Chapter Text
It would be fine.
That was the thought that started it all.
It’s only fair.
A justification that sealed the fate of so many.
I deserve this.
And a child was stolen, kidnapper justifying her actions as just. As right.
Leaving a broken family behind her.
She stared down at the child.
I’ll love him like my own. He’s mine.
Grief-filled cries echoed throughout the palace, an empty room silent and a door going dark.
A sentient home feeling like she had failed to protect her sweet little family.
And the cause of all this pain?
They’ll recover. They’ll move on.
She insisted on it, high in her tower as she watched the boy sleep, magic working to hide away any troublesome memories. She clung to that belief desperately.
She was wrong.
Oh, she was so, so very wrong.
The wound dealt that night never truly healed.
Once a year, the kingdom of Encanto came together to release hundreds of lanterns into the night sky, a desperate, hopeful bid for their missing prince to come home.
It was the only night that they saw the entire royal family out together, but truly, no one could blame them.
Only years after losing the King to a traitor, Pedro having stood between the man and his young triplets and buying just enough time for the guards to get there but losing his life in the process, tragedy struck again.
The sole Prince, the youngest of the magical triplets was kidnapped at age six, stolen away in the dead of night, leaving the family devastated and the kingdom reeling yet again.
No one blamed the Queen for her reaction. No one blamed her for sealing the gates of Casita and hiding her remaining hijas away in the palace. No one spoke the Prince's name, as hurricanes descended due to one Princess' grief at her brother's name. Portraits were taken down and hidden away to try and ease the pain even though the Princesses never left the castle anymore.
The kingdom didn’t see them until they were almost of marrying age, when the Queen had no choice but to let them meet suitors.
Thankfully, they both found someone.
Agustin stole Julieta’s heart with his gentle manners and sweet words.
Felix swept Pepa off her feet, drawing the only bright and sunny day in years from the Princess.
The weddings were beautiful and brought some joy back to the kingdom.
The news of the pregnancies sent the people into an ecstatic frenzy, celebrations breaking out all over Encanto.
There was fear too though. Fear that only grew when first Princess Isabela, and then Princess Dolores were born.
Fear of it happening again. Of losing someone else.
The kingdom was disheartened to barely see them too. And the next Princess as well, Luisa.
They didn’t see much of any of the children, catching a glimpse here and there, always at a distance, always surrounded by guards.
News of the first boy was celebrated as always and people wondered what he was like, curiosity only heightened by his Gift to shapeshift. Security doubled after he was born, the sole Prince at the time after the last was taken...
All of the Gifts were met with awe and wonder.
Flowers, hearing, strength, shapeshifting…
And then the youngest Princess didn’t receive a Gift and they fell back into fear.
Was something wrong with the Miracle their King died to create? Was this a sign that some other terrible thing would happen soon?
The few glimpses they caught of the children dwindled even more and the family no longer left the palace at all.
They only saw the youngest child, Prince Antonio, up on the balcony on the triplets' birthday and never again throughout the year.
The entire kingdom felt so detached from their royals but they couldn’t blame them in the least.
Not with what they’d been through already.
So they accepted that they wouldn’t see the new generation and that the royal family would always be distant.
Untouchable.
Or so they thought.
People forgot what Camilo being a shapeshifter meant.
Then again, they didn’t know how much of a menace he and Mirabel were together.
They would learn very soon though.
In the future, Julieta and Pepa would feel justified in pointing out that all their grey hair came from those two.
For the moment though, they were just trying not to panic as they couldn’t find their children.
Camilo glanced back and grimaced at the sight of the storm hanging over Encanto. It did make him feel guilty but they were doing this for a good reason!
He looked back to his prima where she was stalking ahead and hurried to catch up.
“The nerve of them!” she ranted. She’d been ranting since they left.
Camilo hummed.
“The audacity!”
Camilo nodded his head, looking around the forest curiously.
“The gall!”
He mumbled something that sounded vaguely like he was agreeing.
It was amazing out here.
They’d spent their entire lives except for a scarce few heavily guarded outings into town in Casita.
And sure, Camilo snuck out regularly. He could shapeshift. Of course he was going to use it and go wandering around the city.
And it had been great. He’d met tons of people, heard so many stories and he loved every second of it.
Of course, he loved his home, but when you were basically trapped inside then the palace became a very pretty prison.
He’d never say that to Casita though. It wasn’t her fault he felt so stifled and trapped in his own home. He seemed to be the only one to feel it too. The others seemed pretty content to stay inside, to give into Abuela’s paranoid (but valid) fears.
The only reason that Mirabel had left in the first place was because a couple of callous thieves had stolen their Tio’s crown.
Days before the triplets’ birthday too.
His mamá had almost broken at the news, rain falling heavily over Encanto.
Mirabel had worked herself up into a fit of rage while everyone else was rushing around trying to calm the remaining triplets. His prima had promptly grabbed him by his ruana and dragged him off somewhere where they had a written conversation so Dolores couldn’t hear them.
It basically boiled down to:
M: I know you sneak out a lot.
C: Shit.
M: Show me how, I’m going to get the crown back.
C: Not without me you’re not.
So here they were. Out in the forest, further away from Casita than Camilo had ever been.
It was so thrilling.
He smiled a little to himself as he caught glimpses of little animals scurrying about in the bushes. Antonio would love it out here.
“Are you even listening to me?!” Mirabel demanded.
“I’m pretty sure the entire forest is listening to you,” Camilo deadpanned and she deflated a bit.
“Lo siento,” she sighed. “I just… who goes and steals the only thing the family has left of our Tio?”
Camilo reached out to his prima as her lip trembled and she blinked the tears out of her eyes.
“Hey hey Mira, it’s okay. Cause we’re going to get it back. Sure, we’ll be grounded for life but it’ll be back.”
She gave him a shaky smile and wiped at her eyes.
“Gracias Cami. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this but I… I didn’t know how to sneak out.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. You were right, I leave Casita a lot.”
She watched him curiously as they walked. “Why?”
“Hmm?”
“Why do you leave so often. Dolores and I are the only ones who know you do but neither of us could figure out why.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Really?” He gestured around at them. “It's so much fun outside Mira! There’re so many different people and so much stuff to do. I mean, just look at this!” he spun around to encompass the whole forest. “It’s amazing out here!”
She looked around, still confused but with a flicker of understanding lighting her eyes.
“It is very different and kind of… pretty,” she admitted.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Casita,” he told her. “But… I just feel… trapped I guess. Not being allowed out chafes at me. I just want to get to know all the people in Encanto, see what they do up close. I’ve played with the kids and danced in the festivals and Mira, you have no idea how much everyone cares about us. You don’t know how excited they get when they hear something new about us or all the gifts they leave at Abuelo’s portrait. You don’t know about all the prayers they say for Tio Bruno, hoping he’s safe and happy and that he’ll come home one day. Encanto loves us Mira. Its… its pretty humbling to see up close.”
She was staring at him with wide eyes now.
“I wish we could actually interact with them more,” he sighed, looking at the ground. “As us. The family is missing out on some amazing people.”
“Oh…” Mirabel breathed. “I never… I never thought of that before.”
They kept walking for a bit in silence as she processed what he’d said.
“Hey Cami?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you sneak out, will you take me with you?”
He grinned at her.
“Of course Mira.”
She smiled back and suddenly, he felt a lot closer to his prima than he had in a while. Despite the family being locked up together in the palace, they were surprisingly not all that close. They usually had duties to keep them busy or if their Gift was useful, then they were working on that.
Camilo’s ability was amazing yes, but not very useful when looking at helping an entire kingdom they didn't really interact with. So Abuela focused more on Isabela and her beauty, Luisa and her strength, Dolores and her hearing and their mamás' healing and weather control.
He knew she didn’t mean to, but Mirabel and Camilo got pushed to the side a lot. While Mirabel had reacted by trying her very hardest to help in any other way she could, Camilo had accepted it and used it to let him sneak out more and more over the years.
They didn’t actually know how good at shapeshifting he’d become.
The pair fell back into silence again, this one much more relaxed.
Maybe things would be better when they got home as well.
After they were finished with being grounded until they were thirty of course.
They may not have really thought this idea through.
“Shit shit shit!” Camilo hissed to himself as they ran, Mira’s hand in his. Their Tio’s crown was safely in her bag but the murderous thieves racing after them weren’t too far behind.
They really hadn’t thought this through.
As they ran past a rock wall covered in ivy, Mirabel stumbled and tripped, falling sideways with a shriek. Camilo tried to pull her upright but got pulled after her.
Instead of hitting the hard surface of the rocks beside them though, they fell straight through what turned out to be a curtain of ivy.
They lay on the floor, stunned for a moment before an angry curse from way too close by got them up and running through the tunnel again. They stopped dead when they reached the end, finding what looked like a valley nestled in between high rock walls. It was beautiful in here but they were mostly focused on finding a place to hide. They didn’t know if the thieves had seen them go through the ivy or not.
The only place that really looked promising was the only manmade structure in sight. A tall and pretty tower rising up high above them. There was a window at the top but no sign of a door anywhere.
The pair looked at each other and then back to the tower.
“Yeah, we can climb that,” they decided simultaneously. Why should they stop with the bad decisions now?
Bruno woke from his nap with a jolt at the sound of cursing coming from near the window. His heart started pounding as fear flooded him.
No one should be in the tower! Madre had said she was going to be gone for a week and she certainly didn’t sound like that.
He hesitantly peered out of the bedroom, expecting one of the terrifying people from madre’s stories.
Instead, he saw… two teenagers?
“Mira! Get off!” the boy hissed.
“I fell! I didn’t mean to land on you!” the girl snapped back as she rolled off of him. The pair were covered in dirt and leaves and their cloaks were torn. They looked in rough shape.
The boy hurriedly stood and peered out the window, like he was checking if there was anyone there while the girl sat up and dug in her bag.
“Please don’t let me have dented it,” she muttered as she pulled out a crown. An actual crown that she fussed over, turning it over and over in her hands.
Honestly, if he’d had his way, Bruno would have stayed hidden in the bedroom, hoping that they’d leave without exploring the rest of the tower.
But of course, that didn’t happen. Because his rats decided to be curious and went racing out of his room.
He cursed to himself as the girl shrieked at the sight of them and stumbled out of the room.
“Don’t hurt them!” he pleaded, knowing from madre that not many people liked rats. They were his friends though… he didn’t want to see them hurt.
The girl froze and stared at him while the boy spun around in shock.
“Oh shit someone lives here?!” The girl squeaked.
The boy looked down at her in disbelief. “No kidding? Why would someone build a tower here only to leave it empty? What did you think it was? Decoration?”
“I don’t know! But we’re trespassing Cami!”
“We’re hiding!” he argued.
Bruno watched the two bicker in confusion while his rats ran back over to him. Suddenly the girl was looking at him again with big, brown eyes hidden behind green-rimmed glasses.
“I’m so sorry for this!” she apologised. “We were just running from those thieves and kinda panicking.”
“They were probably going to kill us,” the boy admitted, back to peering out of the window.
“And we just got the crown back and we couldn’t let those-those bastards get it again.”
The boy looked at her. “One day out and you develop a foul mouth. Tia is gonna kill me.”
“Please don’t be mad,” she was pleading. “We didn’t mean to trespass. We weren’t really thinking straight. We just wanted to get away.”
She was clutching the crown to her chest now, staring at him pleadingly and… madre had never mentioned how hard it was to say no to eyes like that.
He found he didn’t want to though. She really did seem scared and under the calm act the boy had up, he was shaking a bit as well.
“Uh, no, it’s fine. You just, you surprised me,” Bruno assured. “I don’t really get, um, visitors. You’re- you’re being chased?”
She nodded, expression somewhere between afraid and angry. “Sí,” she nodded her head. “Those two thought they could steal the Lost Prince’s crown, so close to his birthday too! Who does that?!”
Lost Prince? What was that about?
He pushed the thought aside when he realised the girl was sniffling, looking down at the crown and trying to see if there was any damage to it. It did look really expensive but she looked at it like it meant more than just money.
“Hey, we got it back,” the boy said gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
She wiped hurriedly at her eyes. “Lo siento,” she mumbled. “Just… it takes a monster to do that. We’ve got to get it back.”
The boy was nodded with determination. “And we will. But maybe after we give them enough time to start looking somewhere else?”
She grimaced. “Yeah… they were really mad about the bees.”
They both stared into space for a moment before the boy snorted.
“It was funny though.”
The pair grinned at each other and Bruno felt that lingering bit of fear fade. They didn’t seem all that dangerous. They seemed more like a pair of kids that were trying to fix some kind of terrible wrong.
“I don’t mind if you stay here while you wait,” he found himself offering. “Do, um, do you want tea?”
What did people do when they had guests? He’d never had guests. This was actually a little bit… exciting?
The girl gave him a bright smile. “If it’s not a bother.”
He awkwardly gestured over to the table and both of them practically collapsed into the seats. They actually looked exhausted now that he was looking. It made him a little concerned. It wasn’t normal for kids to be running around after thieves, was it? Their clothes were pretty torn up too. They didn’t get hurt doing that, did they?
“Oh!” the girl sat up straight while the boy was checking over the crown. “Lo siento! We’re being so rude. We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet. I’m Mira and this is my primo, Cami.”
Bruno panicked for a moment. Madre had made it very clear how dangerous it was to give anyone his name. But he didn’t want to be rude!
In his panic, he blurted out a random one.
“Rico,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like he was lying.
“Nice to meet you, Rico,” Cami smiled at him. “Thanks for letting us hide here. We really made those guys mad.”
Finally, they seemed satisfied that the crown was okay and carefully packed it back into Mira’s bag.
“This has been a day,” Mira mused as Bruno put the mugs of tea down in front of them.
“Hey, everyone should do one crazy thing in their lives,” Cami shrugged. “And well, we should get all the experiences in since we’re going to be grounded for life when we get home.”
Mira grimaced and let out a groan before dropping her head on the table.
“They are going to be so pissed…” she breathed.
Bruno stared at them in confusion and Cami noticed.
“We’re not exactly… out with our parents’ blessings,” he admitted. “It was an impulse decision, to chase after the thieves.”
“Been kind of worth it though,” Mira mused, resting her chin on her arms now. “I mean, it’s been kinda terrifying. But kinda amazing at the same time.” She smiled softly. “You were right Cami. Leaving the house is worth it.”
“Of course I’m right,” he huffed with a smirk. “You should listen to me more often.”
Something about her words stuck with Bruno as the pair started to bicker again. Kind of terrifying, but kind of amazing. What did she mean? It wasn't good to be afraid, right?
He didn’t mean to ask, but the question kind of just escaped him anyway.
Mira gave him a sheepish smile. “We’re not allowed to leave the house at all. You see, our family has… they’ve lost a lot. So Abuela barely lets anyone out because she’s scared that something will happen to one of us.”
“This is the furthest we’ve ever been from home,” Cami continued. “I mean, I snuck out all the time because…” he shrugged. “I hate being cooped up in the house. But this is Mira’s first time out.”
Mira gave a small smile. “While it’s been scary, I don’t think I regret my decision. It’s… amazing. To be outside and see new things. I mean we climbed a tower! How cool is that?!”
She looked giddy over the thought and Bruno was fascinated as she launched into describing the things they’d seen. Flowers and animals and a tavern they apparently really wanted to visit on the way back.
He tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t help the bubble of longing that appeared in his chest. He’d never set foot out of his tower after all. And what she was describing sounded amazing. Her eyes lit up as she spoke about her own first trip into the world.
A bit terrifying, but amazing.
Meanwhile, Cami was looking around the room and he suddenly jumped up. “Hey! Is that a painting of the lantern festival?”
Bruno looked over in surprise and then flushed as he found the boy standing in front of his favourite painting.
“Uh, sí,” he admitted. “I see them every year and they’re… they’re beautiful. I watch them from my window. Do you know where they’re from?”
Both looked at him in confusion.
“They’re from the lantern festival back in Encanto,” Cami answered. “We hold it every year in honour of the Lost Prince.”
There was that mention of this Prince again.
“Don’t you know the story?” Mira asked with wide eyes.
He flushed and shook his head. Immediately, Cami was back in his chair and spinning the story so well that Bruno could practically see it. A tale about a Prince stolen in the dead of night and an entire kingdom that mourned his loss. It must be amazing to have that many people miss you.
“This is all Encanto has left of him,” Mira murmured sadly, setting the crown on the table again. “It’s his crown. And those horrible people went and stole it days before the festival, before his birthday.”
Bruno startled at the reveal that he shared this Prince’s birthday. Weird.
But the kids didn’t notice as Cami was back to comforting Mira.
“We’re going to get it back in time for the festival,” he told her seriously. “We’ve got three days to get home safely. The crown will be back where it belongs in time for the festival.”
Mira sniffled again before straightening up. “Yeah, you’re right. We will. It’ll be worth the grounding.”
Bruno found himself staring at the painting of the lanterns again. He watched them every year, entranced by the beauty and mystery of them.
The mystery had been solved at last, after forty-five years. But somehow he still felt incomplete.
“Are they as beautiful up close as they are from here?” he asked wistfully.
“They’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Mira answered softly. Then she perked up. “We can show you if you want? As thanks for letting us hide up here?”
Bruno immediately started stuttering out a refusal. His madre would never approve.
But for some reason, the words died in his throat as the kids stared excitedly at him.
“I’m really not supposed to leave…” he trailed off.
“Come on!” Cami coaxed. “If there’s one thing we learnt from this, it’s do at least one crazy thing in your life. It might be dumb but it’s also the most fun thing you’ll ever do.”
One crazy thing? He’d never done anything like that. He’d followed the rules his entire life.
Their words stuck with him though.
Might be dumb but it's fun.
Terrifying but amazing.
He’d always wanted to see the lanterns up close. Madre had been dismissive of the idea his entire life though, calling it silly.
But…
One silly thing in his life couldn’t hurt, right? When would he get a chance like this again? With people who knew the way to the lanterns, this close to the night they appeared?
He’d be able to get there and back before madre returned.
Bruno bit his lip as he debated with himself.
The kids stared at him with excited, hopeful eyes. And he crumbled.
“Okay…”
“Yes!” Mira fist-pumped. “I’m making a friend before I get grounded!”
“You’re so lame,” Cami told her.
She shoved him out of his seat and he grabbed her arm, pulling her down with him. The pair shrieked and laughed and Bruno found himself smiling.
One week of being dumb and breaking the rules. His one crazy thing to do.
He was starting to feel excited.