Encanto: Bruno Madrigal x Oc

Chapter 4: Engagement Dinner

The atmosphere was very tense that night between certain members of the Madrigal family. Throughout the extremely important dinner, both Mirabel and Emilia maintained eye contact with an increasingly anxious Dolores; it was obvious that she was struggling to keep the secret. And at that moment, all at once, everything went wrong.

Both Emilia and Mirabel noticed to their horror, that a group of rats had gotten their paws on all the pieces of the vision and were attempting to put it together. As if this was not bad enough, Dolores then decided to reveal the secret to Camilo, who then quietly passed it on until most people at the table knew. Emilia needed to think of a way to immediately do damage control, but things continued to quickly spiral out of hand. Mirabel frantically suggested that Mariano propose to Isabela at that exact moment while Luisa, who was still losing her powers, was asked to go fetch the piano.

In an attempt to get closer to the vision which was almost put together now, Mirabel suddenly dove to the floor. Isabela quickly addressed her younger sister and asked her what she was doing. Mirabel brushed off the question and awkwardly encouraged Isabela and Mariano to continue on with the proposal.

Mariano attempted to propose again, and Emilia took this chance to dive under the table and grab the vision slab from the rats. Successfully grabbing the slab, Emilia hid it behind her back and very slowly tried to inch her way out of the dining room so she would not be noticed. Then, everyone's attention was brought to Luisa, who started loudly sobbing at the piano due to the fact that she could no longer carry it.

Confused by the oddness of the whole dinner situation, Alma firmly asked what was going on. Dolores had then apparently reached her breaking point and began shouting about the vision of Mirabel, the miracle, and how they were all doomed. At this exact moment, when Emilia was almost out of the dining room, two of the rats from earlier ran under Emilia's skirt and up her leg. A startled Emilia threw her hands up, and the slab went flying across the room before landing on the table right in front of Alma. Safe to say that dinner was ruined.

A short while later, Alma exchanged some harsh words with Mirabel. Emilia could never understand why the woman was always so hard on Mirabel. Her youngest niece was such a sweet, talented young lady, and certainly never deserved to be treated any differently than the rest of the family. Yes, dinner was admittedly a disaster but still.....

Sometimes Emilia wondered why she was granted a gift despite not being born into the family. Would she have been treated like Mirabel if she hadn't? Mirabel would never say it out loud, but Emilia knew that it hurt the girl even more not getting a gift knowing that even an "outsider" was given one. Emilia personally couldn't care less if she could still breathe underwater or not; the older woman knew her own self worth. If Emilia could have given Mirabel her gift somehow, she would have a long time ago; unfortunately that was just not possible.

Always being the one to defend others, Emilia interrupted Alma, who was berating Mirabel for tonight's fiasco, to come to her niece's defence. Alma then focused her attention on Emilia and claimed that she should be quiet and not interfere with matters that don't concern her. Mirabel, thankful for her aunt's support, took this opportunity to leave. Frustrated and fed up with Alma, Emilia wordlessly trudged up the stairs towards her room.

Emilia needed to calm down before she could make anymore decisions. Sitting cross-legged by the waterfall in her room, Emilia closed her eyes and took deep breaths. She softly smiled as she remembered how she and Bruno used to end stressful days by meditating together by this same waterfall. Emilia then realized that since the time Bruno disappeared, she never really relaxed or had fun as much as she used to. In fact, for the last ten years, she'd worked more than she ever had before. Emilia supposed that keeping busy kept her mind off certain unpleasant memories and thoughts.

After clearing her mind and reflecting on the situation for some time, Emilia decided that the first thing she needed to do before anything was find Mirabel; the two of them could decide how to fix things from there.

However, Emilia had not even left her own room yet, when Mirabel had found a secret passage that led into the walls of Casita and went inside.