There had been a shift in the Encanto. Of course there would be but the shift felt, not quite unnatural but unfinished. It was like coming to the end of the first leg of a race and being so exhausted but knowing there was more ahead. That's how it could really be defined. A sense that things had gone unfinished, that they and the Encanto had been caught in a riptide that still remained calm yet. A knowing that the stillness wasn't going to last. A deep breath before the tide sweeps in. The sense was only heightened by the silence from the Madrigal Matriarch. At any time in the past if something went wrong she was truthful to all of them but this time she wasn't the one with the answers. In fact there were no answers, not yet. The problem was how to tell everyone that. It would be best if Bruno did that but he was far more than occupied lately.

He'd grown very quiet. While he'd always been quiet this was a different kind of quiet. It wasn't the silence of hesitancy or shyness it was a purposeful and intense silence. He'd hardly slept the past few days. One could always find him pacing his tower lost in thought as he pondered everything.

"I have to get ahead of this." He would say. "I have to be prepared."

He spent hours and hours pouring over his records and old prophecies trying desperately to connect dots that even he couldn't see. This was new. This was serious and it was consuming Bruno. Bruno who'd only ever been worried for others found himself with, quite possibly, the fate of the Encanto in his hands in a way that he didn't understand yet.

Mirabel had tried so desperately to apologize but he wouldn't have it. Things turned out the way they did and there was nothing anyone could have done to change it. If anyone tried to point out that it hadn't started off scarred he'd point right to the other prophecy that had sprung up that day. One that had been seventeen years in the making. It was going to happen. It had been decided a long time ago. It was eerie to have someone to be so flippant about an experience such as that. Strange in an unsettling way to have almost no care for it. For his own part anyway. What had happened to him hadn't scared him and his obsession with it was not centered around fear for himself. The more he thought about it the deeper the obsession ran and the more that fear, that paranoia, rose.

Any decision, however tiny it may be, could affect everything to come and Bruno found himself being far more superstitious and cautious than any other time in his life. If he put one toe out of line with the Primary who knows what might go wrong but what if his own caution diverted his path? What if the path needed to be diverted? He knew the village needed answers, he needed answers, but he didn't have any. How would they all react if the one person who was supposed to have answers to unasked questions had no idea what to do? He was lost. More lost now than at any other time in his life and he was so used to being his own lifeline that he didn't think to look for anyone else casting one out to him.

Bruno was more the one caught in a riptide than anyone else. Everyone else was just kind of along for the ride and what a ride it had been. No one blamed Bruno of course but Bruno seemed to be blaming himself again but not for what he had seen but for what he hadn't seen. He seemed to forget that he was essentially working with magic that hadn't been invented yet. He wasn't giving that credit to himself and that displayed another problem that the family had that they didn't realize they had. Sure, they had done away with the mentality that their gifts are what defined them but had yet to see that, even though a gift may belong to a person, they may not understand their own abilities. Too much control had led to an ignorance in the true extent of what they could do. Bruno's was a bit more obvious in that sense but all of them had done that to themselves, to each other.

Isabela had been the first one to really break that barrier and she was all the better for it.

No one was quite sure what to do about Bruno. On one hand he was right, this needed to be figured out. On the other hand, there was a difference between work and obsession and this was certainly an obsession. The worst was that Bruno had always had a bit of a hard time taking care of himself when he was stressed out or hyper fixated on something. He would forget to sleep and forget to eat. When he did remember that food existed it was sometimes hard to eat. It manifested in different ways. An oversensitive gag reflex, equal oversensitivity to textures, or the amount of food would just look overwhelming and far too much for his stomach to handle and he'd likely gag on sight.

Bruno had yet to find a solution to any of that and he knew it wasn't normal behavior. The last thing he had wanted was to keep being so different from everyone. There were a lot of things he'd kept to himself and that was one of them. Although that hadn't been too hard for everyone to figure out now that they were looking for things. Of course they were looking harder now, they were worried and what they were seeing only worried them more. There had been arguments and Pepa and Bruno had nearly torn Casita apart one day.

Bruno had been busy pulling his hair out in the living room whilst hunched over a bundle of papers with god only knows what scribbled on it. Bruno's work was cryptic to say the least. He understood what he had written or drawn but others tended to need an explanation. Julieta had been trying her best to pull him away from it and get him to take at least a short break. Pepa had stood in the doorway for a solid five minutes, pretty good for her she'd say, before losing her temper at her hermanito. Pepa's yelling had caught everyone's attention but Bruno's yelling had all of them running. Julieta, herself, had been shocked and felt rather helpless about it. Sure she'd seen him lose his temper before but he'd never screamed back at Pepa. She was usually so overwhelming for him that he'd leave. It had started off normally with Pepa angrily towering over him with a glare and some choice words while Bruno kept his head ducked down. He'd hunched over on himself which was what he would do right before retreating from the situation. Julieta had been ready to step in on Bruno's behalf and calm her hermanita when Bruno had responded.

"Do you think that this is more important than you?" Pepa had growled. "More important than your life?"

"No, I think it's about exactly as important as my life." He'd said while rubbing his arm, the same one that had found its' way between a tiger's teeth.

Julieta felt the static in the air and stiffened.

"Oh, that is it!" She'd reached down to snatch the papers off of the table and Bruno smacked her hand away.

"Don't." He said, so still and quiet compared to Pepa's intensity.

She had spluttered in shock, also used to having Bruno shrink away from her.

"Pepa." Julieta began but was interrupted by the woman in question as she continued yelling.

"No! No I won't! You need to stop! It's been weeks Bruno!"

"I need to focus Pepa."

"Weeks! You've barely been out of your room!"

"Pepa, I need to focus."

"This stops now!"

"Pepa." The fact that his rats had scrambled out from beneath his ruana should have been enough but there was a different kind of static in the room, one that went right through Julieta instead of remaining on the surface.

"I will drag you out of this house by your hair!"

"Don't you get it Pepa!" He had thundered as he shot to his feet. "This is different! There are lives at stake so maybe you should take a step away from your own little world and stop being such a self centered brat!"

She had opened her mouth to respond but Bruno wasn't done.

"You've always been that way. Too focused on yourself to see the bigger picture and too focused on yourself to see what's going on around you! Step out of your little fantasy and leave me alone!"

There was a rumble of thunder as a cloud formed over Pepa's head as her anger grew.

"Don't you dare rain right now." He growled as Agustin ran into the room and shot a questioning glance at Julieta.

"I'm trying to take care of you Bruno!" Another clap of thunder echoed in the room and the static grew to a buzzing in Julieta's stomach.

"Well you've never done that before so why start now?!" He roared and Agustin's jaw dropped.

Pepa looked like Bruno had physically hit her and in a few seconds the room was pouring rain and Bruno looked at his, now soaked, papers in horror as his hands curled into fists at his sides. The room grew darker as Pepa's storm cloud expanded and the rain grew heavier.

"Get out." He said with a vicious green glare.

"B-bruno." She looked horrified.

"Shut up!" He yelled and there was a wave of energy that flooded the room with a sudden chill and a thrumming that stole the sound from the world and Julieta felt herself stop.

That's the only way that anyone involved could have described the feeling. Just...stopping.

"I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear a single word that comes out of your mouth right now!" Agustin's eyes widened as he watched the fabric of the couch fade and wear.

"I think I've heard more than enough from you over the years! You're either too busy talking about things that have nothing to do with you or keeping quiet about things that you're a part of!" The wooden table began to warp and dry out and his eyes were emerald flames.

"So, just shut up!" He screamed and the rain stopped.

It hadn't stopped raining, the cloud didn't dissipate, the rain just stopped and hung in the air. A bolt of lightning crept from the cloud above Pepa's head inch by agonizing inch and Felix nearly broke the table as he launched himself between the pair.

"Okay!" He yelled, holding up his hands. "I think everyone needs to be quiet for a little bit here." He said shakily as he looked between the pair. "Bruno take a breath."

A few seconds passed and Bruno let loose a harsh sigh and unclenched his fists. He blinked harshly, eyes still aglow, and looked around seeming to finally notice what he was doing. In an instant, like the snapping of a band within their chests, the rain slammed to the ground, the colour of the fabrics returned, and wood smoothed back out, and Bruno's eyes dimmed as he shook his head. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned before gathering the soaked papers from the table and turning to walk out of the room. He turned back around and pointed a finger back at Pepa.

"Just…" He sighed again. "Do what you do best and just….don't talk about me."

He left before anyone could say anything and Felix spent the rest of the day consoling his wife and trying not to lose his temper at Bruno for that. He understood, everyone did, and Bruno had the right to be angry about it they had all agreed on that a long time ago. In fact it had been a little disturbing that he hadn't been angry. He honestly seemed to believe that it had all been perfectly fine and understandable and, as much as they wished that he would get angry, now that it had happened it was worrying. It was very worrying.

"Has he always been that angry?" Pepa had looked at her hermana pleadingly as they leaned against the kitchen counter.

It was late. The kids were asleep along with everyone else.

"Maybe." Julieta responded, gaze cast to the floor. "Maybe he didn't realize it until now. Somewhere in there he must have been angry about it. There's no way that someone doesn't get angry after all that. Maybe he just felt he didn't have the right to be. This could be good."

"Good?" Pepa looked at her disbelievingly, tear tracks still shining on her face.

"He's actually expressing himself." She shrugged. "He hasn't exactly done that in a while. A long while."

Pepa nodded and wiped her face.

"I need to talk to him." She said as she turned.

"Pepa." Julieta reached out.

"I-I don't remember the last time I told him I was sorry."

Julieta let her arm fall back to her side and gave a small and silent nod before Pepa left the room and made her way up to Bruno's tower. She jolted a bit in surprise when Julieta tapped her on the shoulder when she was at the base of the stairs. She spun around to find her hermana holding out two empanadas left over from dinner.

"He never came down." She said and Pepa took them before continuing to walk up the stairs to her hermano's room.

She thought about knocking once she was standing in front of the wooden door with Bruno's likeness carved into it but remembered that he hardly ever seemed to notice when people knocked on his door and just went inside. She wandered her way over to the wind carved tunnel that led to his bedroom. The room was an absolute mess of papers, pages, and vision tablets. She glanced around and didn't see him. As tempting as the tablets and papers were she was here for Bruno. She turned back around and looked at the stairs like they had personally offended her.

Everyone hated his stairs. It was the only reason he'd managed to be able to spend so much time alone without people coming after him. The stairs made sure that people only came to find him if it was really, really worth it. He was the only one who didn't seem to mind them. He even seemed to like them. It was his room after all. Why would there be something in his room that he didn't like? Why would he go up to his vision cave? He seemed upset enough and visions usually upset him by themselves. He hadn't seemed to go back to work on everything yet either.

She squinted in thought before looking up the cliff face. She bit her lip in thought before looking around her. It was fairly dark in Bruno's room. The only light coming from the half moon and stars that littered the sky. How had she never noticed the stars? Oh, but it wasn't the only light. To her left there was a flicker of orange light and she almost squealed at the memory of her husband enthusiastically describing Bruno's vision caves to her. She walked closer and grinned at the staircase tucked away in a little alcove. It was simple and more welcoming than the more obvious set of stairs. It felt warmer somehow. It was just a smooth arched tunnel lit by rows of candles. As she climbed she idly wondered if Bruno would notice if she blew out a candle. She could see him somehow being able to tell that one candle was out and she imagined that it would drive him insane.

Another day perhaps.

No wonder Bruno didn't tire easily if he climbed these stairs multiple times a day. She was fifty years old for god's sake and it was the real version of fifty not her hermanito's overly athletic and impossibly energetic version of fifty. Only on the day that these stairs disappeared or shortened would she begin to truly see him as being as old as she was. Anything else just wasn't fair. She'd always been the more fit one out of the two of them and refused to think that had changed. When she had reached the top, just as Felix had promised, she was stunned. She had certainly found Bruno, who was laid out on the floor of the ledge staring into the sky, but the crystal mirror caught her gaze first.

It was glowing. Light flickered and danced in its' core and it felt cold and pure and alive. Every flicker was a heartbeat and a breath and a life.

"'M sorry." Bruno mumbled once Pepa had gotten close enough. "Shouldn't have said that. You didn't deserve that." He sighed but never glanced away from the sky.

"Didn't I?" She asked as she sat down next to him.

He continued to stare into the starry void above them.

"I can be angry without being a jerk about things. What I do, what I say, when I'm angry….that-that's on me. Doesn't matter why."

A moment of silence passed between them.

"So, yeah. I'm sorry."

There was a longer stretch of silence before Pepa responded.

"I'm the one who should be saying sorry." Her voice quieted in a way that Bruno hadn't heard in a very long time. "I-I hurt you a lot. I hurt you by saying things, by doing things, and by not doing either of those. I should have spoken up about things. I knew it wasn't true. Any of it. I don't know why I acted like it was. I don't even remember how it all got so bad."

"Because none of us are good at going against mamá….in anything."

Pepa opened her mouth to speak but Bruno interrupted her.

"But its' not her fault either. Really," He turned his head to look up at her. "it's not anyone's fault and, at the same time, it's everyone's fault. We all had a part to play. No one's innocent and no one is really a victim either. We just have problems that clash and too busy a lifestyle to address any of it."

He gave a sigh and turned his gaze back up to the sky.

"Sometimes doing the right thing means you have to do something wrong and other times doing the right thing is exactly that. We were all just trying to do the right thing. We just didn't, still don't, know where it lays on that scale. Can't really fault someone for trying to do the right thing."

"Saying the things I said about you was never the right thing."

"You dealt with things how you needed to." He waved her off.

He was right back to dismissing everything like it didn't matter. He'd already let her know that he was angry about it. It just seemed that this was his default emotional setting.

"I dealt with things how I wanted to." She corrected him. "You have a right to be angry. We've all been waiting for you to just be angry about it. You've been angry about it for a long time haven't you?"

There was a pause before he gave a shaky nod.

"That's good Bruno. It really is. You should be angry. If you aren't then that's something I'd be worried about. Something I have been worried about. I stopped being a good hermana to you a long time ago."

She took a breath.

"Dios mio. When did we get like this?"

"Well, there was that hurricane on a key moment in your life." He said, completely deadpan before giving a small huff of laughter and she gave her own chuckle at the recognition of a joke.

"Peace offering?" She said as she waved one of the empanadas in front of his face and he took it with a small smile.

She gave an internal cheer when she saw him take a bite. She dug into her own and nearly choked as a memory flashed behind her eyes. Bruno gave her a questioning look as she worked to swallow her food instead of inhale it.

"Do you-" She laughed. "Do you remember when you had a vision about the cross in the church falling over and were so worried someone would get hurt you went and took it down? Everyone thought it was some kind of "sign from god". You got in so much trouble."

Bruno huffed and looked offended.

"No, that was you. You did that."

"It was your idea!"

"Yeah, that's why we both got in trouble. Because the priest fasted for two weeks! Mamá was furious!"

"Okay, you have to admit that, with a cross that big, it could be a little hard to believe a couple of kids-"

"One." Bruno interrupted. "One kid."

"-could take that thing down without help."

Bruno rolled his eyes and took another bite of his empanada.