Fan Fiction ❯ Old Age ❯ Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age belong to Nintendo and Camelot. I'm only borrowing the characters, and I promise to return them exactly as I found them.

Backdating: This was written in December 2004.

Resting his folded arms on the railing, Piers stared out over the glittering expanse of sea stretching before him to the horizon. He didn't look up upon hearing footsteps behind him. "I'm not telling you my age either, Felix," he sighed, still annoyed at the girls. They'd refused to stop harassing him until the ship encountered a pair of Turtle Dragons and the battle intervened.

It wasn't Felix. "It would be too depressing," Kraden said quietly. Piers could see the old man's lined face out of the corner of his eye as Kraden joined him at the bow. "I don't think I want to know how much older than me you are, when you look so much younger and will live for so many more years." There was a note of melancholy in his voice.

There was no conceivable answer to that, and even if there had been, a surge of grief had closed Piers' throat. It wasn't just Kraden he would outlive, it was all of them - Felix, Jenna, Sheba, their friends and their enemies, everyone they'd met upon their journey. Unless he died on this quest, he was destined to sail on through the centuries with only memories to nourish the place they'd won in his heart. He was beginning to realize another reason why Lemurians never left Lemuria; it was not only stagnation and resistance to change, but the memories that the oldest of them must still hold of people who had voyaged beyond the Sea of Time and returned bearing the grief of having outlived their friends.

Beside him, Kraden gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. There's nothing you can do, and I don't mean to sound jealous or make you feel guilty. There's just so much left that I want to learn, and so little time left to me to learn it in." Though he tried to sound light-hearted, Piers could hear the wistful note in his voice.

His thoughts leapt from his mouth before they'd even fully formed. "If I could give you my lifespan, I would. Or I could find that draught that kept Babi alive - it was made on Lemuria, so surely I could learn how to make it. It could give you that time." Hope glimmered in his breast. The draught wouldn't keep just Kraden alive, if only Piers could make enough. My friends-

Kraden's gusty sigh broke into his rapidly building plans. "All the time in the world wouldn't be enough. There's always more to learn every day. No, Piers, let it be. I appreciate the offer, but I've considered it ever since I heard about the draught. I don't believe humans are meant to live so much longer than the people around them. Look what it has done to your people."

Something in his tone made Piers turn to look at him. Their gazes met, and there was a knowing, sympathetic glow in the old man's blue eyes. Kraden hadn't missed Piers' dark mood, or the reasons for it.

Piers opened his mouth to speak, but the old scholar shook his head and he closed it again. Kraden was right; it didn't need to be said. A moment later, a wrinkled, gnarled hand closed over Piers' callused one, and Piers squeezed it briefly in silent thanks. There was something comforting in its age-weathered weight.

"Besides," Kraden added optimistically, "we still have today."