Chapter Text
-Several weeks ago-
The Captain smiled as his sword slipped through the witch's flesh. She let out a small whimper as he drew the blade back out, and the captain dropped to the ground.
He closed his eyes as he felt his heart weaken, but he couldn't help but continue to smirk at the sound of his captor's cries. At least he would die knowing he'd rid the world of that redheaded demon.
For the next 10 minutes, the captain felt himself slowly slip away, but then, right as his heart was about to give in, he heard a deep, powerful rumble of thunder, followed by thousands of droplets of rain. They all suddenly froze in place, before swarming toward the witch, who lay dead in the other prisoner's arms, and into her chest. As each droplet hit her, they glowed briefly before disappearing into the wound.
They were healing her
No
There was no way the captain was going if she wasn't going down with him. Using the remainder of his strength, the one-legged man began crawling towards them, the metallic taste of blood lingering in his mouth. Grunting, he slowly managed to reach his hand far enough for one of the glowing raindrops to hit his palm.
The captain had never felt something so beautiful. It was as if all the darkness of the world was suddenly pushed out of him in this one rush of light. The darkness didn't leave for long. As he felt his strength returning, so did his anger, his fury, his hatred.
He slowly lifted his head, making sure he wouldn't be spotted by his prisoner who sat just a few meters from him. The captain felt his blood boil.
The two were hugging, laughing, smiling. He could barely remember a time when he did those things. It was a sickening thought. Scanning the area, he quietly reached for his sword, which he returned to his belt. He slowly rose onto his hands and knees and began crawling away from them, taking care with every step. He was in no fit state to fight, and they would surely kill him if they caught him. While he was certain he could defeat the man, there was no way he would ever match the power of the witch. No. For now, he would have to lay low until they reached land.
But he knew one thing for sure;
No matter how hard it seemed, he will kill them, one way or another.
-Present day-
Felix groaned as he slowly sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes and adjusting to the morning light. The night before, Julieta had asked him to sleep on the couch until Pepa felt ready to sleep with someone again. More like commanded him. Felix had noticed his sister-in-law's attitude towards him in the subtle glares she often gave him whenever he went anyway near his wife. It took every ounce of strength to glare back. She was Pepa's sister after all. If Pepa ever saw him glaring at her it was inevitable that he'd be struck with lightning, husband or not.
Felix put on his slippers before folding away the thin blanket he'd been using and made his way into the kitchen to make himself a morning coffee. Unlike his wife, Felix was known to be an early riser, waking religiously at the crack of dawn. As did Julieta, which was not ideal.
"Morning," he said as he rinsed his cup, not sparing a glance at his sister-in-law who sat on the counter, sipping at her own coffee. She didn't reply.
After another minute, Felix made his coffee and Julieta had finished hers, meaning she would start her cooking. Felix made towards the door but stopped in his tracks. "How's Pepa?" he asked, knowing Julieta had stayed with her that night.
"She slept well, thanks to you not being there" she answered with a tint of sarcasm.
Felix's eyes darkened. "What did I ever do to you?!?"
"Excuse me?" clearly she hadn't expected him to retaliate. Good. Now it was his turn to get angry.
"You heard me," he said, turning to face her. Julieta's face was red with anger. "What did I do to deserve this?"
She scoffed. "Are you kidding me? For the past month all you've been doing is making Pepa worse. Every time she seems to be getting better, you just have to come along and pull her back down! Thank god you're not married to Agustin because he'd be fucking terrified if you were!"
"What, so you just don't want me going any near her then?" Felix said, his blood beginning to boil at the audacity.
"Yes! That's exactly what I want!"
"She's my wife!"
"And she's my sister!"
Just as Felix was about to retaliate, the sound of thunder came from behind them. Both Julieta and Felix turned to see Pepa, Agustin, and Bruno standing in the doorway. Bruno looked pissed off.
Julieta smiled sweetly, brushing her hands on her apron, something Felix knew she did when she was nervous. "Hola hermanos, amor! What are you doing up this early?"
"We were woken up by our *very* noisy neighbours" Bruno said, glaring daggers at his eldest sister and brother-in-law. "Maybe you could tell them to shut up so we can get sleep?" he continued. Looking at Agustin and Pepa's tired faces, he guessed they also had an idea of who these 'neighbours' were.
"Right," Julieta said. "Of course" she then went to great Agustin with a kiss, which he easily melted into.
"How are you amor?" Felix asked, feeling left out. Pepa smiled warmly, but her puffy eyes told him she'd been crying.
"Good, gracias mi sol" she answered, and his heart fluttered. It didn't last long. Julieta went up to her younger sister, kissing her forehead and smiling warmly. "Come, I'll make you a coffee," she said, leading her out of the kitchen, shooting Felix a small glare as she went.
Felix glared back, knowing what that meant. This wasn't over.
Alma smiled as she awoke. Outside, snow still fell in large amounts, covering the Encanto in a thick blanket, but you could see the sun poking through the clouds. Something had made her Pepa happy.
She grunted as she got out of bed, taking off her nightgown and putting on her usual magenta dress. She opened the door and began to make her way to the kitchen to help Julieta prepare the meal. Just as she was turning to go down the stairs, she ran straight into Agustin. The taller man yelped, recoiling away from her. His hand hovered above his pocket. She didn't have to be a genius to know he had a knife in there. Alma smiled reassuringly. "Ah, Agustin. Lo siento, I didn't see you there" Alma had never been particularly close with her son-in-law. Not that either of them tried to strengthen their relationship, which she thought was fair considerating the number of times she'd tried to set Julieta up with someone else. She wouldn't have liked her either.
"Sorry, it was my fault," he said, his shoulders relaxing. He turned to leave, but Alma called after him.
"How are you, Agustin?" she said, trying not to wince at his eyepatch.
"Fine, considering, well, you know" he answered, and Alma's eyes softened.
"I don't think I've ever told you this, but I'm glad Julieta chose you. You make her feel more loved than you realize, and that's all a mother could ever want. And I'm sorry about the way she treated you when you were gone. You didn't deserve that, but I'd like you to know that I'm happy that you're my son."
By the time she'd finished, Agustin had tears in his eyes. Alma knew he'd had an unhappy childhood; his mother had died in childbirth and his father was an abusive drunk. Sometimes she found herself comparing herself to his father, wondering if she was much better at parenting than he was. Her answer was usually no.
"Gracias, Alma" Agustin said, his voice genuine. He gave her a small bow before turning towards his and Julieta's room, carefully shutting the door behind him.
Abuela smiled to herself. Perhaps she really could fix the relationships she broke.
Antonio squealed as Parce sped through his room, leaping over other animals and fallen branches. Toucans squawked enthusiastically overhead, flying higher as the jaguar ran through a huge puddle, splashing and soaking an unimpressed-looking capybara that had been sitting nearby.
The cat then began bounding up the tree in the middle of the room, pushing past flowers and causing a flurry of hummingbirds that were feeding from them to spiral into the air, creating a rainbow of colours in the sky.
Antonio was delighted by this, calling to his jaguar to speed up, which it readily did. They ran all the way to the top of the tree, where Parce then leapt off one of the branches, and the two of them flew through the air and right into a frog pond. Now off of Parce's back, Antonio lead him out the pond, giggling as the jaguar shook off the water and getting the five-year-old even wetter. Antonio copied him and then went over to the capybara they wet earlier, which was called Chipsi.
He giggled as he took off his jumper and began drying her with it. "Lo siento Chipsi. You can keep the jumper though!" Giving the animal a quick hug, he went over to his toucan, Pico, who was being unusually loud. "What's wrong Pico?"
The toucan squawked in response. "You found what?" Antonio exclaimed. "Let me see!" The bird opened its beak, and out dropped a very bloody knife.