When a Butterfly Flaps its Wings | Encanto Fanfic

Bruno

Bruno sat in his room, cradling his legs between his arms, listening to the sand fall. He took deep shaky breaths trying to keep the tears in his eyes at bay.

It's fine. Everything is fine.

Monster. Murderer. Demon.

It’s not fine. He wants to go home. He wants his mom. He wants his sisters.

He wants out of this never-ending nightmare.

Don’t cry.

He just wants to go home.

Don’t cry.

He froze as he heard a squeak. The kind of squeak, he recognized, that came from a rat. Lifting his head from his knees, he saw a small gray rat with a patch of white along its back. A very familiar pattern.

“Oh” He breathed out before finally breaking down in a sob. Bruno scootched closer slowly, before gently scooping up the rat in his hands. The rat was docile as he examined it.

A boy.

The only rat Casita had ever let into her walls was Chiquita, and Casita had only given in after a week of Bruno’s insistent begging. This rat somehow-someway, with its familiar markings, could only be a descendant of his long-dead pet.

The rat squeaked again sniffing Bruno’s nose and Bruno gave him a sad smile. “Hi there. I’m Bruno.”

Suddenly, the rat jumped off his hand and ran away. Bruno watched sadly as he disappeared. He wondered for a second if he would ever see the rat again, then blinked in shock as the rat returned, dragging a glowing emerald shard behind it.

Fear quickly replaced shock at the sight of the broken vision. The rat dropped the shard in front of him. Shakily Bruno picked the vision up, and sure enough, Mirabel’s face stared back at him.

Cleary, the vision wasn’t as well hidden as he had thought.

“Thank you for … giving... me this.” Bruno said, watching the rat clean itself completely ignoring his presence. “Where did you find it?”

No answer. Bruno honestly wasn’t sure what he was expecting from the rat. “Yeah…”

Okay. He saw the direction the rat went. Kind of. Maybe if he followed its path, he would find the rest of the vision shards.

No one else could see the vision. For Mirabel’s sake.

He put the vision shard in his pocket only for the rat to look up and loudly squeak… offended? The rat jumped onto his knee and Bruno flailed. The rat climbed up his leg and disappeared into the pocket of his ruana.

“Umm…”

Then, catching movement in his peripheral vision, he looked down to see another rat, this one pure gray. Bruno bit his lip. He bent down to pick up the shard only for the pure gray rat to pick up the shard and run away from him.

“Wait!” Bruno called out looking around for any hint of the rat but lost it within the sand and vastness of his room.

He saw more movement, only for another rat to pop up, this one pure white. Also carrying around a shard.