"Mariano!" Dolores called out as she did the dishes from breakfast. She didn't actually have to do them, as there were plenty of people who had volunteered to handle them and she had a lot to do that day but for Dolores the chore wasn't a chore at all. It was relaxation. The warmth of the water, the repetitive motion of the cloth, the satisfaction as she saw each dish go into the drying rack nice and clean. It helped her center herself and that was exactly what she needed that morning. "Did you remember to pick up the extra chairs?"

Silence greeted her.

Letting out a sigh Dolores wiped her hands with a towel before lightly touching her forehead wrap, allowing her gift to activate. Her ears wiggled before she rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away, the sounds becoming muted once more. "I CAN HEAR YOUR TRYING TO SNEAK OUT! YOU DID FORGET!"

Her husband didn't even try to hide the sound of him fleeing out the door to get the chairs.

"You'd think by now he'd have learned," Ernesto commented with a chuckle as he entered the kitchen, Bruno just a step behind him carrying a crate on each shoulder.

"Ernesto!" Dolores exclaimed in delight, twisting around and running up to Mirabel's uncle and giving him a hug. "Tio Bruno! When did you get in?"

"Only a few minutes ago. I decided to just use the link. "

"We figured with how many people were going to be coming for the party that it would be better to take a shortcut," Bruno said, dropping the crates down.

"Plus it let you escape Melody's parents rather quickly…" Ernesto teased, causing Bruno to blush.

"Oh?" Dolores said. "I wondered why you volunteered to get the whale bones and blubber." She looked in the crates and nodded in approval at what lay inside. When one was raising a half tiefling one learned what special treats they liked.

"Nothing happened," Bruno protested.

"Sure it didn't," Ernesto said with a smirk.

"That's right, nothing happened," Bruno repeated.

"I believe you."

"Good."

"Good."

The two paused.

"Though…" Ernesto said, "I heard her mention she was coming to the party…"

"A lot of people are coming!" Bruno protested. "Anna and Elsa-"

"Party members," Ernesto reminded him.

"Did they officially rejoin?" Dolores asked as Casita took over doing the dishes for her, allowing Dolores to move to the table and pour some coffee for the three of them. She had met the two queens a few years ago when an issue had arisen concerning some mirror shards.

Ernesto nodded. "Anna wants her daughter to have a chance to rule without her hovering and Elsa has been looking to go out and explore. Tonight is actually their first official adventure as full party members."

"You've gotten a lot of new members recently," Dolores stated.

"We had to replenish," Ernesto said with a shrug. "Everyone is still officially members but half of them are part timers now for the most part." Even though the party had seen many changes over the years for Dolores and the rest of the Madrigal extended family The Party would always be those that had arrived the night of Mirabel's belated birthday party. "I know they'd all come if I called but I want them to be able to lead their own lives and not feel like they HAVE to put everything down to help out when there is a dungeon that must be dealt with."

"Who did you get?" Dolores asked. "Anyone we'd know?"

"Miguel Rivera, for one," Ernesto said with a sly smile.

"Mi… Miguel Rivera? You don't mean-"

"The musician? Oh yeah. Turns out because of something that happened when he was a kid he's a Ghost Caller. That is real helpful."

"How did you get THEE Miguel Rivera?!" Dolores exclaimed; she had all his records and her and Mariano loved to dance to his music.

"Saharah knows him. With her and Luisa both on tour she asked if he wanted to take a break from performing and he said yes."

Bruno nodded. "He's been doing really good. Got us out of a few sticky spots already."

Dolores just gripped her coffee cup in both hands. "Miguel Rivera…" She suddenly snapped her head up. "What other famous faces did you add?"

"I'm not adding 'famous faces'," Ernesto complained.

"To be fair we do have two queens in the party now…" Bruno commented as a few of his rats scurried out of his robes and set about grabbing some cookies to nibble on, sitting politely beside their owner.

Ernesto sighed. "As for who else we have Mei Ling… she is a werepanda." Dolores made a face at that. "It's more frightening than it sounds."

Bruno nodded. "She can be as tall as Dryft…" He looked out the window, "or as tall as Dryft."

"She… ah," Dolores said as a shadow passed over the house; she wasn't sure what had caused their friendly neighborhood god to stop his meditations early but figured it had to be something important. "Anyone else?"

"Barley Lightfoot," Ernesto said with a slight groan.

"What's the problem with him?" Dolores asked, confused by the man's clear despondency.

Bruno chimed in. "Barley is VERY good at what he does. He's a machinist. Built us an 'adventure wagon' that is basically a massive rolling fortress. Makes for getting across dangerous terrain all the easier. And we've had a few traps that he was able to disassemble."

"The problem is that he's… curious."

"Curious?"

Bruno nodded. "Yeah."

"The kid has no magic," Ernesto stated. "Not a drop. His father was a great wizard and his brother has a talent for it but Barley doesn't have any. But he LOVES magic and lore and all that… he's a great researcher too." Ernesto sighed. "He just asks so many questions!"

Dolores chuckled at that. "I bet that makes Anton happy."

"He spends half our adventures fleeing," Ernesto admitted.

Dolores shook her head at that before turning to Bruno. "So, about Melody…"

Bruno groaned. "I thought we'd dropped that."

"We had not," Dolores told her tio. "So is she the mermaid that mama said you slept with?"

Bruno glowered. "You are FAR too young to talk about sleeping with people."

She just shot her tio a dark look. "I have a son, Bruno."

"I assume that he just appeared thanks to fairy magic. Just like how me, your mama, and Julieta did."

"…because you don't want to think about abuela having-"

"NOPE!"

Ernesto shrugged. "Well, we can drop it, if you want…" He paused, letting the silence hang in the air. "By the way, you ever notice that Melody's son kind of resembles you."

"Really?" Bruno said, blinking.

"Y-up," Ernesto said with a smirk. "Also real interesting how he suddenly gained the gift to hypnotize people just by singing when he turned five…"

"I think Melody's grandma was a siren." Dolores raised an eyebrow and Ernesto subtly shook his head 'no'.

"And she did want to have some private time with you, right? Was really pushing for you to go someplace private?"

Bruno rubbed his chin. "She did say she wanted to talk to me about something without people around…"

Dolores looked at her uncle and wondered if he really could be that dense.

Before she could say any more she heard a giggle and turned to see Gahoole walk in with a precious bundle in her wings.

"And that's why your Tia Mirabel isn't allowed back at the Jazz Hall."

The little boy she was carrying turned before letting out a gasp, reaching out pale purple hands. "Tio Bruno!"

"Hey there Gabrio!" Bruno said, taking the little boy from Gahoole and swinging him around before giving him a hug, one hand reaching up to stroke the small horns that popped out of his curly dark hair. "Someone is getting big!" he declared as Gabrio wrapped his hand around Bruno's finger. "I hear its someone birthday today."

"Its me!" Gabrio exclaimed excitedly.

"How old are you? 50?" Ernesto teased.

The boy giggled, covering his mouth as Bruno shifted him to rest on his hip. "I'm today five! That's this many!" He held out his hand, splaying out his fingers. "Right Gahoole?"

"Right sweetheart," the owlkin said. "Ernesto, Bruno."

"Good to see you, Gahoole," Ernesto said. "You look…" he paused, looking the owlkin female up and down. "VERY good." He knew that the owlkin was getting up there in years, which was why she had decided 8 years ago to stop being a full time party member, remaining in the village with the Madrigals and overseeing the creation of an Owlkin Colony to the north of Casita. He hadn't been worried to find her bedridden but looking at her in that moment he was startled to find her looking better than she had when he'd first met her nearly 40 years earlier!

Gahoole, for her part, let out a sigh of annoyance. "Its Dryft's fault."

"Huh?" Bruno asked.

"Haven't you noticed that you two have been feeling a bit more energetic?" Dolores chimed in, taking her son and moving him away from the crates before he saw the whale bones within; fresh marrow was a treat for tieflings and she wanted to surprise him at his birthday party. If he saw what treats she had he would beg and plead for some.

"Well… I guess I have," Bruno admitted, rolling his shoulders. "I just thought it was good genetics." He gestured at his decidedly wrinkle-free face and his hair which was darker than it had been when he and Mirabel had first returned to Casita.

"Dryft," Gahoole echoed. "He gave you some rations before you left… been stocking up Bureau as well."

Ernesto frowned. "What did he do?"

"He cured old age," Dolores said with a sigh, handing Gabrio a muffin and giving him a pat on the rump towards the door, sending the boy out to play. She could see some of the younger children from the village had come to see if he wanted to play tag and knew that there would be parents around to keep an eye on her child. That settled she stood back up to find Ernesto and Bruno gaping at her.

"He… wait?"

Gahoole rolled her eyes. "Dryft realized that all the symptoms of old age are caused by cells in our bodies breaking down. It's far more advanced than that… most of it went even over my head. The point is he decided that if one can fix a broken bone they can fix a broken cell and…"

"We're immortal," Dolores commented. "Or close to it now. You eat some food he prepared and suddenly you begin getting younger until you hit your prime. We figure that Gahoole is currently around 50 years old."

Ernesto and Bruno just stared at the two.

"We had a talk with him," Gahoole said. "Tried to get him to understand…"

~One Year Ago~

"DRYFT!" Gahoole screamed, flapping her wings about as she marched into Casita after her and Dolores' trip to the market. "STOP MAKING EVERYONE IMMORTAL!"

"But old age is a sickness!" Dryft whined.

"STOP BREAKING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!" Gahoole yelled.

Dolores, much more quiet, gestured at a building down in the village proper. "They've had to convert the old folk's home into a skate park!"

"Skating is good exercise-"

"NOT THE POINT!"

~MC~MC~MC~

"We finally had to ban him from the kitchens but we are pretty sure he taught others because none of us have begun aging again," Dolores said. "The undertakers were the most annoyed."

"The only one we allow him to actively practice on is the necromancer locked in the basement."

"Wait what?" Ernesto said in confusion.

"Oh yeah," Gahoole said, waving her hand dismissively. "About… 5 months ago?... a necromancer came to the village seeking to tap into the power of the Encanto in order to perform a wide spread resurrection spell to make an army."

"WHY he thought that was a good idea when we aren't secretive about the War God that lives here, I'll never know," Dolores said. There were several travelers who had thought that Encanto's Pledge of Peace was a joke and they could easily dominate the town… only to end up wetting themselves when someone called for Dryft. And that was assuming Pepa or Agustin didn't handle them first. "It wasn't even Dryft who stopped him… Mariano ran into him and the fool thought that just because he's a tiefling that he was evil and would be all for having a zombie army. Mariano knocked him out and dragged him back here." Gahoole shot Dolores a look and she grimaced. "And… I might have been a bit hormonal due to being pregnant with Celeste and told Dryft he could do what he wanted with him when he asked to look him over."

"In our defense Casita hid that Dryft was keeping him locked in the basement and was experimenting on him…"

"DRYFT tortured someone?!" Bruno exclaimed.

"It is a necromancer," Ernesto reasoned, glowering at that. "He's still down there?"

"Oh yeah," Dolores said, tapping her foot three times on the floor. Casita shifted and the tiles moved to reveal a trap door, which Dolores opened to reveal a pale human sorcerer in tattered robes.

"Please let me die…" the man begged.

"No," Gahoole said. "IN fact I think its time for another treatment before the party."

"Please no, no… not another enema!"

"Another and another!" Gahoole declared before shutting the door and letting Casita seal it up.

"…I think we need to pencil in a few more therapy sessions," Bruno muttered.