in a few swift motions the boy was sweating with his back on the grass and a sharp blade inches away from his chest.
Miras hands shook against the knife as the adrenaline of her actions wore off. her coiled hair stretched to stay in the ponytail it was tied in as she gasped for breath. her parrot colored skirt brushed against both their ankles while her white blouse displayed the symbols of each of her family members.
she'd lived in la casa Lopez for three months and gotten two months of training with Senor Gomez. she was apparently the best student he'd ever had.
she'd composed plans for various situations, including the one she was currently in. Mira had seen the boy looking around at the shops and asking if they had large supplies of anything. she knew he was a scout for bandits. so she followed him to the forest where he untied a horse from a tree and hopped on. that was when she put her plan into action.
Mira had pulled the boy off his horse with one hand and pulled her knife out from its sheath around her thigh before pointing it directly at his heart.
"where do you think you're going?" she finally asked after what felt like hours, but what must've only been seconds, of silence.
"n-nowhere little lady. sso why don't you just go back to your fri-friends and mind your own porro business?" he shakily replied.
"where are you going?" Mira asked in a tone only reminding her of her abuela as she brought the blade closer to his practically vibrating chest.
finally the boy saw she wasn't an ordinary villager.
"to the bandits. I'm their scout. I come here before every raid. if I don't they'll hurt my brother" the boy explained.
"your brother?" Mira questioned, raising an eyebrow as she moved her knife away an inch.
that was when she noticed his accent was different. his speech was smoother than a normal persons speech in his situation, the letter 's' came out closer to a whistle from him and he was speaking strictly English except for a word she didn't recognize, different from the frequent language switch between English and Spanish she'd been told the regular bandits normally did.
"where are you from?" her eyes narrowed.
"Brazil. we sneaked over the border but then we were captured by bandits" he explained nervously.
Mira scanned him for what felt like the first time. strands of his collarbone-length dark brown hair was sprayed over his face, his taupe brown eyes whimpered with fear and with how little of his body she was touching she could tell he was thin, underweight. he wore torn clothes that barely fit him, looking like he'd been wearing them for weeks. what stood out most on him was a bright yellow earring of a flower she'd never seen on his left ear.
"okay. I believe you. but you're coming with me. if you're telling the truth, I'll ask Daniela and Aaron to save your brother" Mira concluded, standing up and putting her knife back in its sheath.
"thank you so much" he whispered as she helped him up.
"so the bandits captured him and are using him as a scout with his twin brother as a prisoner?" primo Aaron queried.
"thats what he said" Mira shrugged.
"do you think we can believe him tio Andres?" hermana Daniela asked tio Andres, who was visibly contemplating something.
"from what Mira said, he didn't put up much of a fight. and his clothes looked much more worn out and old than the regular bandits, it looked like something you'd make a prisoner wear" Andres explained.
"also when I had him pinned down I could feel he was underweight, like he wasn't eating enough" Mira recalled. she'd seen it when someone didn't eat enough in her tio Bruno.
"lets fatten him up" Daniela whispered, earning a chuckle from Andres.
the wall tiles rattled about in response in knock code.
don't
"its a joke Casita. I know your not very good with these types of jokes" Mira patted the tiles with a smile.
"um, obrigado a todos pela ajuda" the boy from earlier announced as he came downstairs in some of Aarons spare clothes, which fit him a bit better but still not well.
"what?" Mira questioned.
"oh" the boy squeaked before clearing his throat.
"thank you all for your help" he bowed as he spoke.
"what's your name?" Daniela asked, grabbing a hair tie as she walked over.
"I'm Lucas" the boy replied as she stepped behind him and began tying his hair for him.
"I'm Andres, shes my niece Daniela, he's my cousins son Aaron and this is our extra member of the familia, Mira" the butterfly host blushed when she heard herself be called part of the Lopez familia.
"we defend the village from bandits!" Daniela winked, practically dragging Lucas to the kitchen with ease.
"this is so good! what do you call it?" Lucas asked, munching happily on an arepa.
"its an arepa! me and Andres cooked it! Casita keeps leftovers in the fridge if you want some more. you need the food" Mira explained.
"Casita?" Lucas questioned.
as if on cue, Casita rattled a tile next to the steaming coffee pot.
Lucas jumped in his seat as Andres stood up.
"thank you Casita. I didn't sleep well last night" Andres spoke calmly as he walked over, the tiles under his feet lightly nudging him forward.
"what? how?" Lucas muttered.
"she followed Mira here" Daniela shrugged.
"what?" the brown eyed boy repeated while Mira copied Danielas action.
"I mean basically. Casita used to be in the Encanto, the town behind those big mountains where I grew up. but then she came down and kind of, followed me to my new home after I had a bit of a falling out with my abuela" Mirabel explained.
"abuela?" Lucas queried.
"you don't know any Spanish do you? abuela means grandmother" Mira replied.
"oh like avó!" Lucas exclaimed.
"what language is that?" Daniela asked.
"portuguese. me and Miguels native language" his eyes seemed to dim with concern thinking of his brother.
"that's it! I'm going in!" Aaron declared as he slammed his hands on the table before rolling up his sleeve.
Mira instantly knew what he was talking about.
"stop! we can't do that. we don't know how many bandits there are or where they're keeping Miguel" Mira declared as Casita refused to let Aaron out of the room when he tried.
"around ten. they're keeping him in a worn out brown tent" Lucas spoke, sounding like he was speaking from a script.
"even then we should still wait for night when they're asleep" Mira continued.
"they go to bed around three hours after the sun sets, except for one that stays guard for two hours before waking someone else up to stay guard. the guard pattern continues until morning" Lucas interrupted, the same tone.
Andres put down his coffee mug and gave Lucas a hug, seeming to snap him back to reality.
"we should get him sometime between the guard changes when theres only one awake" Mira said, her voice stern and serious.