“What ‘bout it?” Amara was startled.
“This…this alone is worth buying out everything in our whole town thirty times and more!” The mayor’s eyeballs looked like they could pop out of their sockets. “PUT IT AWAY!”
The nurse hastily albeit confusedly followed her husband’s instructions. “What’s so pricey about this thing?”
“Pricey? It’s practically priceless. That thing’s called alternative storage, and having a pinprick of it can store our entire year’s worth of crops! The fancy tech involved is so complicated that people who can make it are going extinct. THAT’S how pricey it is!”
“Then quiet down!” The nurse scolded. “You’re begging people to come rob us!”
The mayor immediately clamped his mouth shut with both hands.
“So…my ma really was rich?” Amara asked in a small voice.
“Never ever imagined there could be alternative storage that big.” The mayor spoke through his hands. “Who could’ve that lass been? Where’d she get it from? Don’t tell anyone about it, especially you, Amara.”
Amara nodded.
The mayor took a few deep breaths, then reached into the bag he brought along and pulled out some fruits. He grabbed a plate, stacked a few apples on it into a neat pile, and set the plate down in front of the headstone.
“Lass, you’re really made of surprises. I didn’t know you’d bring this many questions to our town, but here we are. I might have to run back to town to hide your stuff now, ‘cause there’d be too many preyin’ eyes.”
The nurse wordlessly handed him the handbag. The mayor stood up from the ground, stared at the stone slab for a few moments, then continued on: “Ashley n’ Paul couldn’t make it to ya today, lass, but they sure didn’ forget ya. Their kid’s pretty much settled as a genius, and so is yours, once we get the lil’ hiccups straightened out and pinpoint what her Talent is. She gon’ have a good life ahead, so you should rest easy now, eh?”
Amara swallowed her last bite of lukewarm food somewhat nervously. “Wait..how would you—we—figure out my Talent?”
“Well, we can’t just ask your ma and hope she’ll answer,” her Gran said. “Your Gramps’ gon’ have some ideas, but he’s gotta run back to town for a bit to keep your ma’s stuff safe.”
“Right, right. I’ll be back!” The mayor hurriedly walked away.
Amara helped her Gran clean up the leftovers they had, both of them not speaking much in the process. The nurse was likely mulling over the idea that she had kept something so precious for years without a clue, but Amara was having a conversation which literally took over her mind.
Alternative storage isn’t that much of a rarity to us, but for you mortals it’s definitely a different story. Life commented.
‘What even is that?’ Amara asked.
It’s a product of certain dimensional warp techniques, where the amount of space taken in this plane of reality is imbalanced on the receiver end, creating an unequal portal of entry for items and relatively stable exit point to correspond.
Big pocket that looks like a pocket but can hold things like a backpack. After an evening of interacting with a kid, Life has clearly grasped the essence of explaining things simply. It’s hard to make because it’s hard to make a backpack look like a pocket.
‘Thank you.’ Amara knows she has to be polite after someone helps her. ‘But what do I do if Gramps ask about my Talent?’
Life went silent for a few seconds before responding. I suppose we’ll have to see what your Gramps is planning on doing, but my guess is in the end you’ll let them know that you have the Talent of life itself.
‘But wouldn’t that make you…?’
You can just say you felt it or something. Destruction chimed in. You don’t have to say you have voices in your head too.
‘I just wanted to keep a promise…’
Be nice. Life sounded displeased. Amara, thank you for remembering to keep us unknown, but there’s absolutely no need to hide your Talent of life.
‘Okay.’ Amara agreed in her head. ‘What about my other Talent?’
Before either deity could reply, Amara’s attention was drawn back to reality by a hand on her shoulder shaking up her entire body.
“Amara!” The nurse yelled into her ear. “Your Gramps’ comin’ back!”
“What?!” Amara was dazed. “He’s fast.”
“It’s been an hour, what are you daydreamin’ about?”
“Really?” Amara’s heart sank like every time she’s been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. And like every time before, her brain raced to come up with a plausible excuse, except this time she actually thought of something that worked: “I was thinking about my Talent, Gran.”
That instantly caught the nurse’s attention, alongside the mayor’s as he walked up to his wife with a stranger by his side.
“What good timin’, kid.”
Amara nearly bounced off of the ground. “Gramps! Who’s this?”
The stranger, who wore a dusty brown cloak and a pair of battered hiking boots, took off their hood to reveal a weary but smiling face. “Nice to meet you too, Amara. My name’s Helena.”
Helena looked to be around Kaylen’s age, perhaps just a year or two older. From what could be seen under her cloak, her garments also looked similar to what Kaylen wore before as well. They appeared to be from the same place to Amara.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The child’s intuition turned out to be correct, as Helena continued to speak about herself: “Kaylen was really concerned about you yesterday, and she called me over to check on you. My own Talent has the ability to check on other people, so both she and I hoped that we could help you figure out what your Talent is. “
“Oh, that’d be wonderful!” The nurse answered delightedly. “Thank you for comin’ all the way to here just for our kid, first of all, and I must apologize for not seein’ you in town—I’ll just clear things out real fast here in a moment—”
“Amara.” The mayor squatted down to look at the child eye-to-eye, as the nurse hurriedly gathered up leftovers with extreme gusto. “I didn’t expect anyone to be visitin’ ya today, and we might have to head back home. Sorry that it’s happenin’ all so fast, but if you wanna stay with your ma more—”
“I think I know what my Talent is.” Amara blurted out.
The adults fell silent.
Amara gulped. “So, uh, I had a dream…”
The Deity of Destruction’s laughter rang loudly in her head. That was so obvious.
I didn’t expect you to just use that excuse. Life’s voice sounded worried. Do you still remember what we had gone over yesterday?
‘I think so. ‘ Amara thought in her head. ‘Should I try practicing it?’
Of course. Showing your Talent is better than just saying it out loud.
Amara then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated on the feeling her feet felt standing on the ground. She imagined grasses and flower seeds growing underneath the soil, then popping out into the surface, and reaching higher and higher up. In her mind’s eye, she could vaguely see the little green pool of energy beside the orbs in her head drain out.
Three gasps simultaneously broke Amara’s concentration. She opened her eyes, just in time to see the ground burst into color. The piece of land she stood upon visibly grow a patch of grass between her shoes; the tree behind her Gran’s back blossomed pink right before her eyes; a vine curled around her mother’s headstone, its tip pausing briefly at the top of the stone, then exploded into bright yellow pedals, gently reaching down to hold the flower right at the center of the slab.
The mayor fell down from his squatting position in shock. A patch of daisies caught him from below right before he touched any dirt, but he was too stunned to acknowledge the minor miracle.
The nurse stared motionlessly as twines lifted up all the cutlery and boxes off of the ground as they grew, halting at waist level, positioned just enough for her to easily collect everything without taking another step.
Helena broke through the silence first: “So…this is a form of plant control.”
Amara sheepishly scratched the back of her head: “I dreamed I could do all of this in my dream so I just tried it.”
“Incredible!” Helena exclaimed. “Judging by what you just performed, I can confidently say that your starting Talent points are indeed maxed out.”
“What does that mean?”
“Kaylen told me that you had an…unusual Talent score. Higher than usual, to be precise.” Helena glanced over at the mayor couple. “Shall we head back to town? There is still much to do.”
“Oh! Yes, yes.” The mayor snapped out of his trance. He crawled up from the ground, gathered the items held before his wife, then mumbled: “What is this power…?”
“To explain briefly, Amara has had an unknown unnamed Talent, and an unusual starting Talent point score.” Helena began to speak as the family slowly started walking back. “My initial plans were to first check over the testing equipment that she used, but they have been destroyed. My next step was to try and detect what her Talent is, to see if I can reverse the process and theorize for her actual score from her type of Talent, since I was called here rather quickly and didn’t have specialized equipment prepared.”
“Thank you again for being so swift.” The nurse said, only having just recovered from her surprise.
“No need, ma’am. I am but a researcher dedicated to discovering the origins of all Talents, and simply ignoring such a special case for study is not an option for me. In fact, I’d have to go thank Kaylen later for still remembering me from our school days—”
“School days?” The mayor asked.
“She and I were in the same academy, I graduated three years before her. Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect her to pick this unconventional career path for our education…Anyway, I am very impressed by Amara.”
“You are?” Amara gently grabbed onto Helena’s cloak.
“I am. It’s not common at all to see someone do things as impressive as you just have, especially since you’ve only had your Talent for one whole day.” Helena smiled down at the child.
It’s not common for someone to have fragments of deities in their mind and Talents either. Life said, her voice sounding just a tad bit smug.
Amara was noticeably overjoyed. “I can do more!”
“Really?!” The nurse gasped.
“I think you can too.” Helena replied, then turned to the adults to explain her reasoning. “Plant control as a Talent is fairly normal, and it can easily branch off—pardon me—into skills ranging from gardening to agriculture support to combat. However, in the hundreds of cases I’ve researched, none of them has ever reported a starting score of ten, much less over. In fact, never in my career have I ever heard of a starting score higher than ten, nor has anyone else, from all the people I have interacted with.”
“I definitely remember seein’ a twenty on her yesterday, there’s no chance of mistakin’ it.” The mayor frowned, the creases on his face deepening. The nurse patted him quietly on the back.
Helena nodded. “I have my speculations about this. Scenario one, it could’ve been a simple equipment failure, seeing how it broke down right after testing. It would be the simplest explanation, but I personally believe it the least.”
The words piqued Amara’s interest. “Why is that?”
“The chances of two different tests failing are not impossible, but really, really low.”
“...right.”
“Scenario two, which I am slightly more inclined to believe, is that you’ve held back from showing your full potential.”
Amara turned her head sideways to hide her surprise, and almost tripped over a rock.
“And scenario three is related to scenario two, but instead of you holding back, it’d be an error in the awakening process itself.” Helena paused briefly to collect her breath. “You could have two Talents instead of just one, and both would have starting scores of ten, adding up to twenty.”
Amara’s jaw dropped.
She knows her theories alright. Destruction commented with audible surprise.
The nurse looked worried. “Is that normal? I’d not heard of anythin’ like that before.”
“Having more than one Talent is nearly a guarantee in every human, since everybody can be adept at more than one skill or area of expertise. However, the vast majority of the population only possess one tangible and measurable Talent that needs to be awakened instead of discovered.”
“The majority of the population?” The nurse repeated rather confusedly.
“Oh, please, let’s go inside first before talkin’ more.” The mayor reached for the keys he held in his pocket.
The group had reached town while Helena explained away, and now the mayor was opening the door to his home to accommodate the knowledgeable guest better. After everyone was seated in the living room, Helena looked Amara directly in the eye.
“Yes?” Amara cowered slightly under the intense gaze.
“Do you feel comfortable being honest with me?” Helena inquired.
Even though Amara didn’t say anything in response, her body language clearly gave the answer to this question.
“No need to be scared to tell me no, dear. Everyone has their limits and boundaries, and my job lets me understand that fact well. Are you okay with me asking questions? You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.”
Amara nodded.
Helena smiled at her. “Thank you. Now, as we were saying before, most of the people in the world only have one Talent that they can awaken, and that will be the one they can clearly measure their progress in. However, in rare cases, certain individuals can awaken two Talents, and I believe there is a high chance that you are one of these special people. Have you felt anything…that’s different? Any skills that you feel like you can naturally understand?”
“No…no.” Amara gulped quietly.
“That’s okay.” Helena kept smiling as she reached underneath her cloak and pulled out a long, rod-like object. “I have this Talent detector that has a newer design, and it should be quite a bit sturdier than what you’ve been using. Do you mind holding onto the other end of this?”
As the nurse and the mayor watched nervously on the couch, Amara reached over and grabbed the rod Helena offered to her.
The rod lit up with a faint white light from within, then increased in brightness, appearing almost like a glow stick for a few seconds. The light then shifted into a light green color as it dimmed down, eventually forming into the shape of the number ‘11’ on the middle of its surface.
Helena frowned.
The mayor frowned as he looked at Helena frowning.
The nurse quickly poured herself a cup of water as she clutched the clothes over her heart.
Amara also stayed silent on the outside, though inside her mind she’s back to hearing the now familiar voices.
Be not afraid, I hid your extra energy very well. Destruction was saying smugly.
Right, right, now the humans are going to wonder how she got yet another Talent score. Life sighed.
Blame the technology, those things never work right.
Twenty, ten, now eleven? Having the child growing a whole point in energy overnight is not suspicious at all.
Of course not, anything can be a miracle after it happened.
That was sarcasm.