(3rd POV)
Mirabel followed her brother's path and paused when several more rats with visions ran with Carlota, when one of the rats seemed to fly up. She gasped sharply when lightning flashed, revealing a man with his hood up, and a scowl o his face. With another flash, the man was gone, and Mirabel gave chase. "Wait!" The man had a good headstart, but Mirabel has plenty of experience in parkour as well. "Hey!" She called, sliding into different walls.
The man jumped onto the rafters, and Mirabel took the path underneath, sliding down to break a piece of stairs the man had ran down. She slipped into a crack and crashed into a wall, and kept running.
(On the other side of the wall)
"It's okay, mami." Camilo spoke softly, a genuine smile playing across his face, as he prepared a cup of tea for his mother. Pepa eased back in her chair, her cloud hovering over her, rumbling lowly. "Deep breath in, deep breath out." Camilo cooed as Pepa started to reach for the cup with shaking hands. The crash from Mirabel on the other side, startled the emotional Madrigal and in her shock, her cloud zapped Camilo in the face, making him shift unwillingly into his Papa Felix, primo (Y/N), Abuela, and his Tio Agustin, yelping as he was shocked, had hot tea poured down his back, backed into the dresser, and the teapot land on his foot.
Pepa watched in horror as her lightning brought a series of pain to her mijo.
(With Mirabel)
She continued to chase the man, getting closer and closer to him, yelling for him to stop, before stopping in her tracks as he jumped across a huge hole in the floorboards. The man jumped across with ease, and continued running. Not letting him escape when she was so close, Mirabel took a deep breath and followed the man's movements, adjusting her glasses and yelped as the floorboards dropped from under her, making her shriek in surprise as she grasped desperately at the wood, keeping her from falling into the abyss below.
"Help! Help! Casita! Casita!" she hyperventalted, fear running through her veins. "(Y/N)! Help me! Help me!" She begged before something caught her from falling. Mirabel gasped, looking up to see the man she'd been chasing: Tio Bruno.
He grunted from where he was laying on his stomach, holding desperatly to her, worry clear in his face.
"You're very sweaty." he stated, before the floor snapped and he was dangling over the abyss.
Mirabel grabbed onto a branch, and smiled when Bruno smiled back at her, both shrieking when Carlota popped out from Bruno's ruana, startling the younger Madrigal into letting go of them. He was caught by a ice slide, making the two come up to the floor. They looked at each other before looking at a nearby ice statue that was wearing an unimpressed look, before disappering.
The two looked at each other before Bruno said flatly, "Bye."
"Wait, hold on." Mirabel followed the man closely, groaning as she hit her funny bone on the wall. "Ow. Why did you take the vision?"
"Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Knock on wood." Bruno knocked on the wooden doorway, before crossing his fingers and holding his breath as he passed support beams and continued with his rituals.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock on wood. You were never supposed to see that vision. No one was." Bruno answered his niece, walking over to a bowl. "A little salt. Sugar" Mirabel spit the offending seaonings out as Bruno threw them over his left shoulder, before jumping over the cracks on the floor, chanting.
Mirabel looked at the wall and the cracks that were covered in paste. "Wait, have you been in here, patching the cracks?" "Oh, that? No,no,no. I'm too scared to go near those things. All the patchings done by Hernando." Bruno nodded.
"Who is Hernando?" Mirabel stared at her uncle whose hood was now covering his face. "I'm Hernando and I'm scared of nothing!" He declared loudly, before taking his hood off to give his sobrina an awkward smile.
"It's actually me. I used to say my real Gift was 'acting'." He chuckled before putting a bucket on his head, ignoring Mirabel's look.
"I'm Jorge. I make the spackle." He held up a trowel in his hand, his voice echoing slightly.
"How long have you been......back here?" Mirabel wondered, face contorted in uncomfortableness.
(In Bruno's hidey room)
"You...never left." Mirabel stated as she obsereved the rats roaming free in the room, as Bruno fidgeted anxiously.
"Well, I left my tower, which was, y'know, a lot of stairs, and here, eh, kitchen adjacent." He clicked his tongue as he grinned at the arepa. "Ooh,ohh, plus, free entertainment! So, so, what do you like? Whattya like? You like sports? Game shows? Telenovelas? Their love could never be." He declared dramatically, smiling wistfully,before collapsing in his chair, as Mirabel finally speaking up. "I don't understand."
Apparently, neither did Bruno, as he began to explain what the show was about: "Well, because she's his aunt and she has amnesia, so she can't remember that she's his aunt. You see, it's like a very forbidden kind of...." Mirabel rolled her eyes slightly, feeling exasperated.
"I don't understand why you left, but didn't leave." "Oh, well, because, huh, the mountains around the Encanto are pretty tall." He chuckled nervously before going to grab his arepa. "And, uh, like I said, free food and everything. Yeah, you guys love the free food, don't ya? Always hungry, never satistfied." Mirabel narrowed her eyes as she say a glimmer of light peer through, before going to peek out. She gasped softly as she saw the dinning room, and looked down to see a hand drawn plate with the name 'Bruno' written sloppily across.
"Yeah, my-my Gift wasn't helping the family." Bruno spoke softer than he had since Mirabel found him again. "But, uh, I love my family, y'know? I just don't know how to..I just don't know how to...Well, anyway, I think you should go, because, um, I don't really have a good reason, but if I did, you'd be like 'I should go, because that's a good reason.' " Mirabel frowned and hesitated before going to sit next to her uncle.
"Why was I in your vision? Tio Bruno? I just wanted to make the family proud of me.Just once. But if I should stop, if I'm hurting my family, just tell me." Mirabel's voice broke as Bruno turned to look at her with sadness in his eyes. "I can't tell you." He finally spoke before leaning forward to put the vision together, the memory of that night flashing in his mind.
"Because I don't know, sobrina. I had this vision the night that you didn'y get your Gift. Tu Abuela worried about the magic, so she begged me and (Y/N) to look in the future, to see what it meant. And I saw the magic in danger. Our house breaking. And then, and then, and then I saw you. But the vision was different. It...It would change. And there was no one answer, no clear fate, like your future was undecided. (Y/N), he also looked into his future ice, and he said he saw the same thing. But I told him not to tell Abuela because I knew how it was going to look, I knew what everyone would think because I'm Bruno and everyone always assumes the worst, so....so," He sighed, finishing his story as he watched Mirabel shift the vision back and forth.
"You left to protect me? (Y/N)'s always trying to help heal the family, and suffers from his anxiety, because of me?" "I dunno which way it'll go,but my guess...the family, the Encanto, and the fate of the mircle itself...Well, it's all gonna come down to you, sobrina."
Mirabel chewed her lip thoughtfully before Bruno took the vision out of her hands. "Or maybe, I'm wrong. You know, it's a mystery. That's why this vision is...pbbttttt." He blew a raspberry as he gave a thumbs down before gently ushering Mirabel out.
"Look, if I could help anymore, I would, but um, that's all I know." Bruno gave Mirabel's left shoulder a gentle fist bump as she stepped out. "Good luck. I wish I could've seen more." He closed the door behind her as she hugged her arms.
"Yeah." She looked down before pushing up her glasses.
"YEAH."
