While everyone who knew Bruno grew worried and fretted and fussed over him they all held a kind of understanding of his situation but none more so than his sobrina, Luisa. She was a little different from everyone in that way. She worried yes, of course she would at seeing her tío put himself in the situation he was. Once upon a time it was her that stood where he was. Placing too much pressure on herself and holding herself to impossible standards and expectations and it had destroyed her. She couldn't deny that she was a little angry that he was doing to himself what she had spent fourteen years trying to escape. Not that she knew she was trying, or even wanted, to escape it. She'd only recognized that the day before Casita's collapse and only because her hermana had dragged it out of her. Mirabel had no right to be that way but she just was. She knew how to press someone in the exact right way.

Sure she was only nine when he left but she did remember him and she remembered him different than how he was now. He hadn't been nearly as jumpy or paranoid and the superstitions were new. There were times where she wasn't sure if they helped him feel better or made it all worse. Everyone had coping methods but not all of them are healthy. She would know. For years her coping mechanisms were anything but healthy. Denial is not a way to cope with anything.

What she had noticed the most was that he looked nothing like what she remembered. For one his hair had been fairly well kept but was kind of frizzy now. He was extremely pale which was thanks to a lack of sunlight for obvious reasons. The most glaringly obvious one was how thin he'd gotten and he knew how skinny he was too. He was always rather careful to try and keep covered up so a person could pretend a little bit better that he wasn't in the shape he was. Not that it seemed to do much to his energy levels and physical strength. Her tío was stronger than he looked and had nearly inhuman reflexes.

What it did seem to affect was his magic. Using his gift was easier and not nearly as tiring if he'd been eating right. He had been using his gift a lot. More than she ever remembered and he was passing over meals in favor of using his magic or studying his own magic. She wondered if it might be a good idea if he had someone else there just in case something went wrong like the day Antonio had gone missing after that jaguar attack.

Her family was not as sneaky as they thought they were. Her tío Felix was as incapable of whispering as Dolores was at keeping secrets. Well, as it turned out she could keep a secret and it had been one hell of a secret. She had also noticed that Bruno had never once asked her to not tell anyone something that she'd seen, or heard, him doing. He felt that her keeping that one secret was enough and would never ask her to do it again. Luisa had yet to actually talk to her prima about that yet. How had he fared these past ten years? She had to know. Of course she knew. Dolores knew about everyone and everything in the Encanto. The only place she couldn't hear was any of their rooms as long as they remembered to close the door. Antonio had a terrible habit of forgetting to fully close his bedroom door and his animals could be noisy.

When Bruno hadn't shown up for lunch Luisa volunteered to go up and give him his share. He had either completely ignored the call to the table or hadn't heard it at all. Luisa was going to bet on the latter seeing as how fish was his favorite. Julieta had been trying her best to help him along with his problem in her own way by trying her best to put together family meals that weren't too heavy, rich, or had contrasting textures. She didn't want to personalize his meals because it would make him stand out and he hated that. He'd be less likely to even show up if she did that. Luisa's madre was a smart woman, especially when it came to her siblings. Even after a ten year separation she still seemed to understand the motives behind Bruno's anxiety.

Of course the first place Luisa, or anyone, checked was his actual bedroom where his bed was. It was much the same as when Pepa had walked in but she could see a few of the smoky tablets that she'd only heard of. She was planning on settling the plates down on the small table he had but one of those prophecies was sat atop it. Surely she could move it without actually looking right? She'd place it on the shelf behind the table and go find Bruno. Simple. She nudged it to the side with her elbow, giving just enough room to set the plates down without stacking them on top of each other, and carefully moved to grab the prophecy tablet. She couldn't help but glance at it as she picked it up and fully expected to see something horrendous and traumatizing.

That wasn't what she saw.

Surprised, she turned the tablet to face her so the image was no longer upside down and looked at it in confusion. It was a person. That was it. A person and nothing more, but a person she'd never seen before. She spent nearly all of her time in the village, doing favors for everyone. She'd seen every face in the Encanto and she did not know this person. That alone made her worry but the way the person looked also gave her concern. The woman was muscular. Not nearly as much as herself but far more than any other women Luisa had seen. There were other women that worked out like she did? Luisa had never considered that before. Strength was always a man's game and her own strength tended to be disliked by the boys her own age. Her hair was trimmed neat and short, rather close to her scalp. She had shorter hair than some of the men in the village and a single dot painted between her brows. She wore cargo pants tucked into steel toed boots and a burn scar showed beneath her white tank top on her left shoulder and chest. There was a large rifle strapped to her back, a pistol on her right hip, and a large knife strapped to her left shoulder, handle pointing down. She looked like a harsh woman but there was a touch of humor glimmering in her eyes. Her hand was outstretched toward the tablet as if from the point of view of a person looking up at her.

Would this woman be coming to the Encanto? According to this she had to be.

"Luisa?" Bruno's confused voice rang out behind her and she jumped.

The tablet snapped in half and her jaw dropped in horror. She looked at her tío with the intent to splutter out apologies only to find him laughing.

"Maybe you should put that down conejito." He smiled. "They're glass. They break all the time." He told her when she opened her mouth.

"Who is…."

Bruno just shrugged and she set the two pieces on a nearby shelf. She smiled at the nickname he'd stuck on her when she was little. She hadn't heard it in a long time. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it.

"You uh, you missed lunch." She said as she gestured to the plates behind her.

"Did I?"

Yup he hadn't heard anyone.

"Yeah, I think mamá might be ready to strangle you."

"…..Sounds about right." He nodded. "That one's older than you. If you were wondering." He gestured to the tablet she'd accidentally broken and she noticed another in his hand.

"Yeah...this one's new." He answered before she could ask.

He spun it in his hands and looked down at it before tilting his head.

"Is...is it.."

"Scary? Not in the sense you're thinking. It's more confusing than anything else." He tilted the prophecy to the side and squinted a little accentuating the wrinkles he'd accumulated during the years. "Could be anything."

He moved around her, not taking his eyes off of it, and sat down opposite to where she was standing. He set it down and hunched over, setting his forehead in his hands as he stared. A few moments passed by and he didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. Luisa shifted from foot to foot, not sure of what to do but eyeing the plates on the table.

"Tío Bruno?"

He jumped in surprise, like he'd either forgotten that she was there or thought that she'd left. He looked back up at her in question. She thought for a moment. She didn't want to put to much pressure on him right now. He was already putting too much pressure on himself. That, she decided, is where she would begin.

"Don't you think you're putting too much on yourself?"

He blinked.

"How do you mean?"

Dios mio her tío was clueless. She sat down across from him. She looked around the room pointedly and Bruno raised a brow.

"Just something Mirabel taught me. Messed me up at first. Went against everything I thought."

Bruno leaned his chin against his fist then shivered for a moment before Frida's head popped out from beneath his Ruana. She chittered at him and he reached over to grab a small piece of fish and hand it to her. Luisa rolled her eyes. He'd always remember to feed his rats, no matter how often they raided unattended leftovers. They really didn't need him to feed them and everyone knew it.

"Just because you can do something with your gift doesn't necessarily mean you should. Or at least not all the time, or by yourself. I-" She rubbed the back of her neck. "I didn't know I was doing that until she pointed it out. I just got used to everyone expecting everything out of me that I started doing that too."

Bruno gave a long slow blink before pointing at her.

"Okay, you're not allowed to do that."

"Do what?"

"Be right." He sighed and rested his head in his hands again. "What a difference ten years can make."

"Well, two days really."

He gave a short laugh.

"Two days and one fifteen year old." He shook his head.

"People put a lot on you." She said quietly, sadly turning her gaze to the wood beneath her hands.

She remembered enough of the way Bruno had been treated before he left and what people expected of him. She remembered a lot more than people thought.

"Everyone put a lot of pressure on me too but….it was different with you. People expected you to be able to do things you couldn't. Tío," She looked back up at him. "you can't expect yourself to be able to do something you don't know how to do. That's like throwing someone into the lake and expecting them to learn how to swim that way."

"But that is how I learned how to swim."

She gave a loud bark of laughter.

"No, I-I mean it. We were seven and Pepa got really mad at me. Whoosh. Blew me right into the lake." He chuckled. "No, I know what you mean niña." He bit his lip and thought hard for a moment. "Well….I guess not anymore huh? You've gotten too old for me to call you that. I should start talking to you like an adult. You're old enough to be let in on all of this."

He gave a sigh.

"Luisa I have to expect that of myself. I have to expect myself to be able to do things that I think I can't. Sometimes what's considered possible does not apply to me. I have to figure that out."

"But you aren't trying to figure it out. You're just upset because you don't know how to do it yet. Like you think you're just supposed to know. That's not you talking tío Bruno. That's everyone else. You're supposed to let go of that. We're all supposed to let go of that. It's….not easy to break that though and I understand, we all understand. We all still do it."

"I can't afford to step away from this right now. Not after-" He bit his lip.

The thunderous roar of the tiger echoed in her memories along side the sound of it colliding with her tío and his following screams. She'd been helpless to do anything. She'd failed.

"It's not your fault." He whispered, reaching a hand out to lay it over hers. "I'm not saying it wasn't terrifying and I'm not saying that it won't stick with you, because it will. I'm saying that there was nothing you could do and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with not being able to do something."

"Yeah." She nodded and looked at him pointedly. "There isn't anything wrong with not being able to do something."

"Stop that." He groaned. "It's not the same."

"How is it different?" She began to understand why her mamá was so frustrated with him.

"Because that was a can't. This is a might, a maybe. Can't is different from might."

"But how do you know it's something you can't do?" She took a breath. "I-I'm scared you're going to hurt yourself again. I didn't know your visions could hurt you. You're trying too hard."

There was a long pause and Luisa could see the denial forming on his lips.

"Can I at least help? Or….someone?"

He thought hard before answering. He should be old enough, mature enough, to admit when he was wrong and he knew he was. He was wrong but he just couldn't bring himself to accept that. It wouldn't be fair to get angry at her for pointing out something that he didn't want to be reminded of. That was exactly what everyone had done to him and he was not about to become that kind of monster. He set one hand down on the center of the tablet in front of him and spun it around before pushing it toward her. He grabbed one of the plates and slid that in front of him where the tablet had been.

"I have no idea what that one means either. I can't really get a good grasp on any of these kinds. There's never any connection to other visions that I can see. Just pieces without purpose until it just...happens. I see it coming and yet I don't at the same time."

In the center of the glass slab Luisa could see her hermana, Isabela, crouched on the ground and holding onto a small child and looking toward something Luisa couldn't see. She looked angry. Angrier than Luisa ever remembered her being. She couldn't see the kid's face but, going by the dress and long hair, Luisa figured it was a young girl. She looked back up at Bruno who shrugged in favor of saying anything while his mouth was full. She remembered Dolores telling her that Bruno had told Felix that scarred prophecies always came in stages. One leading to another and another. That must be what he was looking for. It's the only thing that Luisa could think of. He was trying to connect the dots. Finish the puzzle.

"Do you think the woman has anything to do with the girl?"

"Actually," He said after swallowing. "that is exactly what I was thinking but I'm not sure how."

That was the way Luisa's day went. Bruno finished most of what she'd brought up. She ate a little but was also still pretty full. Her tío Felix was accurate about how confusing Bruno's gift could be but Luisa was fascinated. In fact, the more she got him talking the less attention he paid to his food and he'd made it through the first plate without really noticing. He gave much the same explanation to her as he had to Felix.

"Are you saying time is like a gyroscope?" She asked, confused.

"A really complicated one. Time isn't linear and the best way to actually describe it is a circle. A loop kind of? I mean the passage of time is always the same year after year, second after second. Time is empty basically. It's like a flow and different things flow along with it. A day might be different from the next but that doesn't change time itself. Time keeps running same as always." He shrugged. "It's a loop."

She nodded, looking back down at the page on the table.

"Now, each circle, loop, is a Primary and the Alternates are loops within the Primary. Each loop, be it Primary or Alternate, crosses over with each other in certain key moments and places. It can make it easier to see things but these are very rare to experience. It's like trying to line up two bullets while blindfolded. The odds are astronomical."

This was really cool and he seemed so excited about it too. Honestly, if she'd been the one to discover all of this by herself she'd be excited to talk to someone about it too.

"Now, I haven't learned how to see other Primaries but I'm working on that. I think I might actually be able to do that. It's a theory though and I'm not sure how exactly I would do that. I have ideas but….if I could do that I could….see better? The more I can see in one shot the better. It could actually let me see more details about scarred prophecies."

"You think you could? How?" She leaned over the table with wide eyes.

"The Angles." He said with a grin. "I'm not just working with time here. I'm working with time and space. Like I said, time is empty space with a rhythm and there has to be something to contain that rythm. Something that binds it all together and keeps the system working. Kind of like the mechanism that runs the gears on a clock. The Primaries are the gears and the Angles are the mechanisms running everything. The Angles are connected to every moment in time. We live inside of time space. I call that the Curves just because I was half asleep when I decided this. That's time. Curves and Angles. You can't see everything when you're within the flow of time because it's like trying to see around a corner, around a curve. If you're outside of it you can see all of the paths and choices. Like a map."

He paused to finish his glass of augapanela.

"It's a theory anyway."

"How would you do that?"

"I have no idea."

That was how the day went and Luisa was more than happy with it. Bruno certainly didn't seem to mind.