Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A little bit after Mirabel’s 11th birthday she gets the shock of her life. 

It's a slow Saturday morning and she isn't needed around the house, (she was never really needed anywhere) and she's playing peek-a-boo with the baby when she hears a loud gasp from across the hall. She quickly picks Antonio up and holds him close as she opens the door.

It’s Tía Pepa and she's standing in front of a magic glowing door, right next to Luisa’s, where Mirabel’s should have been .

The new door sends the whole family into a tizzy.

Mirabel feels a pit in her stomach, as well as a pinprick of hope in her chest. She's been waiting for this. Every birthday, she’s been waiting for this, hoping her gift was just a little late. Six birthdays in she’s stopped wishing; it’s hopeless. There is nothing special about her and she’d just have to accept it.

But now there’s a door, and she can’t help but hope. Hope it’s for her, hope it’s her chance.

 But she’s always getting in the way, and if she touches that door it’ll dissolve just like the last one.

Abuela doesn’t let anybody touch the door all day and Mirabel tries to squash that little ball of hope and forget about it.

The next morning is Mass and Abuela insists they all dress as nicely as possible. Not that they don’t already, but apparently the community needs to know that they were strong, that the magic was strong. Abuela tells Isabela to put flowers in Mirabel’s hair, which is kind of awkward because when Mirabel was nine and a half Isabela had decided they weren't on speaking terms and would only interact with her if told directly. Having her eldest sister’s hands in her hair reminds her of better times which makes her yearn but also of recent times which makes her bitter and bitey, so she complains. Mirabel doesn’t like the design or the flowers and Isa is just pulling too hard.

“You think I want to do this?” Isabela snaps. “Abuela wants us all to look perfect today to keep our image strong because you ruined it!”

Mirabel swallows back her hurt and stops moving. Isabela is right, the least she can do is sit still.

Mirabel does her best to be good at church; it’s easy, because she just has to focus on Antonio and make sure he’s quiet. She’s actually a little grateful when he starts to get too loud so she has to take him to the back and play with him there.

Monday night is a big ‘family talk’ which is just the grown-ups telling all the kids what they had to do. 

“I've done some meditating with the candle, and perhaps this is Mirabel’s late gift.” Abuela says. 

“If it was late why didn't her door just not appear?” Isabela asks, it’s more of a sneer and it makes Mirabel feel small.

“I'm not sure.” Abuela responds, and she looks uncharacteristically unsteady.

But she takes a deep breath and they all go to the door. 

Mirabel can’t do this. She can't. She's gonna touch the door and it's gonna dissolve just like last time, she’s gonna ruin everything .

Mirabel sweats profusely as she approaches the door. Her family looks on in varying levels of anticipation.

Mirabel feels like she’s going to fall over. Her breathing is shallow as she shakily steps ever closer. Abuela looks on with worry clutching the candle and Mirabel could burst into tears right now because this isn’t gonna work. This is why it’s remained a dream, she could never do the real thing.

Mirabel wipes her sweaty hands on her skirt and reaches for the doorknob. She closes her eyes shut and turns away not wanting to witness what happens.

There’s a beat of silence then a tearing sound and then the family gasps loudly, and Mirabel’s heart sinks to her feet as she realizes she’s done it once again. She wants to run, but there's a heavy weight to her back that nearly topples her over.

“Mirabel, open your eyes.” Mamá calls.

Why? Why does she want her to see this? 

Mirabel keeps them shut and tries to back away but the weight on her back threatens to  bring her to the ground.

“Open your eyes, nieta.” Abuela breathes, and so she does.

Mirabel opens her eyes and sees herself engraved in wood, with large wings at her back. Her mouth drops open in shock as the fully solid door swings open and glimmering opal chases a moving streak of magic.

Mirabel tentatively steps into the doorway out of breath as the room gets bigger and bigger. 

Colorful spirals of rock bloom into the open sky and hang in the air, bridges form between them bordered with twinkling lights. Below the floating islands, the floor is soft and spongy and turns a different color wherever you step. Where the floor ends, a shallow lake appears, spreading to what seems to be the end of the room with the moon fuller and closer than she’s ever seen it.

Mirabel lets out a yell of excitement, and only then does she truly notice the weight on her back. Mirabel looks in a mirror and sees a white fluffy mass which must be her wings attached to her back. They’re heavy and foreign and her back hurts.

Mirabel has no time to get over her shock as the family bursts in and talks over each other.

“You did it, Mirabel, I’m so proud of you!” Abuela croons, and Mirabel forgets all about her backache.

She remembers it in the morning when she wakes up in a foreign bed stuffed full with down feathers.

Her backache has bled into a headache as well, and she can barely stop to admire her new room as it pulses and reverberates out of her ears. Mirabel stumbles out of her tangled sheets and makes her way to the bridge. There was concern the night before about whether the bridge was stable but Casita held it tight.

Now as she walks along it in the morning, the bridge ripples like water and bounces along. It manages to break through Mirabel’s pain and elicit a giggle from her. Casita has always been able to cheer her up.

Mirabel makes her way to her door (her own door, her own room) and tries not to stumble as her nightgown catches awkwardly with the thick wings on her back. When she opens her door her parents are already there with food and big smiles on their faces.

Ma has cut holes in the back of a dress to awkwardly fit over while Pa helps her unfold her wings. It feels weird, like she has arms on her back, really long arms.

While helping her get dressed, Má hisses and Mirabel turns her head around to see what she’s looking at. She has ugly bruises from the nape of her neck to the small of her back, only just overlapping where her wings end.

“It makes sense, I suppose, your wings are very heavy mi vida.” Pa says.

 Mirabel only whines in response as he leads her to sit on a low hanging perch. There were a lot of those. 

“We are so proud of you Mirabel.” Ma whispers, and Mirabel stuffs her face to hide her confusion. She hasn’t done anything.

The pain in her back recedes but the weight never disappears. 

Mirabel wobbles and stumbles all the way to breakfast, her parents needing to hold her so she can keep her balance. Casita decides to have pity on her and smoothes the stairs down into a slide, where at the bottom Mirabel realizes she can’t get up from the floor on her own.

The table is already set when she gets there, and so is the family, with waiting smiles. Mirabel awkwardly smiles back as she painfully tips herself into her chair. She doesn’t have the strength to close her wings so fifteen feet of loose down feathers smack Isabela in the side, causing her to growl.

"Mirabel!" She spits feathers from her mouth. “You're getting feathers everywhere!”

Mirabel sheepishly lowers them until they drag on the ground.

“Ah Isabela, I remember when you first got your gift. You couldn’t step a single place without petals everywhere.” Abuela reminisces.

“You still can't.” Tío Felix jokes, and Isabela sits up straight. 

“I think it goes without saying that you won't be going to school today, Mirabel.” Abuela says.

Mirabel can’t stifle her smile of excitement; this was around the time regular kids cut their school time in half and started a trade. Mirabel had once asked if she could join one and had been rebuked. 

Madrigals didn’t do trade, they didn't work for money. 

Now Mirabel wouldn’t be in school all the time like a baby. She’d have a real job.

On the other side of the table one of Mirabel’s stubby feathers lands on Antonio’s face and the baby sneezes harshly, snot splattering his face.

“Oh Toñito.” 

Mirabel makes to get up and get a napkin and her open wings knock food and plates from the table. 

“I'm sorry!” She yells.

She made a mess, food is all over the floor! But the adults just chuckle and brush it off.

Abuela is in a great mood.

The family leaves for work but promises to be back to set up for the party.

“Party?” She asks.

“Yes of course, we must celebrate this.” Abuela insists. 

“Maybe we should wait until after her feathers grow in?” Mamá suggests. 

Mirabel is then reminded of her pounding headache and twinging back.

Mirabel stays behind to clean with the baby but it doesn't put her down like before, though her feet do drag; these wings are so heavy . 

“Why don't you stretch them out, Miraboo, huh?” Pá suggests, and Mirabel opens her wings and stretches them. The feeling of the limbs are so foreign but stretching them out feels good.

They clean and mop together, Mirabel with her own little broom to sweep up her down feathers. Though Pá insists she nap. He then suggests exercise to build up muscle.

So Mirabel stretches and curls and sweeps for a full week.

She wakes up extra early and stretches with Luisa, doing upper body and core workouts. It sucks, but it’s the most time she’s gotten to spend with her sister in years. 

“Y’know I don't think those things are ever going to grow in.” Isabela remarks as they clean up after lunch.

 “Maybe you'll just have little chicken wings forever.” And she sounds very pleased at the idea.

Then Tía Pepa blows in with a mighty gust of air and Mirabel, with her open dragging wings, catches the gale head on and it nearly lifts her off her feet.

Then there's a gasp all around her. Mirabel looks around worried only to see her sister and prima's delighted (and irritated) faces covered in down feathers. 

Mirabel gasps and curves a wing to see opalescent feathers looking back at her. They shine like jewels and are long and so pretty . 

“Oh Mirabel,” Abuela breathes as she gently caresses the ridge of a wing.

“They're perfect.”

Lowly, so no one but her cousin can hear, Isabela growls.

Chapter Text

Abuela wants everything to be perfect, so Mirabel’s party is pushed back another week. 

In the meantime, Abuela and Mamá take Mirabel to the best seamstress in town to have clothes made specifically for her, like all the rest of her family. Abuela is insistent that the color match her wings which is pretty hard. Mirabel has tried to dye cloth before, and only two colors had been hard enough. The color of her wings glint and shift whenever you look at them from a new angle. Mirabel grimaces at the thought of having to dye something like that, and the seamstress does too.

“Why don’t we stick with a base color and use the feathers?” The seamstress suggests and plucks a feather for example, but it’s one of the ones that catch when Mirabel runs her hands through them (Pa, said those were the important ones) so when she pulls it, it hurts. 

Mirabel yelps, and the seamstress apologizes, though she seems more upset about making a gap in the pattern than about hurting her.

After that, they move on to how the clothes should drape, and the three women start clucking over Mirabel again. Abuela fusses over the fact that there’s no real open space on her back that can latch on to her body without catching feathers. 

Mirabel ends up with a completely backless top with bishop sleeves to make up for it at Abuela’s insistence. 

The blouse has a high collar that ties at the back of her neck into a bow and at the base of her waist. The skirt is to her ankles with a ruffled petticoat underneath. It’s all a little excessive in Mirabel’s opinion. 

The material is light at least, and it’s still so exciting; she never thought she'd get this. 

Mirabel doesn't go to school that week either. She rarely goes out at all. Abuela wants the first the town sees of her to be at her party, with her new clothes and new gift. It’s all so dramatic Mirabel can’t help but giggle.

The party is the best night of her life.

“Do you swear to use your gift to help the Encanto?”

The speech is for show, her door is right in front of her and her gift is displayed proudly on her back but Abuela thinks it would be nice for it to go right this time.

Mirabel doesn’t know why she's so nervous as she says her lines. It’s already done. It's not like she’ll touch the doorknob of her already-there room and have it all dissipate like sand as if it were never there in the first place. 

Still, she breathes a sigh of relief when it opens and everyone in the town can see her awesome new room. She feels quite proud as people crane their necks to see the floating islands and hanging perches. There are already tables and things set up around her room and the stairs and bridges light up wherever you step. 

The party is loud and exciting and the band plays just for her, and Mirabel dances with her Pa and her Tío and her primos and whoever else accepts her invitation. 

Abuela makes Mirabel pose for about a hundred pictures with her wings spread wide, and one with her whole family with her in the middle like she always dreamed. 

When she goes to sit down she’s swarmed by kids who would never been seen talking with her two weeks ago, fawning over her wings. Mirabel keeps them spread proudly, only folding them when she’s near someone like Abuela told her to. 

“Your wings are beautiful angelita, show them off.”

Abuela hasn't had a special pet name for her in a long time, so Mirabel keeps them spread proudly.

“Your wings are so pretty Mirabel.”

“I'm so jealous.”

"I love your new outfit!"

Her clothes have been dyed soft pastel shades; periwinkle, blue, yellow and pink. There was a sheer overlay on her skirt that made it shine like her wings did and it all floats with her as she walks.

All night, Mirabel gets compliments and she eats them up.

“You look beautiful Mirabel.”

“Wings are perfect for you.”

“You look like an angel.”

“Can you fly?”

The last comment gives her pause. Mirabel has not been able to take off on her own yet, no matter how hard she tries. 

“Uhm-” She stammers.

“You've got wings, so you can fly right?”

“Of course she can fly. You can fly right?”

And then it's like she’s a little kid again and everyone else is poking at her and every way she comes up short.

“You can fly can't you?”

“Mirabel can’t fly?” A voice sneers and makes it sound like that's to be expected. That even blessed with a gift she can't be anything special. 

“Yes I can!” She exclaims, desperate to get whoever said that to shut up.  

“I can fly! I can.” She can not go through this again. 

“Oh really?” And the voice belongs to Ricardo who's always been mean. “ You can fly?” 

“Yes!” Mirabel snaps. 

She hates Ricardo; he's always making fun of her and if he isn’t calling her names he’s kicking her or shoving her and getting all the other kids to join in. She hates him. 

 Mirabel takes deep breaths as hot anger chokes her and smarts at her eyes as Ricardo leans and whispers loudly to his friends that he doesn't believe her.

“I can fly! ” Mirabel insists, and she's hollering now.

“Prove it.” He hisses. 

“ Fine .” Mirabel shoots back, and he and the group of kids that crowd around them lean back as if they hadn’t expected that.

Mirabel marches from her place near the food table and makes her way to the floating islands. She lets the stairs lift her and dashes along the bridges and hops between suspended platforms until she’s at the highest she can go.

 She climbs on to one of the ledges and looks down at stupid Ricardo and all his stupid friends and spreads her hands out.

“Look!” She calls.

And now everyone packed into her room is turning towards her. Mirabel is trembling something awful but some of the older boys are starting to jeer and Mirabel has had enough. 

This is her day.

She backs a few paces from the ledge and opens her wings as wide as she can. She waits just a moment to steady herself and then takes a running leap off the ledge.

The crowd below her cries out as she jumps and Mirabel’s stomach drops to her feet. 

For a moment, she's made a terrible mistake. 

And then her wings catch on the air and she's buoyant in the sky right over the moon.

The crowd cheers and Mirabel is on top of the world. 

And then she starts to fall.

She goes faster and faster in a downward trajectory and starts to spin out of control. Mirabel and the crowd cry out in alarm. 

“Mirabel!” Her mother screams. The rest of her family joins in.

Mirabel is hit with a blast of cold air as her Tía Pepa worries up a twister. Mirabel catches the force gale and tries to correct her spot in the air. 

She flaps desperately and is able to right herself. She cracks a terrified grin and laughs and whoops in hysteria as she continues her downward trajectory and braces herself for a crash landing. 

The stone and flora in her room bleed together as she heads faster and faster towards the ground and the crowd's yelling gets louder and louder. Feathers are flying everywhere at her clumsy flapping and at one point, her glasses fall off. So Mirabel tries to aim her blurry vision to land in the lake.

She misses of course.

Mirabel squawks as she bumpily skids across the spongy floor lighting up blinding colors and screeches to a stop, launching herself out of her shoes and over a cluster of rocks.

She quickly bounces up and waves her arms in victory and the room explodes with cheers. 

“I did it!” She shouts, as her parents rush to her and there is murder in her mother’s eyes.

 “I flew, I did it! Did you see me, did you see me? I flew!” Má picks her off her feet into a hug and then Pá picks the both of them off their feet and then Luisa picks all three of them up and goes to the side.

Mirabel cackles and waves at the still cheering townsfolk, cheeks hurting from how hard she's grinning. 

Mirabel gets yelled at like five different times but it's still the best night of her life.

Mirabel is barred from the taller islands until she can get there and fly herself. So Mirabel makes the effort. 

“You've only had your wings for two weeks, Miraboo, it'll take some time.” Pá comforts her.

“You just have to work at it.” Tío Felix chimes in.

And Mirabel works and works.

The morning after the party Abuela has her go into town with her, and discuss how she can help. Abuela has plans for her to do deliveries, but keeps getting sidetracked by questions; how much can Mirabel carry? How far can she fly? How high can she go?

Mirabel is sent home after a few hours, and makes it her mission to fly by the next morning. She’s pretty sure she pulled a muscle or something trying not to brain herself on the ground during her party, and her backache hasn't gone away entirely, but she can't stop.

People want things from her now. People want Mirabel around, want her help . She can't let any of them down. 

Mirabel bears down and does her usual effort of beating her wings furiously and is able to lift her heels properly out of her shoes. 

“I-I'm doing it.”

She’s on her toes now.

“I can do it.” 

But she's out of breath and topples onto her back.

“Have you considered flying a different way?” Pá asks, from his seemingly upside-down position. 

What does that mean, a different way?

“Your wings are very long,” he says as he kneels to brush a hand across them. “Different birds have different kinds of wings. Yours look like the birds that fly long overhead. They don't flap much.”

Pá stands up and flaps his arms up and down, he looks silly and Mirabel can’t help but giggle. He laughs along with her and does a little squawk. Mirabel grins and rolls onto her belly, wings slowly matching his pace as she collects her breath. 

Once her breath evens out she gets up and gives strength to her flaps.

A strong beat downward has wind buffeting the ruffles of her petticoat. She raises her wings up again and beats them down with purpose, feeling the wind underneath her feathers and beats again harder, and her skirt lifts and so does she.

Mirabel never thought to copy the strokes of different birds and she feels silly not trying it before. 

Mirabel beats her wings and hangs in the air.

Then promptly skews to the side and crashes into a wall.

Pá claps but it’s not enough. Mirabel can imagine the disappointment in her Abuela’s eyes if this was all she had to offer. 

When the family comes home for dinner, Mirabel bobs down from the banister and one of her shoes falls off as her feet scrabble against the floor trying to land before she does. Her Abuela’s eyes sparkle anyway.

From then on Mirabel is attached to the hip to her grandmother. She speaks with her more in that week than she had in the past six years and Mirabel soaks it all up. 

“ Elegant , Mirabel, your flight is graceful .” Abuela instructs, and Mirabel tries not to propel herself off the ground like an animal. 

She gets the hang of it eventually, leaping forward like a dancer, giving her the air to take off. She feels kind of silly doing it but Abuela’s approval makes it worth it. 

It’s kind of difficult, getting things to Abuela’s standards. But now she’s willing to wait for Mirabel and work with her. 

Though Mirabel can never flutter, no matter how hard she tries.

As the days pass and everyone finds what works for Mirabel and what doesn't, Mirabel finds herself in the house less and less. There are deliveries she can make and things she can reach and less reasons to stay home and clean. 

Which means less of Antonio and less of Pá and less of Tío Felix. Which makes her a little sad. 

Pá and Tío were like her best (only) friends. 

She has tons of new ones now, the popular girls had made room for her at their table, but they hadn't been nice to her before. A lot of people who weren’t nice to her before want to hang out now and Mirabel doesn’t know how to handle it.

“Pa?” She asks one day as they sweep the hall.

“Yes, Miraboo?” 

“...are you sad 'cuz I'm out of the house so much? You don't have to be. You and Tío Felix can play cards in my room anytime you want.”

Pá chuckles. “That’s very kind, mi vida.”

“I mean it, I'll never be too busy to hang out like Isabela...you guys are my best friends.”

“Awww.” Pá croons and squishes her face like a baby which she doesn't like, but he and Tío Felix play cards in her room and invite her which she likes a lot.

And it seems like everything’s going to be great.