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Since time immemorial, Camilo’s memories were a tumultuous balance of storms and searing suns. Hurricanes and monsoons came aplenty, curtesy of his mother’s temperament. Rare were the days, however, when there was enough snow to coat the ground like powdered sugar(Abuela never allowed it to escalate to a full storm if she could help it). But on the days Pepa’s immune system failed her, all one could do was shrug and grab some ice skates.
Which is precisely what Camilo does—well, after a bit of cajoling. His mamí lay buried under a mountain of quilts, the top sprinkled with snowflakes that his papí is quick to shoo away. In spite of her shivering, she pushes away the cup of tea he poured for her. “ Mi pequeno, estoy bien. ” She smiles wearily. “Go have fun.” He wants to protest, but another part of him wants to acquiesce so he can bask in the foreign weather. He’d never seen so much snow before. Reluctantly, he deposits the cup on the dresser. “If you say so, Mamí .” “And take Tonito with you. He wants to learn how to ice skate.”
Camilo’s first thought as the 2 brothers step outside is that it’s not as cold as he expected. Chilly, sure, and walking in the 10 inches of snow is like wading through sludge, but it’s a sort of comfortable chilly. He’s fascinated at the way his breaths puff out like smoke. Antonio, meanwhile, is busy trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. Some Pygmy rabbits take to following them, and Antonio eagerly chats them up. Unsurprisingly, the boy’s jaguar didn’t tag along.
“He hates the cold.” Antonio explains, looking slightly down at the fact he can’t share this experience with his animal friend. Camilo shrugs. He’s not complaining. Not that he doesn’t like the big cat, just that—well, anyone would be unnerved by such a daunting predator, no matter how much Tonito insisted he was friendly. And Camilo highly doubts his little brother could stop the him from mauling someone, if so the mood struck him. Especially looking the way he does now. Mirabel didn’t come either(too busy knitting hats and scarves for la familia ), but she did her best to make sure Antonio resembled an overstuffed empanada; he’s covered head to toe in wool garment, and Camilo has to keep a tight grip on his little hand to make sure he doesn’t stumble over himself. “Woah there, hombrecito ,” he coos in a high-pitched, sugary voice as he briefly shapeshifts into his youngest cousin. “Don’t want you getting cold feet.” Antonio rolls his eyes but smiles regardless. A “Hey!” is Camilo’s only warning before something cold and stinging explodes against the back on his neck. Whirling around, he catches sight of 3 small heads popping up from behind a mound of snow. The cold has made their cheeks rosy, their faces round and guileless like little angels. What an illusion, Camilo thinks snidely. “And what are you demonitos pequeños up to?”
“Nothing!” Cecilia pipes as the other 2 burst into giggles.
“‘Nothing’, eh?” He suppresses a mischievous smile as he brushes off the remnants of snowball. “Pretty lame to be doing nothing in this kinda weather, don’t you think?”
“What are you guys doing?” The boy, Diego yells a little too enthusiastically.
“Who’s askin’?”
“Us!”
“Well, ‘us’, ” Briefly a sensation of deja-vu seizes him, “Ask your Mama s to borrow some skates and come back, then I’ll show you!”
He isn’t really expecting them to follow suit. Again, snow in the Encanto is rare, so needless to say he’s a little more than surprised when, as he’s kneeling down to lace up Tonito’s skates, suddenly the 3 of them are standing there with their own, clearly expecting the same treatment.
“Must’ve hit my head, cuz I’m seeing triple.”
“Are you really gonna teach us how to ice skate, Cami?” Cecilia quips.
“No, I’m gonna teach you how to evade taxes.” He scoops up a handful of snow and smushes it against the little girl’s face. “By the way, that’s payback for earlier.” She sputters with laughter as she stumbles back, swiping a gloved hand across her mouth. “Now then..”
The ice seems thick enough to Camilo, and maybe it’s the effect of growing up in a magic family that could cure any ailment, or lift any mountain, but he doesn’t bother to check aside from planting his full weight firmly onto the surface.
So, of course, you can see where this is going.
Giving a satisfied hum, he beckons the kids closer. Antonio wobbles but manages to stay upright, Cecilia and Angelica fall over each other, and Diego… weirdly, does just fine. With a nearly maniacal smile, he glides past Camilo with ease.
“We can’t do it!” Angelica whines as he quickly untangles them. “It’s too slippery and cold!”
“C’mon now, A ngelita , that’s loser’s talk. It’s not so bad once you get used to it. Think of it as learning to walk again.” 10 minutes later, Camilo finds that no amount of vocal explanation will convince the girls, and so settles on forming a chain with Camilo in the middle, carefully pulling them along. “You just glide like that, and—,” he lets go of Cecilia’s hand, and before she seems to realize, she’s gliding across the lake like a shot. She shrills.
“I-I’m doing it! Cami, I’m doing it!”
“Woohoo!” He grins, snapping his fingers, which felt odd since they’d been numbed by the cold. Angelica, looking miffed at being left in the dust, lets go and shakily begins to make her way in the same direction.
The rest of the afternoon continues in a similar fashion. Occasionally someone slips and falls on their bottom, and Camilo is always there to pick them up, brush them off and crack a joke before the child even has time to cry. By evening his nose feels like it’s about to freeze off. Visions of his Tia’s champurrado take over his imagination, enough to make his stomach growl. He begins to call out that it’s home time when another one—a small one—cuts him off.
“Camilo,”
“Yes, Toni —,” it feels then, like the very ice they are standing on is being injected into his veins. Antonio is standing a few feet behind him.
And underneath his feet is a web of cracks.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Cami,” is all Antonio seems to be able to croak out. He’s as white as a statue, and just as still to boot, save for the trembling in his outstretched little hands.
For a moment, Camilo feels as if he might not be able to move either. Dios. Dios, Dios, Dios. This couldn’t be happening, could it? After all, he’d checked if the ice was stable! And even if he hadn’t, how could it be that it could take Camilo’s weight, but not his brother’s who was 1/3 his size? What was he going to do? What was he going to do? Stupidly, he blinks and stares intensely at the cracks, trying to see whether or not they aren’t just his imagination. But they stay, which means they are entirely real.
And steadily expanding.
“C-Cami, what do I do?”
“Don’t move,” Camilo says sharply, having been snapped out of his trance. And then in a gentler voice, he says, “I’m going to get a little closer, ok? Don’t move an inch. I’ll grab you and slide you away.” Antonio looks as if he’s only barely containing his terror, as if he wants to nod but of course, that would go against the ‘don’t move an inch’. Mierda. Mierda. Mierda. Camilo wants to say it out loud, but he knows if he does then Antonio might cry, and if he does this wrong then his little brother is going to drown, and worse(if possible), he’s going to drown cold and alone. Keep it together. He has to keep it together. That’s what he’s good at. He can do this. At the very least, he can convince Antonio he can do this. Seconds drip by like honey on a cold spoon, and he inches that much closer, but not nearly enough. Antonio’s hands are just out of reach. Keep it together. You’ve got this. Just keep it together. Another crack spirals out. This one is too big and makes a loud crck. Now, if Camilo had continued shuffling along, it might have made no difference.
Instead he panics. He pitches himself forward, shoving Antonio as hard as he can so that he slides a safe distance away.
And falls facefirst through the ice.
So, he might have to retract his former statement. It wasn’t cold. Nothing on earth, he thinks, could ever describe this feeling . At first he thinks that he’s being shocked to death, before realizing that it’s just the water pressing in around him. As if from a distance, he can hear someone screaming. It might be Antonio, he’s not sure. He’s not sure if it’s even real, because his ears are so cold they might as well have fallen off and it’s as if he’s become completely frozen. His eyes feel as if needles are being pushed into them. He can hardly move his arms upwards, being met with icy pain. He’s rapidly sinking into the darkness, away from the single beam of light that finds its way through the hole he’s made. Pure fear fills him, makes him thrash wildly in spite of the pain without realizing the reason he is sinking so fast is because of his heavy clothes, made heavier by the water absorbed by them. And his skates— Dios, his skates may as well be cement blocks. He might actually die here, then. No, that’s speaking in possibilities, and concerning him there were very few as of now. The thought sluices down his spine with a chill that even his current environment couldn’t conjure up. It’s not enough to get him moving again, though. No, he’s too cold and too tired. He can’t breathe, and dull pain spreads through his chest as it screams for air. Camilo read from a book once that drowning is one of the most painful deaths possible. Even when you run out of air and your body forces you to breathe water in, your body stays alive, trying desperately to process air even as your brain goes dead.
So in general, it seems like a slow, painful experience. Or maybe his brain just happened to make that up because he’s about to die. Frightened, too. Or maybe not so much, he thinks as he tries to see through the dark murkiness. His vision is getting blurry; all he can see is dark shapes moving around aimlessly. But weirdly, it doesn’t feel so scary. An intrusive thought comes to him then, that maybe he should’ve allowed Antonio to fall. Maybe he could’ve asked the fishes to save him from drowning. Of course, that’s a terrible thing to think and he would chastise himself if he had the energy to. Besides, he knows he’d probably still try to save him even if that was the case.
… Funny how one does so much thinking when you’re about to die.
Out of the corner of his eye, something is swimming towards him. He doesn’t really register it at first, and when he does he just passed it off as a big fish that may or may not eat him. Well, at least it would be a quicker death. Only that it’s not.
He doubts his eyes. After all, he’s got every reason to, but soft humanlike hands touch the sides of his face as another stares back at him.
Huh.
As he closes his eyes, he can feel himself being pulled upwards. He’s so numb that he can’t register the air on his face, but his mouth surely does. He coughs, splutters, takes gulping greedy breaths of air as he’s dragged from the water onto ice. Cold. Dios, he’s so unbearably cold.
He feels the hands again—the only remotely warm thing—brushing the wet hair plastered to his face away. He tries to blink, and for just a brief moment, his eyes refocus. He wasn’t wrong, it is a human face. Or maybe he was, because something so beautiful can’t possibly be human. The person’s skin seems to glow from within, like porcelain. Large crystal-clear eyes blink back at him, clearly finding him as curious as he does them. They brush their knuckles against his cheek and he shivers, closing his eyes again. At least if he still has a chance of dying, it won’t be so bad, since he’d at least seen something so wonderful.
Things happen in bits and pieces after that. Briefly, he hears shouting—multiple people, he thinks. Someone lifts him up and is carrying him. He relishes the familiar warmth that radiates from their burly arms. He falls completely unconscious after that.
The next day he wakes up in bed with a terrible fever, a very emotional mother, an overly concerned father, and a blubbering little brother he’s glad to see safe.
He hardly remembers what happened in the lake at all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s been weeks. The ice has finally melted, and it’s back to clear skies—a sign that the weather woman’s magic has calmed itself and the boy is safe. (Y/n) contemplates this as they sit astride the water bank, enjoying the warm weather.
Briefly they wonder what the weather would be like now if they had let the boy drown.
It was a thankless task, really. Everyone should’ve been praising them. Life is hard for water spirits when winter comes, and storms even more so. Yet instead of praise, (Y/n) was met with Maya’s intense scolding. Leaning back on their forearms, they recite in the fairy’s bell-like voice,
“You shouldn’t have exposed yourself like that,”
“He might remember you and tell everyone,”
“The young ones are always the most curious, he could come back and discover us, and what shall we do then?”
Her harsh words echo like ripples in the water. (Y/n) sighs, readjusting their position so that they hug their knees as they glare across the lake. Well, so what? Thankless task or no, would she have rathered that (Y/n) just watch and allow the boy to die? The very same charge that they granted their magic to? Sounds pretty counterproductive to them. Besides, everyone knew the family that held the magic gifts. Maybe Maya wanted the boy’s gift returned sooner than later.
Yes, everyone knew of the holders of the gifts. Knew them, but never saw them up close—at least, (Y/n) never had. Not till one of them happened to fall into her lake. The shapeshifter, to be exact. And what a lovely thing he turned out to be, too! He’d been as tall as (Y/n). Maybe even taller, but they’d had no trouble spiriting him to shore. His limbs were as thin as the stems of a crystal glass. He’d been so pale, but his freckles stood out like the constellations in the night sky. And he’d had some of the most beautiful eyes (Y/n) had ever seen. Golden around the middle, but also a wonderful shade of green. They’d wanted to stick around and admire him more, but the sounds of others calling out for him scared them away. They’d already pushed boundaries revealing themselves to him. They didn’t need to draw a scene.
They wonder if—hypothetical, just if—he was thinking of them now, just like they were thinking of him. The idea makes (Y/n) heart race a little bit, though not from fear as Maya would like. He could be sitting somewhere the same as them, staring at the same sky and contemplating whether or not their encounter was a dream, or maybe he doesn’t really remember at all. Regardless of how much they try to smother these internal questions, curiosity bites at them as much as they bite at their fingernails thinking about it.
Maybe they could just go and see for themselves.
The idea is both thrilling and intimidating. Only the older fairies are allowed to go, and even then, only if they’re given the OK by Maya. Some of the younger ones sneak by this, though. (Y/n) recounts the nights when Cordelia would arrive home late under the guise of “losing track of time” and then, in their shared sleeping space, whispering excitedly of her escapades.
And besides, even if they were found out, it would work out in the end, wouldn’t it? In a way, they were only scouting out whether or not people were suspicious of the lake, if the shapeshifting boy had spilled his guts or not. And if he hadn’t, wouldn’t Maya be most pleased?
Besides, (Y/n) was never one to sit still. Briefly they look around with the apprehension of the truly paranoid. Then they brush off their knees and stand up to look in the direction of mortal civilization, feeling bolder than ever.
~*~
From a considerable distance away, (Y/n) watches as several figures walk to and fro like ants between large, cube shaped structures with scaly triangles atop them. They look… well, just like (Y/n), really, aside from a few teeny tiny details. All of them are dressed in what looked to be thick wooly clothes that cover them from head to toe. A woman with a decorated shawl and braids hangs blanches tunics from a line tied between 2 of the buildings. Suddenly feeling a tad self conscious, (Y/n) picks at the hems of their own cloth. It’s a simple wrapped cloth that reaches the knees, made of iridescent silk so thin that it’s almost sheer. Then there’s their necklace, a string of small round pearls and stick pearls patterned together—gifted to them by Cordelia on their 13th birthday. This sort of attire is normal for water sprites, but after a bit of thinking, (Y/n) recalls a snippet of information that Cordelia touched upon while gossiping about the village.
“They wear clothes that cover their bodies completely. It’s not made of plant fibers like ours, but of fur from animals! Isn’t that sooo strange?”
“That’s stupid. What if it’s hot out?” (Y/n) had asked.
“To cover their modesty, I suppose. Humans are terribly shy, you know, especially when it comes to matters of the flesh.”
Just as (Y/n) begins to curse themselves mentally for not remembering that sooner, the woman finishes putting up the garments. Another woman calls her over, and the pair wander away.
Leaving the garments completely unguarded.
(Y/n) bites their lip. It’s wrong to steal, they know. But maybe just this once… if they bring it back afterwards…
They look around to make sure no one is watching. Once fully assured, they emerge from behind the trees and take off down the hill, taking mischievous joy simultaneously from the wind against their face and what they’re about to do. Once again looking around, they yank one of the tunics from the clothesline and run back to their hiding spot, giggling. Pulling their clothes up over their heads, they fold it neatly and place it under a bush with spiky leaves, and take a moment to examine what they’ve nabbed. It’s a plain dress-like thing with little red flowers embroidered on the hems. Lovely. (Y/n) slips it over their head and smiles as it settles onto them like soft rain.
That’s the end of the niceties. Almost immediately, they find that it’s… course in comparison to the clothes they usually wear. The generous size of the garb doesn’t help, either. Their shoulders extend only inches beyond each side of the neckline. For a moment they consider also leaving behind the necklace. But Cordelia would never forgive them if something happened to it. In the end, they settle on tucking it inside the neckline. There. They feel somewhat itchy and out of place, but they’re ready.
It’s a lot less… vibrant than (Y/n) expects. They try not to be disappointed. It’s beautiful to be sure, and they’re taken aback by all the large geometrical buildings, the beautiful flowers and the unfamiliar smells in the air but… it’s not as easy to get excited about when there’s no one around.
No one except a particular man that happens to cross (Y/n)s path. He’s rushing around, leading donkeys that carry heavy-looking wooden boxes. He stops to take a moment to stare at them.
“Niño, are you lost?” Are they? Well, maybe they are, but the strange way that this man is scrutinizing them makes them feel antsy.
“Where’s the family with the gifts?”
“The Madrigals? At Misa Dominical. Everyone is.” “ Misa Dominical? Where is that?” He blinks. “Church.” He nods towards one of the buildings. “You know, church? Just over there.” “Church. Right, church.” (Y/n) repeats as if they know exactly what the man is talking about. They mumble a “gracias” as they wander towards the building. It’s a rather large one, more esteemed-looking than the others. The doors are large and grand, probably taking a bit off an effort for one person alone to push them open. The roof sports a tower-like thing with a huge bell that rocks to and fro, singing out deep, dulcet tunes with each steady sway. The sound brings a smile to (Y/n)’s face, one that only grows as they creep closer. Pressing an ear to the huge door, soft voices humming together emanate from within. Music! There was going to be music? They shove open the heavy door excitedly, without thinking.