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Whoops, the link got messed up!!! I had a search and found the original story in my docs (entitled just, "elena drabble".) This is the little story I wrote to accompany this commission for @prophetic-hijinks, back in 2022!

i actually met hijinks in real life recently, it was so cool and lovely!! and it's so cool that encanto introduced us... thank you mirabel madrigal...

(fic under the cut)

Rockets to the Moon

Elena found it surprisingly easy to adjust to the house being alive. It wasn't unlike growing up in the convent. The house had a natural buzz, a certain agenda, and it responded promptly to calls for help, falling children and excessive clutter. It was, in its own way, very like an order of nuns. It was one of the easiest things to understand.

What she found strange was the politicking of being Bruno Madrigal's fiancée, and all the parties and meetings and social-visits-that-weren't-really-social-visits. But Bruno didn't seem to pay much mind to that, and she happily took it as her cue to break the rules.

Like now. The party was buzzing downstairs, a party just for her, and here she was sneaking away from it.

It wasn't her first engagement party, but it was certainly her favourite; Carlos had insisted on no children the first time around, but today Elena could simply slip away and amuse herself singing songs for Cecilia and the little ones, leaving Alma to say whatever it was she needed to say to the other women.

The emerald engagement ring on her finger, still new and unfamiliar, glowed in the dimness as she walked through the hallways, unsure what she was looking for. The house guided her along by fluttering the floor-tiles and twitching paintings in the direction it wanted her to go.

"Wherever you're taking me," she said, "I hope you're going to cover for me if I'm found out." The house didn't respond to that. Had it been too indirect? She wasn't quite sure what the rules were.

She reached a dead end, and found to her surprise that the skirting-board around her was coming undone, and arranging itself at the end of the hall; it formed a doorway leading into the night air, where a spiral staircase wound up and onto the roof.

Elena wondered if Bruno was waiting for her. Apparently this was supposed to be a women's night, but perhaps he'd snuck home early for her. She smiled to herself at the thought, and drew her shawl around her against the night air as she started to climb.

When she ascended to the top of the stairs, though, she instead found the figure of Bruno's niece Mirabel, curled up on the roof and staring at the stars. Had that been who Casita brought her here to see?

Glad she wasn't wearing her heels, she tiptoed along the top of the roof towards where Mirabel was sitting.

Mirabel didn't look up. It was clear from the smudging on her face that she'd been crying; Elena wondered if she was perhaps not the best person to approach her, new to Mirabel's everyday life as she was, but the part of her that remembered being eighteen made her come closer. How many times had Elena hidden in a quiet spot like this as a teenager, feeling like the world had forsaken her?

Mirabel drew her knees up and hugged them as Elena perched next to her.

“Hey there,” said Elena softly, unsure if she should put an arm around Mirabel or not.

Mirabel rubbed her eyes, simply pushing her hands under her glasses instead of taking them off. “Sorry,” sniffled Mirabel, “I didn’t... want you to see me like this.”

Elena took that as her cue to redirect her eyes away from Mirabel and towards the stars. Elena had comforted a lot of teenagers, under a lot of circumstances - the convent had seen its share of tragedy and adolescence both - and she was encouraged by Mirabel’s body language and tone of voice. Mirabel, it seemed, wanted to talk. That was good; Elena wanted to listen.

“I’ve seen worse,” said Elena warmly, “You’re still a lot more interesting than the crowd downstairs.”

Mirabel snorted. Elena chanced a peek and saw that Mirabel was still hugging her knees, goosebumps on her exposed arms. A pang of sympathy washed over Elena, and she took the shawl from around her shoulders and swept it over Mirabel’s shoulder, grateful the thing was so impractically big.

(If things with Carlos had been different, would she have a daughter about Mirabel’s age, now? Best not to dwell.)

“What’s on your mind?” asked Elena, watching Mirabel accept the shawl and pull it further around her arm, shuffling closer. A heart after her own. Elena would hide away by herself for hours, yet long desperately for someone to find her, to offer her a hug and a shoulder to cry on.

Mirabel stared despondently at her feet. “I don’t know,” said Mirabel, “A lot.”

“Like what?”

Mirabel seemed warmer, but didn’t stop hugging her knees. She didn’t reply.

Elena thought back over the last few letters Bruno had sent her. She’d been here so much since the proposal, there had been no point writing. Shame - if something had happened with Mirabel, he would certainly have mentioned it.

“It’s - “ Mirabel began, then sighed. “Abuela told me that at the wedding, she... I mean, she said it was mainly symbolic, but... She said she was going to make an announcement. About... about appointing a successor to be the head of the family, and... retiring.”

Ah.

“That’s a lot,” said Elena.

“It’s a lot,” said Mirabel gloomily. “Cause if she retires, that means...”

Elena knew exactly what that meant; it meant Mirabel became head of the Madrigal family, and the de-facto mayor of the town, at the tender age of nineteen. Bruno’s letters were full of details on this point. Mamá made Mirabel do the breakfast meeting today... Mamá and Mirabel went to a stakeholder’s meeting in town... Mirabel is studying business strategy and I’ve been helping her... Elena had known that Alma was planning on a gradual retirement someday, but evidently, that day was coming now.

“I mean, I’m nineteen,” said Mirabel, sighing. “I’m a grown woman! I have to quit wasting time and do something with my life someday... It’s not that I don’t want to take over...”

Mirabel seemed so young to Elena. Had Elena thought of herself as a grown woman, when she was nineteen?

“It’s just so fast!” Mirabel let go of her knees to make a gesture of frustration, her voice catching. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Everything’s moving so fast. Abuela’s retiring, Isabela told me she’s thinking of moving out, the wedding, it’s happening so fast...”

Elena rubbed Mirabel’s back in comforting circles. Mirabel buried her face in her hands and stifled a single sob, hid there for a moment, then sighed, forcing herself to calm down. Elena wished she could take Mirabel in her arms and let her cry for as long as she needed to... Elena wished, now, that it was Bruno here and not her; she was sure Mirabel would have wanted her uncle, not her unfamiliar aunt-to-be.

“If you told me, when I was nineteen, that I had to start managing a town this size,” said Elena, “I’d have felt so overwhelmed, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Abuela was only twenty-five when she founded the Encanto,” sniffed Mirabel, “And she had three kids. And she’s not even really retiring! She said so!”

Mirabel’s voice was full of frustration, but Elena recognised self-anger and self-loathing when she saw it. She could see Mirabel begging herself to pull it together, stop being dumb, even if she didn’t say it out loud.

“She said barely anything will change, it’s just setting things in motion... That I won’t be in charge until I’m ready... I’ve been training for this for years! It shouldn’t be a big deal!” Mirabel rubbed her face. “But I can’t deal with it! I just can’t! I won’t even have Tío Bruno - ”

Mirabel stopped herself and gulped. Elena paused too, seeing the look on Mirabel’s face change, a blush rising in her cheeks.

“...Because he’ll be married to me?” said Elena softly.

Mirabel’s voice trembled with restraint. “I really want Tío Bruno to marry you,” she said, “I don’t... I don’t think there’s anyone else in the world who would make him happier... He was alone for so long, he deserves it so much... We all love you so much for him...”

Elena felt her heart melt a little at that, despite herself.

Mirabel blinked away tears. “I’m really sorry,” she whispered, “I just... Seeing the vision of you, with the twins... I feel so selfish. And so stupid. I really want him to marry you, I do, I want him to have kids, I want him to have that... But there’s this... this stupid part of me... That wishes...”

One of Elena’s private fears was that she would never be accepted by Bruno’s beloved sobrinos, the ones he wrote so much about, and that they would never forgive her for stealing him away. But of course Mirabel, who was so sweet and generous, would never resent her. Elena wished she did resent her. Instead, poor Mirabel was stuck on this roof, resenting herself.

“That wishes things could stay the same,” murmured Elena, and Mirabel choked back another sob, leaning towards Elena. This time, Elena did wrap her arms around Mirabel, unfamiliar or not, and held her closer.

Elena heard Mirabel stuttering out, through tears, “I - I’m sorry - ”

Mirabel was so young, and so much like a younger Elena, and so much like Bruno, too, bright and brilliant. The sound of her crying made Elena’s heart break. “Oh, honey, don’t be sorry... Shh, mija... Don’t be sorry. You’re okay...”

She held Mirabel like that for a while, rubbing her back, brushing her hair away from her face. Elena thought about Bruno’s letters, again. Bruno spent many of his days worrying about Mirabel; chasing after her through her adventures, keeping her out of trouble, helping her with some new big project or other, desperate to protect her from the worst of his mother’s influence, preserving what little of her childhood that remained. What must it be like for Mirabel, who had spent her adolescence under his wing, to lose him to a new family?

When Mirabel finally quieted down to silent tears, Elena said, softly, “Have I ever told you about Ramón?”

Mirabel shook her head. Elena kept her arm around Mirabel, kept rubbing circles into her back, as she stared up into the stars.

“The first time I ever sang in front of an audience, I was thirteen. He was a busker, down on the city thoroughfare. He played the guitar for me. It was the first time anybody played for me since my father died. I felt like myself for the first time in years.”

Mirabel mumbled, “Tío Bruno told me about the fire.”

Elena nodded, grateful to be spared that part of the story. “Ramón was amazing on the guitar. I hadn’t heard anything like it for so long, I finally felt like I was at home again. I asked him if I could come back, and he said to come the next week, and bring a guitar from the music room, and he’d teach me to play for myself.”

“And he did?” said Mirabel.

“Every week,” said Elena, “For years. We’d spend an hour practising music, then another hour performing together. Every time I came back, he had something new to show me. He’d grown up poor, but he’d gotten his hands on every book he could. I thought there was nothing he didn’t know. I used to live for those weekends, when he would teach me how to be a musician. And then... when I was seventeen, I finished my bachiller, I went to go see him. The weekend before I applied to go to Conservatory, to study music...”

Elena ran her hands over her fingers, where the guitar-callouses had once been. Carlos had hated them. Insisted she switch to piano and moisturise them away. The managers had agreed.

“When I got there, he said, ‘Today, Elena, you don’t need to sing; I’ll play for you, just for you.’ He did his whole set, all the music he’d taught me over those years. And then, when he was done, he handed me a lock-box. It was money - half of the money we’d made together over those years, the money I’d helped him make so he could keep it... He’d been putting it away, all that time, to give it back to me at the end. And he said, ‘Elena, I have nothing left to teach you. This is the last thing I have to give you. Now, you’ll be the one playing the music’.”

“What did you say?” asked Mirabel.

“I said thank you,” said Elena, “And I kept it together all the way until I got home, and then I cried, all night, because I was never going to go back there and learn music from him, ever again. I was going to leave, I was going to study other people’s music somewhere else, and I would never be the kid singing for Ramón on the thoroughfare again. The best part of my life was over, the new part hadn’t begun yet, and I was stuck in the middle with nothing... I didn’t feel like I’d ever be happy like that again, even if I became as brilliant and famous as I dreamed.”

Carlos had hated Ramón. Ramón had a special talent for insulting Carlos, very subtly and very slightly, in ways that were practically indetectable. Elena had always told Carlos he was just being mischievous. Elena had only realised recently that, in fact, Ramón had always hated Carlos back.

“Do you still miss it?” said Mirabel.

“To tell you the truth,” said Elena, “Yes. Life got... very complicated... when I turned about twenty. There are lots of times I’ve wished I could go back to that thoroughfare...”

Elena took Mirabel’s hand, gratified to see that she had stopped crying.

“But I didn’t have to miss Ramón,” she said. “He was wrong. He said he had nothing left to give me. But I kept in touch with him. He walked me down the aisle towards a man he hated,” She gave a short laugh, “And then, when that man left me, he got in his wheelchair, wheeled over to my house, and got me drunk. To tell you the truth, Mirabel, I’m forty-one, and I still don’t feel like I’m grown-up enough to stop needing his help.”

Mirabel, even with her eyes puffy and her face wet, smiled. “You’re famous.”

“And, you know what? I still feel exactly the same as I did when I was thirteen. I feel like a kid playing around, with the grown-ups pretending to clap for me... Even with my face on record labels. I still talk to Ramón and feel like there’s nothing he doesn’t know.”

Mirabel rubbed her face again, still smiling. “The first time Tío Bruno played your music for me,” she said, “I was fifteen... He said you re-invented the genre, and they should name the National University’s music building after you.”

Elena paused. “Really?”

“He said you could hear the classical training,” said Mirabel.

Elena found herself a little knocked off her train of thought with this information. Had Bruno said that? He’d never said that to her.

“I’ll have to ask him for a full review later,” Elena said, chuckling, “The point is... You don’t have to feel ready for these changes. It’s normal to not feel ready to grow up, no matter what age you are.”

(Even if you’ve already been married, even if you’ve tried to have children before... Those were things Elena didn’t need to say.)

“And the world won’t change as much as it feels like it will,” she continued, “I promise Bruno will always be your tío, just as much as he is now. I don’t think he’d ever change so much that he wouldn’t drop everything to help you...” She smiled. “And I don’t think he could be a father without your help.”

Elena squeezed Mirabel’s hand.

“If it ever feels like too much,” said Elena, “I know he’ll be there. It’s just... I’ll be there too. I promise I’ll take care of things while you two are on your adventures.” She laughed. “I’ve heard all about them.”

“That’d be nice,” chuckled Mirabel.

“And if you ever need to just get away and be a kid again, you can always come to us. I promise we won’t saddle you with any more responsibility. You can come play rat theatre with us, and make Camilo do all the grown-up stuff, okay?”

Mirabel laughed. “Rat theatre? Not you too?”

“Well, I think Bruno’s tastes are a little corny,” admitted Elena, “I was planning on introducing some diversity. Rat musicals... rat opera... Rat improv? His plot twists get so convoluted.”

Mirabel laughed again, properly this time, and Elena smiled at her. Downstairs, where the party lights were still going, someone put on a record - no Agustín to play the piano tonight.

“We should probably get back,” said Mirabel, “Abuela might wonder...”

“We can stay here for a little longer,” said Elena, smiling, “I’ll just tell her you wanted to talk to me about... Oh, I don’t know... economics? Something modern like that?”

“Economics,” laughed Mirabel. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe for five minutes...”

They both sat next to each other, staring up at the stars.

“They say that the Germans were researching how to send rockets to space,” Elena told Mirabel, “And that perhaps someday they’ll land on the moon, and build things there.”

“Do you think they will?”

“I don’t know,” said Elena, “Who knows what the future holds?”

They were silent for a moment.

“Bruno does,” said Mirabel, and Elena laughed.

“Yes, I suppose he does. I could ask him... But perhaps that would ruin the surprise... Oh, look!”

Elena pointed to where a streak of light was moving across the sky, or so it seemed for a moment; Mirabel craned her neck, looking around eagerly, but the sky seemed still again now.

“A shooting star?” said Mirabel.

“Maybe!” said Elena. “Or maybe a rocket launch, who knows? I don’t know anything about stars. You can barely see them, back home.”

For the first time, Mirabel was the one to take Elena’s hand, and squeeze it in her own.

“This is your home,” Mirabel said, “Or at least it will be soon.”

She grinned. Elena saw, in that grin, the promising young leader that Bruno spoke so highly of; she felt a flush of pride that they’d had this conversation, now, something between the two of them that Bruno hadn’t been a part of. That Mirabel wasn’t just Bruno’s niece but hers, too, someday soon...

“Is something wrong?” asked Mirabel, and Elena realised she’d gone quiet.

“No, not at all. I was just thinking...” Elena smiled. “On our first date, Bruno spent so long just talking about you and your adventures...”

“Really?”

...And I think I fell in love with him then, because it was clear he was so full of love, and his face lit up with joy and pride and he wasn’t embarrassed, not a bit, to show how much he admired this little girl; his heart was so huge, and he was so sweet, and I hadn’t thought there were men in the world who could be so gentle...

“And it’s strange,” said Elena, “How much things have changed since that day, and here you are in front of me. Mirabel, if you don’t mind me saying this, I can’t wait to be your tía.”

Mirabel smiled. She looked very like Julieta when she smiled. She looked very like Bruno when she smiled.

“I can’t wait either,” she said.

They would go back to the party soon; but they lingered for a moment there, staring at the stars, as the music played on in the distance.

Commission of Mirabel and Elena for @prophetic-hijinks! My commission info is here!

Elena Ruiz is a fancharacter from the comic series Prophetic Hijinks.

Drabble under the cut:

Elena found it surprisingly easy to adjust to the house being alive. It wasn't unlike growing up in the convent. The house had a natural buzz, a certain agenda, and it responded to asks for help, falling children and excessive clutter; it was, in its own way, very like an order of nuns. It was one of the easiest things to understand.

What she found strange was the politicking of being Bruno Madrigal's fiancée, and all the parties and meetings and social-visits-that-weren't-really-social-visits. But Bruno didn't seem to pay much mind to that, and she happily took it as her cue to break the rules. Like now; the party was buzzing downstairs, a party just for her, and here she was sneaking away from it. It wasn't her first engagement party, but it was certainly her favourite; Carlos had insisted on no children the first time around, but today Elena could simply slip away and amuse herself singing songs for Cecilia and the little ones, leaving Alma to say whatever it was she needed to say to the other women. The emerald engagement ring on her finger, still new and unfamiliar, glowed in the dimness as she walked through the hallways, unsure what she was looking for. The house guided her along by fluttering the floor-tiles and twitching paintings in the direction it wanted her to go.