A/N: Bittersweet Fluff, Light Angst, Family Feels
Encantober Day 10 Prompt: Animals
(Stuffed) Animals :)
She doesn't know they've kept them.
Every single one.
The unicorn – uni-donkey? – she made Luisa for her thirteenth birthday is still displayed on her bed, front and center in a place of honor.
The little capybara she'd made for Dolores when she was nine and Dolores was fifteen sits displayed on a shelf in Dolores' room, beside the carved wooden hummingbird her padre made for her.
The chameleon she made Camilo when they both turned twelve is stuffed in the organized mess beneath his bed. If anyone ever found it, he'd deny he even knew it was there, but he knows exactly where it is and sometimes he takes it out and squishes it whenever he's feeling particularly frustrated. He always apologizes to it afterward.
Pepa and Julieta were her first recipients, way back when she was six years old, when Agustín had begun giving Mirabel sewing lessons. The little stuffed heart and the little stuffed sun that she'd made as a result were given to her madre and her tía, respectively. Pepa still has the little sun – a sad little faded yellow blob of a pillow with a lopsided smiling face – tucked away in a keepsake chest so it doesn't get ruined when she rains. And Julieta still has the heart, displayed with love on a shelf in her room.
She'd also made a rat.
A sun, a heart, and – a rat.
She made the rat hoping one day her tío would come home and she could give it to him.
It was only fair. She made one for two, she had to make one for the third triplet.
The rat sits on her shelf in the nursery for nearly two years before it disappears. When she asks Casita what happened to it, the house simply shrugs its shutters and clicks its tiles. But by that time, she figures her tío isn't coming back and even if he did, he wouldn't feel left out because she was pretty sure her tía didn't have hers anymore either, and so it doesn't really matter.
(Bruno still has it, in his home within the walls.)
Her padre has a little stuffed needle with a little smiling face because eight year old Mirabel thought it was the funniest thing - the one needle that would never injure her father.
Tío Félix got a little stuffed tiple for his birthday when Mirabel was nine years old, and he keeps it in the same case he keeps his music in.
Even Isabela – Isabela keeps the little stuffed animal Mirabel made for her when Mirabel was seven and Isabela was thirteen. It's a little lopsided potato with a goofy face and green leafy hair and a little felt straw hat, too. It's so ugly it's adorable, and Isabela keeps it hidden in her room in a place where neither Mirabel nor Abuela will see it.
She's never made a stuffed animal for Abuela. She's made other things – plenty of practical things, plenty of pretty things – but she's never found anything quite right for Abuela in the lovie department. 'Snuggly', 'cuddly', and 'warm' are not words she's used to describe her grandmother…in a long time. Abuela might have accepted a six-year-olds' attempt at a stuffed art project, but now? At fifteen? It would just be seen as another way she'd messed up.
(She doesn't know they've kept them. All of them have kept the things she's made for them. Every single one.)
She hopes, as she bites the thread to break and tie it, putting the finishing touches on the jaguar she's made Antonio for his gift ceremony, that he'll appreciate it and remember how much she loves him whenever he snuggles it.
She doesn't realize it, but they've all hung onto the stuffed animals she's made them, as surely as she is hanging onto hope that one day, she'll be special enough to earn a miracle of her own.
She doesn't realize it, but she is already a miracle - she is already the thread that holds her family together.
A/N: Yes, Isabela's stuffed animal is based on her little potato people concept art. : )