This was definitely not his idea of how to spend the Christmas season and he wondered how he had let Sora and Kairi talk him into leaving Destiny Islands. Kairi and the other girls; Yuffie, Aerith, Riona, and Tifa were all out shopping for gifts for the grand occasion which was a week away. Cid and Merlin were arguing over technology and magic which Riku knew would end with the blonde man being blasted by a harmless amount of magic by the old wizard. Sora had disappeared with Donald, Goofy, Leon, a man named Zack and a man Riku hadn’t gotten a good look at. This left Riku sitting in Merlin’s main room with a man named Vincent whom was as quiet as all the other older males excluding Cid, Zack and Merlin. Riku sighed as he looked around the walls of Merlin’s house which also doubled as the meeting place for the restoration committee. His eye landed on an older more worn picture that sat beside a current picture of the restoration committee’s members. He got up from where he had been sitting and took the picture off the wall gingerly which caught Cid and Vincent’s attention rather quickly.
“That would be a picture of us when we were children.” Vincent’s cool voice informed him as he walked over to hover over Riku’s shoulder.
“Who’re these two?” Riku inquired as he pointed to a small blonde girl who stood with an almost identical older blonde boy’s arms around her shoulders.
“That’d be Cloud and Harmony.” Cid, who had dismissed his argument with Merlin informed Riku as he stood gazing over his free shoulder.
“Harmony?” Riku inquired the name ringing more than one bell in his head as he put the picture back in its place.
“We haven’t seen that kid since Maleficent and the heartless destroyed this place.” Cid informed him as he went back to his computer which monitored the town.
“Cloud’s been searching for her for thirteen years now and there has been no sign of her at all.” Vincent informed the younger boy who seemed to be deep in thought.
Not a minute after that sentence left Vincent’s mouth did Sora, Donald and Goofy burst through the door almost hitting Riku in the face with the door. They were followed by Leon who was shaking his head, Zack who was laughing and a blonde man who looked eerily familiar to a friend of his. Riku had reached out to shut the door behind them only to have it shoved right back into his face as the girls all filed in with more shopping bags then anyone would dare to count. Once Riku was sure no one else would be entering he walked around and out the door closing it softly behind him as the laughter from the house echoed into the streets.
He sighed as he headed to the gummy ship yard hoping to find Chip and Dale in their normal station. For the first time since he had arrived in Radiant Garden Riku had luck on his side as the two chipmunks seemed to be going over blue prints on a new gummy ship. He casually strode over to them and squatted down to see what type of gummy ship blue print they had come up with. It took the two chipmunks a minute to register that someone was behind them and both looked up at Riku with big doughy eyes.
“What’s up Riku?” Dale inquired goofily as Chip rolled the blue print up.
“I need to borrow a gummy ship.” Riku informed them to which he received two identical looks of confusion.
“What for?” Chip inquired demandingly as Dale looked between his brother and the nineteen year old boy.
“I need to go get something. A Christmas present of sorts.” Riku informed the two chipmunks who both huddled together and contemplated Riku’s request.
“Alright, but we’re coming along.” The brother’s informed him to whom he nodded before the three headed for the loading dock and slipped away from Radiant Garden unnoticed.
