Work Text:
It starts when she is five. A gift just as special as you, Abuela says, and then she doesn't get any gift at all.
You're just as special as anyone else in this family, her parents tell her. But they have to say that, they're her parents.
Mirabel does her best to convince herself she shines as brightly as anyone in her family, but their shadows are long and dark and she is lost among them.
She tries. Every day, she tries to make her family proud, but she is just Mirabel, just a little girl who wants to be something.
She never quite reaches her goal, not without a gift. So Mirabel learns to put herself last. She learns to work hard, learns to shoulder her family's disappointment with a smile.
She learns that her family's gifts are worth more than she is.
When the time comes, she risks her life willingly. She swings across a chasm in her Tio Bruno's room. She scrambles to dig up the shards of his vision before the sand can consume her. She leaps across the pit in the walls. She runs for the candle.
Mirabel doesn't want to die. But she knows her worth, and she would do anything for her family.
Anything to save the miracle. Anything to be worth something, even for a moment.
Then the candle goes out.