As Luck Would Have It
Disclaimer: Ah, go read the first one.
A/N: Ok, for your reading pleasure, Chapter One! Zoe finds herself in a place she doesn't quite understand. This is where we REALLY get into Golden Sun.
Chapter One: The Path Ahead
"Check it out! Someone's on the path up ahead!" Garet said, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Uh-oh. This can't be good."
"What can't be good?" Isaac asked, glancing slightly up at his best friend. He hated being the shorter one. It made everyone think he was younger.
"Well, either this person fell asleep on the path, or…" Garet trailed off. Isaac, getting the point, broke into a run, Garet following swiftly on his heels. Seconds later they reached the still form on the ground.
"Who is he?" Garet asked as Isaac knelt beside the figure and gently turned it over, onto its back.
"He's a she," Isaac said, looking at the unconscious form of the girl before him. It didn't look like she'd been hurt, though she might have been in a fight. She seemed to carry no weapons, and wore dark blue leggings and a sleeveless violet tunic. A little ways off was what looked like a kind of bag. Garet saw this and went to get it, bringing it back to where Isaac and the girl were and starting to open it.
"Don't," Isaac cautioned, holding up a hand.
"Why not?"
"If it is hers, she probably doesn't want us going through her stuff. If it isn't hers, I don't wanna think about what might be in there."
"He has a good point," a voice spoke up from the hood of Isaac's cloak. A brown creature jumped from the hood and onto Isaac's head.
"Get off there!" Isaac cried, pulling his Djinni Flint off his head. "What is so appealing to you about my head?"
"It's soft up there. Your hood is always bouncing all over the place, and I don't like it!" Flint then began to speak in a series of squeaks and whistles, which Isaac didn't quite understand. But he suspected he might learn in time. After all, Flint had only been with him a day and a half.
"I'll give you bouncing!" Isaac said mock-angrily, and began to toss Flint into the air and catch him. The Djinni twittered, which Isaac took to be laughter, until on the last throw when Isaac whirled and caught the Venus Djinni in his hood again. "And stay there."
"I wonder who she is," Garet mused, looking down at the girl again.
"Or where she's from," Isaac added. "She certainly isn't from Vale. We'd know her then."
"Maybe she's from that cold place Kraden always talked about. Ugh…I can't remember the name."
"Imil? Maybe. She looks enough the part. In fact she looks almost like Alex…only I don't think she'd be in this position if she were a Water Adept."
"Why not?" Garet asked, running a hand through his unkempt, flame-red hair.
"Well, she doesn't seem to have any weapons, for a start. Even the ten-year-olds back home carried knives and sticks. And…something just seems odd about her."
"We can't just leave her here like this. Something could find her, and it might not be as friendly, or as sentient, as we are."
"I didn't plan on leaving her here. However, getting her all the way to Vault before nightfall isn't going to be easy." Isaac shaded his eyes against the already-setting sun.
"This means another night in the forest, doesn't it? I'll take first watch, then. After I go to sleep I just want to be able to sleep right through."
"Fat chance I have of sleeping while you do. You snore, Garet!"
"I do not snore!"
"How can you tell? You're asleep while you do it."
"Well I…that is…um…you see…oh, I DO NOT SNORE!"
"Garet, please! Stop yelling! You're going to attract every monster for miles!"
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She could hear voices. They were talking quietly, almost in whispers. Every once in a while she picked up a couple words, but nothing she understood.
Slowly she opened one eye, then the other. It was dark. She was looking up at a patch of star-filled sky, with tree branches bordering its edges. The moon was barely a sliver off to the right. That was odd. Tonight should have been the full moon.
Dimly she remembered running into something, flying through the air, and landing hard on the ground. She tried to come up with some other memory, anything, her name, what she looked like, her age, anything, but nothing came.
Turning her head, she found that about three yards away was a small fire. Near it sat two boys, one with his back to her. The one she could see had hair the color of sand, and deep blue eyes. Some kind of animal sat on his shoulder, and he seemed to be speaking to it as he held his hands above the fire.
Still watching the boys, she sat up. A quick look around told her they were in some kind of forest. A flash of memory returned, and she knew that this was also wrong. She should be in a big open area, with a bunch of other people. Not here in some forest clearing, with two boys she'd never even seen before.
Suddenly, something let out an inhuman cry. She turned her head sharply to her left to see what could only be some form of skeleton walking towards her, bone hands outstretched.
She screamed. The two boys, hearing her yell, turned to look at her and saw the skeleton-creature. Both of them drew their weapons, and with a yell, attacked the skeleton. When that failed to do much of anything, the taller boy raised a hand and yelled, "Guard's Fire!" Little balls of flame appeared and surrounded the creature, and it disappeared.
"Well, that was…interesting," the shorter boy said, turning to look at the girl. He walked over to her and knelt down. "Hi. I'm Isaac."
"I'm Garet," said the taller boy. The girl blinked at them for a moment, then stood, brushing herself off though there seemed no need to do so. "Who are you?"
"I'm…I'm…" she trailed off, trying to remember just what her name was. Like every memory before this, her name hit her in a flash. "I'm Zoe."
"Ok. If you don't mind a little company, will you come along with Garet and I to Vault?" Isaac asked, standing and going back over to the fire.
"Vault? I've never heard of it. But I guess I'm alone, or I was, so of course I'll go with you," Zoe said, as she sat across from Isaac.
"Never heard of Vault? You must be from somewhere far away then," Garet said, sitting by the fire. His brown eyes caught hers and studied them. "Maybe you are from Imil."
"Imil…" Zoe thought. The name did sound almost familiar. "Yes, Imil. I come from there."
"Are you a Mercury Adept then?" Isaac asked, as the little animal reappeared on his shoulder. "Do you use water Psynergy?"
"Psy-what?" Zoe asked, puzzled.
"Psynergy. You know…this." Standing, he faced a small pile of wood and pointed to it. Waves of ghostly light surrounded him, and the image of a hand lifted one of the logs onto the fire.
"I've never seen anything like that before!" Zoe said, awed. "How do you do it?"
"Isaac! You aren't supposed to show Psynergy to anyone outside Vale!" Garet cried. He opened his mouth to say something else, then stopped, frowned, and looked at Zoe. "You saw Isaac's Psynergy?"
"Yes. Wasn't I supposed to?"
"Then you must be an adept!" said the little thing on Isaac's shoulder. "Hello. I'm Flint, a Venus Djinni."
"A genie?" Zoe asked, finding the word odd. She sighed, shook her head, and on impulse caught a lock of her hair in one hand. She pulled it around and stared. It was a light sort of silvery-violet, and it had to fall at least to her waist.
A moment later she looked down at her clothes—a light purple, sleeveless shirt, a brown leather belt and dark blue leggings. And, on the other side of the fire, near Garet, a dark blue bag with a drawstring closing the top.
"You don't seem to have any weapons," Isaac said, rummaging around in a bag of his own. "Here," he said, and handed her a small sword, hilt-first. "We fight a lot of things out here in the open. You'll need it." He also gave her the sword's sheath, which she mechanically buckled onto her belt, wondering in the back of her mind how she knew what she was doing.
"Anyway, you should get some sleep. Vault's still a long way off, even if we hurry," Garet said, standing and moving a little ways away from the fire. "I have first watch. Nothing's gonna get past me!"
Zoe nodded, rolled so she was facing away from the fire, and laid her head on her arms. Where am I, she thought, and why can't I remember anything but my name and the fact that it should be the full moon tonight?
Those were her last thoughts as she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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Well? Was it what you hoped it would be? Anyway, extra thanks to Ice Angel for being my first reviewer EVER, and to Norli for restarting the game and writing down when and where the important things happen. If you have questions, ask them, maybe I messed something up in here, and if it's eventually gonna be part of the story, then I'll say so. I will tell you this—Zoe looks completely different in the GS world than she did here on Earth. As to why, well, I can't ruin it ALL, can I? Now, to get going on chapter two!
~Vil (and Ava, who's sitting over on my bed trying to play Tetris Worlds)