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The miracle gave you a gift, an ability as special as you, that’s what your Mamá told you. You don’t really understand what that means but you have a new room full of sand(good for sleeping in) and when you think really hard you can see things that haven’t happened yet. Mamá calls them visions or proph- pro- prophhhhh- visions. She says they’ll help the Encanto though! You aren’t quite sure how you can help but you would do anything to make your family proud. Even if they’re scary sometimes… Really, really scary… You hope that those ones don’t happen.
UGH. You’re up for ‘making your family proud’ and ‘helping the community’ and all, but if you doing that means climbing up these lousy stairs to make a lousy prophecy for some person who’s only gonna get mad at you for it you’re not sure how much of a ‘gift’ this gift even is. Over the past 10 years of having your gift you’ve found that a lot of the time people don’t seem to actually like it when you tell them the future. You don’t choose for bad things to happen, you’re just passing on the message. They’re not even bad all the time! No one cares when they turn out good, when they’re bad though it’s always ‘Bruno did this’ and ‘Bruno did that’ but Bruno didn’t do ANYTHING dammit. If you could just make things happen by saying it like people seem to think you do you wouldn’t be doing this, that’s for sure.
Ah whatever, the town needs their prophecies you guess, knock on wood you won’t see anything bad today. Knowing how it normally goes though you’re probably gonna need to knock a few more time than that. You turn to the posts holding up the rope for the most useless barrier you’ve ever seen and give it a few taps with your fists before it slips out of place and falls, hanging down by its rope and making the posts around it bend inwards. Well that doesn’t seem like a bad omen at all! …You tap against your head a few times instead. Close enough.
Maybe you wouldn’t hate doing this so much if there weren’t all these stairs to get to your tower, it looks cool and all but it’s kinda… over the top. You just sleep at the bottom of the stairs most of the time and keep a good portion of your stuff there too, you don’t know if you could survive climbing all the way up every time you need something. Your vision cave is up there though so… well you have pretty strong legs, you can say that much. None of the things people asked you to make prophecies for are that serious, which makes the fact you have to do this even more awful, but at the very least you shouldn’t have to deal with anything terrible being blamed on you. Hopefully. You knock on your head again.
‘YOU KILLED MY FISH!’
Yikes, some kid sounds pretty angry. Guess their dumb prophecy came trueeeeeee- oh you see what’s happening here. You just spotted the 10 year old girl storming towards you- heh not literally that’s your sister’s job- oh wait the kid. You brace yourself.
‘YOU. KILLED. MY. FIIIISH!’
‘Look, I promise you I didn’t-‘
‘HE WAS FINE UNTIL YOU CAME AND NOW HE’S DEAD!’ She’s yelling so loud, you can feel all the eyes from the surrounding people hone in on you as the kid begins sobbing,
‘I-I’m sorry I didn’t mean- I wasn’t trying to-‘ You stumble over your words and your own feet as you back away.
You look around, so many people are staring at you, your heart is pounding and it keeps getting harder to breathe, you feel like you’re going to pass out. Why do you always do this, you just want to help, you just want to make your family proud why can’t you just do something right for once, you just want to disappear so everyone will stop looking at you why are they looking at you that way? You didn’t mean for that to happen, you didn’t mean to upset anyone you wish you didn’t have a gift at all, all it’s done it hurt people and make terrible things happen and it’s all your fault-
‘Bruno?’
You feel a hand on your shoulder. When did you get on the floor? Your fingers feel numb…
‘Hermano are you ok?’
You look up to see Julieta’s worried expression. You let go of your ruana, which you just realised you’d been gripping so tight it left marks on your palms, and reach your hand to meet your sister’s. Her hands are warm, unlike your own that feel like they’ve been dunked in ice water.
‘Yeah I’m-I’m fine I just…’ You trail off almost immediately as Julieta passes you something. You take it but it takes you a moment to process- it’s an arepa? You swear she always has these on her. ‘O-oh I’m not hurt or anything but um, thank you though.’
Julieta smiles at you as you nibble on it, looking around the town. That kid is gone and the townsfolk are going about their business as usual. You spot Pepa walking around too, cloud above her head and she’s… despite her cloud letting out drops of rain, she has a look of pure ice on her face. You wonder what’s got her so mad as you watch her approach a man who- oh who’s staring right at you this is uncomfortable-
CRACK
The man immediately turns to your sister, staring him down, daring him to say something.
‘PEPA! STOP SCARING PEOPLE! Ay Dios, so dramatic.’
‘I HEARD THAT!’
Julieta sticks her tongue out at Pepa as she begins strolling over, cloud dissipating as she walks. At least she isn’t angry at you? You wonder what that was about…
‘Come on Bruno, let’s go back to the house.’
‘Wait but-‘
‘No buts,’ Julieta chimes in, ‘I know you haven’t eaten lunch today and I am going to fix that.’
You let out a sigh as she helps you up. Lunch sounds good.
‘Clear skies, clear skies…’
You look over at Pepa as she runs her hands through her hair. You understand why she’s so anxious- it’s her wedding day after all- but you wish she didn’t have to force herself to be calm like that. You know she’s excited too of course, but her nerves have always gotten to her on big events. They get to you as well though, you haven’t been able to sit still all day.
She did ask you to see how today would go. More than once. You were starting to run out of excuses, the idea of giving her another one of your awful visions and ruining her day was too much though, just thinking about it is making you nervous. Besides, you kinda already did once. Years ago after she had an especially bad break-up she convinced you to. You always have a hard time saying no to your family and she was so upset... There’s only so much wet sand you can deal with too. In your vision that day you saw something that looked like you upset her. You really, really hope you’re wrong, the last thing you want is to upset her, especially today. You have no idea what it could be, and you already decided on absolutely not using your gift to find out, so you just have to wait and hope.
‘Oh Julieta, I just want today to be perfect. I’ve been imagining how my wedding would turn out my whole life! If things don’t go just right I can’t promise there won’t be a storm.’ She huffs, a gust of wind travelling through the room.
‘I know Pepa, I know. Everything’s set up though, soon we’ll all be celebrating your marriage and it is going to be wonderful!’
‘I hope you’re right… Maybe if Bruno just used his gift for once-‘
‘Pepa-‘
‘-then maybe I wouldn’t be so worried right now!’
You quickly stand at hearing your name, trying your best to mentally catch up with the conversation. Pepa looks at you expectantly as you knock your fists against the back of your chair.
‘Well I-I mean, who needs some dumb vision spoiling how great your day will be, right?’
She looks unimpressed.
‘Hey um, weren’t you about to go finish getting ready?’
‘Ah that’s right! Come on Pepa, I’ll help you out.’ Julieta takes Pepa’s hands and starts leading her out the room, giving you a smile as they leave.
‘See you both later’ You awkwardly wave before letting out a sigh as you slump back into your chair. You really hope she doesn’t think you’re avoiding her. You don’t want to at all, and you really aren’t trying to! You just… Don’t want to say the wrong thing. The day is going fine so far though, if you have any luck it might turn out ok?
You’d really rather not rely on that though.
You said the wrong thing.
You definitely said the wrong thing. She won’t even talk to you. Every time you pass her, she gives you a stare colder than any hailstones from her cloud.
You didn’t mean to upset her you really didn’t- you were just making a joke to try and lighten the mood but she thought you were being serious and, well, you haven’t seen her rain that hard in a good while. Why do you always do this, why are you so stupid what is wrong with you? You made your sister cause a hurricane on her wedding day. Her wedding day! The happiest day of her life! Ruined! She’s been so excited about it for as long as you can remember and you messed everything up, just like you do with everything else.
Maybe everyone’s right, maybe you do just make bad things happen.
You collapse into the sand. You’re so tired.
‘We need to know what’s wrong with the magic.’
‘I really don’t think this is a good idea-‘
‘Bruno please, this is important.’
‘I just-‘
‘We need you. The community, our family needs you.’
She looks so worried, more worried than you’ve ever seen her before. You let out a sigh, you always have a hard time saying no to your family. You look into your mother’s pleading eyes for a moment before tearing your gaze away to stare at the floor.
‘Ok Mamá...’
She smiles at you but says nothing more, her face quickly returning to a stern yet concerned expression that’s hardly left her face since the ceremony.
You suppose you’d better get going then. You sigh again, heading to your room.
You tap your fists against the door in your pattern, then cross your fingers and hold your breath as you enter the room. You begin to walk towards the stairs but- back to the door. One more time for good measure. You really need this one to go ok. You don’t know what you’re gonna do if it doesn’t go ok.
First? The god damn stairs. You have to go all the way up these horrendous stairs and then all the way back down to deliver some terrible news that’ll make everyone hate you even more. Why did you have to get such an awful room and an awful gift…
‘The family needs me, huh?’
You smile but honestly you feel like you could cry. You aren’t ready to disappoint your family again. Things are already going wrong and now you have to go find out how much worse it can get- you just hope it doesn’t involve Mirabel, the poor kid’s having a hard enough time as it is and you couldn’t bear it if you caused the family to hate her too. She doesn’t deserve that.
After all this time you’d think climbing up to your tower would get easier. Can’t a magical room come up with any better way to get up and down? It feels even slower when you’re worried like this. You take a deep breath as you walk into your vision cave. Not even the softness of the sand can calm you today. You grab all your things and start setting up. It isn’t technically necessary to do the prep you do, all you really need is the sand. It helps you clear your head though.
You half sit, half fall down. Your hands shake as you reach for a handful of salt and haphazardly throw it behind you. Time to get started.
Yep.
Riiight about now.
No time like the present.
…
‘Come on you’ve got this. For the family.’ You shake out your arms and take a few deep breaths. The sand around you begins to swirl and lift as a green light fills the room.
You look through the storm of sand trying to focus on something but you’re having a hard time seeing anything at all, making you even more stressed than you already were as you frantically search. You can’t let the family down though, you have to keep- oh you think you can see something- it’s the candle! And it… it looks ok! The magic is going to be ok! It’s… It’s going… Oh no oh no no no no no-
‘Mirabel?’ You whisper, hoping you’re wrong. You focus as hard as you can- the house is- it’s cracking? Why is it doing that, why is Mirabel there, what’s happening? It- it’s changing? Why is it changing like that? The cracks, they keep disappearing and appearing again, what does that even mean? You don’t understand…
Sand falls down around you as you grip your vision so tight it could break. You look down at it with dread and- oh god you can’t show anyone this. Even now it’s still changing, oh you just know it’ll be disaster if you come back with whatever that is. Your family needed your help and you do this, you let everyone down, you ruin everything just like you always do. You’re such a disappointment, you don’t deserve to be part of this family…
You didn’t even notice you dropped the prophecy until you look down and see shards of glass scattered around your feet, nor did you notice the tears falling from your face until the drops hit the sand. You don’t know what to do- you don’t know what you even can do. You can’t go out there and face your family but you can’t just stay here… Your gift never really helped anyone, did it? You tried so hard, you really did, but you still failed everyone. The family would- they would be better off if you just weren’t around, wouldn’t they..? You love them though you can’t just- just... Even if they don’t want you around, you need to figure something out though, if for nothing else then for Mirabel.
You sit back down and put your head in your hands.
You won’t cause any more bad things to happen. You won’t hurt your family again.
God those cracks are unnerving… You’re used to things being a lot more beaten up back here but those are BIG and… uncomfortably familiar… It’s fine though, it’s fine it’s fine. You’re sure it’s nothing, everything is good. You mean, your sobrino Antonio got his gift yesterday so clearly it has nothing to do with the magic or anything, just completely unrelated, non-threatening cracks that won’t cause any problems whatsoever.
You also think that you are not going to worry about why you heard Mirabel suddenly asking about you- although your family’s talent astounds you as always, you aren’t quite 7 foot though eheh… You wander the twists and turns of your home while definitely not thinking about any of that stuff at all, nope, not one bit. Normally you would join your family for dinner but there’s more of those cracks-that-aren’t-bad-at-all to be patched (by Hernando of course, you’re too scared to do it yourself. No reason. nothing to be scared of. You just don’t want to do it.) and you’re a little too on edge to sit still anyway.
Oh- oh hm. It’s uhh… Raining now. Maybe you should’ve stayed for dinner after all-
KR-TCHH
‘Ah jeez ah jeez oh no’ you mutter to yourself as you start running, barely able to hear yourself think over the thunder, the cracking and the shouting you can hear in the distance- what’s even happening? Oh you hope everyone’s ok and god dammit why is it so hard to get around in here?
You stop for a moment to catch your breath as you spot some rats running your way, holding- oh that better not be what you think it is. The rat scuttles up to you and you take the shard, holding it up to your face and… yep it is. Just what you want it. You can’t help but pull a face at the sight of it, but then as a flash of lightning illuminates your surroundings you notice- Ah ok time to go.
You begin running again, shooting around the corners as fast as you can, but you can hear her close behind, calling for you to stop. You know she knows you’re here now, but hey maybe once you lose her she’ll leave and forget about you and it’ll all be fine! Wow she’s fast, but you think you’ll be fine in juuust a second. You reach a familiar hole and leap across with little effort. As you round the corner you pull down your hood, listening intently. She’s stopped, and you’re sure she’ll turn around now and leave you be- what was that sound?
‘Help! Help- help me!’
Ah- you gotta- you can’t just let her- you turn around and run back, sliding to the floor and reaching down, catching Mirabel just as she starts to fall. Your heart is pounding, you haven’t seen anyone in- how did she find- oh god what are you supposed to do now?
‘You’re very sweaty-‘