"Oh no, the evil dragon will eat me! What do I do?" Dramatically, Luisa threw herself on the ground, almost burying her little sister beneath her. Mirabel didn't care; the four-year-old tried her best to hold the bigger girl down.
"Don't be afraid, my princess; I am Hernando, and I am scared of nothing!" Camilo announced, jumping down from the chair he was standing on, poking Mirabel with the broken broomstick like it was a sword.
"Be careful, Camilo." Bruno admonished, only half-serious. He wasn't officially babysitting, and as long as Camilo wouldn't gouge out anyone's eye, everything was good. His only nephew didn't hear him anyway when Mirabel stood up and growled at him. "Oh, then I will eat the princess AND Hernando! What a perfect dinner for the evil dragon of the Encanto!"
"Not as long as I fight with him! I am Jorge, and I will make lizard soup out of you!" Camilo changed his voice, trying to impersonate another character from his uncle's stories. Bruno couldn't help but smile. The passion for acting and storytelling was something he shared with his nephew, and if anyone would ever challenge him to a bet (and no one ever did because of his gift), he would say that Camilo's future gift must be something to help him with his stories. Maybe he could bring everything into the real world when he read something out loud.
Bruno tried to focus on the book he originally wanted to read in the kitchen but gave up when Camilo tried to rescue "princess Luisa" from "Mirabel, the „evil dragon of the Encanto". It was one of the stories he told the kids over and over again, and after a while, they started to replay it with changing roles.
"Oh, thank you, my firm and noble knights, but who of you is getting the kiss?" Bruno chuckled when "Hernando "stepped forward, claiming the kiss from the saved princess. Luisa always said she was playing along because of the "babies" but Bruno somehow knew she enjoyed playing the princess far more than doing tea parties with Isabela and Luisa. The strong girl was a true middle child; she didn't belong neither to her eleven-year-old sister nor to Camilo and Mirabel, who were only half her age.
"Could you tell us another story, Tío Bruno?" His youngest niece pulled on his ruana; her eyes begged him through her thick glasses. He sighed, realizing that trying to read in the dining area wasn't the brightest idea he had.
"What do you want to hear, sobrina?" He questioned, pulling out some backgrounds from an old puppet theatre he and his sisters played with when they were kids. "The tragic love story between Florentina Hernandez and Jorge Capello or the great race between the three fastest horses in the Encanto? "
"I take the horse race! "Camilo intervened, not willing to kiss his cousin again.
"Fine. "Bruno sighed, giving his three most loyal rats an apologetic look before he placed some tiny saddles on them. He would make sure to provide them with some extra food that night.
"It was a cold and stormy winter's night, when Parvel was born, a tiny foal with only…. "
"Didn't you forget something, Hermanito? "Bruno almost dropped one of his rats when his two sisters stand in the doorway.
"You PROMISED to help Isabela and Dolores with their sleepover, or do I have to remind you again?" Pepa raised an eyebrow, giving her brother a look he knew never meant something good.
"But mamá, he was in the middle of a story!" Camilo pledged, making his uncle nod in agreement.
"I know, but it is already time to go to bed." Julieta smiled softly at her nephew and daughters, ruffling through Camilo's hair. "I am sure Bruno can tell you the story tomorrow."
Bruno tried to say something, but his oldest sister gazed at him. Sometimes, he hated it when his siblings worked together, especially against him. He wished the three youngest Madrigals a good night, fully aware that now nothing stood between him and his sisters. He tried to leave the dining space with them, but Pepa pulled him back by the hood of his ruana.
"Not too fast, Bruno. "She said with a warning voice, leading him back into the room. "A few rules first. NO real vision, ok? "
"You know that I don't have full control over…. "
"NO real vision, Bruno! "Julieta repeated their sister. Great, two versus one was always the "best "part in being the only male triplet.
"What am I suppose to do? Telling them some scary stories? Playing with the ouija board? Giving them fake visions that they all have a perfect life and everything? "
"Exactly!" His sisters screamed in unity, making him jump back a little.
He frowned. "Great. Just ask the scary uncle with the creepy visions to play the babysitter; what should go wrong?" Bruno rolled his eyes; he could tell his sisters at least twenty things that could go wrong, and that were only the things that had nothing to do with his visions.
"Yeah, roll your eyes. You might find a brain back there." Pepa smirked, knocking on his head. "Besides, you always said that your true gift was "acting". I would say it is finally time to prove it."
"I said it ONE time Pepa, and that was twenty years ago. "Bruno clarified. She didn't have to know that he would still change his ability to see the future to an acting career in an instant if he had the chance to do so, or he would change it to almost anything if only the stupid visions wouldn't keep him awake at night. "You know as good as I do that it is not a good idea to play with my gift, especially using an ouija board is extremely…."
"Do we have to tell mamá whose fault it was that the donkeys ran loose for three days, Bruno? "Julieta glanced at him, stopping his excuses. "It is only a stupid ouija board. Just pretend that the glass moved on its own and let the girls have some fun. It's not like ghosts are real. "
Bruno deadpanned. "You are telling this while you are standing in a magic house, in the kitchen you prepare your magic food, to the guy that can literally SEE the future and sometimes the past. Do you really want to bet that ghosts aren't real, Julieta? "
He could feel Pepas hand patting on his arm. "You will either join the girls and tell them some ghost stories, or we will tell mamá from the little incident, and you will join the ghosts. Do you understand that, little brother? "
"You are only 3 minutes older than me; you have no right to call me little…." Before he could say anything else, Pepa and Julieta maneuvered him out of the dining area, closing the door behind him. Bruno sighed. Maybe joining the ghosts wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"C'mon, you can't tell me that THAT was the scariest story you know." The other six girls nodded in agreement. Some even rolled their eyes as if they were annoyed by his story. Bruno sighed. Girls between eleven and thirteen were probably the most challenging audience he ever had, he already told them four of his scariest stories, and they didn't seem to be impressed at all. Finally, one of the older girls shared her version of a good horror story: A mysterious killer that chased four teenagers through an ancient realm, hanging them on a hook each time he could catch one. Even when they were able to escape him, they woke up at the same campfire, doomed to play this game until the end of time.*
Maybe kids simply like gory splatter stories, more like his well-timed ghost stories with decent but nonetheless scary horror elements.
"Maybe it's time for me to leave then." Bruno shrugged, finally able to move his legs again. He wiped away some of the flowers that hung on his clothes, and something told him that he would need days to get rid of every single one of them.
"No, you have to stay!" Isabela pulled him down at his ruana, making him flop into the same cross-legged position he spent the last two hours in. "I am sure you know one more story." His oldest niece begged him with her big brown eyes, not wanting him to leave. Bruno liked to spend more time with the oldest daughters of his sisters, but he also knew that the only reason she and Dolores wanted him for their sleepover was that their friends assumed that he would be the best person to tell them some nightmarish stories. In their mind, he was the scariest person in the whole Encanto.
"It's not a good idea, Isabela." He sighed, giving her an apologetic look. "My headaches are back, and you know what that means." It wasn't even a lie: The reason Bruno wanted to spend a quiet night in the dining room was that he could feel the creeping pain of an approaching vision; staying in his tower would mean that he had no distraction to hold it back.
"Maybe we can just play with THIS!" Maria, one of the oldest girls, pulled an old ouija board from her back; a proud grin appeared on her face when the other girls gathered around her. "My older sister gave it to me; she told me it would be fun." Bruno and his nieces exchanged worried looks; all three knew that it was never a good idea to provocate such things.
"I don't think it is a good idea." Dolores muttered, but she was too quiet to be heard from the other girls.
"Dolores is right: This is NOT a good idea." Finally, the exited chatters stopped when everyone turned around to Bruno. "What do you want to happen? It will either not work, which would be a waste of time or worse: It will work, and you messed with things around you can't control." He didn't like to be the center of attention, but this time he had to. There was a reason why he had a tendency for superstitious acts; being the one who knew the most about the gifts and at the same time almost nothing about his own powers always made Bruno nervous.
"Oh c'mon, what could seriously go wrong? "One of Isabela's friends tried to act cooler than she was, but Bruno could see how insecure she was feeling.
"There are a lot of things that can go wrong with magic if you don't understand what you are doing." Bruno frowned, hoping that the girls understood that he was serious. "It took me years of studying to understand what my powers are, and I only scratched the surface. You know how much harm it can do if you don't know what you are doing." Isabela and Dolores nodded in agreement; both had some first-hand experiences of how much time and effort it takes to control their gifts.
"But this is only a stupid old ouija board." Maria declared, not sounding so sure about herself anymore.
"Yeah, and this was only a valley with only a few cattle herder before we came here, but somehow turned into a magical place." He could feel how the girls stared at him, some curious while others concerned. "What I want to say is: We don't know why there is magic all around us, and it would be pretentious to believe our gifts are the only kind of magic in this world or in the Encanto."
"So…Do you think there is more magic, even dark magic?" Bruno nodded, realizing too late that the girls' reactions were the exact opposite of the one he tried to achieve.
"Ghosts are real?"
"And what about demons?"
"No, ask him about the witches!"
"Can you talk to dead people?"
All girls except his nieces bombarded him with questions; none of them seemed to care that Bruno couldn't focus anymore. He could see Dolores and Isabela exchanging worried looks while the pain in his head intensified. Finally, the man put on his hood, trying to block all the distractions out so that he could finally concentrate on his breathing. He only had to fight his headache long enough so that he could run to his tower; maybe he could…
"Is he looking into the future right now?" A girl screamed in excitement, and for a brief second, Bruno lost his focus. Then, like it waited for the right moment, the vision he held back for so long crept up in his head, turning his eyes in emerald green. He sighed in relief when he saw that it wasn't a bad vision for once this time.
"Isabela, I don't know why but your future self seems to be very happy. Oh, and did you know that you can create a whole jungle in only two seconds?" He could hear his niece cheering, but he didn't have time for that. There was more in the vision, but he couldn't figure it out yet.
"Tío Bruno, maybe you should…." Bruno could feel Dolores touching his hand, presumably worrying about him. Then, before she could say anything more, the vision started to change. He could see an older version of her, deeply in love with a nice-looking young man, at least as far as he could tell.
"Oh Dolores: It seems like you will find true love someday." He teased, but his smile dropped when he saw the thing that would happen next.
"That's not good," Bruno muttered when he saw the guy fall on a knee right in front of a girl that was definitely NOT Dolores. Next, he saw his niece alone in her room, crying her eyes out while nobody seemed to care for her. Suddenly the vision stopped, and Bruno felt like his head was only half of its original weight. When he opened his eyes, only his nieces starred at him; the other girls were gone.
"Oh, they ran away as soon as your eyes started to glow." Isabela declared when she saw his puzzled face, at least she didn't seem to be mad at him.
"Tío Bruno, what did you see?" Dolores hesitated. She knew that he saw something terrible would happen, but she simply needed to know. "I know that you don't want to tell me but please: Just tell me."
Bruno shook his head at first; seeing his niece in tears broke his heart. But he also knew that it was her right to learn the truth. "The man… I don't know who he is, but I saw him proposing to another girl. I am sorry, Dolores."
Before he could say anything more, he could feel her arms wrapping around his shoulders. "Thank you for telling me." Dolores buried her head deep into his ruana, but Bruno could still hear that she was sobbing. Bruno had to tell many people before that their love would be one-sided, but telling his sweet, only eleven-year-old niece that her love would be unanswered wasn't something he could just dismiss as just another lousy day. He couldn't help but also cry while he patted her on her back.
"I don't know what kind of guy would be blind enough to not see that you are the best girl in the Encanto, but trust me: I will not rest until he wakes up and sees that you are the best thing that could happen to him. "
"Who needs a husband when she can have a tío like you? "Dolores chuckled but still had to fight back her tears. "And don't worry: We don't tell anyone about your vision."
*Yeah, that is basically the plot of Dead by daylight :D
