#wanderer mirabel

[casitafallz]

Dante: Hey guys! I drew everyones soul!

Fracture Alma: Why is Wanderer Mirabel's a monster?

Wanderer Mirabel: Dante, you forgot Fracture Alma's! Its only an empty space!

Dante, proudly: Exactly

[casitafallz-a]

Fracture Alma: Good morning.

Stray Agustin: Good morning.

Abscond Luisa: Good morning.

Wanderer Mirabel: You all sound like robots, try spicing it up a bit.

Hallow Pepa: MORNING MOTHERFUCKERS!

[thebirthofvenusfly]

okay but i like thinking about the events of ISAT/siffrin's struggles not as them going from a party of normal people with normal struggles to "everyone essentially now has to help Sif heal from That," but as, "everyone in the party has had their own immense, long-term struggles, and this happens to be Siffrin's." like, siffrin is not just a, "problem child," or the standalone outlier in terms of angst

here me out

[major ISAT spoilers, especially for acts 3-5 btw]

siffrin doesn't know all these things in act 1, but:

Odile has had a life-long struggle with identity. Her mother abandoned her family at a young age, her father (presumably heartbroken and betrayed) has never kept any mementos or photos or stories of her and likely avoided speaking of her at any and all opportunities. For the most part, Odile loves her culture but admits she was an outlier in Ka Bue and always stood out from the texture of her hair and eyebrows. She's tried to settle before for the peace of just letting it be, but after meeting that travelling merchant, she realizes how badly she does want to bridge that gap in her identity and has now spent years travelling--all only to find that it didn't quite fix her problem and she hasn't been able to find herself entirely in Vaugarde either. She doesn't dwell too much on her mother, but I feel there is a part of her that could never forgive the hole her mother left behind.

Mirabelle has similarly struggled, though in terms of religion and sexuality. She holds herself to a very high standard of Changing and being a, "good," Housemaiden, and has gone to great lengths to learn as much as she can in efforts to reinvent herself and Change, as she feels she, "should," do, because that's what Housemaidens and diligent followers of the House of Change, "should," do. She is so adamant about this that even prior to the game, even prior to the King's reign--which was several months-a full year before ISAT begins--she is forcing herself to look into relationships to potentially date, bond, and even have children with someone and she doesn't want to do any of that it. She is distraught because she doesn't want to change that aspect. She doesn't want to become what she's not, or try to force herself to feel things she doesn't and can't feel, but she isn't being a good Housemaiden or a good member of her society if she stagnates.

Bonnie's plight primarily comes in with the King's reign, which again, has been for a few months now. They live with their older sister who loves them and cares for them tirelessly, but she is taken by the King's Curse and frozen in time--an event which presumably happens in front of Bonnie, who is encouraged by their sister's last words to just run from the village as far as they can to safety. If that isn't terrifying enough, this leads to them wandering the wilderness for days, exhausted, dehydrated, presumably starved/ill-fed, and lonely, and likely scared out of their mind. Their only saving grace is Siffrin, who happens to find them and save them. The comfort they feel with Sif is called into question when they have to watch Siffrin take a permanent, debilitating injury to the eye to protect them. While the incident seems to roll off Siffrin's worries pretty seamlessly, this is a lot for Bonnie, who by now, has recognized a pattern of the people they love being permanently hurt or altered in some way all just to protect them. They're convinced they're a recurring problem, and after the death ritual talk in the House, has to prepare themselves for the haunting reality that they might really lose everyone they love (and, again, this is a lot. Especially for a child).

Isabeau has tried Changing before, and while it did help him make leaps and bounds, he is still in a constant struggle to love himself fully. Let's be honest here: Isabeau is easily the most emotionally put-together party member, and most equipped to handle the stresses of the party in terms of feelings. This does not make him immune, however, to his own negative feelings. He even cites as wanting to become someone that Siffrin wouldn't be, "ashamed," to know. He also mentions that he is remorseful of the new image he's given himself, as an air-headed, jock type of person, which often leads people into genuinely believing he's stupid and thus treating him that way. Not to mention, as the emotional mediator of the party, I'm sure he occasionally gets stretched thin between helping everyone else manage their problems and altercations.

all this is to say: everyone in the party has their problems, and a good sum of these are not all instantly solved by the end of the story. all of them, siffrin included, are left in a space where they have plenty of healing to do but can confidently and comfortably still rely on one another.

ISAT is just siffrin's chapter of major emotional plight, and everyone else's is presumed prior to the narrative (i can also acknowledge that siffrin definitely got the worst of it though LMAO)

[vulpixisananimal]

Looping again and again...

(You breath in, and out.)

(You're exhausted. You feel even more sick than last time. Your eyes are puffy, and theres a weight on your chest.)

(You breath in, and out.)

(Just, just focus. Just focus. None of that happened, not really. It was all in another timeline, you didn't hurt him, and you aren't selfish. You... You...)

("I should never have trusted you.")

(. . .)

(You trust them. But they don't trust you. If they don't trust you, why do you keep talking to them.)

(Because it's. . . Because I promised.)

(You promised to protect Bonnie too.)

(Your breath catches.)

(Are you sure they believe you, or like you, or trust you? Can you be sure? You have a power that they cannot comprehend. Every day could be perfectly scripted by you.)

(I. . . I don't know.)

(Do you think Isabeau trusts you.)

(I. . .)

"You alright, Sif?"

(Oh stars, right. You breath in, and out.)

"Never better, Isa!" (You said, your words ringing hollow.)

"Well, if you need a hand or, or if I need to get you anything, just let me know okay?"

(Same as last time. You are looping again, after all. You look at yourself in the mirror. Could it get worse..?)

(You step out of the bathroom.)

"Sif! Are you sure you're alright?" (He leaned down to your level, just as worried as before.) "I was about to get out of bed and I heard you, uh-"

"I'm fine Isabeau--" >> "--Just some loopy stuff, not that bad, I'll meet you for breakfast!"

(. . . Should you be zoning out? Things are differen't now, you're not in Dormont after all.)

(It wont hurt them.)

(You're back downstairs, Mirabelle and Bonnie off doing whatever it was they do in the morning. The quesadillas looked good like last time. Hmm, you could change a few things up here at least.)

"You sure you're alright? Can't go investigating when your sick."

"I've gone through worse." (You say cheekily.)

"That's not a good thing though!" (Isa exlaimed.) "You were sick for weeks after all those loops!"

"Still hard to believe." (Nille commented, leaning back.) "Even I know you're not s'possed to be able to craft time."

"Well I didn't think wishes were so..."

"Dangerous?" (You say.)

"Well, yeah." (Isa's vision wandered, thinking.) ". . . Do you think that's why you're sick again?"

(Huh.)

(Odile looked up from her book.) "That could be it. Perhaps that wish is still allowing Siffrin to loop back, but requires more of his own energy."

"So it's, craft exhaustion?" (That would make sense, and explain why each time you looped you were feeling worse.)

"Alright eat up then 'Frin." (Nille said, leaning over to give you a second quesadilla.) "Gotta get your energy back."

(You shrink down into your cloak.) "I'll be fine, you don't, need, to."

"Come on Sif!" (Now Isa was handing you more food.) "Craft exhaustion 101! Eat! Your! Food!"

(Oh stars. . .)

(Defeated, you start to eat up. It WAS good food, Bonnie always made good food. And you WERE hungry. Plus, you might need the energy to loop again. And if you do that, then you wouldn't have taken their food.)

(Mirabelle and Bonnie join the rest of you, the air is a bit warmer than last time. Bonnie threatened to go back and make you even more food once they found out you had craft exhaustion. But for now, it's about time to explain things again.)

(You're going to? You still trust them?)

(. . . If we don't, it could be worse. We didn't ask for help before, and it was worse.)

"Isa, did you know someone called Ramos in the Defenders?"

"Huh?" (Isa thought for a moment.) "I didn't. . . Oh! Well I knew someone who's second name was that, why?"

"Taller? Wears a vest and kerchif? Short hair?"

(Isa shook his head.) "No, but I remember they asked me about some clothes like that... Wait did you-"

(You smile smugly.) "You must have had quite the impact, they look totaly different when we met them later today."

"You looped again!?!?--" >> "--I'll look for one of those next time."

(Where to start this time.)

"This will be try number three of today, First time me and Odile went to the library and the rest of you to the Defenders place, Bonnie came running to us, aparently Mira was framed for kidnapping Bonnie."

"!?!?!?--" >> "--There must have been some kind of mistake!"

"And that's why we went there last time." (You hesitate) "We all did, met Ramos at the enterance, started leading us to someone who'd help. Mira, Bonnie and Nilla ran off because of..."

(. . . Roses.)

"Huh?!?"

"Beacuse Bonnie smelled mint and thought someone's roses were in trouble?"

"It makes more sense at the moment I promise!"

"Well there was someone who kept roses." (Isa pondered.) "But he was never the type to get mints in his rosebeds."

"Well aparently Bonnie smelled mint, so."

"Was it like the sugar?" (Bonnie asked.) "Like, is it a craft thing?"

(You blink, oh.) "Well, uh, I did smell a lot of something."

(Bonnie hopped away from the tapple and ran back to the kitchen. Before coming back with a bit of a plant and held it up to you.) "Smell."

(You take a sniff, the same smell.) ". . . Is that mint?"

"Duh." (They said smugly.) "No it's cumin, obviously. Crabface."

"Language."

(You all have a bit of a chuckle. Bonnie going to put the mint back. Odile prompted you to continue.)

"Right..." (You shift a bit in your seat, oh boy.) "Well... Isa, did you get any help on your Defender quiz? Did Ramos help you?"

"Huh? No I didn't," (he looked confused.) "I did worry about it a bunch, but Ramos was having it harder, if anything I helped them."

(You nod.) "While we were walking you said the oposite, you knew eachother for a while, it all seemed... Wrong."

(You paused, thinking. Odile noticed.) "Everything alright, Siffrin?"

(You bite your lip. You, didn't want to talk about what happens next.) "Well. . . You and I got suspicious, confronted Ramos, you grabbed them and then started being weird, and uh, well, I stepped in and, well, they were wearing the star pendant."

"!!!"

"Gems alive."

"Oh Ramos.." (Isabeau pouted.) "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

(You snapped to attention, huh? What?) "I-I, n-no they, uh, no they didn't." (If anything, it was the other way around...)

"Well... If you want to talk about it."

(You shrug.)

". . . Well what's the plan today then boss." (Nille asked, looking over she was leaning on the table so relaxed.) "Since you know the future and all."

(Boss?) "Well, I doubt this'll be the last loop, but this time we should go looking for information on what craft links to mint, if any."

"Good idea Siffrin!" (Mirabelle perked up, uhoh, she had a look in her eyes.) "Me, Odile and Isabeau will go looking for that while YOU stay here and relax!!"

"Huh?!?!"

"Agreed." (Odile was giving you a look.) "We can't have our ace in the hole burning himself out."

"That'll leave you two in charge of Siffrin then, think you can handle it?" (Isa said to Nille and Bonnie.)

(Nille gave a thumbs up) "Leave it to the sibling squad."

"Yeah!! I'm gonna make you hot chocolate too!!"

"What. Wait. But, b-but."

(You didn't know how to respond, what was going on, you were just, just explaining what happened. It was just going to be another go around. Go look for info on mint, then, then...) "Wh, why?!?"

"Because you need!! A!! Beak!!" (Mirabelle had gotten up) "You've had to do the same day twice now and each time it was really unplesant!! And if today doesn't really happen for us, then we can do a bit extra! The other us's wont remember."

"Exactly." (Odile closed her book.) "If today doesn't matter then we can be a bit risky, and you can relax a bit more. It might help you feel better for next loop."

(You tried hiding in your cloak, a hard thing to do without a hat.) "But, you just, trust me on that?"

"Of course!" (Isabeau said, cheery.) "Why wouldn't we? I'll always trust you, Sif, because you could have done a lot of bad with being able to loop, and you didn't!" (You wince at that, Isa huffed.) "Yes, even that moment we had. I told you, it's alright."

(. . .)

(They do have a point. You, never really got a break back then either. Sure you had moments, but...)

"Ok, If you're sure..."

[siffrin-enthusiast]

isat AU where everyone BUT siffrin loops and somehow they still manage to get in the same situation and the party has to watch them slowly and gradually fall apart until everything is OK bc siffrin just Doesn't Believe that the gang love him

GOD. GOD GOD GOD GOD. isabeau starting every loop knowing siffrin thinks that he hates them. odile hanging onto every last word siffrin says about his country to try and help them remember because she understands what it's like to not know your roots. mirabelle slowly figuring out why siffrin is the happiest he's ever been -- they were wandering a country with no name, no home, no memory, probably starving. bonnie slowly figuring out despite the adults' best attempts that siffrin thinks bonnie hates him. thinking that bonnie wanted siffrin to die for him. everyone trying to help siffrin but finding that they have a self-loathing reply to anything they could ever say.

[eurydice-pens]

can i have forgotten vaugarde au info of some sort. i went through your tag and im obsessed with the concept

hi!! yes yes of course >:3c thank you for being interested! i am in the process of plotting out a big fic for the au so i will hold some cards close to my chest, but here’s a bit of info just for you 💗💗 /pos /silly

~

Forgotten Vaugarde AU

Concept / Story

Toward the end of the ISAT canon, the King makes a wish that “everyone would understand how he feels.” This results in a rewriting of the Universe such that Vaugarde, rather than the Island Country, was forgotten, and the individuals to whom this wish was most directly addressed (Mirabelle, Isabeau, Odile, Bonnie, and Nille by virtue of association with Bonnie) become Travelers with no identity and home or, in the case of Odile, becomes someone for whom half of her identity is even less accessible than before.

The King and Loop are thrown into this new reality with their memories intact. The King’s body, however, is not preserved, as he finds himself Loopified into a tear-headed creature. They end up sharing a decidedly unamicable life inside the home of the version of the King who has never lost his memories or home, Aesop, as the King (who eventually names himself Luke) contends with the fact that he has become the very force he had feared so gravely: the one that erased Vaugarde, the land that had welcomed and loved him, from existence.

Mirabelle, Isabeau, Bonnie, and Nille (who had a chance encounter with Luke when reality was first rewritten, at which time, out of guilt and painful empathy, he told each of the, their names) wander the Island Country until they are discovered by Siffrin, whose family essentially adopts and raises them into adulthood / preteenhood. Odile eventually joins the group when she is visiting the Island Country essentially as a tourist and becomes attached to the group through her friendship with Siffrin’s parents and with Loop.

Mirabelle knows that she is very lucky, to have a home, to have some semblance of family and belonging. Nonetheless she is the one out of the group who most feels the pang of something real, and integral, and important missing from her, who is the most loathe to accept the belief common among the people around her that things happen as they should, and Fate is immutable, and every change (…Change?) merely the slow erosion of bodies, minds, and souls against the winds of Time. So when the mysterious Queen emerges and begins to wreak havoc across the Island, when she agrees to journey to the tyrant and to protect the country from the Queen’s Remaking with her friends, she has some inkling that there is something wrong, something missing, some reason why every glimpse they’ve gotten of the white-haired Queen has felt so achingly familiar.

It all feels so strange, and so important, long before Time stops for the first time.

Interactions with Other AUs / Headcanons and Contributors (so far)!

This AU borrows and expands upon @the-bitter-ocean ‘s Islander Euphrasie theory and shares a heart with @felikatze ‘s Divorce AU.

@princemonarchempress , @floating-far-from-earth , and @the-bitter-ocean have all contributed ideas to and inspired parts of the story!

And a special thank you to @snickerpuffs-art for drawing Luke 💙💙

~

thank you so much for reading and for your interest in the au!! i hope to make a lot more things for it in the future <333

[jiubilant]

4.E. 170

They unload the young Ervine at the Vetring docks along with twelve tuns of wine—which she counts as they bob down the wharf on the dockers’ backs, two by two—and four thin, shivering pigs. She’s not sure where to go. She’s standing dazed with sunlight on the loading-plank, flanked by squealing livestock and the rank, seasick steam of their breath, when two youths hurrying down the boardwalk smile and wave: a lanky young mage, his cloak dyed adept’s blue, and a boy her age with a skeletal face.

“For the Kynesdag feast in town,” says the mage in breathless introduction, divesting her of books and bundles both. He means the pigs, she realizes. He darts a look over his shoulder, another at the ship, then gives her a gentle shake: half-friendly, half-impatient. “We were told to meet you. What’s your name?”

She frowns at him, suspecting a joke at her expense, then recalls how far she is from Betony and her father’s rotting lands. He’s never cursed an Ervine, this mage with busy eyes.

“Mirabelle,” she says, her voice salt-hoarse. She’s eaten nothing but hardtack for two months.

He doesn’t even ask for the rest of it—just glances behind him again and marches her down the frost-chewed wharf. Wizards, of course, always have somewhere else to be.

“Falion of Conjuration,” he replies with a hasty grin, pulling her out of the way of some rickety gibbet for fish. The cod dangling from it like gallows-fruit watch her pass with baleful eyes, as does the woman stringing them up. “That’s Phinis, also of Conjuration. Phin,” he says to the boy, who’s casting nervous looks about him like wards, “you’ll have to get used to it.”

Phinis pulls a death’s-head face. “I don’t want to get used to it—”

One of the pigs blunders with a shriek into their path. The biggest of the men dragging it down the docks stumbles, swearing in some Nordic tongue—then, with a snarling glance at Mirabelle and her companions, spits at them.

“Happy Kynesdag,” croaks Phinis, cringing sideways. Falion, with an inscrutable look, lays a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“You’ll have to get used to it, too,” he says to Mirabelle, who stares at him. He clears his throat and, with a playful flourish of his cloak, raises his voice like a mummer on the stage. “Pay the ignorant masses no mind. You are now a student of Mystery”—he grips her shoulder with jovial force, steering her away—“a novitiate of the Secret Fire!”

“A witch,” says Mirabelle, her voice steady and soft.

Falion’s grin, swift as a warning, bounds again across his face. “A scholar!”

Mirabelle glances behind her. The man with the pig, staring after them, shivers and looks away.

* * *

“They hate us in the village,” Phinis confides in her over supper: a bowl of pale and wobbly fish, glistening like glue in the sheen of the wandering lights. “Falion says they’re afraid of what they don’t understand, and that we should be”—he makes a grim little face at his bowl—“understanding.”

“Oh,” says Mirabelle through a mouthful of fishpaste. It tastes like jellied steam. She’s discovered, in her ravenous journey to the bottom of the bowl, that she can swallow it without chewing. “Why?”

Phinis scowls. “That’s what I want to know—”

“No.” Mirabelle, in the spirit of scholarly inquiry, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. No one snaps at her for it. She dares a quick, gleeful lick at the back of her spoon. “Why are they afraid?”

“Falion says—” A pallid light kindles in Phinis’s eyes. “No. I’ll show you.”

They slip out of the refectory, accompanied by a bobbing light and a few incurious looks from the adepts’ table. Their footsteps echo in the corridor like cracking ice. Mirabelle, in her scratchy new College robes that smell of mothballs and musty spells, resists an unthinkable urge to dance up and down the hall until it resounds with noise. It would be unscholarly, she thinks. She hugs herself hard instead.

“If you think this is cold,” says Phinis sagely, misunderstanding her, “wait until end-of-term. Falion says we’ll have to crack the ice in our basins every morning.”

The giddiness, despite her best efforts to restrain it, wriggles up from her toes to her face. “What else does Falion say?”

Phinis gives her a wounded look. “You’re making fun.”

The rush of warmth she feels for the little cadaver—and for the supper-sludge, the itchy clothes, Falion who knows so much—threatens to knock her over. “I’m not.”

“It’s all right,” he says, his face funereal. She has to bite down on a laugh. “I’m used to it. We’ll go up those stairs to the ramparts.”

They wrestle with the door at the stairtop, which is frozen or rusted shut; it bangs open at last, and they tumble out into a blast of wind that nearly blows them over the parapet. Mirabelle, with a delighted shriek, grabs Phinis—poor bag of bones, he all but rattles—and staggers with him away from the crenellated wall.

The wind whips his scandalized yell past her ears. “Are you laughing?”

She is. Something in her has come unstuck. “Have you ever been up here before, or did Falion tell you about it?”

“You’re making fun!” He stomps ineffectually on her foot. “The wind comes and goes, you’ll see—”

“I’m not making fun!”

By the time they struggle arm-in-arm to the far parapet, the wind’s died down. They sag against the wall. Phinis, breathing hard, glowers so peevishly at Mirabelle that she bursts into laughter again—which makes his lips twitch, and his eyes gleam, and something almost like life flush in his face.

“What are you so happy about?” he demands, fighting a smile. Mirabelle can tell by the way he’s twisting his mouth. “Here we are at the frozen edge of the world—”

“I didn’t think they’d let me come,” Mirabelle gasps, rubbing her eyes. The tears in them sting like grains of salt. “What—what’d you want to show me?”

“Oh.” Phinis tugs her up, then points over the parapet. “Out there.”

What he had wanted to show her, Mirabelle realizes after a long, staring moment, is the sea. Gulls circle and cry over the gray mirror of the water. Glaciers—smaller, now, than they’ll be in midwinter—slouch in the shallows. The sun on the horizon breaks the surface like a drowned face.

It’s nothing that she hadn’t seen from the deck of the ship. She looks sidelong at Phinis.

“It wasn’t always a village,” he says.

A gull dips in the sky. The water shimmers, changeless and cold, over the roofs of the city of the dead.

[miracles-and-butterflies]

Sequel to But When? And Why? And How?

About Dolores and Mirabel; and the aftermath of the things they heard. Set in the Miracles Plus AU.

Because an anon wanted to know how the family reacted.

Warning, very sensitive topics below.

~~~~~~

A Restless and Unanswered Night

Dolores walks Mirabel back to Casita.

It’s a silent affair. One of Mirabel’s weak arms draped around her shoulders as she guides the girl along the path.

The medication bounces roughly against Dolores’ leg in her pocket. Mirabel hadn’t taken it when the midwife offered it to her. It’s going to leave a bruise.

The first thing that happens when they get back is Mirabel whispering that she feels sick.

Dolores doesn’t want to deal with the faff of the shared bathroom, so allows Mirabel to use the one in her room.

Rubbing her back and holding her hair (and glasses) aside, while Mirabel heaves until there’s nothing left. Dolores doesn’t blame her.

When it finally ends, she just curls up on the bathmat, sobbing with fresh tears. Wailing in terror. Screaming in distress. And Dolores doesn’t blame her.

That’s when Dolores goes to find the family.

Or, well, Mirabel’s immediate family. (Dolores will tell the rest of the adults later).

“I have to talk to you,” Dolores informs, entering the kitchen, with Isabela and Luisa tagging along behind her.

Julieta and Agustín look just as confused as their daughters, but they seem more willing to stop what they are doing and hear her out.

They are sat around the dining table and Dolores taps her glass anxiously, searching for the words.

“Mirabel is pregnant.”

None of them connect the dots.

Luisa spits out her coffee. Julieta blinks. Agustín still looks confused.

Isabela scoffs, and then laughs, “What were the chances of immaculate conception in the family Madrigal?” As soon as the joke leaves her mouth, she realises.

“Someone…” Julieta can’t bring herself to finish the question. Dolores nods.

Luisa’s mug shatters in her hand.

“Who?” Agustín asks.

“We… we don’t know.” Dolores answers. “I heard the heartbeat ages ago, but I didn’t want to say anything at first. I confronted her about it and she had no idea. I took her to a midwife… she’s almost seven months along. She doesn’t know how or when it happened.”

“Drugged.” Isabela piped up. “It’s the only way she wouldn’t have known.”

Nobody said anything.

“Where is she?” Julieta inquires, shakily.

“My room. Bathroom.”

Julieta is already out of her chair, almost knocking the thing onto the floor in her haste to get to her baby.

Another chair scratches back against the tiled floor.

“I’m going out. To fucking kill every fucking bastard with a cock in town,” Luisa seethes.

“Absolutely not. That’s completely insane, Luisa.” Dolores snapped.

Luisa is already gone though.

While Dolores tries to manage Luisa, chasing after her cousin, who wandered off in search of the cooking knives, Agustín breaks down crying at the table.

Isabela gets up and hugs him, not knowing what else to do.

They stay like that for an hour.

~~~~~~

Having since left Dolores’ room, they were now in Mirabel’s own.

As Mirabel had washed and changed, Julieta made herself useful in cleaning Dolores’ bathroom. It wasn’t necessary, it was just something to do.

Mirabel’s skin, neck downwards, was a-blazing red and sensitive from where she’d clearly very aggressively scrubbed herself clean. Julieta decided to forgo the lecture for now, she’d be too stubborn to listen anyways.

Mirabel now lay in bed, much less hysterical, but by no means calm. While Julieta sat beside her.

They can’t do anything. There’s no way of tracking down a culprit. It’s too late now.

All they can do is prepare in the remaining months for the baby.

“When you were born,” Julieta says, brushing her fingers through Mirabel’s curls. “We didn’t think you had survived. Your Tío Félix had to pinch you to get some noise. You were always so quiet. Every time you slept, I would have a heart attack because I thought something bad had happened. You were so little; I always wanted to cuddle you. You didn’t care for my smothering.”

Mirabel didn’t say anything.

“Luisa was completely obsessed with you. She use to refer to you as her baby and would hit us for trying to separate you two.” She chuckled slightly then. “Not much has changed. She was definitely your favourite too. You knew what you meant when you said ‘purple’ - the colour, but it was also Luisa. My clever, little girl.”

A pause.

She set her hand against Mirabel’s stomach.

“This is your baby, Mirabel. Not anyone else’s. And you are going to love them, just as much as I loved you and your sisters.”

Another pause.

“¿Mirabel? ¿Qué estás pensando, mi amor?”

Mirabel looked up then.

“No quiero este parásito. No quiero esta sanguijuela. Quiero recuperar mi cuerpo.” She tightened her grip on her pillow. “Quiero morir.”

~~~~~~

English translation:

“Mirabel? What are you thinking, my love?”

Mirabel looked up then.

“I don't want this parasite. I don't want this leech. I want my body back.” She tightened her grip on her pillow. “I want to die.”

[pixxyofice]

Mirabelle - not chosen in this au, just a wanderer who liked the style and is a strong believer (but how can she be, when she doesn't really change, when she's disconnected from anybody? How can they change when they're nobody?)

Siffrin - still washes up young and travels, but instead of polishing their rogue skills, he polished up the remaining knowledge of the stars he still had and pursued that instead. Nobody believes in his chosen research path- who would research the stars, they're just up there!- so there's a bet going on with Bonnie and Odile as to what he's really studying.

Pyxis - A fighter for hire who found a tired Bonnie as they ran away from the House and immediately took on a non-paying job of keeping them safe. They seem strangely confused by some events, but also strangely knowledgable... their Body Craft secrets are also tightly locked up! Either way, they are fiercely protective. (Are they attached to versions of people that truly aren't theirs? What is happening in this world...)

The Babies. Odile is a runaway from Ka Bue for reasons she won't say and Boniface is a runaway from the House of Dormont when the King took over. They have a rivalry relationship, but everyone agrees to keep them safe. (Bonnie was blessed to be safe by whoever is at the top... so they insist on fighting. Pyxis seems very resistant to the idea, but being immune to time freezing and also rock type has come in handy before...)

Baby odile, meanwhile, refuses to fight because she's young, even though she's still older than Bonnie.

This is a very balanced party (all of the adults are scissors type.)

[usedtobeguest123]

...He raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. Favorite people? Was he included on that list? Julieta just smiled and turned back to the dishes. It took Bruno a moment, but he also slowly resumed his duties, finding he couldn't put away the little smile on his own face that had arrived at the thought that he might be someone's favorite.

I drew from my fic La Traes again for @encantober-official Day 2 - siblings. This scene is a little exchange that happens between the triplets--the OG siblings. You can find the whole thing below the cut.

“You need to get out of the house, hermanito,” Julieta had said to him gently one evening after dinner as they washed dishes together. “It’s…been a while, sí?”

“Eso se queda corto,” Pepa had mumbled as she dumped some more dishes into the soapy water, earning a glare from both of her siblings. [ That's an understatement.] She widened her eyes at them as if to say What? Am I wrong?

“I’m just saying ,” Julieta continued, pointedly moving past Pepa’s comment, “that it might do you some good, to have a little more change of scenery.”

“I-I think I’m doing just fine,” he replied a bit defensively. And he did. He went for walks with Dolores around the perimeter of Casita, down to the river where it ran past the southwest edge of the grassy lawn. Sometimes he’d wander out back behind the house, napping in the afternoon sun before it disappeared behind the mountainous wall that guarded the back of their home. Compared to the previous ten years, he was a veritable expeditionist now. 

“Of course you are,” Pepa said, putting an arm around his shoulders. He hunched them in response, glancing at her suspiciously. 

“Y-yeah?”

“Yeah! You’ve made it to the edge of the grass! That’s like, what, un kilómetro cuadrado, yeah? A completely normal amount of space for a person to exist in.” 

[One square kilometer.] Bruno’s frown deepened. “You’re mocking me.” 

Pepa winked at him. 

“A-alright, alright,” he said, waving his hands in the air beside his head in surrender. “I’ll, uh, I'll go to the banana fields tomorrow. As long as it’s not a harvest day,” he added, pointing a finger at Julieta, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him. “Or an irrigation day. Or you know…a-a day with other, um, other people there.” 

The busyness of rebuilding Casita last year had given him enough social interaction outside his immediate family to last him quite a while…a very long while. Thankfully, he’d been able to largely lose himself in the organized chaos of it all, and Mirabel had been particularly helpful, working as a liaison between him and anyone he’d had to interact with, smoothing the awkwardness away with her easy conversation and joyful presence. And he had managed to largely ignore the curious stares that came from, well, from pretty much everyone until the novelty of his return had worn off. Well…at least he had pretended to ignore them. 

“I don’t want to pressure you, arenoso,” Julieta said gently, putting a slightly soapy hand on his shoulder. “I just don’t want…”

…don’t want you to get lost again. She’d let her sentence trail off, but the unspoken ending hung awkwardly in the air anyway. They’d both turned back to their dishes, with Pepa standing stiffly beside them, hugging a freshly dried plate to her stomach. The cloud above her head darkened just a little. Bruno winced down at the soapy water as the silence surrounding them grew painful.

“H-hey, maybe you can spend the day with Antonio tomorrow?" Pepa offered nervously, popping the tension like a soap bubble. "He needs a…a break …from routine, too."

Bruno and Julieta looked at their sister with matching frowns, both narrowing their eyebrows in concern. It would have been comical or even sweet to see the same expression mirrored between her two siblings again…if she didn’t feel the weight of the very same concern pulling down the corners of her own mouth. 

Antonio had been struggling to find a place for himself in the Madrigal visits to town. Before his gift, he might have shyly clung to Mirabel’s skirts or played in the dirt while Pepa rained on the fields, never quite brave enough to venture out to play with the other children on his own, refusing to speak to the adults that smiled down at him. Pepa worried about his shyness.

But now a different problem had presented itself. Antonio was now more than happy to engage with anyone and everyone, possessing a newfound courage with his animal friends by his side, but his animal friends were also decidedly wild, and even Antonio could not control every move they made. Just last week, some monkeys that had trailed him into the town had wandered away and found some storage crates of fruit, working together to drop them from the roof of a nearby house until the crates smashed open and spilled out a feast that was then fit only for them. The owner of the crates had not been happy.

Most of the jungle animals had largely maintained a healthy, fearful distance from the bustling, busy streets of the Encanto for the fifty years it had occupied the valley, but Antonio’s warmth and friendship seemed to have blurred that boundary, and Abuela was struggling to find a balance between loving encouragement and civic order. And when Abuela struggled with something, all the Madrigals struggled with her, in one way or another. 

“...Mamá suggested that maybe Antonio might spend some time in the forest paths, playing with his gift,” Pepa explained, putting away the plate so she could pull at her braid. A knowing glance between all three siblings conveyed the underlying meaning of the word play—learn to get it under control. “Félix was going to take him, but you two get along so well, Bruno. Maybe you could spend some time with him, and you both could enjoy the fresh air. You know. Bonding?”

Bruno blew out an exaggerated breath, his cheeks puffing and his shoulders dropping dramatically. He pulled his mouth to the side and looked at Pepa with an expression of reluctant concession. How could he say no to a whole day with his sobrino? He loved the kid. And the very fact that Abuela had been the one to suggest the break from town…well. He knew what that felt like. No matter how nicely she put it, how lovingly she intended it, he knew it would feel like a punishment to Antonio. That thought…well that thought broke his heart a little. 

“...F-fine,” he mustered in response. “We’ll go for a walk in the–- ” he swallowed dryly“ –- i-in the forest.” 

A bit of sunlight broke through from behind the cloud above Pepa’s head, and Bruno couldn’t help but flash a small, crooked smile up at it. She pulled him sideways by his collar and planted a kiss on his cheek, which he winced at but accepted gratefully. Julieta nudged him with her hip. 

“There you go! That will be fun,” she said happily, clearly convinced this was a fantastic solution for all parties. Bruno was not so sure. “Take Mirabel with you, too, if you want. You know she’d love to join her two favorite people for the day.” 

Bruno had raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. Favorite people? Was he included in that list? Julieta had just smiled and turned back to the dishes. It had taken Bruno a moment, but he also slowly resumed his duties, finding he couldn’t put away the little smile on his own face that had arrived at the thought that he might be someone’s favorite. 

So here he was now, sharing a picnic blanket with a sloth and a capybara—among other crawling, flittering things—nursing a bruised ego after having been tackled by a six year old on a jaguar, all because he was a pushover who couldn’t say no to time with his sobrinos. 

Caray. The things I get myself into…

--La Traes, Chapter 1

[ghoulsbeard]

In practice it will be done properly; Mirabelle must have everything done properly. Enthir said more than once the old bridge held on for so long only because Mirabelle Ervine expected it to stand. Faralda can understand its position.

The ritual will be shorter than the succession of an archmage, and the faces in the crowd… they will each be what they are. She will guard them through every turning season as she has always done. The college will be rebuilt. The wounded will mend. Faralda will limp to the front, with her arm still hanging in its sling, to be named and recorded in a long chain of the dead.

She’s put too much thought into the matter to struggle with the idea of it now. Only she had always assumed Aren would be there.

All week her prentices have peppered her with hopes and fears. Will she still teach them how to juggle lightning. Will their warding runes still be due at the end of the month. Does the Staff of Magnus grant extra credit. And so on…

The night is turning into morning. Faralda files her grading away and snuffs the candles with her fingers. She hikes up the salted bridge from the gatehouse much slower than she’d like. But it is a windless night, calm as you can get in far northern Skyrim; the stars are clear as glass.

Mirabelle catches her attention, standing alone in the courtyard. It’s unlike her to wander the grounds this late.

“Archmage,” she calls. Mirabelle turns and lifts a hand. Her dark hair is dusted in snow.

“You’re up late.”

“A week left," Faralda replies. She stumps noisily on her crutch and her good knee to the archmage’s side, and they set off, of all things, together. “A week until you’ve a master wizard to irritate and disappoint. Six days, even.”

“No regrets, I hope.”

“Why, have you seen any?” She pretends to look over their shoulders.

“I’m sure they will come to you.” Spoken so archly it could even be a joke. “You will serve as the College of Winterhold’s master wizard, Mistress Faralda. Not mine.”

“Not only yours,” Faralda corrects her.

The archmage issues a sharp stare.

“I used to sail crow’s nest, you know,” Faralda begins for the hundred-thousandth time, and Mirabelle nearly cracks a smile. “The ship was the soul of the captain; and the captain the soul of the ship.”

“And which were you? — the brain, I suppose.”

“I’d rather be the liver,” Faralda muses.

Mirabelle raises an incredulous brow. “Catching lightning?”

“A brain…?”

“The thoughts,” Mirabelle says, as if it should be perfectly obvious, and thumps open the front door. Even faced away like this Faralda can tell she’s coming dangerously close to a fit of good humor. “The— ideas. Crackling.”

“I don’t follow,” says Faralda, to be obtuse. “Did you hear what I said?”

“I don’t follow,” she repeats, with a flicker of a smile, “what that metaphor has to do with you.”

“What is the archmage of Winterhold?”

“That depends upon the person wearing the robes.” She offers Faralda her elbow and clasps her hands behind her back when it is refused. “For my part, I believe the archmage ought to serve as the college’s caretaker; to nourish and protect its students and staff. But I hardly think you were fishing for a lecture on pedagogy.”

“You know my feelings on the matter.”

“I thought I did.”

It’s late. It’s too late to be up talking like this. Faralda’s eyes and knees are aching. Her arm is worse. Besides she’d languished on the edge of a cold well before Ancano torched everything. It’s late and the halls of the college are cold.

“There are nights… I wonder at the things you say to me,” Mirabelle says, lowly. Her eyes shine like black seawaves. “Yes, on nights like these. Sometimes I can almost see you. I start to think— I’ve been looking the wrong way.”

She reaches for the bandages on Faralda’s arm, where she lays a light charm to relieve its pain.

“Have I?”

“That remains to be seen,” Faralda lies.

gatehouse headcanon by @jiubilant edit: the HC that faralda used to sail as a storm-mage is jiub’s too. can’t find the exact post to link </3

[casitafallz]

Hallow Pepa: Tell them to eat shit, Wanderer Mirabel.

Wanderer Mirabel: Tell them yourself.

Hallow Pepa: Eat shit, asshole. Fall off your horse.

[casitafallz-a]

Pariah Julieta: You're a lying piece of shit!

Hallow Pepa: Oh yeah? You're the idiot that thinks you can get away with everything you do, WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!

Wanderer Mirabel: I'm leaving and I'm taking Decay Isabela with me!

Stray Agustin, gathering cards: Aaaaand that's enough Monopoly for today

[looped-140-and-counting]

Mira looks thoughtful.

You notice it, sometime after Isabeau announces that the two of you were bonded and everyone congratulated you two. Mirabelle had asked about earrings, to which you'd had to explain that you exchanged cloaks instead, and then of course Odile had to be informed on what "bonding earrings" are because she'd never been told in the first place.

It was all a little hectic and embarrassing - everyone had insisted on having a feast to celebrate. Bonnie had made a lot of food, even while calling you and Isabeau gross.

Anyway, now Mira looks like she's been thinking about something. Rather deeply, too. It's been kind of hard to get her attention recently, and you're getting a little concerned.

It's not about the papers again, is it?

You know that you messed up last time, but... But if she's worried about dating and romance again, then. Then maybe you can at least hear her out?

You hate the thought of her worrying about this all by herself.

Then again, last time you tried... It didn't go well.

Maybe you should get someone else to help out. Like Isabeau? He loves romance, and he's super thoughtful! But at the same time, since Mira doesn't want romance for herself, he might not be able to sympathize.

Then maybe Odile...? She always says she's not good at feelings talks, but she's very logical. Maybe that's what Mira needs?

...No, you don't think either is a good fit. And Bonnie's out of the question, of course. Bonnie thinks all romance is gross, and would probably deem this as 'adult talk.'

Oh well. If talking to Mirabelle goes poorly, you can always loop - oh, no, you can't.

...You can always apologize.

You make your way to where Mirabelle's wandered off, silently vowing to keep your mouth shut as much as possible. Absolutely no spoilers, and no blinding comments.

She perks up when she sees you. There are no papers in sight.

"Hi Siffrin!" she says, smiling brightly. "Coming by to hang out?"

You hesitate. Where's the papers? Cautiously, you say, "A little. I was... worried?"

"Huh? Worried about what?"

"You just seemed sort of distracted lately," you say, plopping down beside her. "Anything I can help with?" There, that's familiar territory. You're good at helping! Usually.

"Oh!" She raises a hand to her mouth, brows furrowing. "...Ooh, was I that obvious?"

You don't nod, because that feels mean, but she probably sees it on your face. She groans.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to... I was just thinking, that's all!" Mirabelle pauses for a moment, her teeth worrying at her lip. "Um, can I ask you something? About your cloak?"

You feel hollow.

Hesitant, you say, "If I remember!"

"It's nothing bad, I just-! Well, um, you've offered all of us your cloak before, haven't you?" she says, quickly. "During our journey, right?"

Well... yeah. You did. Before you realized none of them wanted anything to do with your cloak.

You shrink into the collar of your cloak - thank the stars that Isabeau sewed one on - and try not to look too embarrassed. "I did," you mumble, hoping desperately that she's not somehow still mad about it.

Mirabelle looks... uneasy?

Then she says, "Does that mean we all unknowingly rejected you before?"

And you nearly nod before you - you realize that something about her tone sounds wrong. She sounds devastated?

"I can't believe you had a crush on Odile," she adds, and.

Oh! No! No no no!

You shake your head furiously. "It's not like that!" you yelp. "It was different! It was a gesture, not a proposal!

Mirabelle blinks. "Ah - a what?"

Oh stars. Oh STARS.

You lurch to your feet, remembering that Mirabelle doesn't want romance. But - Mirabelle thought you had confessed to her. You're so blinding stupid!

"It's like - it's like hugs!" you say, scrambling to explain. "Um, like when you and Isa and Bonbon hug! It's not, it's not a proposal, not in that context! There's a right way to propose, there's a ceremony and everything, you have to make your intentions clear or otherwise nothing happens, you know?"

Mira's eyes are wide. "Oh," she says, blinking rapidly. "Oh, so - huh! So it's, um, something you can do with friends too?"

You nod quickly.

You tell her, "It's kind of a way to comfort each other, or to just... hold each other? Like if, uh, if you handed me your cloak, then I'd know you're offering it to me for a little while, and then it'd be like I'm carrying around a piece of you!"

"Oh!" Mirabelle considers this for a bit. The tensions leaks from her shoulders as she smiles at you. "So cloaks are important in your culture?"

Relief floods you. She gets it now, you think, which means she's not offended anymore. "Yeah, of course," you tell her, grinning. "Without them..."

Something halts your tongue. Isn't this supposed to be a secret?

But this is Mira! You trust her.

So you continue, "We wouldn't be able to shift, right?"

[gamerbearmira]

You know, I always loved fairytales, and those episodes of TV shows where the characters are part of a fairytale or in a fairytale setting were always fun for me. A fairytale AU would be super cool, where the Madrigals are all royalty, and each Madrigal is the protagonist of a different fairytale.

Alma is the beauty from Beauty and the Beast, Pedro didn't die, he was cursed and ran away after an angry mob attacked him, he hides in a dark castle in order to protect his family from the angry mob and watches over his family from a distance, whether or not Alma knows what happened is up for debate.

Julieta is the princess from the Princess and the Frog, Agustin is the frog of course, that's why he's so clumsy, the story is basically the same as Julieta helps Agustin break his curse.

Pepa is the Snow Queen, after being bullied as a child for her weather powers, she shuts herself off from others until Felix, the Kai of the story, comes along, he can only sees the bad in the world due to a shard of the cursed mirror in his eye but doesn't see fault in Pepa's perfect snowflakes, Pepa falls in love and helps Felix's sister, the Gerda of the story, break the curse of the mirror shard.

Bruno is the protagonist of The Golden Goose, he wanders into the jungle to hide from bullies and offers some of the food he has on him to an old man, who guides him to the Golden Goose, as Bruno makes his way back home, many people try and steal feathers from the goose and end up getting stuck, they are only freed when Bruno comes home and his family ignores the goose as they embrace him, as he had been gone for hours and they had been worried.

Isabela is Sleeping Beauty, cursed at birth by an evil fairy to prick her finger and sleep forever unless she is given a kiss of true love, when she pricks her finger, everyone thinks Mariano can break the curse, but of course he isn't her true love, so it doesn't work, Julieta ends up being the one to break the curse with a forehead kiss.

Dolores is Cinderella, after Mariano discovers he isn't Isabela's true love, he holds a ball to try and find his true love, Alma is very embarrassed by what happened with Isabela and refuses to let any Madrigal attend, so Dolores has to sneak out with the help of her fairy godmother, when she leaves her shoe behind and Mariano starts looking for her, she ends up coming clean to her family and admitting her feelings for Mariano so she can try on the shoe.

Luisa is the princess from The Princess and the Pea, she gets lost in a different kingdom during a trip and seeks shelter at the kingdom's castle, the Queen doesn't believe Luisa is a real Princess due to her 'un-princess-ly stature' and gives her the pea test, the next day the rest of the Madrigals show up at the palace begging for help to find Luisa, Alma and Julieta give the Queen an earfull when they're told what happened, and poor Luisa is given a week off of chores to rest.

Camilo is Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, he trades a piece of jewelry for the magic beans, he didn't really believe the beans were magical he just didn't like the jewelry he had and wanted to get rid of it, once the beanstalk grows, he climbs it out of curiosity and takes the opportunity to cause some mischief when he finds the giant, including stealing a goose that lays golden eggs and a harp that plays itself, needless to say he gets in massive trouble when he gets home and Alma returns the items to the giant with a sincere apology.

Mirabel is Little Red Riding Hood, Alma is visiting her family who lives on the other side of the jungle when she gets sick, since she's too sick to make the journey back home, Julieta sends Mirabel with a basket of food to help her get better, the 'wolf' she encounters is actually her Abuelo Pedro, still cursed, he keeps Mirabel safe on her journey and Mirabel is able to reunite Pedro and Alma.

Antonio is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, he uses his flute to help with a rat infestation and decides to keep the rats as pets, but when people start bullying him for having rats as pets, calling the rats disgusting and Antonio himself diseased, he releases the rats back into the town until they apologize, both to him and the rats.

I LOVE FAIRYTALES TOO!!! THEY’RE SO SILLY!!!

All of these are so cool and fit so well. Tbh I like Alma, Luisa, Mirabel, Antonio and Pepa’s. I mean all of them are so rad, but those have my heart‼️‼️ They’re all so unique and. Love how some of them tie into each other. And all of them fit so well with each of the Madrigals and that is just so cool tbh. Love seeing AUs like that. AND PEDRO MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️🗣️ YEAHHHHHH

Wanted to draw Alma and Pepa but didn’t :((((

LOVE THIS AU RAHHHHHH 🗣️🗣️🤠🤠🤠🤠🦅🦅🦅🦅

[auncyen]

no loop notes

I've decided that even in a no loop au, Siffrin's gonna have a bad time talking to the Head Housemaiden lol (spoilers under the cut...both for game and I guess a little for fic since I'm not sure when this part will actually come up--though the outcome is already obvious in fic LOL)

At the post-victory party in town, Mirabelle and Isabeau tell anyone curious about how they managed to beat the King about the wish the Favor Tree granted made by Siffrin to get through the House safely. When this reaches Euphrasie, it piques her interest that Siffrin seems able to do Wish Craft, and she draws him aside from the party to talk.

It does not...go well.

She is assuming that Siffrin is more like her than other Islanders she's known, with a stable background as they look too young to have left the island alone and so surely must have family to rely on (WHOOPS). Siffrin's curious enough about Wish Craft to pursue asking about that when she brings it up and, as soon as they realize she's guessed where they're from, presses her to please tell him, where is he from. Euphrasie is taken aback by the sudden desperation but is honest to the best of her understanding: she cannot speak the island's name, no one can, and it's gone forever for them, as it's difficult to keep any memory of it.

At a time when Siffrin was already dreading the party's split, it absolutely shatters him to be told that he can never hope to get his first home back either. They're all soon to go back to their own homes, and he'll just wander forever--how, how are they supposed to keep a smile on their face for the rest of the night and tomorrow? How are they supposed to wish a pleasant goodbye when all they want to do is wail and scream like a child?

Euphrasie realizes he's upset and tentatively tries to console him, but he snaps on a smile and tells her he needs to talk to his allies. She lets them go thinking that when she's already upset them, better to let them calm down with those they trust--she'll apologize before they leave tomorrow.

But Siffrin has decided to leave that night, giving their friends allies quick goodbyes with the broadest smile they can manage, tearing off the bandage before taking off through the woods past the meadow.

The others are already a little dismayed by Siffrin's sudden departure...and when Mirabelle mentions her disappointment to Euphrasie, Euphrasie is stricken with guilt. She doesn't tell the others what she discussed with Siffrin for their privacy, but admits right away that she believes she upset them. The group tries looking for Siffrin around the perimeter of Dormont, perhaps with some help from other housemaidens & villagers, but no one finds him.