He couldn't say it had been easy to slip passed everyone in Casita without any of them seeing him. He'd done it before though….a lot so he just tried to pretend that this situation was no different. It was a little slow going and he'd had to take a rather roundabout route but he'd finally made it. He pulled the tablet back out of his ruana as Frida ran up onto his shoulder as if to take a peek at the prophecy.

"Oh not you too." He rolled his eyes at her as he slid down the sand hill, holding the prophecy in one hand and using the other to stabilize himself.

"Yeah, me too."

Once again Bruno found himself letting out a terrified shout and nearly launched the tablet into the wall, not intentionally this time, but managed to catch it before it hit the ground. He spun around and saw a rather smug Felix leaning up against the wall.

"How long have you been standing there?!" Shouting was not a good way to catch his breath.

"Long enough apparently." He pulled away from the wall and narrowed his eyes. "We made a deal hermano."

"N-not right now Felix." Bruno ducked his head. "I-I've got some….things….to do."

Good job Bruno.

"Things?" Felix asked, staring at the tablet that was no longer hidden beneath his ruana.

"I...uhhhhh. I want to be alone?" It was such a pitiful request and it pained him knowing that it came out of his mouth. "Nothing I say is going to work is it?"

Felix just shook his head.

"Right." Bruno let out a sigh.

"How about we start with last week?"

"Right." Bruno sighed.

"Still not quite sure exactly what a scarred prophecy is. How does that work?"

"Right."

"Do you need to sit down?"

"Probably." He nodded.

He did still have a small table in the bedroom. It was useful when it came to sorting and reading his records of prophecies and studying the new magic. He was technically putting together a grimoire but it felt weird to look at it that way. He quickly realized that pulling out his records would probably help start things off. Bruno didn't really have to think too much. He wasn't so concerned about people finding those so everything was put onto a shelf nearby and was, surprisingly, modest enough that it didn't draw any attention. No one had looked at it. Not even Felix the secret hunter had taken a second look.

He took the seat nearest the shelf and set the tablet down on the lowest one before reaching up and grabbing a, rather messy, bundle of pages that he sifted through.

"Aha!" He exclaimed when he found what he was looking for and collecting the pages before placing the rest back on the shelf.

He spread the pages out on the table and completely forgot how confusing everything looked. There was writings, drawings, and a variety of odd looking symbols that were scribbled in the margins.

"Oookay." He chewed on his lip as he gestured for Felix to take the other seat.

He was actually surprised that Felix hadn't sat down already. Then he looked down at the mess of pages.

"I promise this will all make sense…..maybe."

"Maybe?" Felix raised a brow as he sat down.

"If you're willing to try and explain the intricacies of time be my guest. It would be a huge relief." His place. His power. He called the shots here.

When it came to this he was the one in charge and he just had to remember that. He didn't want to lose his nerve this time around.

"Okay. I'm going to hurt myself now." He grit his teeth. "Time is not linear but for the purposes of this explanation it is."

Felix already looked confused.

"Oh dear…..okay." His place. His power. He took a breath. "You have, what we'll call, the Primary Universe." He gestured to one of the pages which was just a mess of lines all springing out from one single straight line in the middle. "That's where we are. This is…" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Time is not linear."

He looked like he was in physical pain. He cleared his throat and kept talking.

"If we're in the Primary Universe, all of these" He gestured to the mess of connecting lines. "are "Alternates" we'll say. Alternates are very different from Tangents but we'll get into that later."

Felix was beginning to rethink his life choices.

"A scarred prophecy is an event so strong, so powerful, that it punches a hole through space time and literally leaves a scar on time itself. These events cannot be changed. They can't be changed because it brings every timeline into one singular event. There is nothing to be done about it because any and every choice that you, or anyone, can make will lead you to the same event."

Sure enough the drawing on the page showed every line pulled back into the main.

"It connects every timeline back to the Primary by creating a kind of….singularity we'll say. Since it's something that pulls time into itself like that, it pulls in my visions too and…..I can see cause but not effect. These scars are actually powerful enough that I could use one to see back instead of forward but the scar is the only thing I can see. It actually helps make sense of current events sometimes. I'm not sure why they look different, I'm just going to blame magic. It's a good scapegoat."

Felix nodded at Bruno's questioning glance.

"These prophecies are always centered around a single person whose actions and decisions form from the events of the scars. Typically one scar creates another in a link." He gestured to the next page on the table that featured a similar drawing as the first page but with multiple "singularities" that kept reconnecting the branch off lines.

"Again, scars cannot be changed. None of the events created by a scarred prophecy can be changed. It's something that creates too drastic a change to fix or avoid. It isn't necessarily world altering but it is harsh enough that it will affect the lives, behavior, and beliefs, of those involved, those witnessed, and those who are just unlucky or lucky enough to have been in its' range. Depending on the event and severity of it the scar could be...bigger? It pulls in more people. The circle it creates around itself is bigger and some events have encompassed the whole world. Usually wars, assassinations, or other violent events. Because, things have to get bad before they can get better. It takes violence to get people's attention because that's far more memorable than any good event."

Felix looked back down at the pages, unsure of what to say.

"Felix do you understand what I'm saying? We're living a scarred prophecy right now and I have no idea what's going to happen. It's cause and effect and it's hard to see the effect in progress. But…..there's a lot more coming than just a jaguar attack I can promise you that."

He paused and gathered the pages back up.

"This means that I'll have more scarred prophecies and more and more until the change happens."

"How do you know what's the actual change?"

"Oh….you'll know….."

He paused again, mouth opening and closing as he tried to figure out exactly how to put things and if he even wanted anyone to know. Felix had said everything though.

"The most recent scar…..w-was." He chewed on his lip before taking a deep steadying breath before lifting his head and looking Felix in the eye. "Oh dios, no puedo creer que esté a punto de decir esto. The most recent scar was mi padre. Pedro. His death caused such a drastic change and one for better but there w-was never any saving him. I'm not about to tell mamá that. There's a part of her, a huge part, that takes comfort in ideas and situations that might have saved him. It might not sound like a comforting thought but if you knew that there was never any hope for someone you love h-how would th-that affect you? It's a part of what I do Felix. Figuring out which prophecies and what knowledge should be shared and which to keep away."

Bruno's eyes looked….old somehow. It was like Felix was looking at someone a hundred years older than they looked.

"I get the feeling it would break her." Bruno whispered. "Everything that happened to mis padres was part of a scar that led to the same inevitable conclusion. His death for our lives. I-I don't think it would have worked if people didn't see him die. They had to watch, all of them. There are a lot of people who were there, who saw, but they won't talk about it. You won't find a single person who will talk. I tried. I tried a long time ago. It's one of the things that led to the idea of me being a curse now that I think about it. I knew. I just knew that they had been there. I could see it in their eyes and in the stars."

He took a breath and wiped at his eyes.

"There's more than one way to see the future and more magic to me than just prophecies. I'm not a prophet Felix but what I really am I don't know. Prophets can't do what I do."

"And what can you do?" Felix was getting interested now.

"I can…..kinda….manipulate time."

"What?!"

"J-just a little!" Bruno threw his hands up in surrender. "I-I don't really know how much but…..I'm getting better. It's like lifting weights. Stick with it and what was once heavy and hard to do is easy."

He took a breath and grabbed a handful of sand from a nearby bucket. He focused and tried to forget that, for the first time, he was showing someone the greater extent of his power. He could feel the sand becoming solid beneath his hands so he pulled more sand into the core and molded it as he wanted. It was a bit like working with clay really. As long as he got it right and had control over what he was doing.

"D-did you just?"

"I made a duck." Bruno couldn't help the small laugh that came out of him as he held up a small sandstone duck that settled into his palm.

Felix couldn't help but laugh too.

"At some point in time sand has or will become something like this. Sand is the easiest but I've managed a few other things. It's actually easier to age something than de-age it. Going with the flow of time takes significantly less energy. So, what I just did is manipulate the time of something by giving or taking its' time. By giving time I can reverse the aging process. By taking time I can speed it up."

The duck fell apart into fine sand.

"I don't have to work so hard at this anymore."

Felix really wasn't sure what to say.

"There are other ways, other kinds of prophecies outside of tradition." He gestured to the tablet. "I-I'm still working on that. They all feel different and work differently and sometimes it happens and I don't even realize it did. Time is kinda like a big bundle of spinning circles so, different techniques tell you different things as long as you know what your looking for….or listening for."

Felix watched Bruno stare off into the distance, chewing on his lip and bouncing his leg up and down.

"D-do you wanna...see something cool?" Bruno asked, thinking of the crystal mirror hidden on the cliff face.

He had no idea how much he wanted to show that to somebody until now.

"I think that would depend on what your version of "cool" is."

"You asked."

"You gonna tell me about it?"

"No. It'll be so much better this way."

There was a long pause.

"Trust me."

"Since we're here to discuss the fact that you've been lying to the family-"

"I wouldn't say lying...you can't lie if nobody asked. So, technically I'm not being dishonest."

"It's a lie of omission."

"Hey." Bruno held up his hands as he stood. "Not my fault nobody asks about my gift." He said as he walked passed Felix and out of the room.

Felix sat there for a moment before getting up and following Bruno out of the room.

"Of course I may or may not take advantage of the fact that nobody ever asks."

It was Felix's turn to be startled apparently as Bruno had been leaning on the wall just outside the room.

"As I've already said, some things are not meant to be shown. It's a….responsibility of mine to figure out which ones. Come on." He gestured for Felix to follow him. "I built this a while ago….okay scratch that I absolutely lied to you when you asked if I had any other secret rooms." He winced. "Sorry."

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

Either way he avoided Felix's glare.

He walked straight over to his hidden door. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He couldn't lose his nerve now. He needed to display confidence right now, he just knew it although he wasn't sure why. Sometimes he just knew things. There was no explanation to that either. He just….did. It's not like he was snooping around or deliberately looking for things or anything like that. He cracked his knuckles before waving his hands over a section of wall that fell to dust beneath his movements and he heard Felix gasp behind him.

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

He took a few steps in, standing in front of the staircase, before turning back and raising a brow at Felix who was looking more and more unsure of things as they went. Felix had asked and Bruno's life wasn't just a life, it was an entire world to itself. A world that warped the perception of Felix's own. It was like taking a step into the ocean and knowing that it's not a place that you were meant to be. This was Bruno's world and Felix didn't really have a place in it, no one did because they just couldn't understand it. Not all the way. People would always judge his decisions, he accepted that a long time ago, because they didn't understand the complexities of what he did. There were rules to follow. Rules that could not be broken and he'd been foolish enough last week to try and break one. He should've known better but he was panicking and he paid the price. There was nothing else to be said. But Felix continued to follow his lead which was weird in and of itself.

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

He closed the door behind Felix and plunged them both into darkness.

"Wait for it." Bruno said and gave a pause before snapping his fingers and listening to Felix let out another gasp at the rows of candles that lit up like a wave in front of them following a curve in the stairs.

"Now you're just showing off." Felix grumbled.

"Yes." Bruno responded with a nod. "Come on." He said as he began the ascent.

Querido Dios, he sounded just like Mirabel.

"Dios mío, ¿qué pasa contigo y las escaleras?" Felix growled behind him.

"They're a nice deterrent." He could hear the smile in Bruno's voice.

"And the secret door isn't?"

"Okay there's actually a really good reason, other than my penchant for self-isolation, that there are this many stairs right now. This time I actually need to be this high up."

"Wait….how high are we going?"

Bruno chuckled.

"Bruno…"

"Very."

Bruno just had to be patient….and keep his confidence. This was the one thing in his life that he was actually confident in despite the growing evolution of his power. It would startle him but quickly after he'd be fascinated, ecstatic even, and it was for him. There was a sense of security in his secrets. He was pretty sure that if too many people found out about everything else he'd stop being hated and start being feared. Bruno often times wondered if that might actually be better. People would avoid him instead of seeking him out.

Would it be so bad if people were afraid of him? Good and properly afraid?