Golden Sun is the property of Camelot Software Planning and Nintendo. No attempts to make a profit off of this abomination will be made.

Update 01/13/2016: Honestly not sure if this fic is or ever was okay due to what's played for laughs, but it apparently still has fans, so it's staying online. It has dubcon of the alcohol-induced variety, so proceed with caution.

For reference, it was originally written for a bad fanfic contest.

Garet growled and slowly opened his eyes. He blinked several times, trying to keep from being blinded from the light of the afternoon sun. After a few seconds he was able to keep his eyes open long enough to see the silhouette of a young man with messy hair looking down at him. He sat up.

"Aaron…? What are you doing here?"

Aaron crouched down and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Patcher sent me word this morning that you made a scene in his tavern last night, so I came looking for you." He turned around and scanned the area before turning back to Garet. "What...happened here?"

Garet looked down at himself. His belt was wrapped loosely around his neck. His shirt was open and his undershirt was gone. Both of his gloves were missing. His pants, while definitely still on, were loose around his waist due to the misplaced belt.

Holding his pants up with his left hand, Garet pushed himself up and took in his surroundings. He was on the Goma Plateau, on the side of the bridge where the cabin was. The cabin itself had a large hole with singed edges on its roof. His undershirt was somewhere down in the canyon. One of his gloves was hanging by its wrist-clasp on the very edge of a nearby tree branch. There was a small, shallow crater in the ground about ten feet behind him in which his second glove lay.

"I don't kn-"

Garet suddenly noticed what felt like small grains of earth in his mouth grinding against his teeth when he spoke. Then it came rushing back. The wedding. The drinking. The Wise One.

Garet drew in a sharp breath in horror.

"Garet?"

"Oh, godsdammit!"

The birds sitting in the tree on which Garet's glove was hanging flew away in fright.

ooo

The wedding he remembered very clearly, he thought as Aaron set him down on a bed in Patcher's inn. Some things were still blurry, but that he could recall. He was the best man after all. It was Isaac's wedding day and he was getting married. To Jenna. After all these years when the possibility of the two tying the knot was uncertain, he was going to support Isaac on the day of his wedding. To Jenna. Because Isaac, alchemy willing, was going to spend the rest of his life married to her.

Jenna...

It was a nice day and the wedding went smoothly – with the exception of the absence of the bride's best friend and older brother – and they all had a nice time. At the banquet afterwards, Garet had toasted the couple with no incident.

Eventually, it grew late and the festivities of the day died down. The newlyweds and most of the guests from Kalay went home. A few more of the guests were Vale refugees from the area around Patcher's Place. Garet left with those guests, despite his parents' insistence that he could stay there for a few days instead of staying by himself at the Lookout Cabin. But he had insisted on going back. When he arrived, he stopped at the tavern in Patcher's Place to have what he planned to be a drink or two.

"Garet," Patcher said as he pulled back Garet's glass from across the counter, "I think you've had enough."

"Enough?" Garet slurred. "Patcher, it's a celebration! I'm allowed to celebrate my best friend getting married, aren't I?" He slammed his fist on the counter, leaving a shallow fist-sized impression behind it.

Patcher glared briefly at the indentation Garet had made in his newly-remodeled counter. "Isn't there anyone who can stay with you for the night?"

Garet leaned back in his chair and turned his head to scan the tavern, taking in the sight of the customers seated at the various tables who had cut their conversations short to turn to stare at him. With a sigh, Garet turned back to Patcher and grinned.

"...Nope!" Garet chirped. "No one's here. No one to stay with me..." There was silence. "No one at all..." More silence. Garet sniffed.

"Garet, I think you should-"

In an instant, Garet's head was on the counter and he was making big, heaving sobs. He slammed his fist on the counter again and again, each time making new indentations in the wooden surface.

He could hear someone coughing in the background, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Patcher bite his lip.

"Garet, you're making a scene. Look, you can rent a room here for the night."

He apparently did not take Patcher up on his offer because the next thing he remembered was standing outside the cabin, staring at the faintly glowing form of Mt. Aleph across the distance. How he had gotten from Patcher's Place to the Lookout Cabin was something that was missing from his memory. The two weren't far away, but Garet had been falling-down drunk when he left the tavern. It was dark and there were monsters and, although he was a seasoned warrior and adventurer, it was not a good idea to travel alone at night while plastered. Somehow, though, he had followed the pathway up the plateau without any serious falls.

He also remembered opening a barrel at the cabin. It was unremarkable, but not empty. He sat in the garden and helped himself to the little bit of ale still left inside. Garet sometimes wondered if the Golden Sun, in addition to giving him and his friends new strength and extended, had also increased their tolerance for alcohol. Not long after they had built this cabin, he, Isaac, Jenna, and Ivan had all sat around the sunroom drinking what must have been gallons of ale.

Then he heard what sounded like squeaks, growls, and straw being torn coming from the roof of the house. Even with Mt. Aleph's faint light, it was still too dark to see anything more than silhouettes. Garet quickly stood up and created a ball of fire in his hand to better see. He looked up on the roof to see two vermin illuminated by the light ripping a hole in the roof, although they had temporarily stopped to stare at him, their beady black eyes shining in the light.

Usually Garet would find a way to get the creatures on the ground and then take care of them, but that night his intoxication clouded his judgment. In frustration, he threw a fireball at the creatures. The vermin scattered before the fireball could hit, and thus it only struck the roof. Within seconds, some of the straw had caught fire, and the flames were quickly spreading. The vermin, for their part, jumped off the roof and scurried off as quickly as their stubby little legs could carry them.

Garet's eyes widened. The gravity of what he had just done set in.

The next few minutes were also hard to recall, in part no thanks to his hang-over. He requested a drink to deal with it, but Patcher, who had come upstairs to the room to see what was going on, had said no.

The next thing he remembered was feeling the pulse of Psynergy coming from behind the other side of the cabin and the flames dying down, leaving behind only a hole with scorched edges.

Slowly, a large circular figure rose from behind the cabin and floated over the roof towards the other side. It descended towards Garet and opened its one great, light blue eye.

The Wise One.

Garet understood the Wise One's intentions on that day at the Mars Lighthouse, but he still would rather not see him if he didn't have to. Isaac, in his treatment of him as near god-like, could deal with him all he wanted.

The Wise One narrowed his eye.

"This energy I felt...was it your doing?"

Garet nodded. "Yeah...that was me."

The Wise One turned side to side before looking back at Garet. "I do not sense young Isaac's presence."

"He got married today," said Garet. "...To Jenna."

"And you are up here alone?"

The Wise One concentrated and blue rings of Psynergy floated around him.

"...In your state, you clearly should not be alone up here."

"Then don't...leave me."

The Wise One frowned slightly and thin rings of Psynergy once again surrounded him. Garet remembered a sensation of something trying to pick through the corners of his mind, causing him to draw back in surprise. The rings continued to surround the Wise One. Garet felt the force gently probe deeper, then - suddenly - the energy relaxed and felt similar to his own. An image flashed in Garet's mind, showing Garet himself looking rather blurry. That must have been how he appeared to the Wise One. The rings around the guardian disappeared, as did the sensation in Garet's mind, and he could see the Wise One again.

Again, it became fuzzy. The next flashes of memory came from what must have been a few minutes later.

The Wise One did not speak, but only stared at him with his one, light blue eye.

"Stay with me, please..." Garet said. "Just for tonight."

Garet lurched closer.

It seemed as though the Wise One was a little unsure as to what Garet wanted, but he did not back away. Garet took off his right glove and reached toward the Wise One. He lightly brushed the stony exterior with his fingertips. Weyard's protector was warm, like a rock heated under the sun.

The Wise One wobbled closer.

Garet gently pressed his entire hand against the Wise One's body. He then pulled off his left glove with his teeth and placed his other hand on the being.

They stood like that for a long time. The Wise One closed his eye.

Garet slowly leaned in and kissed the stony eyelid. He felt the Wise One shiver in response.

That first kiss led to more between them, each more passionate than the one before it. The Wise One smelled of earth and the texture of his stony body felt neither rough nor smooth against Garet's tongue.

Garet opted not to think too deeply about what happened next. His brain hurt far too much already. He ached for more alcohol to deal with his memories, this time under the careful watch of Aaron and Patcher to see that he didn't get up to any more shenanigans with powerful floating rocks.

"Garet, I don't know what happened, but maybe you should come home to Mom and Dad's for a while."

Garet groaned and fell back on the bed. "Maybe I should."

But the worst thing out of the whole situation, he thought, was the whole experience was pretty great on a physical level.

ooo

The next nine months Garet spent back and forth between Kalay and Patcher's Place. After making sure that Patcher's counter was seen to, he and Isaac would make periodic trips up to the plateau to check on the cabin and, at first, to repair the roof. This required removing a Vermin and her new litter of five from the attic and patching the hole the on the outside.

Isaac wasn't too happy to find the roof so damaged. He had put a lot of time and effort into that roof. Sometimes, when Isaac and Jenna went through rough patches, Isaac would just stay up on the roof for hours on end. Garet didn't know what he was doing, but whenever he went up there to check on him, Isaac always acted like his friend was interrupting something.

Isaac and Jenna then welcomed a new baby into their family, whom they named Matthew. Regardless of his earlier feelings, Garet immediately adored his best friends' son.

ooo

Garet began having some strange dreams a few days after Matthew was born, when he was visiting Kalay again. He would always be at the cabin, staring at Mt. Aleph in the distance while clouds covered the night sky. There was no rain, but plenty of thunder and lightning. He would feel a strange power moving closer and closer towards him and then...he would wake up.

One day, Ivan had a vision. Something strange was about to happen at Mt. Aleph and, Ivan said, it would happen that night. No one could understand why this vision couldn't have come to Ivan earlier, but Garet and Isaac grabbed their equipment and set off, leaving Ivan and Jenna behind. Jenna had just had her baby while Ivan's wife was expecting her own child in a few days. Everyone had enjoyed the festivities on Isaac and Jenna's wedding day.

Isaac had sent a pigeon on to the Great Healer at Patcher's Place to alert him of their arrival. When they arrived at nightfall, the Great Healer was waiting for them outside. Heavy storm clouds loomed overhead and the very air crackled with electricity. The three quickly set off together towards the cabin – the nearest reachable point to Mt. Aleph.

"This morning, I started feeling a series of surges in psynergy," the Great Healer said as the crossed the bridge on the plateau. "They were not frequent at first, but they grew closer together as the hours passed. Now they're only minutes apart." The three stopped in front of the cabin and the Great Healer turned and looked in the direction of Mt. Aleph. "If you focus, you should be able to feel them as well."

Garet closed his eyes and concentrated. Soon he felt the pulses of psynergy himself. When he opened his eyes to glance at Isaac, whose eyes were tightly closed, he could tell that Isaac felt them too.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble underneath them. Lightning flashed in the sky. The air turned heavy and hot, and it became hard to breathe. Isaac's eyes snapped open.

There was a flash of lightning and the Wise One appeared in the sky.

"The Wise One?"

Thunder crashed overhead

"At last you have...come, Garet!"

The Wise One shook. Every few seconds, small blue sparks came off his body. Power was overflowing off of his body. But his voice itself sounded strange and his speech seemed labored.

"That night...when I tried to understand your mental state...some of it rubbed off onto me..."

The Wise One shook again, and then continued.

"Hold...out your hands."

Garet was surprised to feel himself do so, as if he were in a trance. The Wise One narrowed his eye in deep concentration as lightning flashed again.

A glowing blue sphere of light appeared, hovering over Garet's hands. Suddenly, particles of white light appeared in the air and raced closer toward the sphere at increasing speed. The sphere grew larger and larger until it was the size of Garet's head. There was a flash, and the sphere expanded again, the light growing dimmer as it did. When the light had faded, there was a sleeping infant in the fetal position hovering in the air. The infant slowly floated down until he landed gently in Garet's hands.

The Wise One let out a noise that sounded like a breath and then suddenly seemed much more comfortable. The air around them all immediately cooled to its previous temperature, and the ground below was calm once more. The clouds overhead dispersed as if blown away by a powerful Whirlwind. A clear starry sky was now revealed overhead.

The Wise One floated a little lower until it was on eye level with Garet's face.

"As you can imagine," he began, "in my station, I am in no position to care for a child who needs the constant attention of a caregiver. That is why I called you here."

When nobody responded, the Wise One continued.

"As your own child, and as the child of one of the protectors of Weyard, it falls to you to make him into a great man. Keep him well."

And with that, the Wise One vanished.

Garet looked up slowly to see Isaac and the Great Healer staring at him with blank expressions on their faces.

There was a long, uncomfortable period in which everyone just stared at each other and said nothing.

Isaac spoke first.

"Garet - what just happened?"

Garet opened his mouth to speak. "I..."

He swallowed.

"I...might have slept with the Wise One."

"Slept with the..." Isaac trailed off. He stood there in a stupor for about fifteen seconds, trying to make sense of what he had just heard before he spoke again. "How?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Garet snapped. He didn't want to think about it, either.

What he did want to get a better look at his apparent lovechild.

"Hey Isaac, bring the lantern over here."

Isaac did, with caution.

The light caused the baby to grunt and stir. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times before looking straight up at Garet.

Light blue eyes, thought Garet. Just like the Wise One's...

The light allowed him to get a much better look at the infant. His skin tone was paler than Garet's, but it looked like he had his father's nose. The baby also had a full head of what looked like hair, but it when Garet brushed it with his fingertips, the hair felt hard and spiky. It seemed to be more like something carved out of red rock than hair.

"I just..." Garet looked down at the baby and tried to caress his cheek with his thumb. The child reached for the thumb and tried to grab it in his little fist.

"I just... Why didn't he try to contact me until right before this happened?"

"The Wise One is a being of near endless wisdom," the Great Healer said, startling Isaac and Garet, who had forgotten that he was there. "There is almost certainly a good reason he did not do so."

"'A good reason?' Of course there's 'a good reason!'" Garet snapped. "There's always 'a good rea' – no, no, don't cry!"

The baby, startled by the sudden change in the volume in Garet's voice, had begun to wail. In an effort to comfort him, Garet tried to hold him close, but it was difficult to do so with all of the armor. "We should get him down to the town. There's nothing to take care of a baby up here."

He started heading down the path. Isaac and the Great Healer followed him.

"...We're going to have a hard time explaining all this," Garet yelled over the child's crying.

Isaac stopped and turned to gaze down at the plateau towards Patcher's Place in the distance, where the three of them would be expected to provide an explanation for the psynergetic activity when morning came.

"Yeah."

"What do we say?"

"Just from looking at him, it's obviously your kid," Isaac shouted, starting again to walk forward with the rest, "so I don't think we'll have to work hard to convince anyone of that."

"We can discuss this in the morning," said the Great Healer. "For now, let us take the child back to town to make sure he is healthy."

"Yeah, you're right," Garet muttered. He shushed the child again, and the baby finally stopped crying. Garet smiled.

"He kind of looked like a Tyrell, don't you think?"

"I guess." Isaac paused for a moment, and then continued. "The Wise One's pretty powerful, Garet. Tyrell's his child, so do you think he might have inherited some of that power?"

"Perhaps," the Great Healer responded. "If you're implying that Garet will need to teach his child more self-control than he would any normal Adept child, then that is genuine concern, yes."

"Oh sure," Garet laughed. "We'll make sure that any powers he has will be kept under control. Won't we, Tyrell?"

ooo

"Patcher, I am so, so sorry."

Patcher stood in front of him, his arms crossed and with a dark expression on his face. Behind him, smoke was rising off of the top of his general store.

"We'll find a way to make this up to you, won't we, Tyrell?"

Eight-year-old Tyrell was standing at his father's side, with his head lowered. He was pouting. Garet smacked him on the back of his head to get his attention.

"Mmmsorry," the boy mumbled.

Fin.