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Donald Duck let out a small, annoyed huff while behind the driver’s seat of the gummi ship. When traveling from world to world, occasionally one had to backtrack, and that involved hours of traveling through one of the “interdimensional highways”. They were safe, fast shortcuts where enemies couldn’t linger, but that led to spending hours bored behind the wheel. Sora, Donald, and Goofy took turns on who would man the wheel when traveling these highways, and it was Donald’s turn this time.
Sora turned his head to look to the right. Goofy was dealing with his boredom by taking a nap. His back was laid down on the chair, mouth wide open, and Sora watched as his nose twitched as he let out loud, Goofy-sounding snores. Sora couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Donald’s feathers were starting to stand up on edge, and Sora could tell the loud noise was starting to annoy him. Leaning over the arm of his chair, Sora lifted his hand and pushed Goofy’s mouth shut. The snores ceased. This wasn’t the first time Sora has had to quiet Goofy’s snores.
Dealing with the Gummi Ship Boredom used to be more challenging when Sora was a greenhorn adventurer. He could still remember the days of when he would move around and fidget in his seat, a mixture of anxiety and excitement stewing in his body as he asked Donald or Goofy “are we there yet?” over and over. However, things have changed. Sora has learned new ways to entertain himself while traveling, and Sora knew where Riku and Kairi were now and that they were safe. Sora was incredibly glad he had the gummi phone; he could play various video games on it, and it was a lot faster sending messages than what his original plan would have been, which was to write letters and force either Merlin, Yensid, or the fairies to magic his messages to Riku. He would have had to make pit stops to different worlds much more often, and that would have been tedious. Riku was surprisingly emotive on the gummiphone, using emoticons in response to various photos and selfies Sora would send while traveling to different worlds. When he finally arrived at Twilight Town, Sora planned on sending Riku a photo of Little Chef. Riku said he didn’t believe a rat would be able to control Sora by yanking on his hair.
From the corner of his eyes, Sora could see Donald turn his head around from where he was sitting in the pilot's seat. He widened his beak, as if to loudly announce something, until his eyes turned to Goofy and he halted his speech. Donald’s beak turned upwards into a small smile, and his eyes looked fond. When he finally did talk, it was in a warbled whisper.
“Heh… That big palooka is still sleeping? ”
Sora couldn’t help but chuckle. It was rare to see Donald being soft; he usually only reserved those looks for when he talked about Daisy. It made Sora wonder how long Donald and Goofy had known each other, and how strong the bond between them was. He’d seen glimpses of their past in the worlds trapped in sleep, but he had a feeling their history was a lot larger than that.
Noticing he was being watched, Donald let out a quiet “wak”, and turned his head back towards the front of the gummi ship. Sora could see the feathers on Donald’s arms stand up again; a sign showing that he was embarrassed. Sora didn’t understand why some people got shy showing others that they cared, but Sora giggled and didn’t say a word.
“We got 20 minutes before we land in Twilight Town… Don’t you usually do your whole shiny crystal sorting before we land? You better hurry up.”
Oh yeah, he had almost forgotten! Quietly thanking Donald, he climbed out of his seat and placed himself on the floor.
After years of traveling, Sora had picked up a new hobby while adventuring throughout the realms. Shuffling through his, Donald’s, and Goofy’s combined belongings, Sora pulled out a small leather bag from the cluttered mess of items, and emptied the contents on the floor where he sat behind the chair. Various shards, stones, gems, and crystals made a sizable pile onto the floor. Sora had grown to love organizing the synthesis materials before he gave them to Moogle on various worlds. These crystals had different colors, various levels of transparency, and each felt different to the touch. Over time, he’d learned which was which, and he was able to make things easier for Moogle when he dropped them all off. Sora didn’t know why the various enemies he fought dropped these things, but it had grown into a part of his routine to pick them up after every encounter.
Sora started his routine by grabbing ahold of his favorites; the Soothing shards, stones, gems, and crystals. They were one of the most common ones to find, and they shone a bright, vivid green. They were especially strange; they could be found defeating water-based heartless, but Sora has also found them crystalized inside of water-coolers when trying to get a drink. If he had more time, he’d take his time cradling them in the palm of his hands; feeling the sense of energy they radiated into his skin. Sora liked holding these; occasionally, he’d pluck a shard he’d keep in his pocket to help him stay awake during the early mornings and late nights fighting heartless.
There was a sizable amount of blazing shards among the pile. Sora couldn’t help but smile. They gave off a gentle warmth when held. They were handy for when he had to travel to Arendelle and weather their frigid storms. He gleefully plucked the blazing shards from the pile until he felt something sharp.
It was a sinister shard. They were a bright red like the blazing shards, but that was the only similarity they shared. The edges were sharper and stung to touch, and holding onto one gave the owner a sense of…. Unease. Sora tried to avoid holding onto sinister shards for too long. It was rare whenever he came across one, but he always handed them off to Moogle as soon as he could. He didn’t like holding onto them. Setting aside his unease, he continued. The pile was rather large today, but Sora was making good progress. It had been a while since he had been able to sort his collection, so the assortment of synthesis materials was more colorful than usual. He noticed a hint of grey peaking out beneath a cluster of multicolor shards- most likely a twilight shard. He mindlessly put his fingers into the pile in order to pluck the shard from its position when his body suddenly… Froze, The moment his fingers came in contact with the grey mass.
it wasn’t a Twilight shard.
Everything suddenly felt a lot more dire, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of shock that settled over his body. He slowly pushed his hand deeper into the mass of synthesis materials to wrap his fingers around what had caused this reaction in him. It was larger than a shard and had a distinct shape- one he had never felt before.
It was heart-shaped.
Sora pulled the crystal into the palm of his hand and stared. Upon closer inspection, the heart-shaped crystal tapered off into three sharp points at the end, and its surface was a cloudy grey. He has never seen a crystal look like this. He doesn’t remember picking it up.
It.
It….
………..
He’s never felt anything like this before from holding a crystal. There have been synthesis materials Sora found that carried powerful emotions like this- Wellspring crystals would spark with energy, radiating with a sense of indomitable courage, and the powerful sense of longing Sora felt from Hungry crystals made him feel a strong sense of melancholy.
The emotions inside the crystal within his palm felt… He couldn’t… He couldn’t understand. So many emotions were trying to come up to the surface of its depths- grief, fear, longing, courage, devotion, joy- a cacophony of feelings morphed together in a confusing, undecipherable mass, yet he *knew* that these feelings were meant for him. It desperately wanted to tell him something, yet due to the nature of its creation, it was unable to say a word. A miraculous crystal formed of unspeakable thoughts.
“Soooraaaa. Sora. SORA!!”
“WAH!!-”
And in a moment, all of Sora’s hard work was gone. His legs, previously crossed on the floor in order to crouch over his work, quickly unwound in order to place their feet unto the ground. The piles of meticulously sorted material were immediately scattered by the force of his comedically large shoes, leaving what looked like smears of color across the floor. Sora looked down at his project, now completely scattered, and slumped his shoulders. Years of training to react to any sudden movements or sounds led to these occasional moments of overreaction. In his haste, he had thrown the heart-shaped crystal across the room in order to wield his keyblade, and it had slammed against the hull of the control panel. It had made a loud clank sound upon impact.
“Oh. Ah man, not again…”
Donald only raised an eyebrow, his eyes staring at him from over the arm of the captain's chair.
“... I only wanted to mention that we’ll be landing soon… I tried calling you earlier, but you didn’t respond.”
Sora could only chuckle, awkwardly recalling his kingdom key from where it was summoned. His eyes kept glancing back at the grey crystal across the room, but tried his best to focus on Donald. Donald had halted movement of the gummiship, and the intense look he was sending his way signalled that he wanted to tell him something important. He looked concerned. Sora stared back, trying to patiently wait for Donald’s words, but couldn’t help the tapping of his shoe against the metal flooring of the gummiship, making audible clank noises against the ground. A feeling of dread had settled in his stomach; he really hoped the crystal hadn’t broken upon impact. Donald’s beak opened, but he quickly shut it, as if halting his thoughts directly. His feathers were starting to stand up again.
“Are you.… Whatever! Pick up the mess you made, we’ll be landing soon.”
Donald let out a muffled “wak” and turned his beak back to the porthole, and the gummiship began to move again. Through the glass of the gummiship, Sora could see the speck that would soon reveal itself to be the world Twilight Town resided on. He had minutes to put everything back inside his leather pouch and inspect the status of the crystal.
Sora immediately turned towards the grey crystal on the ground, and crouched to pick it up from where it lay beside the metal hull of the control panel. He let out a sigh of relief; upon first glance, the crystal was still in one piece. However, his heart began to sink when his fingers lifted it from the ground. He couldn’t feel anything from it anymore.
The turbulent emotions inside the crystal had vanished.
Upon closer inspection, a large, jagged crack had formed in the center from where it had been slammed into the metal, leaving a sizable missing chunk. In his moment of panic, Sora had broken it. He quickly scanned his eyes across the ground, looking for a potential shard that could fill the missing gap in the broken crystal. He couldn’t find anything.
Subconsciously, Sora could hear footsteps clanking against the metal floor of the gummiship. Donald was still driving, so Goofy must have woken up. Sora continued to search frantically for the missing shard while he could hear what must be Goofy shuffling the mess of synthesis materials back into his leather bag. Sora kept looking, but couldn't find anything. Forlorn, he stared again at the heart-shaped object in his hands, feeling like he lost something… Important. He couldn’t understand why.
Eventually, the rustling of synthesis materials stopped, and the gummiship was quiet again, excluding the ever-present rumbling of the gummiship engine. Sora would have to thank Goofy for picking up after him. He always had an uncanny ability to know when to help. The familiar clanking of Goofy’s shoes resumed, and Sora knew he’d have to quickly get over whatever he’d lost. It was just a crystal. He didn’t want to worry Donald and Goofy over something that was… unimportant. It wasn’t important.
Goofy’s steps stopped behind him, and slowly, he felt the fabric of Goofy’s glove land on his shoulder.
“Is everything alright, Sora? You seem to be looking for something.”
His voice was gentle in that calming, Goofy way of his. Sora turned around, a reassuring smile already plastered on his face.
“Yeah, everything’s ok. Just lost a shard, not a big deal. Nothing important.”