The Mask I Wear

When I Wake

NOTE: I need to credit TheSovereigntyofReality on AO3 for helping come up with part of the dialogue with Bruno. ("I knew you'd react this way. I knew you'd blame Mirabel if you saw that vision, and damned if you didn't. You'd treat her the same way you always treated me.")

After the dust had settled and the magic had cleared, what remained was the rubble and ruin of the Madrigal family's beloved Casita. Mirabel let out a smattering of rough, dry coughs, trying to clear the dust coating her throat, finally awake once more. She was cramped under a makeshift shelter, and she felt a tear slide down her cheek. One of her Casita's last acts was to build a cave to protect her. Dolores's favorite piano was leaned up against a large slab, from the floor or from the walls, she didn't know which. It leaned together like a triangle, the wood creaking and shifting began to make Mirabel nervous the longer she was curled underneath, the massive weight hanging over her head like an axe.

Wincing and unfurling herself, she looked down to what she had desperately tried to protect. The candle. It was nothing more than drippings left in a circular base. A thin disk of broken promises and shattered dreams, all that was left of the magic. "No." she breathed the singular word, devastation at her failure to protect the very thing that provided them with their gifts, had provided them with their Encanto. A question struck her, and she swallowed thickly. Now that it was gone, would Encanto still exist in the same way it had for years? Could it? Without the magic that had created it? Mirabel wasn't sure if she wanted to find out the answer, but slowly she inched her way out from under the debris where she had been kept safe.

Without thought, she shakily brushed her hands on her skirt of blues and her no longer white shirt. Her hands were coated in dust and there was traces of wax under her fingernails from how tightly she'd clutched the diminishing candle. Her glasses seemed foggy as they were speckled with dirt and dust and grime and traces of something else she couldn't yet identify. Stumbling, she kept the candle clutching close to her heart, wishing she could reignite it with her desperate will alone.

"Mirabel!" a voice called for her, drowning in their own tears. Her Mama was crying, but Mirabel didn't know why. Why would her Mama be crying for her? Mixing in now she could hear more voices screaming for other people. "Dolores!" Tia Pepa's voice was desperate and just as tear-filled as Julieta's. Two mothers' screaming out for their daughters made Mirabel feel sick as she remembered Dolores falling from the second floor, face twisted in pain with her eyes screwed shut and hands clamped over her ears. She too had not made it out and that terrified Mirabel, but at least she might still be protected by Mariano, and that was the only thing that comforted her regarding her one and only prima. Her heart was back in her throat as she wondered if anyone knew about Tio Bruno. He had been up by the stairs to his tower room and had probably scampered off back there like a skittish mouse once Abuela had seen the vision puzzled together in the center of the floor.

Everything felt fuzzy and muffled as she inched towards the voices as the aches became more and more prominent, throbbing and oozing pain. She leaned up against the pillar next to her, attempting to stay on her feet.

"Oh hush!" Abuela almost snapped at the wailing mothers. "Once Casita has been rebuilt, we'll be better off without them, just like we were better off without Bruno." She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, "If only he'd have shown me this vision like he was supposed to, we would have been in a much better state now. She wouldn't have caused our Casita to collapse, and Dolores wouldn't have led Isabela and Mariano astray from my plans for them. 'Her voice was cold and even without seeing her, she knew her demeanor was rigid and unyielding.

Mirabel twitched in discomfort. Better off without Mirabel? She could believe it, she did believe it. But better off without Dolores? She could not fathom how that could possibly be true. Even with Tio Bruno, she couldn't quite see it. Didn't quite understand why they would wish the others gone, why Abuela would. Perhaps it was their reputations that did it. Tio Bruno the unnerving and scary bad omen who's visions negatively sealed your fate. Dolores was made out to be the town gossip when she couldn't control what she heard, and all she did was follow Abuela's instructions to share everything she heard with her. Mirabel herself who was truly un-special and ungifted and the whole of Encanto knew just how un-precious she was.

Her heart pounded and she began to hyperventilate, slowly sliding down and hugging her knees to her chest, wincing from the pain it caused, but welcoming it all the same. As she fought to control her breathing, she tried to focus on the pain in her knee, the swelling of her ankle. She counted her heartbeats. When her breathing slowed and hearing returned to her, she turned back into the conversation on the other side of the rubble behind her back.

"I cannot believe you Mama." it was Tio Bruno, finally confronting his own demons, his own painful history to the gasping surprise of the rest of their family at his sudden appearance. To them he was run ragged, his hair scraggly and unkept, dark circles under his eyes, spackle under his fingernails and dirt embedded into his clothes and skin. "No wait, I can!" he jabbed a finger at her as he exploded like he'd been waiting for so long to finally confront her on how she treated her own family. "I knew it- I knew- I knew you'd react this way! I knew it! I knew you'd blame Mirabel if I showed you that vision! She was damned if I did, and I was damned if I didn't!" he waved his hands in the air. "I left so you wouldn't treat her the same way you always treated me." he revealed, "But a lot of good that did since you did it anyways. I left because of you- not her - you. It was always about you and yet you still didn't change. Still, you don't know how to accept that you alone have created the cracks that divide this family like the cracks that have destroyed our home."

Mirabel didn't want to hear any more. No matter how much she agreed somewhere inside of her, they were the same sentiments she recalled sharing out loud before everything crumbled around her, she still didn't know if she could handle it. She wasn't strong like the rest of them. Her footsteps were shuffled and still somehow light enough that the scraping sounds could go unheard. Or perhaps that had little to do with her and more to do with the shouting match that had begun between the other Madrigals who got outside to safety.

As she passed through the ruins of her home, she saw broken down furniture, cracked pictures, torn drapes. She almost moved to look when she saw where they were laying under what remained of the banisters that were collapsed around them, creating a narrow and so low that it was likely they would barely be able to move and get out from under. From what she could see Dolores was tucked in Mariano's arms protectively. He had clearly attempted to shield her - first from the fall and then from the falling of debris around them. A strangled cry almost escaped when she saw the red splotches making her already red skirt darker than it should be, the splatters on the yellow and white of their shirts.

Instead of going to them like she wants to, she stumbles away with a worried whimper and goes until she no longer knows where she is. The woods are dark and scary, they always have been without Isabela by her side on the safety of Luisa's shoulders. She hates going out in the dark amongst the jagged shadows and sharp edges of thorns and branches. The more she stumbled through the dark, the more her heart constricted in a combination made of her own fear and the pain she had left in her ruined home.

Finally, she collapsed next to a lake, and in the stillness, she could see herself reflected in the water. There she saw her dirty face, only clean where the tears had trailed down them. Even through her filth speckled glasses she could see what the dark unidentifiable substance was. It was dark and oozing and red, and it was coming directly from her forehead. "Oh." she whispered, reaching up and coming back with it on her fingertips. Not that she thought about it often, but she had the distinct thought that it was redder than she thought it'd be. She hummed, when it didn't hurt. Turning she let herself curl up next to the water with the candle still in her hands as she curled back in on herself. The grass was soft and comfortable as she settled into it and the air was warm, leaving her with a decently comfortable place to fall asleep. And sleep she did.

END NOTE: Just a reminder that I am fed through your views, votes, and comments! Your comments sustain me the most out of them, so keep them coming please! I love hearing about what you thought and your favorite parts or the things you hope to see next. <3