A/N: This is a heavy one. Warnings for: blood, stabbing, body horror. If you'd like to skip it, look for the line break.


He wasn't always like this.

The day it happened was like any other since his capture. The bruja came for her daily visit, carrying broth and water and a stale slice of pan. She'd lay it down just out of reach of his chain and demand visions until he'd be too weak to continue. Then she'd shove food into his shaking hands and sweep out of the room, leaving him in near total darkness.

Most days, he could barely remember who he was, let alone what the sky was like or how the wind felt on his face, or the taste of fresh food or the softness of a bed. All he had was the scraps the bruja brought him, the sparse words she would snap at him, a mountain of sand, and the sliver of light from the open door.

He didn't know how long he'd been chained to the floor by his ankle in the large, dome-shaped room, but the bruja would bring him cold water to clean himself with, sometimes, and he'd catch sight of his blurry reflection and realized he'd grown up without even noticing. He barely recognized himself—now a young man instead of a boy.

There were rats living with him, scurrying around in the dark. He gave them pieces of his bread and slowly named them all—Valentina, Imelda, Jorge, the list growing and changing as the rats lived and died. He invented stories for them; romances and tragedies and adventures, anything to pass the time.

(Later, when he was able to reflect on those lost years without weeping, he'd attribute the rats with keeping him sane.)

He'd remember, sometimes, his life Before. But after so long, it would only come as whispers of memory, running through his mind like the sand around him. An impression of a warm embrace; the ghost of a laugh; someone singing a lullaby, running careful fingers through his hair—and then it would fade away, leaving him cold.

Bruno, he used to whisper, after the bruja was gone. He'd reach for the glowing shards of an unwelcome vision—deemed unworthy for one reason or another and promptly shattered on the stone floor, just out of reach—and whisper his name over and over.

My name is Bruno Madrigal. Bruno, Bruno, Bruno. Pepa, Julieta, Mamá, Papá, they'll come for me, they'll come, they'll—

But, of course, they never did.

On that day, the final day, the bruja entered the room, light flooding in behind her, momentarily blinding him. Before he could get to his feet, she was demanding a vision.

He gathered the sand around him and began his ritual—digging a circle and sitting cross-legged inside it, taking slow, measured breaths to center himself.

The bruja was always impatient, but she never interrupted him.

(She had, once, and he had gone nearly catatonic in his terror that he wasn't able to summon a vision for days afterward, no matter what she did to him.)

Now, he tried to take as long as possible, to drag it out, make her day more inconvenient, but eventually he'd open his eyes to green, green, green, and the vision would begin.

She never told him what she was looking for and he never asked. This one started as they always did, with the focus on the bruja, out in the world conducting her business. He never tried to make sense of the visions; he'd just let them play out until he couldn't maintain it any longer.

But this time, he felt a pull behind his eyes and the vision shifted, like someone was slowly turning a dial. Suddenly, strangers appeared before him in the whipping sand.

No, not strangers, he realized with a jolt. That was—that was Pepa, older than he knew her to be, standing in the middle of a field, a storm raging around her, her arms outstretched to the sky. But the vision didn't linger on his sister alone, and quickly shifted to his other triplet.

Julieta was sitting at a table, a man he didn't recognize sitting next to her, holding her hand. A teenaged girl with glasses sat with them, and he watched as the three of them joined hands, comforting each other.

More faces he didn't recognize—a small boy conversing seriously with a toucan; an older boy transforming his face into increasingly grotesque expressions to the delight of a gaggle of children around him; a woman dancing in a field of flowers; a wedding, Pepa embracing a young woman in a white dress—

As quickly as they appeared, they vanished, and he ended the vision. An emerald tablet materialized before him, and he clutched it with both hands, hardly daring to breathe, tears flowing freely down his face—

His mother, with more gray in her hair and lines on her face, but still his Mamá, smiled softly back at him, surrounded by his sisters and their husbands and their children. They were alive, they were happy

"Madrigals," the bruja breathed. "At last."

And he knew.

The bruja had never stopped looking for them, and never would stop now that she knew what they looked like. That must have been what she was looking for all along, searching his visions for any sign of their magic.

Of his family.

"No," he said, taking several steps back, his chain preventing him from going any further. He pressed the tablet to his chest. "You can't touch them."

The bruja only laughed. "Oh, little seer," she said. "It's only a matter of time." She reached out a hand, her fingertips stained black as pitch, and yanked.

He fell, hitting the sand with a dull thud, his ears ringing. He felt the fetter jerk him forward by his ankle, dragging him across the floor until he was at the bruja's feet.

She would take it from him. She would take it and use it to find his family, his–his little sobrinos. He had sobrinos.

No.

He smashed the tablet on the floor, the green shards sliding and spinning away from him. He clutched the longest shard in his hand.

The bruja sighed. "Always so difficult."

He didn't think. The shard cut into his palm and as she bent down to grab him he stabbed up. She gasped and he felt liquid, warm and sticky, coat his hands. He kept pushing until she fell, her blood flowing into the sand.

He let go of the shard and fell back. His chest was heaving. His bloody hands threaded through his hair as he struggled to get enough air into his body.

"Rata."

He flinched. She wasn't dead she wasn't dead she—

The bruja, her face impossibly white and twisted with rage, raised a red hand and pointed at him.

"Rata," she repeated, rasping and spitting blood. "Una rata eres y una rata serás. Así será." She laughed wetly, laying her head down in the sand. "Así será," she repeated, releasing one last shuddering breath.

He felt like he was falling. He seized, his back arching, his mouth open in a silent scream. Black spots danced across his eyes, and he, blessedly, passed out.

When he woke, it was night. Moonlight flooded the room and for a moment he forgot where he was.

Then he saw the body. He flinched violently, scrambling backward so quickly that the chain attached to his fetter snapped.

He froze. With shaking limbs, he raised his hands to his face, and saw the claws, and the fur, felt his snout, caught a glimpse of a tail—

He screamed


Bruno had barely finished speaking before Mirabel tugged him into an embrace, burying her face into his shoulder.

"Ay, Mirabel," he murmured. Tentatively, like he was afraid she would break or disappear, he patted her back. "It's—"

"Don't you dare," Mirabel said, her voice muffled by his ruana, "say it's fine."

Bruno's mouth snapped shut. After a few moments, Mirabel reluctantly pulled away.

"How…how long were you…?" She couldn't finish.

Bruno shrugged, looking away. "My guess? Maybe…fi-five years? Maybe–maybe more."

She wasn't sure what to say. What could you say, after a story like that? No platitudes would ever be enough.

"Mirabel?" Bruno asked. He was wringing his hands, half-hiding in his hair. "I'm–I'm sorry, Mirabel, I–I'm a terrible tío—"

Mirabel frowned. "You have nothing to be sorry for—"

"Ay, no, but you're a kid," Bruno said, shaking his head hard. "I shouldn't have—you don't need to–to worry about all this heavy stuff—"

"You were a kid too, Tío Bruno," Mirabel gently pointed out. Bruno hesitated, frowning, and she continued, "And—and you saved us. You sacrificed so much for…for us, for people who are practically strangers to you—"

"You all could–could never be strangers, Mirabel," Bruno said, cutting her off. He gave her his approximate smile. "Los quiero a todos."

Mirabel burst into tears, pushing her glasses up into her hair to keep them from fogging and burying her face in her hands. A dam had broken; all the emotion she'd felt since she stepped foot in the Encanto yesterday—yesterday—catching up to her at once, and she wept—for Bruno, for Casita, for her family, for the people of the Encanto…and maybe a little bit for herself.

She felt herself gently pulled into another embrace, Bruno wrapping his arms around her this time and holding her tight.

"Have I ever told you, just…how glad I am that you're here?" Mirabel whispered once her tears subsided.

"You–you may have mentioned it," Bruno said. Mirabel choked out a laugh.

After a moment, he patted her back again and she sat up, wiping her eyes for the second time, feeling a little embarrassed.

"It's very late," Bruno said gently. "You should–you should probably go to bed."

Mirabel hesitated. She did not want to leave him alone, not now.

She heard a squeak behind her. His rats raced past her to clamber up onto Bruno's shoulders. He reached up to pet them and one sniffed suspiciously at his hands.

"Sí, sí, they're different now, lo siento," he murmured to them, stroking the other rat's soft fur. It pancaked on his shoulder under the attention.

He looked up at Mirabel, his eyes soft. "I'll be okay, Mirabel. Besides, it might–it might look suspicious if you're not where you're supposed to be in the morning."

Mirabel sighed. He had a point.

"I'll be back first thing," she promised. "With breakfast! And probably a guest or two." She had no doubt one or more members of the family would be joining her tomorrow morning.

Bruno smiled. "That'd be…perfect. Now, shoo. I'm–I'm exercising my right as tío to send you to bed." He flapped his hands at her.

Mirabel giggled, standing. "Okay, okay, I'm going!" She walked to the ladder and swung her legs over, stopping at the first rung. "Hey, Tío? Buenas noches. Te quiero."

"Te quiero, sobrina," Bruno said, his expression impossibly fond. "And thank you."


Translations:

1. Bruno y La Bruja - Bruno and the Witch

2. Pan - bread

3. Rata - rat

4. Una rata eres y una rata serás. Así será - A rat you are and a rat you will be. So shall [it be]

5. Los quiero a todos - I love you all