Where is My Sun?

The mega-ether had helped a lot but Kairi still felt quite tired. Tabitha had forced her to get into bedclothes and ordered her to spend the rest of the afternoon in bed. Not that she was complaining about that. The mattress and pillows felt so much more like heaven when she was this tired. She stared at the view from her window. There was now a thin layer of cloud covering everything, which was disappointing when the weather that morning looked so promising. She wondered when winter would become spring. Soon, hopefully.

"Wait, what's spring?" she thought but her mind immediately conjured up images of flowers and cute baby animals, the sound of laughter and a feeling of joy. Spring must have been something she liked.

She languidly slid herself out of bed and shuffled over to the window, leaning her forehead against the cold glass. It surprised her how fast the weather could turn. She hoped that it would change again soon – it would be awful if Minnie and Daisy's performance had to be cancelled.

Staring out at the snowy gardens felt familiar somehow. Even though she was so unaccustomed to the perpetual gloom of the winter weather she recognised everything. There were only a few things that stopped this scene from being complete but she couldn't remember what they were; only that something was missing. But there was a lot more missing. Earlier that day when she'd tried with all of her heart to fight against the darkness she thought she remembered something that had never happened in her memory.

"Hi, I'm Kairi. What's your name?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember the rest of it but it was just gone. She was talking to someone, wasn't she? Her head dropped so that her crown was cooling on the glass while she looked down at the moonstone dangling from her neck. Where had she gotten it? Despite not knowing its significance to her she wouldn't ever let a day go by where she went without it. She lifted her head again and shifted to sit on the windowsill, despite the chill giving her goosebumps. Something in her heart told her that she couldn't go back now – actually, it told her that she shouldn't. It was only responsible to find out where her true origins lay but who knew where that would take her and if she'd ever be able to return.

The clouds blocked out the sky and when Kairi breathed out a dismal sigh the mist that formed on the window obscured her vision even more. "I don't know where I want to be. I love Sora and Riku but… but… I must have loved other people before, right? Do they miss me? They're probably waiting somewhere. All this time I was so happy to just wait there on the islands for Sora to come home but I never once thought that maybe there was someone out there who's been waiting a long time for me to come home; standing in the snow somewhere, looking to the sky.

"Once upon a time
Way up in the bright blue sky
The sun shone down on the sea," she sang quietly, closing her eyes.

In her mind's eye she saw the sea as if she was watching it from the little play island. She still regarded this place as home. For most of her life the idea that she could belong anywhere else would have made her laugh.

"Down upon the beach
With shiny sand so fine it squeaked
Is where I thought I'd always be.

"Where is the sun?"

She opened her eyes and stared at the clouds overhead. There was only one way to discover what kind of world she came from but she wasn't sure if she was brave enough to follow through with it.

"The dark clouds have come.
Where is the sun for me?"

She let out another sigh through her nose and continued her cloud gazing when suddenly something fell out of the thick cover and made its way down. Was that a…? It was! There was no mistaking the garish colours of a Gummi Ship. But with the hangars still undergoing repairs, where was it going to land?

The ship continued its gradual descent as it braked and Kairi couldn't help but wonder who was in the cockpit. It came low over the castle fairly noiselessly (Gummi Ship systems were wonderfully efficient) and disappeared over the roof. Kairi lost sight of it a bit before that, unable to see past the top of her window. She hopped off the sill and ran to her closet to get back into some clothes. Her legs and fingers still felt shaky but she was suddenly pumped with adrenalin. She just had to find out who was in that ship. Perhaps they could take her home… wherever she decided that was.

By the time she got outside the Gummi Ship was long gone. She left the castle grounds for the second time that day and ran as fast as she could, stumbling a bit on unsteady legs. Everyone else seemed to have noticed it too, so Kairi was able to easily get directions to follow it. It eventually led Kairi to the stone bridge on the edge of town. On a snow-covered field on the other side of the river the colourful spaceship rose like a sculpture. It was tipped onto its side and one wing had broken off and was sticking out of the white field like a huge green plank. The channel of upturned snow and dirt showed that it had been a bad landing.

Kairi ran across the field, hoping that whoever was inside wasn't hurt in the crash. Maybe it was that 'Uncle Scrooge' that Kairi had heard about. She swallowed a lump in her throat and kept going. She had been told that Uncle Scrooge was more than likely to refuse helping others but she could at least attempt to ask him if he would do her the favour of taking her back to the Destiny Islands.

When she made it to the ship the cockpit had just been forced open. Her jaw dropped. The two faces that appeared over the side of the cockpit were two that she thought she wouldn't see for a long time to come.

"Sora? Riku?"

Brown spikes barely even twitched as Sora turned his head to focus on her. Riku's hair was more fluid. Even though it was much shorter now it still swished like long grass in the wind. Sora's face immediately split into a wide grin while Riku smiled more demurely.

"Kairi!" the bubbly boy exclaimed, leaping out of the Gummi Ship, not caring about how high up it was. He landed safely on the snowy ground and when he straightened up he was bowled over by Kairi's tackling hug.

"Sora! I didn't think I'd see you so soon!" Kairi replied. She couldn't stop the grin on her face that was so huge she thought she could actually feel the skin on her face splitting. Sora returned her hug in full force.

The faint crunch of snow told them that Riku had also jumped down from the ship. Kairi looked up, her joyous expression didn't falter one bit. Riku's smile also widened even has he stood over them with his arms folded and a full-body shudder due to the cold. It seemed that neither of them had anticipated that it would be winter in Disney Town and they were both dressed for the never-ending summer of the Destiny Islands. Sora's shudders were also becoming more violent with each passing minute to the point that Kairi could feel it through her layers.

"If you two want to start that kind of thing could you at least wait until you have a little privacy?" Riku quipped, making Kairi and Sora blush vibrantly.

"Hey! I'm allowed to say hello to my best friends, aren't I?" Kairi retorted.

Riku chuckled and relented, opening his arms so that Kairi could stand up and give him a tight hug too. "Whoa, you're acting like you haven't seen us in years. You were only gone for a few days."

"I know but stuff happened," Kairi explained vaguely, "and I thought I wouldn't get to see you guys or the islands again for months." She was about to continue until she noticed how flushed Riku's face had gotten. "Maybe we should go inside before I start explaining."

"T-t-that sounds l-like a g-g-good idea," Sora managed to say as his teeth chattered. "I'm getting really wet down here."

Short chapter is short... and a little disappointing. Now that Sora and Riku are here, what will our friends get up to next? Also, I put in that reprise because again there has not been a song for a while and I've got nothing better to put in there.