A.N.: I was originally going to write a sequel to my story "Have yourself a merry little incest" and call it "Incest and Peppermints", but I couldn't think of a good plot for it, that is, one that would allow for a lot of puns and humor. (The only thing I thought of was a funny tagline for the summary, which I think I'll keep for this one.) So instead I'm writing this one. This is mostly adventure, with some Jalex tension thrown in because what else happens on an adventure with these two? The only real examples we have of them on an adventure in the original work itself have been rife with Jalex tension. So :P
Anyway, this might have a bit of humor, but it will be incidental, and not the driving force.
* * *
Justin was scrounging around in the lair, looking for a particular spellbook that his father had said "was in there somewhere". The title was "Advanced Monster Hunting Spells, Third Edition" and was supposed to be very good, that is, if Justin could find it. His father had never been the most organized person ever, and Justin wondered sometimes if he was really his son*. He picked up an old leather tome and blew some dust off of it. It wasn't the book he was looking for, it was only the Blue Book of Wands from 1780. Just as he was putting it back, however, something papery and white fell out of it. Figuring it was a bookmark, he bent over to pick it up. It appeared to be a napkin with some writing on it. He looked at it closely – it was apparently a spell of some sort, scrawled in his father's hand.
Justin, setting aside his task at hand for the moment, began to go upstairs when he ran into his sister**.
"Justin, what were you doing down here?" she said suspiciously.
"I was looking for a book dad said I could read, but then I found this," he said, showing her the napkin. "It seems to be a spell that dad wrote down, for some reason, and I want to ask him about it."
"The best way to find out what a spell does is to cast it," Alex explained, snatching the napkin from Justin before he could protest.
"Alex, you don't know what it does -" Justin warned her, but he was cut off by Alex.
"Look, it says right here it takes you to a 'fantastic land'. Don't you want to see what that's like? We can always come back," she said. "Inexorias Geeysys -"
"Wait, stop!" Justin said, placing a hand on Alex's to try and stop her. But it was too late.
"- Bloomin" she finished. At the completion of the spell a vortex of light began to swirl around Justin and Alex. It spun faster and faster, and neither of them could get out of it. Justin was trying to reach out of it and grab on to something when suddenly the world went black.
* * *
The next thing Justin knew, he and Alex were lying by the bank of a stream in the middle of a field. Hills rolled into the background and a little path crossed perpendicular to the stream, going across a bridge in the middle of it. The bridge was small and wooden, and there was a wooden signpost with a wooden arrow on it.
Justin rubbed his head and shook Alex gently, his hand brushing her shoulder, bare from the peasant blouse-like shirt she was wearing. It sent strange tingles up his spine, which was odd. He'd touched his sister before† but never had he felt this before. He decided to ignore it.
"Justin," she whined, vaguely waving her arm in an attempt to get him off of her‡.
"No, get up and look around – the spell must have worked, we're someplace else or something. But I have no idea where it is," he said. Alex opened her eyes.
"Well this doesn't look extremely fantastic," she said, a tone of slight disappointment sneaking into her voice.
"Good, then we can go," Justin said, pulling out his wand. Alex stopped him, laying a hand on his wrist.
"Wait, I want to look around a bit, maybe there is something fantastic about this place after all. What's this sign say?" she said, walking over to the arrow. Now that she was closer she could see that on it was the word "Hamlet."
"Huh, there's a play over that way," Alex said, pointing.
"No, not a play," Justin said, also reading the sign. "It's a term for a small village. Maybe they'll be able to tell us where we are, and then we can go back home, OK?"
"All right, that sounds fair enough," Alex said as she and Justin began to walk off in the direction of the arrow.
* * *
*Yes, he is his son. I'm not going there.
**Although not literally, just you know, figuratively.
† OK, that sounds worse than it is. You know, just when you're talking to someone and you lightly touch them, like for emphasis or something? No? Darn.
‡ I am not doing well for innuendo. Or I'm doing excellently for innuendo.