Talent Trouble

by kyttypony

Prologue: Xanth

Prologue: Xanth

Ben Eve Maya

(Not necessarily to scale.)

Eve's nose was suddenly very itchy. Or tingly. Or...or whatever you call it when you know you're about to sneeze. Her eyes widened. "I - I'm gonna..."

Her words were cut off by a sharp "A-CHOO!" as Ben grabbed her hand at the last second -

- and the two of them disappeared from the outskirts of the woods, where they had been looking for more talentweed. It didn’t grow in the winter, so they had to make sure to get extra in the fall, so Mom could dry it. When the dizziness wore off, they found themselves deep in a forest. Eve blinked quickly several times in succession to clear away the last remnants of disorientation, her younger brother shaking his head for the same reason. She sat down under a Pome Tree, her brother joining her; they rested there for a while, relaxing in the relief its shade provided from the summer heat. "So...d'you think we're above or below the Gap Chasm this time?" she speculated.

If they were above, that was good, because they wouldn’t have to cross it to get back to North Village. If they were below… She shuddered. She and her brother might be brave and adventurous and all, but that didn’t mean they wanted to face the steaming, ferocious Gap Dragon.

"Above," he answered easily.

She grinned mischievously; as she cocked her head, her hair fell in her face to cover an eye. "You wanna bet on that?" she challenged.

Confidently meeting her gaze, he returned the sly smile. "Tonight's dessert."

"You're on," she affirmed.

Of course, Eve could always just teleport to their home in North Village, but that meant giving up at least an day's worth of adventure. Her talent was easy to control, unlike her brother's - which could never be turned off - but she could only go somewhere entirely random if she sneezed, and you couldn't really make yourself sneeze. So when she did, and Ben managed to make contact with her by the time it happened, they wouldn't turn down a priceless opportunity to be completely lost, and have to find their way back through exploration. 'Course, it would only be OK if Ben had -

"Ben?" she asked, brows furrowed in sudden worry.

"Uh-huh?" Her brother turned to face her.

"Do you have your talentweed pouch?" The dried herb inside was vital if they wanted to prevent his talent from re-manifesting, which would be a disaster.

He frowned. "I think so...Let me check."

Glancing at the belt loop where the pouch normally hung from, the nine-year-old's eyes widened. "I don't have it..." He turned to Eve. "I know I had it when we left,” he frowned.

Eve sighed. "Well, we should probably go home. We don’t want to stay out too long and have it wear off, and you know how mad Dad gets if he catches you without any talentweed…”

“Yeah, well, we can explore until it starts getting dark, and then go back. I’ve started taking it in the mornings instead of at night, so we don’t have to worry about it wearing off any time today,” he argued. “And besides, you know that Dad’s away right now.”

His sister shrugged. “I guess…”

Ben grinned. “That’s settled, then. We keep exploring, and then –”

His sentence was cut off by a yelp as he recoiled from a falling pomegranite from the tree above. The two stared at the stone fruit for a couple seconds, until Eve broke the silence. “That was close…” she said shakily.

Her brother nodded slowly, eyes wide. “Yeah…” He blinked. “Hey, I’m hungry. Wanna find something to eat?”

“Sure,” Eve replied.

The two rose and stretched, looking around. “Nothing here, ‘side from that pomegranite, but those are always way too seedy,” Ben commented.

“Well, yeah, they’re too seedy, the parts that aren’t rock are nothing but seeds. Well, I guess we’ll have to go looking.”

They picked a direction and began walking. As they cleared a path for themselves, they began noticing that the flora and fauna were starting to get larger, and looked a bit strange. A growling dandelion actually had paws instead of leaves, and there was a Holey Cow so full of holes you could barely see it. Ben frowned. “What’s with the weirdness?”

Eve shrugged. “Maybe there’s more magic here, or something?”

“I guess.”

As they wandered, they could tell that the magic was getting even stronger, if that was what it was. A swarm of fris-bees, spinning from flower to flower, were large enough to hold in your hand comfortably, as opposed to their normally tiny stature. For some reason, the pairs on the pair tree weren’t in pairs, but were hanging in groups of four instead. Eve tried to pick a pair of pairs, but she couldn’t pull it off the tree unless she picked all four at once, which was what normally happened when you tried to only pick one of the green fruit instead of both. And a soda tree, when punctured, spurted out a blast of frothing cherry soda instead of just pouring out, like what would happen if an ogre or invisible giant picked it up and shook it really hard. But that hadn’t happened to this one, as evidenced by its roots still in the ground and the lack of nearby destruction or huge footprints. The two siblings paused in their journey for a lunch of pairs and soda, then continued on their way again.

“Hey, is that a magic path? Let’s follow it!” Ben pointed out.

Eve sighed. “Not every path is a –”

She didn’t bother finishing, as Ben had already left. Letting out another sigh, she shook her head. Sometimes Ben seemed too dumb to live. Well…he wasn’t really that stupid, just idiotically headstrong and reckless. Not every path was of the magic, safe variety. That one in particular looked too safe to be safe, really. Undoubtedly it was a – “Eve! Heeeelp!”

She followed the path herself, then facepalmed. Of course. She had been right. It was a tangle tree. And much, much bigger, as a result of being in a higher-magic area or whatever. Her brother knew about tangle trees, they weren’t like the rarest plant ever, but he never seemed to get that you could actually find one. The carnivorous trees magically created enticing paths for unaware creatures to follow straight to them. When their prey got close, they could use their tentacle-like branches – which Ben was currently trapped in – to capture it and bring it to their gaping maws. She shook her head slowly, then teleported onto one of the branches. Before the tree could react, she grabbed Ben’s arm and teleported both of them out of the monster’s clutches. When they were safely on the ground, back to where they had been before Ben acted rashly, she told off her brother sharply, emphasizing each word by shaking him from her grip on his shoulders. “What. Were. You. Thinking?”

“…It was a magic path?”

“…Really? REALLY?! That was a TANGLE TREE PATH, you IDIOT! You should KNOW that! You need to pay more attention; I won’t always be there to teleport your butt out of danger! You could’ve been eaten!”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just keep going.”

Eve shook her head in defeat, giving up. “Fine.”

The two continued making their own trail, hacking through the underbrush; it was clear that they were, in fact, heading towards whatever it was that was affecting everything. The magic was getting even stronger. Soon, they came across a pool of water.

“I’m thirsty,” Eve commented, “and I think this is just water, and not anything I wouldn’t want to drink. The plants are getting it, you know, through the soil, and they aren’t trying to fight each other, if it was a hate spring, and they’re not trying to…do plants even know how to summon the stork? Because I don’t think it works that way for them, but then how are baby plants made?...I dunno, I don’t even know how people do it, because of the stupid Adult Conspiracy, why aren’t kids allowed to know how to summon the stork? The Adult Conspiracy is just stupid…ANYWAYS, they aren’t trying to, so it’s not a love spring, and they’re not all baby plants, so it’s not the Fountain of Youth. If that even exists. So it’s safe.”

She knelt down and, cupping water in her hands, took a drink. “It’s good. Want some?”

Ben shook his head. “Nah, I’d rather just get some more soda from the tree back there.”

His sister glanced at the sky. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get you more soda, then go home.”

He shrugged. “Okay. So…tomorrow morning, can we come back here and continue our adventure?”

Eve nodded affirmatively. “Of course! We still need to find our way back, without just teleporting…I guess it’ll be tomorrow’s dessert, or the day after’s, or whenever we get back home from here.”

She clasped her brother’s hand in hers, teleported them to the soda tree, let Ben drink, and brought them out of the forest and into the middle of North Village.

Eve blinked. “Wait a sec…what?”

The soda tree was right next to them. Neither Ben nor Eve had been touching it when they teleported, so how in Xanth had it gotten there? Oh well. Now the village had a soda tree – that would certainly make all the kids happy. She picked up an acorn, fallen from a nearby acorn tree, and plugged it into the hole in the soda tree as a stopper.

As Eve and Ben raced to their house through the orange light of sunset, they were stopped by Maya suddenly stepping into their path. Eve screeched to a halt, Ben slamming into her, and she stumbled. Picking himself off the ground, Ben rubbed his head. “I’m fine!...wait, why are you laughing?”

Indeed, Maya was cracking up at the siblings’ reactions to her getting in their way. She finally calmed down, although a wide smile still split her face in two. “That was fun. But you know what’s also fun?” Her smile grew wider, if that was even possible, and Eve took a step back, eyes widening. “No.”

Her friend pulled out some pepper-tree bark, holding it out to Eve. “Yes.”

Eve took another step back. “Nonononononononono. Not right now. We need to get Ben’s talentweed and –”

“YES right now.” Maya held it closer, the inane grin still on her face.

“But when I teleported back, I took something I wasn’t even touching with me! Something's wrong with my talent!”

“TOO BAD!” Maya lunged out, grabbing Eve’s arm, and forced the peppery bark under her nose. “Ben! Grab on!”

Ben was all too happy to comply. Hey, nothing wrong with even more adventure in a day, right?

Eve couldn’t hold her breath much longer and, against her will, took a deep breath of air and spicy pepper. “No…noooo…n-naaaaa–”

She sneezed.

Author's Note:

My first fanfic!
I know that none of this is in Equestria yet, but this is how they get there.
Constructive criticism will be appreciated.