Elena reminisces on her time growing up with Mateo. Prompt: Childhood AU. CW for depiction of a panic attack and mention of canon character death.
"Remind me again how long you two have been together," Naomi says between bites of an empanada.
"Oh! Uh," Elena looks over at Mateo and tilts her head. "I think we've known each other about, what? Ten years, now?"
He nods, his own mouth too full to answer, but Naomi huffs and shakes her head. "No, no, I mean," her face scrunches up, "how long have you been together, together?"
Elena lets out a confused laugh and smiles. "Well, that's," she starts, and pauses. "I think that's," she tries again, and stops short, looking back over at Mateo as if expecting a different clarification from him. "I think it's something like…"
She's six years old, and Alacazar's daughter is dropping something off at the palace that he forgot at home. She has her son with her, a tiny, nervous thing that must be around Elena's age himself. He clings to his mami's skirts, trying to hide his face as Elena watches him curiously, and he squeaks as she draws near, tightening his grip.
She sticks out a hand. "I'm Elena," she says. "What's your name?"
Elena doesn't quite catch his response, but he slowly reaches out and accepts her handshake anyway, and she seizes the opportunity to tug on his arm and pull him stumbling away from his hiding spot.
"Papi, can we go play?" she asks, pulling the boy to her side and looking up at where her parents are talking with his mami and abuelo.
Her papi chuckles warmly. "Elenita, I'm not the one you need to ask."
"Oh, okay. Señora de Alva, can we go play?"
The boy's mami laughs, too, but Elena isn't quite sure of just what's so funny. "Well, Mateo? Do you want to go play with Princess Elena?"
Mateo stares up at his mami, and back down at where Elena is still tightly holding his hand, and suddenly he's nodding, and looking back between all the grown-ups and still nodding, so fast Elena wonders if his head is going to fly off.
Elena sprints off toward the gardens, nearly dragging a startled Mateo behind her. The two of them chase each other around, and Elena shows Mateo all her favorite spots, and Mateo gets so excited about a rare flower that his abuelo told him about once that he carries on about it for nearly ten minutes (and he has a nice voice to listen to, Elena decides, glad she got to hear it after all). When it's time for the de Alvas to go home, they nearly have to be pried apart, because Mateo doesn't want to let go of her hand.
They're eight years old, and Mateo has just started his formal apprenticeship with his grandfather.
On the one hand, that's great! Mateo loves magic; it's his favorite thing to talk about whenever someone brings him by the palace to play, so Elena is ecstatic he's finally getting to learn properly. On the other hand, it means that now, whenever he's at the palace, he's too busy with his lessons to spend much time with her. It's not that her other friends aren't fun. Feli and Victor and Cousin Esteban are all wonderful playmates, and Isa is starting to get old enough to be interesting, but it just isn't the same without Mateo there, too.
So Elena loiters outside the library around when she hopes is the end of the lesson, listening intently to the muffled sounds of Alacazar explaining different spells and crossing her fingers that Mateo will have some time to play before his abuelo takes him home. The painting slides open with a click and Mateo bounds out, chattering excitedly about the session, but he freezes at the sight of Elena and looks up at his grandfather with wide eyes.
"Well, I guess we have some time before your mami will want us home," Alacazar says with a chuckle, and Mateo barely waits another second to go running over to Elena, and she barely waits a second to grab his hand and start walking with him down the hall.
"You've gotta tell me everything that you're learning," she says, and he nods, grinning.
They're ten years old, and Elena is sick in bed. It's just a cold, the doctor has said, and she knows she'll be fine soon, but she's still miserable now, with a cough and a stuffy nose and an awful ache behind her eyes that both makes her want to sleep and makes sleeping infuriatingly impossible to do. To make matters worse, her mami doesn't want any of her friends getting sick, so they've been barred from visiting in person, with a stack of treats and flowers and get well soon cards passed along in their stead. So, not only is she sick, but she's bored, too.
Frustrated, she rolls over, frowning toward the open window and angry that the day decided to be so warm and wonderful when she can't go enjoy it. And then she rubs her eyes, confused, as a single, yellow flower haloed in orange light floats up through the window and drops itself just a few inches shy of a nearby end table. Another follows close behind, landing on the windowsill, and when the third finally makes it onto the table, Elena gets up to investigate.
Mateo is standing down below, beside a small pile of brightly colored flowers, and he has his tamborita pointed at another one that's made it halfway up to the window when Elena pokes her head out.
"Hello!" he calls brightly, waving, and the flower falls back onto his face while he's distracted.
"I thought you already sent me flowers?" Elena says, giggling. "And a card, and those little berry candies."
"I know, but I wanted to send you more. They were supposed to be a surprise for when you woke up but…" He pauses and rubs at the back of his neck. "I guess now it's a show?" Glancing down at the pile, he makes a face and continues. "You should go lie back down, though. This, uh. This might take a while."
"You can bring them up with you!" She doesn't want to get Mateo sick, but she's desperate for company her own age. "I bet you can get to my door without anyone seeing you."
Mateo stares up at her for a moment, and then suddenly grins. "I have a better idea," he says. "Stand back!"
Elena obliges, curious, but after nearly a minute she's getting antsy, and she starts for her window again just as Mateo's face pops into view directly outside it.
She stifles a scream, and Mateo nearly falls, the orange glow around him snuffing out, but she grabs hold of him just in time to pull him scrambling through the window.
"I need to work on that one," he gasps. But, shaking his head as if he's clearing the thought away, he presents his haphazard bouquet with a smile.
They spend the afternoon together, whispering stories to one another and telling jokes, and Elena almost forgets that she isn't feeling well.
When Mateo accidentally drops himself on the way back down and breaks his wrist, Elena makes sure she's the first to sign his cast, apologizing profusely the entire time and leaving a trail of tiny hearts after her name.
They're twelve years old, and Elena is pretty sure Mateo is being bullied at school. He doesn't say so, but that's kind of the problem. He just isn't saying much at all anymore, quiet and withdrawn in a way she hasn't seen him in years. It hurts to see, and it hurts even more that Elena doesn't know how to help.
She's tried asking about it, and she's tried not asking, just waiting for him to speak up instead, and she's tried carrying on with all their regular activities as if nothing is wrong, but something is wrong, so she can't stand pretending. It's admitting her own sorrow that finally breaks through.
"Oh, uh. Some people have been saying that I talk too much," Mateo says softly, "and that it's really annoying, so…"
Elena doesn't respond right away, just trying to hold down the aghast anger that anyone would say that at all, let alone to Mateo, and he seems to take her stunned silence as confirmation.
"I'm sorry." He rubs at his arms like he's hugging himself. "I was worried I'd been bothering you all this time and I just hadn't noticed."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snaps, finally finding her voice again. "You're not annoying, and anyone who says so is wrong."
"But I—"
"Nope! I'm the princess, and this is my decree!" Hooking her arm through his, she tilts her head back and shouts into the open air of the gardens. "You hear that? Mateo is great, and anyone who doesn't think that can answer to me!"
Mateo is giggling beside her, looking embarrassed, but he's smiling again, and laughing again, and that's all that matters.
They're fourteen years old, and they're dancing together at the Sunflower Festival. They're clumsy and all over the place, twirling back and forth across the festival grounds with abandon, right up until the moment Mateo's foot snags on the hem of Elena's dress and they tumble into a pile of limbs and ruffles. Elena pushes herself partly back up, looking down at Mateo's bewildered face below her, and the two of them suddenly burst out laughing. They laugh until their sides hurt, and then they untangle themselves and go right back to dancing, a little slower this time, but their smiles are just as wide as before.
They're sixteen years old, and they're staring down a sorceress, with terror locking them in a do or die stalemate. Elena's thoughts are a chaotic whirl; she can't seem to pull even one out of the maelstrom to focus on long enough to process. Her parents are gone. Her cousin is missing. Her sister, oh God, she doesn't know where her sister is. The only one that's here is Mateo, hands shaking around his tamborita, desperately pouring everything he has into a shield that they both know won't last forever.
But it holds long enough. It holds long enough for Alacazar to arrive, and two wizards can hold the line better than one. They buy enough time for a battalion of guards to show up as well, and even the most fearsome of magical foes still knows the old adage of the strength found in numbers. Shuriki isn't dead, and she's far from gone, but she's fled for now, giving Elena a chance to finally just breathe and remember that
oh God her parents are gone
and the world caves in around her. She's supposed to be breathing, but it's coming too fast and shallow, and her chest constricts painfully around her lungs to squash whatever is left of that ability. Her vision is blurry, or dark, she can barely tell the difference, and the floor is rushing up at her and floating away all at once.
When her senses start coming back to her, she finds herself kneeling on the ground, with Mateo's arms around her. He's holding her tightly and murmuring apologies and prayers into her hair, and she's able to feel herself breathing again, though the sound is ragged and foreign in her ears. When Alacazar approaches to inform her that her sister and grandparents are safe, she nods stiffly and stands, gripping Mateo's hand with one of her own trembling ones to keep her balance. Alacazar leads them to the palace infirmary, just so they can get a once-over from the doctor, but it's Mateo that gently tugs on Elena's hand so that she can keep walking, as far away as she feels, and even as her scrapes are being cleaned and as her breathing becomes just a little bit easier, she still doesn't want to let go of his hand.
"You know," Elena finally says, a wistful smile on her face, "I'm not sure I actually know the answer myself."
A day late on this one, because my brain apparently didn't want to come up with anything for this prompt until 10pm last night, and then decided to go completely ham on the idea instead of giving me something simple to work with.