Mirabel's Super Secret Adventure
Movie AU
Chapter Preview: Dolores blinked, a glimmer of something passing over her face before it went blank. Mirabel waited, but Dolores didn’t respond.
“Oh come on, you have to know something! Tío Bruno and Tía Leandra were talking about it just last night. And there’s no way you haven’t heard Tío Bruno wandering in the walls,” Mirabel pressed.
Prologue Prev Next Masterlist
4. Hear No Evil
Mirabel dropped the bundle of clothes off in her room then rushed out the door. She needed to talk to Dolores pronto, not because she had some sort of deadline, but because the mystery of it all was the most interesting thing to have happened to her ever.
She made it two steps out of her room and almost barreled into Abuela.
“Oh,” she quickly took a step back.
“Mirabel, careful,” Abuela admonished, “you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Right, sorry Abuela.”
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Oh, um, I actually wanted to talk to you!” Mirabel put on her biggest grin, “Luisa and I wanted to have a cousins’ day in her pool next week, to welcome Mariano into the family.”
“What a marvelous idea,” Abuela clapped her hands together once, “I will talk to Luisa tonight, so we can iron out the details.”
“Um, I-I could plan it,” Mirabel said, daring to hope for a second, even though she knew what Abuela was going to say next.
“Oh no Mirabel, don’t trouble yourself, Luisa and I will take care of everything.”
“But-.”
“Now, aren’t you supposed to be getting some rest?” Abuela asked, gently putting her hand on Mirabel’s shoulder to guide her back towards the nursery.
“I-.”
“Sleep well,” she said with a warm smile as she bustled off to get things done. Mirabel watched her go, then sighed deeply. It was for the best, she told herself, she had stuff to do anyways.
Once Abuela was gone, Mirabel turned to the nearest wall and asked, “Alright Casita, where’s Dolores?”
Casita shook the floorboards one by one, leading up to Dolores’ door. Mirabel took a deep breath, reminded herself she had a mystery to solve, and jogged over to the door. She knocked out a little tune besides Dolores’ face, reclaiming some of her dampened enthusiasm.
Then she waited.
It took long enough that Mirabel had already raised her hand to knock again, when the door opened, revealing Tío Bruno.
“Tío Bruno,” Mirabel gasped, then tried to cover her shock by leaning against the railing and asking, “‘sup?”
Tío Bruno blinked owlishly at her for a couple beats, then shrugged his shoulders minutely and said, “Not much.”
“Right,” Mirabel nodded, and gave her uncle finger guns.
“Did uh, did you want to talk to Dolores?”
“I- sí, b-but I mean I can come back if-.”
“No,” Dolores suddenly appeared behind Tío Bruno, “Tío Bruno was just heading out.”
“Dolores,” Bruno sighed, a note of warning in his voice.
“Thank you, Tío Bruno, but I’m fine,” she said, quiet as ever, but nonetheless firm.
Tío Bruno huffed, and walked away grumbling, “At this rate I might as well change my name to Cassandra.”
Mirabel couldn’t help but give him a sympathetic smile as he passed her by, which he returned with a sort of exhausted fondness. When she looked back at Dolores, she was staring after Bruno, brows furrowed and eyes shiny.
Then, very abruptly, Dolores turned to Mirabel and said, “If this is about the pool party, I’ll have to sit it out. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Oh, actually I wanted to ask-. Um. I mean, we can push it back a week so you-.”
“That’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sí.”
“Bien,” Mirabel said slowly, drawing the single syllable out so Dolores would have a chance to change her mind.
Instead, Dolores asked, “You wanted to talk about something else?”
“Oh, um, yeah. I-,” it took a beat for her to get her mind back on track, “what do you know about the cracks?”
Dolores blinked, a glimmer of something passing over her face before it went blank. Mirabel waited, but Dolores didn’t respond.
“Oh come on, you have to know something! Tío Bruno and Tía Leandra were talking about it just last night. And there’s no way you haven’t heard Tío Bruno wandering in the walls,” Mirabel pressed.
Dolores sighed through her nose, “I know that Tío Bruno can’t figure out what’s causing them. He’s come up with hundreds of theories since-, over the years.”
“Anything else?”
Dolores shook her head minutely, eyes flicking beyond Mirabel’s shoulder then back to her face. Mirabel looked behind her, but couldn’t tell what Dolores had glanced at. All she saw was the opposite wall and the nursery door.
“How long ago did they start appearing?” Mirabel asked.
She shrugged, “They were already happening the day I got my gift. But they used to close before anyone noticed them, I thought it was just-. Casita doesn’t seem to mind so I didn’t think there was anything wrong until Tío Bruno started looking for them.”
“When did he start looking for them?”
Instead of answering the question, she frowned, staring at Mirabel for a long time. Suddenly she stepped back into her room and held the door open. Slowly, feeling a bit unsure, Mirabel walked through the door.
Dolores’ room was the epitome of coziness, most of it was covered in soft surfaces such as floor rugs, throw blankets, and tapestries. Somewhere behind one of those tapestries was what Camilo jokingly referred to as Dolores’ Sanctum of Silence, but nobody knew which one. And if somebody did happen to find the secret entrance, it would change locations. It made for a room that felt as quiet and secretive as Dolores herself.
The only exception was the airy window seat crammed between two bookshelves on the wall farthest from the door.
When the door was gently closed behind her, Mirabel turned to give her cousin an expectant look, only to find Dolores staring contemplatively at her hand on the doorknob.
“When I first got my gift, Tío Bruno told Má not to let me listen to the Floréz farm. When she asked why, he told her that the eldest Floréz and his wife had been tricking Tío Bruno into having visions of them having sex ever since they got married,” she said, without looking up.
“What? Why?!”
“Some people like being watched, or listened to,” Dolores said, casually, as if this was no big deal, then she continued, “they started calling my name, saying they had a message for Abuela about the monthly coffee delivery or something, anything to get me to listen to them. I would tell my Má and she would thunder, drowning everything else out. One day Pá went over to their house and after that they never did it again, but they also stopped giving us our monthly order of coffee.”
“That’s horrible,” Mirabel whispered.
Dolores just shrugged, she had a little bit more to tell, “Abuela figured out they were mad at us and demanded to know why. Má and Papa were worried about how she would take… whatever it is Pá did to make them stop. Then… Tío Bruno told her it was because he’d given them a bad vision. She made him apologize to them.”
Dolores paused for a long time, and Mirabel stood there, waiting. She knew Dolores must have some point, some reason for telling her this. Although she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.
“Tío Bruno-. At the time I didn’t know why he did that, and I didn’t understand why he had to apologize. Even if he had given them a bad vision, it wouldn’t have been his fault,” Dolores finally looked up at Mirabel, giving her an intense look, “but it doesn’t matter if something is his fault, he’ll always be blamed anyways. That’s what happens when-, if you can’t live up to the village's expectations…”
Mirabel examined Dolores’ face, knowing her cousin was trying to tell her something, but not sure what. Dolores stared back, as if waiting for Mirabel to have an epiphany. Then she sighed and looked away again.
“Mirabel, let Tío Bruno worry about the cracks,” Dolores opened her door again, a clear dismissal, “for as long as you can.”
Mirabel’s feet carried her forward, through the door, even though she had about a hundred more questions. It was clear from the look on Dolores’ face that there would be no answers. The second Mirabel was out of the room, the door snapped shut behind her.
She stood, dumbfounded and twice as confused as she had been minutes ago.
Eventually, she came to the conclusion that she had no other choice. Luisa’s room had been a bust, Dolores wasn’t helping, so she may as well try Isabela. She just needed to find her first.
When Mirabel knocked on Isabela’s door there was no answer, but she was pretty sure Isabela’s only chore for the day was to stay home and get ready to be proposed to. So where else would Isabella go? She wasn’t in the kitchen, nor the back garden. Camilo was gone for the day so she wasn’t hanging out with him.
She asked Casita, but Casita just directed her back to the back door, so Mirabel checked the garden again. Still no primadona big sisters.
Mirabel looked over at Tía Leandra’s soap making shed. Apparently she used to have a soap making cave in Tío Bruno’s tower, but hadn’t had a way to keep young children out of it. Nobody felt great about having large amounts of lye sitting around the house where any small child might find it, so Casita had made a shed in the back garden that Tía Leandra kept locked when she wasn’t using it. She sold the soap in the market, one of the few sources of actual money for the Madrigal family.
The village generally traded for most everything, and most agreed that Julieta standing around the town square, healing people all day was worth a regular supply of things like fruit, vegetables, flour, and other such staples. For non-essentials like coffee (although Tío Bruno had made a pretty good case for coffee being considered an essential) Tía Pepa traded rainy days and sunshine. The non-essentials required more negotiating than the essentials, but not near as much as things like fabric and furniture, that stuff was given mostly in exchange for Luisa’s help around the village or visions from Tío Bruno.
In addition to bringing in some cash, Tía Leandra made all the soap the family needed, and had a close relationship with the goat herder since he’d apprenticed under her father, thus getting them free cheese. Tío Félix was technically supposed to inherit the mill, but had agreed to let his little brother, Felípe, take it so long as the Madrigals got a cut of the mill's profits. Her Pá was the son of an accountant (and the town’s de facto treasurer) and often traded his financial expertise for whatever his “clients”, mostly the town merchants, could offer. And recently, Camilo had taken to trading his time as a babysitter in a similar vein. But the main breadwinner in the family was actually Tío Bruno.
Once a month he invited anyone in the village who wished to attend to watch a future scientific discovery in the sandy riverbed. At the end, if he had the energy, he would allow the audience to vote on a previous vision to re-watch. Since the tablet would be a duplicate he didn’t feel bad smashing it up and selling it to either the local jeweler or the town’s merchants.
If Mirabel could, she would happily sell some of her embroidery to help support the family, but any time she brought it up Abuela told her not to worry about it. It was all Mirabel could do to get Abuela to let her help with the family’s tailoring needs.
Mirabel and Isabela used to spend a lot of time in Tía Leandra’s shed, Isabela growing whatever herbs Mirabel demanded so they could experiment with different combinations (under close adult supervision from their Tía, of course). But that was a long time ago, back when Isabela was still nice to her.
The shed was unlocked, the door slightly ajar. It was sort of a long shot, but it was possible Isabela was helping their Tía make her soaps.
So, Mirabel drifted closer, reaching for the door.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Tía Leandra said to somebody inside.
Then, just as Mirabel’s fingers grazed the door handle she heard Isabela say in a defensive tone, “I’m not saying there is! I just… if Tío Bruno likes both, then I could like both too.”
Mirabel frowned, cocking her head. Like both of what?
“You could like both, true, but do you?”
“I-. Why are you trying to talk me out of this?”
“Because you’re my niece and I love you and I want you to be happy,” Tía Leandra said, her voice strained with how much pleading she’d imbued into it.
“I will be happy, Mariano is a great guy.”
Mirabel’s eyebrows almost jumped off her face.
“He is, sí. A bit thick for my taste, but there isn’t a shred of malice in his entire meaty body. But that’s not in question here. The question on the table is, do you want to marry him?”
Then there was a long resounding silence. Mirabel kept waiting for Isabela to say yes, of course she wanted to marry Mariano, she was in love with him. However after five seconds of silence, she realized that answer wasn’t coming.
After ten seconds of silence, Isabela sighed, “Well, it’s not like I can marry-. Mariano is my friend, a-and he’ll make a good father. And it’s what’s best for the Encanto.”
“Ay, so you’ve said, but that’s-. You know what! You need another perspective, you need to talk to somebody your own age about this,” Tía Leandra said, voice suddenly very bright and cheerful, “how about you talk to Dolores! Tell her you’re not in love with him.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Dolores has been, I don’t know, she’s been really sad about something lately. She won’t tell me what,” Isabela hedged, “I don’t want to pile my problems onto her too.”
There was another long pause.
“Um, Tía, are you alright?”
“Fantastic,” Tía Leandra said, voice too high and cheery to be genuine, “will you excuse me, I need to have a conversation with my husband about something.”
“You’re not going to tell anyone, right? You and Tío Bruno promised.”
There was a very noisy sigh, that may or may not have been released through Tía Leandra’s teeth, “No, but I think you should. Starting with Dolores. Excuse me.”
Mirabel should have realized that Tía Leandra essentially saying “excuse me while I go talk to Bruno” meant she was about to open the door and walk out of the shed. She should have moved out of the way if she didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. She should have walked away the second she realized how private this conversation was.
But she didn’t.
So, when Tía Leandra opened the door with a box of finished soaps on her wide shoulder and Isabela trailing at her heels, Mirabel was standing dumbstruck.
Mirabel gaped at Isabela.
Isabela stared back in horror.
Unnoticed by either of them, Tía Leandra looked heavenward and mouthed “Gracias.”
Then the shouting began.
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Okay, so in Part One of my Alador divorces Odalia Early AU I established Adrian and Alador getting together and hinted at Darius and Co. coming into the picture. Here’s (vaguely) how that goes. It’s pretty long though, so I put it under a cut so people could scroll past it. Have fun everyone!
At this point in the story, Alador and Adrian have been dating for around 6 months. Alador knows that Adrian is a new Coven Head and Adrian knows that Alador is working for a small company.
The thing about their relationship though, is that they’re both only just starting to realize that they're getting serious. Adrian initially started their relationship on a whim to get back at Darius for dropping him (Yeah they were fling buddies and then Darius cut him off, I’ll explain better later), and Alador just started it as a way to kickstart him getting over Odalia for good (Real healthy, I know). Now, though, Adrian’s realized that he’s caught (ugh) feelings for Alador, and Alador is starting to fall for Adrian. At first, Adrian tried to ghost Alador for a bit to distance himself and see if he could manage to shake the feeling. That didn’t work though and just made both him and Alador sad. So now Adrian decides that if Alador and his kids are going to be a part of his life, he’s going to make sure that Alador never sees the fucked up side of his personality.
Enter: Darius, Eberwolf, and the circus that’s the Coven Heads.
One day Alador asks Adrian if he can take care of Amity for a few hours, as he’s going to be a chaperone for the twins' school field trip and isn’t allowed to take Amity with him. Amity’s usual sitter was out of town and Alador didn’t feel comfortable leaving Amity with someone he hadn't fully vetted. Adrian’s a bit worried but agrees to take care of her for a few hours. Everything was going fine for the first few hours. Amity was left to play, and when she asked, he would play being her other doll. (“Oh now princess. The spell is too strong. How ever will I escape?” “I’ll save you, Princess!”) Just when he finished feeding her (and gave her a slice of fairy pie as a bribe to clean up her toys), he received a summon from the Emperor’s Coven.
Adrian briefly contemplates getting Amity a sitter, before deciding not to. Alador already said he didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone with a random person, and really, Adrian had no idea where to even find a babysitter. So he decides to take Amity (who’s covered in fairy pie stains) to the coven meeting with him. Worse comes to worst, he can hand Amity over to one of the scouts and tell them to stand outside the door and watch her.
So Adrian shows up to the coven meeting with Amity in tow (and stained clothes, but he doesn’t know that yet).
So Adrian shows up with Amity in tow just as Head Witch Scooter shows up. The Bard Coven Head and the rest of the Coven Heads in the room do small talk before one of them asks why Adrian has a child with him (Scooter and Lilith are concerned about a child's proximity to Terra - I would be too - while the rest are just curious). Adrian’s about to answer (and probably about to piss them off), but just before he can Belos walks in (accompanied by the current Golden Guard, RIP Baby). Adrian quickly tells Belos that this will be the only time that Amity will appear at a meeting as he couldn’t find anyone to look after her on such short notice. Belos simply hums and tells Adrian that will be the only time that he will be allowed to have her in the meeting, as these are high-security meetings involving matters of the state (or Isle, I guess?). And yes, it does sound like a threat.
Meanwhile, Darius is mentally going ‘why the fuck is Blight going behind Odalia’s back with THIS’ throughout the entire meeting. Darius has no idea that Alador and Odalia are divorced, as Alador kept the fact that he's divorced on the DL. So Darius has no idea that Alador is divorced and thinks Alador is being blatantly obvious about his “affair”. He spends the entire meeting coming up with increasingly conspiracy theory-like ideas for why Adrian might be dating Alador and why he brought Amity to the coven meeting. Eventually, he has to accept the fact that A) Alador has questionable taste in people and B) Adrian really was just playing babysitter for the night.
Adrian agrees to Belos's thr-I mean request, and the coven meeting begins. The entire meeting is basically a mix of the Coven Heads going over Very Important and Serious Matters while also trying to put each other down/subtly threaten each other. (At one point someone points out Adrian’s stained clothes. Adrian looks at them like he’s going to murder them while still holding a fairy-pie-stained Amity who tugs on his hair.)
So the meeting proceeds and everyone gets to witness Adrian and Darius passive aggressively putting each other down every five minutes (Adrian is awfully smug for someone who has a toddler trying to chew their hair and covered in stains). Eberwolf lets Darius do his mental gymnastics while they take notes on the meeting because they love the chaos. Meanwhile, Belos is letting them get away with their interruptions/tangents because it amuses him to watch his subordinates fight each other, and hey, if everyone's too busy fighting each other then they won’t be looking too closely into what the Day of Unity actually means (too late babe, the Golden Guard is onto your lying ass!).
When the meeting is over, Adrian skips the Post-Coven Meeting drinking tour/meet up (just look at who’s in those coven meetings and try to tell me they don’t have one, I dare you) to drop Amity off and arrives at Blight Manor to Alador making dinner and the twins trying to help. Alador apologizes to Adrian about not hiring a sitter (Adrian left Alador a note about the coven meeting). Adrian says everything turned out fine, but that this would be the only time Emperor Belos would allow Adrian to attend a Coven meeting with Amity in tow.
And now I’m going to cut this off because if I don’t this post is going to get too long. Here’s to hoping that I post Part 3, AKA the Break Up Arc, soon. (Knowing me it probably won’t be for another few months. Sorry.)
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