so desperate and hopeless that I couldn't deny his plea. His hand shook and trembled, to calm him I took it with one of mine and nodded as reassuringly as I could. It appeared that I was his lifeline to this world. As strange as it may sound, Truant was plagued with something and I was the only one that could aid him. And my aid was linked to this strange project, to the mysterious legend that Truant had told me. How it came to this? I was bound to find out later on. But for that moment, I felt that Truant needed me, more than anything. And when I took his hand, I sealed my fate with his. "Just in you I can trust." He said breathlessly and a tear fell from his eye. I wiped it with my spare hand. He gazed into my eyes, his teary eye looking strongly into mine. So penetrating was it that I felt he could look into the very depths of my soul. I don't know what he found, but whatever it was it made him sighed relievedly and I saw him smile. And God...was it the most beautiful smile I had ever seen...Wait what?

"Thanks, Strife." He sounded cheerful. I must have made some sort of face for he chuckled slightly. It made my body shiver. Why? "I am glad that I was paired up with you. Who knows? It may have been woven by the great ones that you were bound to aid me in my time of need." He slowly stood up, almost falling over again, but held his ground. "Come on! We've got a Project to finish." And saying so he walked toward the ill-bearing forest, chuckling as he saw my dumbfounded look. And once more I felt a shiver run down my spine.

Truant...what have you done to me? What are you doing to me?