Work Text:
Lightning illuminated the Healing Sanctum, staining the stone floor with pitch-black shadow.
“Will you accept the responsibility of this quest, Isaac and Garet?” the Great Healer asked. “If you accept, there will be no turning back.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Garet stammered. “You choose for me, Isaac!”
I blinked, recognizing this scene immediately from the first Golden Sun game: this event had occurred after the intruders’ raid in Sol Sanctum and the Elemental Stars were stolen. Jenna and Kraden had been kidnapped. Isaac and Garet would have died when the Elemental Star Chamber collapsed, but the guardian of Sol Sanctum, the Wise One, teleported them out of Sol Sanctum with the Mars Star, sparing their lives for the task of retrieving the other Elemental Stars. Isaac and Garet were questioned in the nearby Healing Sanctum, since he and his friends had snuck into Sol Sanctum in the first place, which was off-limits to the townsfolk.
Why was everyone looking at me expectantly?
A funny feeling tickled my stomach. As though deliberating my response, I glanced down at my shoes. I saw brown boots. I moved the fingers of my right hand. Blue-gloved fingers wiggled back at me.
I shifted. Impossible—I could not have been transformed into Isaac as he makes the greatest decision of his life that leads to the tale of Golden Sun!
Erasing any doubt, when I shifted, his signature yellow scarf nudged my fingers mockingly.
I stood quietly, giving the impression of grand deliberation while actually calming my breathing.
Somehow, I had become Isaac.
(Was I a fem!Isaac? Was I a boy?)
(I didn’t want to be Isaac!)
This had to be a dream.
Yet, as I looked at the Great Healer, standing before me—in much greater detail than a dream could conjure—with his air of quiet authority, waiting for my response, I knew this was anything but.
All right, so I had to make Isaac’s decision and decide his fate—or mine, as the case seemed to be. I looked down at the floor, truly contemplating now. Could I make the same decision Isaac had—to brave the unknown on a quest I barely knew about, beyond a game that I’d played at home safely from my couch?
(The sequel hadn’t been released yet. I didn’t know how the story was supposed to end. I couldn’t plan for anything beyond the Venus Lighthouse!)
This had to be a dream.
The thunder rumbled outside in the storm, echoing softly within the Healing Sanctum.
Everyone’s gazes remained on me. Only my reply would break the silence.
I watched my fingers move again, saw where the outside of the leather glove was scuffed, felt the inner lining rub against my fingertips. I had had lucid dreams before, but this felt too real.
(I had never owned leather gloves like these before. How could a dream have replicated what they felt like?)
This had to be real—somehow.
But I couldn’t accept the quest.
What if I continued piloting Isaac’s—my—body? What if I died? This wasn’t a game anymore. A Water of Life couldn’t resurrect me, if I was even able to find one in a random treasure chest.
And what about my family? Would I ever see them again? What must they be going through? Their daughter just vanished.
(Or had I possessed Isaac? But the thought of my real body being in a coma wasn’t reassuring.)
But… Isaac had lived that, hadn’t he? He had accepted the consequences for sneaking into Sol Sanctum. With his father dead, he had had to leave his mother alone in order to accept the quest to retrieve the Elemental Stars. At least my parents had each other, could support each other, when I vanished or my body was found comatose.
But I’m not Isaac, the thought persisted.
(Stuck in his body, making his decision, wasn’t that close enough?)
I was scared—but he had been scared, too.
I didn’t know how to fight—but he had begun the quest at Level 1. He hadn’t known any more than I did.
I didn’t want to fight—
—but Isaac hadn’t, either.
Isaac and Garet had been tasked with a quest when the Wise One saved them.
(Had the Wise One even given them a choice?)
The weight of responsibility and sacrifice fell heavily on my shoulders. Inhaling deeply, I knew that I had no other choice to make. I had to accept this, in Isaac’s stead. Jenna and Kraden needed rescue. They were counting on Isaac and Garet. The Elemental Stars needed to be returned to Sol Sanctum, to prevent the lighthouses from being lit and causing the apocalypse of their world.
There was no one else who could make this decision and walk this path but Isaac—but since his consciousness had somehow been replaced with my own, that left the choice to me. I had to make his decision—the same one that he had already made.
This was how Golden Sun began.
This was the beginning of the quest.
Lightning flashed dramatically behind me again as I took a step forward.
“We accept.”
The Great Healer nodded as Garet mumbled beside me, scared and shocked that I had agreed to go. As I tuned him out, I faded from Isaac’s consciousness like a waking dream, Isaac miraculously returning once more. I had been shifted to the side, a silent spectator now to the world I had temporarily entered.
Isaac never seemed to realize he had been gone, and the scene continued without interference.
What had I even been doing there? A catalyst?
Heck if I knew.
But the decision had been made—and the quest had begun.