Chapter Text
In the week that led up to his niece’s fifth birthday and soon to be gift ceremony, Bruno used his gift to look into her future. There he saw two outcomes, a failed ceremony that cracks and a successful one that glows, ebbing back and forth from young to old.
He can’t for the life of him figure it out back then, but he knows differently now, it all makes sense, it all connects, back to the Encanto. With much wisdom comes much grief, and Bruno took all the wisdom and grief he could manage and stuffed it into a mantra.
I’m doing what is right for mi familia, it was what he told himself every day for ten years when he took Mirabel away in the dead of night before the day of her ceremony. Even with his gift, the isolation and social castration was like a death sentence served alive.
What more if a Madrigal in the family would be, giftless, it would be worse than what Bruno had endured, not to mention what befalls the family if the former ever comes to pass, and he would not allow that fate to befall his pequeña sobrina del sol. So, he took her, explained everything to her in a way it could be all understood, and she bellowed anguish.
He left three things that night, his familia, a second tablet of the vision, and his heart, for he knew, to survive outside the Encanto, he would need to strengthen his resolve to see the journey through, for his familia, and for his little sobrina.
And now they are coming home, trudging along the dense Colombian jungle in search of the Encanto, “Come on Tio! Just hang on a little bit more, mamá will heal you right away when we get there, so- just- hold- on!”, Mirabel grunts while she guides her delirious Tio, spouting.
“I should have seen it coming… I shoul- should have- seen them coming…”, Mirabel’s beyond exhausted now, from fighting, escaping the fire, leaving the city, and trudging through this God forsaken jungle, she’s ready to just collapse and let herself rest for a few hours.
But she can’t, because her Tio is losing blood, and blaming himself before he kicks the bucket, and she’s not about to let him do the latter. So, she trudges and stumble, going to the directions his Tio points, come on Mirabel, you can do this, find the river, find the-
To her disbelief, she actually stumbles upon it, the river his Tio talks about all the time, and there’s an old woman sitting by the edge of it. Wearing a crimson red dress with a black shawl, she’s letting two small candles float away while she sits and watches.
She glances Mirabel’s way and expresses shocked wide eyes and mouth agape, with every ounce of memory Mirabel has left in her of her familia, she remembers warmth and love from this woman. “Abuela?”, Mirabel calls out unsure, she sees her Abuela gasp, a hand covering her mouth.
Making her certain that this is her Abuela that she can barely remember, the passage of time blurring out certain features and making some change. But now, clear as the night’s sky can allow it, she memorizes her abuela’s face as best she can, while she can.
And with that thought came, mierda, I’m not ready to face the rest of the familia, in truth she’s been ready her entire life, but seeing two family members come back dyed in deep red blood, may not be the best impression of a welcome their family deserves.
“Mira- Mirabel? Is that- is it really you?”, before she could answer her abuela’s sob filled question, she collapses to the ground, making sure to soften the blow for her Tio. “Mirabel!”, Her abuela calls from very far away now, exhaustion has a way of skewing her perception of near and far.
In truth, Alma meets them halfway, hands trembling, hovering over her Nieta and sons’ weary bodies. This isn’t the time to let her emotions get the best of her, dios mio they need help, she can’t let herself get lost again, not now, this is life and death.
“Mirabel are you okay, is Bruno alright?”, Abuela asks with forced calm and serious tone, “I’m- I’m fine, Tio needs mamá’s food, he doesn’t have long”, Mirabel replies gasping for air. Alma sits beside her son while Mirabel shifts her Tio to her abuela’s lap and stands up.
“Take the dirt path up the hill and through the mountain, call for Dolores and tell her to make Antonio bring an arepa, he’s the fastest out of all of us”, Alma commands her long lost Nieta away and she can hear her heavy footsteps run back to the Encanto.
“I should… See them… Coming… I’m sorry”, Abuela hears her son softly ramble in her arms, she can hardly recognize him now, he looks older, older than he should be, older than his older sisters combined.
And the blood, dios mio the blood, what could had happened to them out there? What did they do to survive? Why is her son dying? This is mi Pedro all over again, please God, let Mirabel get there in time, have Antonio make it in time.
The silence of the night in nature and her son’s labored breathing is driving her to the edge of despair, minutes felt like an eternity for Alma right now. Then the silence is broken by two sets of footsteps, one from Mirabel and the other from Antonio’s jaguar Parce.
She lifts her head up and sees Mirabel slide beside her holding an arepa gently in her hand. Mirabel wastes no time, she chews the arepa in her mouth while tapping her Tio’s cheeks to wake him up saying in between chews, “Thio, fake up, fake up Thio!”.
Despite the darkness and comfort in just dying, Bruno can’t help but just hold on, hold on to his vision, hold on to his sobrina, hold onto life itself. He stirs awake to see a blurry silhouette of his sobrina and his mamá? Is he home? Did Mirabel get them home?
He grunts in affirmation and squeezes with all his might on his sobrina’s left knee, next thing he knows he’s being force fed by his nieta like a helpless baby bird, then sudden pain and darkness again. While she forces feeds her Tio, she pulls out the blade keeping his shoulder in place at the same time.
A loud scream from her Tio and then he faints, his breathing becoming more stable as the magical healing from her mamá’s arepa works through him. She sighs in relief and collapses on her back, staring at the treetops while trying to control her own breathing and calm her heart.
A jaguar’s face meets her own and so does Antonio’s, he’s around five years old maybe if she had to guess, since riding on a jaguar is definitely not something a normal kid should be able to do. The jaguar licks her forehead, cooling the fever that’s probably going to ravage her for a few days.
“Hola, what’s your name?”, Antonio asks her curiously, despite the grim situation they narrowly avoided, despite seeing her covered in blood, this little kid is smiling at her with so much innocence and wonder that she can’t help but smile.
“Mirabel, Mirabel Madrigal, and that idiota, is your Tio”, Mirabel gently kicks her Tio to make a point, making Antonio giggle. She was about to close her eyes to hopefully pass out but before she could do that, she gets cradled into a warm embrace by her Abuela.
“Welcome home mi nieta, I missed you, we all missed you”.