Disclaimer – Golden Sun belongs to Camelot and Nintendo. I claim nothing. This means that anything from the game that you can recognize (characters, weapons, etc.) is the property of Camelot and Nintendo. For every chapter after this, if you want to look at the disclaimer, come back to the first chapter. It will always be here, I assure you.

Other – In my other GS fic, Embrace The Stars, I put all the review replies in the beginning of the chapter. I won't do that anymore, but if you have any questions, I will put them up at the beginning of the chapter in FAQ style. ^____^ Meaning that your name won't go with the question. Which means, it will be anonymous. Easier, ne?

1 – Solitude's Peace

            The girl sat forlornly next to the ripple-less lake. It's surface was glass, unmoving and still. Her reflection stared back at her, a pale face with big, innocent eyes and a small nose, lips of pink rose. All together, a perfect face. Next to her was a small notebook, which stamped on the front was Diary.

            "Look at her... that girl is so shy, and all she does everyday and all day is sit outside with that diary of hers in her hands."

            Everyday she remained at the convent resulted in more turmoil inside. Gossip tore her apart, for a reason unknown to her. For her, she truly did not care about the opinions of the other convent girls, empty-headed at best. But, time had worked against her, and every day, she heard those words, and she had begun to believe somewhere along the road. Still she strived for her own goal, far above the clouds. To find herself. But wouldn't she be pained more by going to the palace? For it was there, it seemed, the gossip and talking behind backs was worse.

            "Yes… why are her hands so pale besides? Doesn't she go outside, like, every day?"

            "Does she even care about her complexion? Think of what can happen in that horrid, garish sun!"

            "Well she doesn't have to. She's strange. She doesn't even need to wear face paint to look pretty."

            "She doesn't deserve such beauty. She doesn't deserve our envy, either, girls."

            She didn't even remember where she had come from, the name of her country. As long as she knew, the Convent of Snowy Peak had been her home her entire life.

            "When I got to the convent, she was already here. That's what she was doing too, that time, just sitting outside writing away."

            The girl, of an age where she should head to the palace to find a husband, shook her head sadly, outside, where the winter sun was still high in the sky, illuminating everything in high afternoon. She was at an age where she should be blossoming like a rose, stretching out and opening with friends, and flirting with knights and lords at the palace. Instead, this one deemed her time better spent alone, collecting her own thoughts and letting them wander, dreaming the occasional dream, just writing poems in a small book in her tiny but neat script. She did not do anything, just sat underneath the big tree and writing until the sun itself lowered in the sky and disappeared from view, leaving the daily changing sky dark and cold.

            "Where is she from?"

            "No one knows. She's been here longer than most of us."

            "Such a long time, though. I have been here for years, and she was here even before me."

            Never in her life did she ponder more than a day at a time about her own origin, however. She was content sit outside and write, humming, wandering in a world of her own making. The diary every girl was given at the beginning of every month, just a blank book of pristine white pages. Crisp, new, and each page the same as the one before it or after, just a book of repetitiveness that changed as soon as one wrote in it. The diary was supposed to be used to write her daily thoughts in. Or at least, the girl in question was to write in it every other day at the least. Rarely did any one girl fill up the small diary up until the last page. There was the one exception at the Convent of Snowy Peak.

            That was the girl as cold as the mountain for which the convent was named, the young woman whom all others gossiped incessantly about. The one whom all others envied her for her beauty, and the quiet solitude that she found inside of herself. Her own haven, and her own forlorn peace, isolated from everything else outside her.

            "She's always sitting out there by herself. She probably thinks that she's better than all of us, what with her perfect looks and perfect manners."

            "All the priestesses and Mothers like her. They don't seem to care that she never answers questions during class, and they don't mind that she never speaks."

            "She does sing though. I heard her once when I passed the open door."

            "Really? What was her voice like?"

            "What would you think? She's perfect in every way. Obviously her voice would be as perfect as the rest of her."

            In addition to writing short poems and songs, the young lady loved to sing. The single music class available at the convent had been shut down months ago, when after years of teaching, it was concluded that none of the girls had any interest in singing or music, or if they did, it was too trying for the most patient of Priestesses or Mothers to listen to. However, one of the Priestesses had insisted on teaching the one girl with musical talent and interest, to which the convent had readily consented when they had found out just whom it was she was to be teaching. Priestess Lhiell enjoyed the private time they spent together, just singing for a sol-mark or two until dinner.

            "It's really not fair. We all want everything she has, what with us going to the convent. She has what we want, but she doesn't even care a bit."

            "Just look at her. Always so quiet and shy."

            "Just sits there, doing nothing but scribbling in that little book."

            "I think she terms her writing as poems or songs. The way she writes it certainly looks like the ones we've been made to study."

            "You've seen what she writes?"

            "I stole her diary once, and it was full of poems and songs. I thought she'd get in trouble with the Priestesses when she couldn't find it… but they didn't even scold her."

            "All they did was talk to her for a bit and then she came back out and sat at that tree."

            "It was the only time I ever saw her cry."

            "Stupid. Perfect and she doesn't even use it to her advantage."

            All the girls in the convent ridiculed her, but she didn't care. Their opinion didn't matter.

            "She's not that pretty anyway."

            Not an opinion of anyone in the convent mattered to her. Not even the Convent Mothers and Priestesses whom were so good mannered to her. Lhiell was kind to her, yes, but it wasn't her approval she sought…

            "She probably won't even attract an handsome knights. Let alone the prince. She's so quiet... doesn't even speak. No one would notice her."

            She certainly knew it wasn't a man's approval.

            The only thing was, she didn't know whose approval she was searching for. It wasn't the majority of people. Nor, for that matter, was it anyone else at the convent. Not the Mothers, not the girls, the guards whom guarded the convent, or the priestesses. Perhaps it was good that she had to leave soon, for the Palace. Ridiculed more she would be, when gossip from the mouths of the spiders spread like a plague throughout the palace. But what did it matter, if she found herself at the capital? Why would it matter, if she found the approval? If her questions were answered?

             "Lady Mia? The carriage is here. Your things have been packed. Your horse Starlight and the guardsman's horse Darkflame are ready to leave."

            Shaken out of her thoughts, the young woman with a perfect face, perfect blue hair, and cerulean blue eyes gazed unblinking at her only friend at the Convent of Snowy Peak. Priestess Lhiell watched her from worried hazel eyes, soft and piercing at the same time. She worried that Mia might become entrapped in the webs of deceit and lies at the Palace... but she had an internal instinct that told her Mia had an inner strength hidden from all that touched her, even those who'd known her for very long.

             "Thank you," Mia replied softly, getting up as if her body had no bones, but was only liquid. Her grace was wholly unmatched by all in the Convent, even the Mothers and Priestesses. They walked in silence to the carriage, surrounded by the late afternoon sun, the clear blue skies that were not unmatched by the deep blue of the lady Mia's eyes. The other four convent girls would be leaving in two days hence. They had been extremely jealous of her chance at early and single departure, and had taunted her more than usual, with crueler jokes and teases.

             "Will you be alright?"

            Once again, Mia looked at her one friend. Even Priestess Lhiell hadn't been all that close to her, but inside, both of them knew that Mia had put her heart and soul into singing, however incompetent that the singer herself thought her voice and self-written poems and songs to be. All the priestesses and mothers at the convents knew better. They knew it was in her blood, for they were the ones who knew her hidden identity and true origin.

             "Why would I not?" She countered.

            Priestess Lhiell smiled slightly and shook her green hair. Her hand touched Mia's head gently, smoothing the girl's blue hair, which was pulled back in a tight ponytail with a stiff white ornament. Mia was what you would call average, but that description contradicted itself when one saw her. Mia had an air about her, one that was icy and automatically made people turn away from her. Not that she wanted to get to know anyone. Mia's chin trembled slightly in a moment where she showed her emotion to one of the only people who actually cared about her, as a mutual friend. Her eyes were depthless, filled with a pain that she hid inside her. Then she composed herself, the innocent, uncaring look returning, her cold exterior taking its place as a shield around her. An unreadable look passed through her eyes, and once more she was the cold girl all the others knew. An ice princess unto herself.

            "Take care of yourself, Mia." Then, in a strange, melodic language, she said something. Until we meet again, the words sparked in the recesses of the cerulean-eyed beauty's forgotten memory, from deep in her past.

            Startled, Mia, already in the carriage, pulled the heavy curtains aside and stared at the priestess through one of the small side windows.

             "Where did you learn those words?" She breathed, astonished. The priestess only smiled as the horses and thus, the carriage, pulled away. She said something that carried itself to Mia's ears, by magic.

            "You shall see, my child. You shall see."