This chapter was prompted by MeTheAwesome. Thanks for the inspiration! ;) You've started a chain of events here.

Again, thank you for the positive feedback. Next chapter I'm planning to be a brief glimpse of Seth's quest (I'm still deciding between whether I should give his quest a funny or serious spin), and then we'll really start getting into a lot of cutesy fluff and more general silliness as the characters grow up a little more.

Chapter 3: Prank

Kendra was sitting on the steps at the shallow end of the pool in the back yard, watching Bracken and Seth play some form of water basketball or other in the deeper section. They had tried to convince her to join them, but she had pointedly refused; she was embarrassed about being in a swimsuit in front of Bracken (not that she would ever admit it verbally). Her body had been changing a lot lately – more quickly in recent weeks than it had been over the past year or so – and while she appreciated some of the growth that was occurring, she was feeling perhaps a little too self-conscious with this much exposure. She wouldn't have even gone into the pool this afternoon if it hadn't been for Bracken's playful eyes and her internal stubborn mantra of 'fake it 'til you make it' where her confidence was concerned.

Besides, she was having a lot of fun observing them. She had to admit, things were never boring when her brother was around, and he and Bracken were almost always a gold mine for amusement and laughter. Smiling was almost completely unavoidable when those two were together.

Bracken. He looked so at ease, so young when he was visiting. It was hard to picture him as older than perhaps eighteen or nineteen; it was even harder to picture him as anything but human. There were the subtle reminders, though – like Grandpa Sorenson having to hurriedly add "unicorns" to the registry of which creatures were allowed in the yard and house while he politely stood beyond the grassy perimeter during his first formal visit. Raxtus had been granted, by Agad, immunity from magical barriers where the preserves were concerned, but apparently Bracken hadn't. He explained that Raxtus was pretty much supposed to act as Agad's eyes and ears around the preserves in order to further prevent the re-opening of Zzyzx, whereas Bracken had made it clear that he didn't want that job. He further explained that he could have attacked the wards with his horn and broken them easily since he wasn't part of the initial treaty, but then he joked that it would probably make a bad second impression on Kendra's family if he sent the preserve swirling into chaos.

She continued thinking about moments where she would catch glimpses of his non-human self when her thoughts suddenly crashed into the present as she realized that a pair of blue eyes were staring straight into her green ones from a distance of only about a foot. Startled, she clutched at her chest and shouted, "You scared me!"

Bracken laughed. "You were staring off into space," he said.

"I guess that makes me a pretty terrible referee, huh?" She joined him in light laughter. "Sorry I wasn't paying attention."

"I'm not bothered by it. What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, just… stuff," she responded vaguely, knowing that wouldn't satisfy his curiosity but hoping he would drop it. Changing the subject she asked, "Where'd Seth go?"

Bracken seemed to understand, didn't pursue his original question and instead explained, "He said he was hungry and went inside to grab a snack. He also said he'd bring us something if we wanted it."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Seth? Volunteering – unprompted – to do something nice? For me of all people? Really?"

"Do you think he's up to something?"

"Of course."

Bracken smiled, and silence fell between the two. After a minute or so, his expression changed and he looked like something was troubling him. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but then shut it and shook his head.

"What's wrong? Do I have something on my face?" she joked.

"No no," he began. Then, hesitantly, he continued, "You, um… Your swimsuit is nice. I mean, you look nice. In your swimsuit. Which is… nice..."

Kendra blushed and giggled a little, and Bracken shyly grinned and scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. He was learning to be smoother with his compliments, but sometimes he still acted like the tongue-tied guy she met in prison. "Thank you," Kendra answered sincerely. Suddenly she felt even more self-conscious.

"One of these days, I promise I'll be able to give a compliment without making myself look like a total nincompoop," he laughed. "I'm sorry you get to be my test subject. I really am trying hard to get better at this."

"I think there are much worse things that could happen to me than being on the receiving end of awkward flattery," she stated lightheartedly. She reached out and touched his shoulder tentatively, hoping he could understand that she was not upset but wasn't quite sure how to tell him that his heartfelt words really meant a lot to her.

He apparently either received the memo or was feeling particularly affectionate because the next thing she knew, he had his arms around her in a tight embrace. "I'm really embarrassed," he admitted in her ear. "I'm just very fond of you."

Kendra felt like she was on fire. "Now you're the one embarrassing me," she said. Part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and hide her exposed body somewhere far away perhaps under a mountain of blankets where no one would be able to look at her until after she put more clothes on, and the other part of her wanted to pull his face out of her hair and kiss him like crazy. They hadn't shared more than that one perfect, quick peck during his first visit to Fablehaven almost a year ago, after all.

She was definitely not bold enough for option two. At least not today. Option one, however…

Bracken started chuckling and she realized with a gut-wrenching jolt of mortification that he probably just read her thoughts. It's not like she had been trying to suppress them – she was practically shouting them at him while simultaneously forgetting that he could actually hear her when she did that, whether he'd intended to invade her mind or not.

She pushed him away from her and buried her face in her hands, wishing she could disappear.

"It's okay," he began in a soothing voice, "I'm not going to tell anyone."

"It's you I wanted to keep all of that from in the first place!" she almost-wailed miserably.

"I'm sorry," he apologized honestly. "I wasn't trying to pry."

He moved closer to her again and sat beside her on the steps, trying to think of something that would calm her down and yet failing. An intensely awkward silence ensued until Seth showed up with a bowl of orange slices in hand.

"I'm not sure what I missed, but I really don't think I want to know," he stated simply, tone laced with caution. Kendra jumped when she heard his voice; she hadn't noticed he was there. She wasn't sure she'd ever been more thankful to see her brother before. Judging by the way Bracken shifted beside her, he probably felt similarly.

Seth sat down on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water, and offered the bowl of fruit to the two of them; they both seemed to leap at the opportunity to busy themselves with something that didn't include talking to each other and grabbed a couple of slices each, stuffing them in their mouths and chewing desperately. Well… Kendra was, anyway; Bracken was a little less obviously desperate in his chewing endeavors.

She swallowed quickly and urgently reached for more, Bracken doing similarly very shortly thereafter. This time, however…

Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong.

Kendra spat the semi-chewed orange slice into her hand. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, "What on earth-?!"

Bracken's face paled as he forced himself to swallow, then fell into a coughing fit. "Seth, seriously…" he managed to say between gasps of air.

Seth started cracking up. "That couldn't have gone more perfectly!" he cried. He clutched at his chest as his body shook with laughter. "Whatever you guys were talking about before I came back… You didn't even think twice about it…"

"Real mature, Seth! Vinegar? Really?" Kendra shouted. She stood up and walked straight out of the pool, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around her torso, meanwhile dropping her spat out piece of fruit into the bowl with the untouched ones that Seth still held. Her brother made a disgusted sound and gently tossed the plastic bowl to a spot several feet away from him, then resumed laughter.

Bracken was still coughing. Kendra could understand why; Seth had practically drowned the slice she had in vinegar and if Bracken's was the same way, he'd probably still be coughing for a little while longer since he actually swallowed it. Seth's continued guffaws pulled at her last string; she ran up to him and gave him a quick shove, planting him in the water. He shot straight up, spluttering – apparently being under water and laughter did not go hand in hand.

"Whatever," he shrugged it off, a smile returning to his face. "Your guys' reactions were totally worth that."

Kendra met Bracken's eyes and before Seth knew it, Bracken had pushed him back under the water. Seth kicked and squirmed while Bracken held him under with one hand and quickly asked Kendra, "Are we alright?"

She calmed herself down a notch and responded, "Yeah. I'm sorry. Can we just pretend like none of that happened?"

"What happened?" he asked innocently.

"That's perfect."

He grinned in response. Then, remembering that Seth was still underwater, he released his hold and allowed the boy to surface.

Seth sounded like he was going to cough up a lung. "What was that?!" he managed after a moment.

"The beginnings of payback," Bracken responded. "You may have won this battle, but I will win the war."

Sounds like a challenge. I know this prank was a little… basic, simple, whatever… but it's the starting ground I need. Plus, I can picture Seth actually doing something like this just for kicks and giggles.

This chapter was not reviewed my typical zillion times before posting. I apologize in advance for any sentence fluency issues or if my writing seems to be too choppy. I really wanted to get this one up and will fix it if I find issues later.