I warn, it's not just pleasure. It's going to be a bit melancolic and realistic. But joy and happyness too, i can asure.

And maybe I'll add something extra if I feel it's missing, but please write and comment what you think.

A lone man was walking through the forest that noon. He was humming a silent, merry melody to himself with a distant look on his face, like he was lost in thoughts. He had a bag over his shoulder. His cape was dancing around his feet as he walked.

He took a turn directly into the forest with certain steps. He had been in this forest for years from his very childhood and knew it all over. He knew exactly where to go, and he walked with certain steps.

As he came to an open field, he stopped and had a look around. The Great Tree that marked Gummi Glen. It was just like he remembered it before he left. A deer was drinking in the pond, but when he entered, it caught the sight of him and fled.

He smiled to himself as he looked at his own reflection in the water, and then up at the tree. It was at a day like this he had seen them the first time, the gummi bears. Just seeing them had been a dream coming true for him and changed his life forever. Things had never been the same for him ever since.

He chuckled as he walked closer and touched the trunk. A hundred questions raced through his head. Would those entrances be too small for him now? Would he get stuck if he tried one of them? He knelt down at the roots.

Would they even recognize him after so long? It had after all been a couple of years, and he knew that he had changed his looks a lot in short time. He wondered if he had changed much in person too.

Maybe they had changed too.

He suddenly lost his smile. Just being here made him realize how much he had missed them. Why had he waited so long? He couldn't really answer his own question; he wondered that himself.

Two months after the war was over he had spent at home. He had hesitated to come back to Dunwyn, and for some reason he believed it was because of them. But why? He couldn't figure out!

It was the message from the King that had made him go. The messenger had told him that when he was wanted at the Castle by the King; he wanted to knight him. He had been surprised of how difficult it had been to go. He was to become a knight, wasn't that what he had dreamed, longed for in years?

Why then would he wait?

The sound of voices woke him up from his thoughts and back to reality. He looked up and listened, and smiled when he recognized the voice.

It was Gruffi. No doubt it was. He was grumbling, angry or irritated at something.

Typically.

He snickered. Man was it good to hear his voice again.

He heard another voice too answering Gruffi that he recognized as Tummi's. It was just a low mumbling compared to Gruffi, but hearable. If only Gruffi had known how loud he could be sometimes. No wonder he had discovered them as easy as he had. That stupid medallion had done the trick. He took a grip on it where it was hanging around his neck. If only he had known how much it would change his life.

Cavin rose and started to walk in the direction they were coming from, wondering what they would say when they saw him.

Only one way to figure out.

"Gruffi, couldn't we pleeease do this after lunch?" Tummi plead as carefully as he could.

"Like I said, one minute ago," Gruffi turned to him with annoyed eyes. "NO!" He turned down to the trunk again. "What's started must be fulfilled. And we are not done yet."

"I agree with Tummi, Gruffi." Cubbi said. "We need help with this trap. Why did you have to straighten the wire?"

"Because the humans have gotten even closer than before." Gruffi said as he reached for the screwdriver. "The Kings guards are sneaking into our forest like never before. We need to keep them away."

"Not ALL humans, I hope?" said a voice behind them.

The gummies quacked and span around to see a tall, bearded human leaned to a tree with a teasing grin on his face. Gruffi understood it was too late to run away and held up his screwdriver like a weapon and growled at him, even if he knew it would be nothing compared to the dagger that hang from the humans belt. "Don't come any closer, you bastard! I'm more dangerous than I look."

"Oh yeah, Gruffi." The human laughed. "I'm shivering all over."

Gruffi looked like he lost his tongue at the sound of his name. "H-h-how… do you know…"

The man that stood there was dressed in brown pants with darker boots, a green shirt with a simple red tunic over it. He stood with his hands on his hips, his legs spread and a smile that they thought was quite familiar. And it was something about his hair wig. The long, brown hair was tied in the back of his head in a ponytail and the beard covered his cheek and cheekbones, barely preparing a mustache. And those eyes, big deep brown eyes.

Cubbi took a step forward and looked closer at him, before his eyes shut up.

"Cavin?"

The human grinned and laughed again. "Hi, Cubbi!"

"Great galloping gummies!" Gruffi shut his eyes up and lost this screwdriver on the grown, together with his mouth.

"Really nice of you calling me a bastard like that, Gruffi." He said smiling.

"I-I… I" Gruffi stumbled, unable to form any words at all.

"You're back!" Tummi said and smiled. "You're really back!"

"Sure I am." Cavin knelt down and reached out his arms. "Now come here, I want a bear hug!"

Cubbi was the first to bounce up in his open arms, and Gruffi followed short after, but when Tummi also ran into him, he fell backwards of his weight and rolled on the grass with all three of them. They laid like this for a minute, laughing and hugging before they got up and Gruffi had a second look at him.

"I'm sorry, kid. I didn't recognize you, Why lad, how you have changed." He shook his head smiling. "Especially with that fur in your face. That was the least I had expected on you."

"What?" Cavin stroke over the short beard that had grown on his face and suddenly understood why they had failed to recognize him. "Maybe I should have removed it before I came. I was thinking of it, it's really itching."

Gruffi laughed when suddenly got a flash of a memory in the back of his head; the day when they had disguised themselves to sneak into the trolls lair, and Cavin with a fake mustache that he had sneezed right off about five times before they found the trolls at all. "You're soon gonna end up just as furry as the rest of us." he laughed.

Cubbi also cracked into laughter and held his belly while he pointed at him. "You look like an ogre!"

"Oh yeah?" Cavin played insulted and grabbed him and started to rub his head with his fist. "Well in case you don't remember I have been an ogre once and I can tell that they are far furrier than I am now!"

Cubbi giggled when he let go of him, then the two friends looked each other in the eyes for a moment before they embraced each other in another tight hug. "I've really missed you Cavin!"

Cavin held him tight into himself. "I've missed you too, Cubbi." He held him like that for a while before he let go and giggled. "I've missed you all! It feels like more than two years."

"YOU tell." Cubbi said. "I was that close to pull my sward at you."

Cavin suddenly noticed something hanging around Cubbi's shoulder; a belt with a sword that looked familiar to him. "Hey, isn't that Sir Thornberry's?"

"Yeah." Cubbi said proudly. "He said I had deserved to carry it now. My time as a squire is officially over."

"You mean you're officially a knight now?"

"Yep!" Cubbi smiled.

Cavin laughed. "Oh boy, have I missed a lot or what?"

"You gotta go down and meet the others too." Tummi said. They will be so happy to see you."

"Come' on, we gotta go down immediately!" Cubbi jumped down and grabbed his hand.

"Hey hey HEY, wait up!" Gruffi said to the two. "I'm sure we have a lot to share, but we have to fix this before we go down."

Tummi sighed deeply, patted his belly and turned to Cubbi. "I hoped he had forgotten about that."

Cavin giggled and shooks his head. His gummi friends hadn't changed much.

The gummies had just gotten the plate on the trunk down and struggled to hold it when Cavin placed a big foot on it, and held it down as easy as anything while he smiled down at them. "Thought to give you a hand, but I figured out this would be better."

Even Gruffi had to laugh at that. it didn't take long before they had fixed it.

"It's good to have you back, Cavin!"