You sigh as you collapsed on your bed, facing the ceiling of your room with your brain recalling the moments that just happened today in Encanto. Lifting your hand, you gaze at the lines on your palm intently before sitting up.

'That was the first time I've ever managed to get my power under control...' You thought then wondered if you could do it again if you tried. It's been at least a few hours since you finished doing your first work in town, so maybe you weren't in the zone anymore.

'Also, I've never really seen my fire give off a color like that.' You recalled back to the moment where the flames that comfortably danced inside the lantern gave off a warm and beautiful yellow glow. It reminded you a lot of the miracle candle that was displayed at the top of la casa Madrigal.

Something deep inside your mind wanted you to go out and see the candle to get a closer look at it, but then you remembered that Antonio's gift ceremony would be happening tonight and it'll happen in a few minutes. Then you dismissed the idea that wanting to see the candle was just ridiculous.

You like the kid, but gift ceremonies give you nothing but trauma now. The best you could do is pray that his ceremony would go well tonight and wish him good luck. Besides, abuela wouldn't want you to attend it anyway.

Sighing again, you get up on your feet and tried to focus on yourself. When you're going to be all by yourself again for the next few days until your mother comes visit again, the least you could do is try something new now that you've discovered something that you could do. Besides, your mom was out of town again and she'll return tomorrow so you were kinda bored.

You focused on your emotions, specifically the emotions that you felt when you saw Mirabel and Camilo encouraging you. You could clearly remember the shapeshifter giving you an encouraging nod and telling you that you could do it, which made your heart skip a beat for some reason,

and it made you happy. 

Gently lifting your hands, you focus on your palms and let the small flames come to life while you focused on that happy emotion. It didn't have the glowing yellow color that it had this morning, which disappointed you a bit but shrugged it off pretty quickly. Besides, you were much more used to see the normal red-orange colored flames anyway.

As your instincts told you that your flames were obeying you, you fluttered your fingers for a few seconds before lifting your hands as if you were orchestrating. On command, the flames began to fly around the room, leaving beautiful trails behind as they followed your hand movements.

Amazed at the sudden discovery of being able to do something with your gift, you smile excitedly. This was the first time you've been able to let your doubts and worries go about your gift. You've always been trying to suppress it because you believed that you'll never be able to accomplish something with it.

Maybe if you showed abuela, you can finally be able to help the townspeople and you can finally get out of your room anytime you want to!

Maybe you can also be friends with everyone in the house too. It would be nice to talk to Camilo and Mirabel properly again, like the good old times.

It's probably been almost an hour since you played and got used to controlling your flames that are just flying around your room. You even managed to make them appear and disappear at your will.

Small laughter escaped your lips as you saw them burst into small sparkling fireworks, illuminating your room with a beautiful red, yellow, and orange glow. Taking small deep breaths, you eventually felt yourself getting exhausted and you plopped yourself on your bed to rest for a few minutes.

However, the smile on your face never faded when you lifted your hands again to stare at your palms. If you can control your powers now and show abuela the things you just did, everything would change for the better for you.

Unfortunately for you, that smile didn't really last.

"Ow!" Just as you were starting to feel comfortable again, you felt a sharp pain flash through your heart. Like something just clenched it tight all of a sudden. You slowly began to slouch and brought your hand over to your chest, wondering what has gotten into you.

Crack

Your ears caught the sound of tiles and walls cracking outside of your room. Confused about what's happening, you painfully walked over to the door and opened it, revealing large cracks around the walls of the tower's hallways that led to your actual door in the house. The more you stared at the cracks, the more pain you felt around your heart and it was starting to make your head hurt.

"What's going... on?" You muttered to yourself and began to climb down the stairs. You opened your door and peeked outside, revealing more sets of cracks from around the house and the doors of each Madrigal dimming and glowing dangerously.

You fully stepped outside to see what was happening and began to panic, wondering where everyone was or if did they even knew that something this terrible was happening. At the ground floor, Mirabel was panicking as well and followed the cracks that led up to the second floor where everyone's rooms were located.

As Mirabel's hazel brown eyes landed on yours, she immediately knew that she wasn't the only one who's seeing things. "(Y/N), what's going on!?" She yelled from the sounds of cracks.

"I don't know what's-!" You didn't even get to finish your sentence as you felt your head throbbing in pain that it's just slowly becoming unbearable. With your teeth clenched from the pain, you slowly slid down on the floor to try and soothe the pain as the sounds of Casita breaking down entered your ears like they were a continuous echo.

"(Y/N)!" Mirabel called out to you and was about to run over to support you, but knew that it would be better if she called on everyone first so they can tend to you easily, especially her mother. "I-I'll get you some help! Hang in there!"

With that, Mirabel rushed over to Antonio's room, where everyone was dancing on top of the large tree that materialized when everyone entered his room. Running up to the steps, Mirabel shouted, "The house is in danger!"

The music stopped and everyone halted as they turned to look at the young Madrigal. "The house is in danger!" She shouted again as she tried to catch her breath. "The tiles were falling and there were cracks everywhere!" Mirabel's voice that was full of panic and fear made everyone uncomfortable.

"The candle almost went out and (Y/N) is hurt!" She finally said, earning a few collective mutters and gasps from the crowd. Camilo frowned and his eyebrows furrowed nervously at the mention of you being hurt. What was going on? What happened to you?

Abuela thinned her lips and arranged her black shawl as she walked over to Mirabel. "Show me." She said, making the young girl beckon for her abuela to come to the front of the house.

As everyone filed outside to see what kind of damage la casa Madrigal had based from Mirabel's description, everyone was confused when the same beautiful decorations that the Madrigals placed were still fine. There were no cracks on the walls, no tiles falling on the floor, and the candle looked like it was burning brightly as usual.

Some of the townspeople looked over to your hunched form. Your back was on the wall, just next to your room and your head was down low with your eyes closed. Your breathing was back to normal again and you can feel the sharp pain from your head and your chain slowly starting to fade away. You still felt nauseous though.

Camilo saw you and his frown deepened. Excusing some of the townspeople, he began to approach you and crouched down next to you. He could hear your soft yet agonizing breathing. "Hey, are you okay?"

Hearing Camilo's voice made you snap back to reality but you didn't have the energy to be shocked. Instead, you weakly nodded your head. "I'm... I'm fine." You whispered quietly as you bring your hand up to your head. 'What was that all about...?'

"Here," Camilo gently placed his hand on your back and another hand on top of yours. "Can you stand?" He asked.

Now you were kinda surprised at his actions. Speechless, you ended up nodding at his question, making him gently lift you up from the floor. He was careful not to let you collapse down again; he knew you weren't feeling too good.

You staggered a bit, making Camilo's grip on your hand tighten to make sure you weren't going to fall. With your heartbeat quickening, you immediately stabilized yourself. "...Thanks." You muttered loudly enough for him to hear.

Camilo only gave you a smile before turning his attention over to Mirabel. You waited for him to release his grip on your back and your hand, but he didn't seem to do that. You wanted to lean away from him because you were probably already blushing from the close contact.

Up close, you can see Camilo's green eyes and the freckles that spread around his cheeks. You've never really been able to see his face this up close before, but you turned away from him when you realized you were staring and diverted your attention to Mirabel as well.

"What?" Mirabel gasped to herself as she arranged her round green glasses. "No, that's..." She was at loss for words. She was sure she had seen the house falling apart.

"The cracks were there...!" She said and pointed at one of the walls. "They were everywhere!" Mirabel's voice cracked when she was slowly starting to feel the troubled and disapproving glare from Isabela and abuela.

"The house was in trouble... The candle was...!" Mirabel turned to the candle, only to see that it looked fine like it hadn't been touched at all. From the second floor, Isabela scoffed at her sister, thinking that it was just another ploy for her to get attention and try to ruin Antonio's ceremony.

Anxious, the girl turned to look at her grandmother. "Abuela, I promise-"

"That's enough." said Abuela, who raised her hand to stop Mirabel from talking any further. She quickly stole a glance at you, who was being supported by Camilo. She disapproved having one of her family members being so close to you in case something bad happened, but knew that you needed help based from the somewhat pained expression on your face.

As she turned to the townspeople, she puts up a wide smile and raised her hands. "There is nothing wrong with La Casa Madrigal. The magic is strong, and so are the drinks." She said, earning a couple of chuckles from the adults.

"Please, music! A bailar, a bailar!" Abuela looked over to Agustin, who beckoned for Luisa to come over and bring the piano. Agustin played a few upbeat keys with Luisa uncomfortably smiling as everyone started to smile and release any worries they might've had for the Madrigals.

As almost everyone piled back up on Antonio's room, Julieta was the only one who wanted to talk to her daughter. She and abuela exchanged a look for a moment. "Tend to (Y/N) as well. She looks hurt." said abuela before entering Antonio's room.

Julieta glanced over at you and Camilo, who were now slowly walking over to her and Mirabel. The three of the young Madrigals followed Julieta to the kitchen, where she was preparing to make arepa con queso to heal both you and Mirabel. She decided to make three for Camilo since she knows he likes eating them a lot.

"(Y/N), are you okay?" asked Mirabel as she scanned your body for any signs of injuries you might've had.

"I'm fine, Mira. Thank you, both of you." You said and looked at your two friends with a small smile. You turned to Camilo with an apologetic look.

"Sorry for bothering you, Camilo. You can return to Antonio's room if you want." You said, earning a scoff from the shapeshifter.

"And miss tia Julieta's arepa con queso? Nah, I'll stay here. Besides, I wanna know what's happening too." He said as he sat next to you on the counter, excitedly waiting for Julieta to finish cooking up the arepas.

Mirabel eventually began to sit next to you. "You saw what happened too, right?" She asked worriedly. "Something's happening to the house..."

You didn't say anything since you didn't want to assume the worst. But your guess was that Mirabel was right - something is happening to the house and none of the Madrigals except Mirabel and maybe Camilo, know about it.

"Mirabel, don't you think that it might just be in your head?" said Julieta with a frown.

"If it was just all in my head, how did I cut my hand? How was (Y/N) able to see what I was seeing?" asked Mirabel as she slowly started to get frustrated at the idea that she was being labelled as crazy by her family. "I would never ruin Antonio's night! Is that really what you think?"

Julieta flipped the other side of the arepas and wiped her hands before walking over to you three. "What I think is that today was very hard for you." She said.

"That's..." Mirabel didn't finish her sentence and only grunted in frustration. "I was looking out for the family... and I might not be as strong as Luisa or effortlessly perfect like señorita perfecta Isabela who's never even had a bad hair day but..." The girl sighed and began to slump. "Whatever..."

"Tia Julieta, I... There's also something that happened when I heard the cracks in the house." You started to speak up since you didn't want Mirabel to think that she wasn't being backed up when you were literally one of the witnesses.

All of the Madrigals' attention were on you. "When I heard them, I felt... pain. I don't know why it happened but it made me feel like I was about to break down and faint. It was almost unbearable." You said, rubbing the inerasable burn marks on your hands. "I think Mirabel is right. She won't have any reason to lie."

"I mean, if there are two witnesses, I personally think that it's worth investigating in." said Camilo all of a sudden from beside you. "I don't like the idea of something bad happening to the house, but like (Y/N) said, Mirabel doesn't have any reasons to lie about something as important as this."

Mirabel almost wanted to cry when you and Camilo believed her. At least she wasn't being brushed off unlike abuela.

Julieta watched the three of you and then sighed defeatedly. "Listen," she said. "We don't have enough evidence to see that Casita really is breaking down. The house is fine when we saw it earlier. Even if what Mirabel said is true, what can we do?"

Mirabel's face became crestfallen and you nervously began to play with your fingers. Julieta was right; even if it was true that the house is breaking down, what could you even do about it? You don't have anything that could get them to start investigating and talking to abuela would be pointless since she'll just brush you off again.

After a few seconds of silence, the tiles on the counter moved and delivered the plates of freshly cooked arepas near Julieta.

"I just wish you could see yourself the way I do..." She said while tucking a strand of a stray hair that was on Mirabel's face. Julieta brought the plates over to the three of you, making you grab one arepa and taking a bite out of it.

Immediately, your body felt at peace. Nothing hurt anymore and you were feeling better than ever, which made you smile unconsciously. Camilo was almost eating his arepas like he was a starving child on the streets.

"You are perfect just like this." said Julieta with a smile. "You're just as special as everyone else in this family."

"Mhm," Mirabel hummed, unamused. "You just healed my hand with an arepa con queso." She said and lifted up her bitten arepa.

"I healed your hand with my love for my daughter with her wonderful brain..." said Julieta as she took Mirabel's free hand, gripping it tightly, making the young girl groan in embarrassment as she realized that her cousin and her friend is literally sitting right beside her. "And big heart, cool glasses...!"

Your eyes met Camilo when you realized how awkward the situation has gotten and he shrugged as he took another huge bite out of his arepa. You playfully rolled your eyes and almost laughed at his goofy face when he was eating his food.

"I know what I saw." said Mirabel with her arms crossed as she hopped off of the counter to look at her mother, hoping that she'd believe her too. Julieta could only sigh once again and watch as you and Camilo were looking at them awkwardly.

"Mira, my brother Bruno lost his way in this family." said Julieta, making both you and Camilo look at her. "I don't want the same for you. For all of you." She glanced at you and Camilo, specifically you.

You suddenly felt bad when you remembered the rumors that Bruno left Encanto the day after Mirabel's ceremony. You couldn't help but somewhat blame yourself for his leave too since her ceremony was a disaster because of you.

Why he left was a mystery but you'd rather not think about it too much.

"Go get some sleep, you three. It's best if we just forgot about what happened tonight." Julieta walked over to the sink and began to wash the dishes, leaving you three to look at each other with a troubled look. Eventually, you left the kitchen with Mirabel and Camilo following from behind.

As you climbed up to the stairs, Mirabel was the first to part ways. She waved you two goodbye as she entered the nursery with a frown.

"Do you think she'll be fine?" You ask quietly.

"I hope so. I don't like the idea of her staying up all night thinking about the house falling down and all that." answered Camilo, who also looked worried for his cousin. He believed Mirabel, but he knew that if he voiced his concerns about it to his parents or god forbid to abuela, he'll be told to not worry about it.

Well, Camilo is supposed to not worry about things. Any conflict that might make the townspeople worry, he had to tell them that everything was fine. After all, he's supposed to make them smile if they're sad. He likes to see people happy of course, but sometimes he just feels like he has to be constantly making them happy even if he's not feeling well.

"Hey," (Y/N) spoke up, causing Camilo to turn around and look at her. "Thanks again for... Well, helping me."

"You really don't have to keep thanking me for that." The shapeshifter chuckled as he placed his hands on his hips. "I just did what  anyone would've done."

"Still, I might've bothered you and you had to um... skip Antonio's party in his room. Honestly, I think that saying 'thank you' to you is just not enough." You said quietly and nervously began to play with your fingers again.

"Hmm," Camilo hummed thoughtfully and looked up to the ceiling as if he was thinking of something. When he finally got an idea, he smiled and looked at you. "Well, if you wanna thank me so badly, you could come with me to town tomorrow."

"What?" You were surprised.

"You said that saying 'thank you' to me isn't enough right?" Camilo shrugged. "So this is a good exchange, if you wanna think of it that way. Besides, it's been years since we hung out again. You got to walk to town today with Mirabel at least."

He almost wanted to congratulate himself for being able to ask that question since he was so nervous when he saw you in town today. Camilo thanked his inner friendliness with everyone in town.

"...What about abuela? She'll know that I'm not in my room because tia Julieta brings me food to my room." You asked.

"Abuela won't know if she doesn't find out. I can tell tia Julieta about it; I'm sure she'll understand." said Camilo with a huge smile. "Come on, what do you say?"

You were conflicted. Yes, you wanted to hang out with Camilo but you don't want to disobey abuela. You keep thinking of all the worst case scenarios that might happen if she did catch you. You weren't worried for yourself, you were worried that Camilo will get in trouble and you don't want that happening to him.

Losing control of your magic is the least of your worries now since you could control it partially.

But seeing Camilo looking excited to hang out with you made you not want to reject him. Maybe this was a good idea? You need to have something new in your life too, plus it's been years since you've been in in town.

Sighing defeatedly, you nod. "Alright. I'll come with you."

Camilo's smile widened and he almost wanted to cheer out loud. "Great! I'll come pick you up after breakfast." He said then walked over to where his door was. Before he entered, he looked back at you and waved.

"Good night, (Y/N)." He said, making you smile a bit and wave back at him. "Good night, Camilo."

The shapeshifter entered his room and jumped in the air, shapeshifting into some people out of pure joy as he did so. He finally gets to reconnect with you. How awesome is his day gonna get?

Meanwhile in your room, you collapsed on your bed and started to think about what tomorrow was going to be like. You hoped that it wouldn't be a disaster like today.

Before you could think any further, your eyes fluttered closed and you were taken in the land of dreams.

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