Only a few moments after the big shift that came about as a result of my choice to supplement the particular jump Ben was so eager to see me in, I found myself entering the outskirts of the village. I listened as the faint sound of distant music grew just a touch louder, and I began to smile.
“So this is ‘Home’ huh?” I asked, quietly, as I studied the homes at the very edge of town. As I spoke I also focused on the area right around the Casa Madrigal. I did this to go ahead and snoop on my neighbors as readily as Dolores herself was doing so. She could hear quite probably every single conversation in the isolated community with ease. I also knew that she could hear me, even if she wasn’t aware that had she spoken I’d also have been able to hear her.
I heard her gasp as she listened to the same various sounds I could hear. Her particular gift was ultra-human hearing, not on the same level as a kryptonian but definitely something well beyond any natural human’s ability to hear. She could hear the conversations that Luisa and I had with ease, which was itself a sign of how effortless her ability was for her.
I walked up to one of the houses near me and I placed a gentle hand on it. As I did I felt an array of memories fill my mind, memories of a family that was below mine on the social totem pole. I chuckled, softly, as I pulled my hand off of the wall of the house.
The memories that freely floated in my mind were all from a different angle than those of the people who had lived through them. Thanks to my deific abilities I could see a person’s memories with ease so long as I looked at them with the intent to study them. Seeing their actions from the perspective of their home let me study them without seeing their actions from their biased points of view. It was interesting, though I still needed to touch something to be able to activate psychometry, which was deeply annoying.
“Psychometry… It still works.” I muttered, knowingly and willfully sowing the seeds of curiosity into the mind of the one woman who could hear me; Dolores.
Deep inside of me, in my divine-mind, I was hatching a scheme. I knew the basic premise of the Encanto film, that Casa Madrigal was somehow losing its magic and that it’d be up to the sole member of the Madrigal family who was related to Alma Madrigal by blood who didn’t have a magical gift to save the house, save the family, and possibly save the entire community.
I intended to meddle in that natural plot, and offer a helping hand to the whole famly. I planned to help Mirabel, and to accompany her on her journey as she explored the mysteries of her home. And to do that, I knew I’d need to be at Antonio’s ceremony tonight.
It only took me another five minutes of walking to reach my home. My home was situated near the entrance to the home owned by the Madrigals, and was a stunning home that was not far from theirs as far as magical glory went. It was also a lot more private, so the magical properties of my private estate were known to no one other than the servants who lived and worked here.
When I reached the giant front gate leading to my handsome estate I pulled the keys to the place out of my hammerspace inventory and slid them into the object prohibiting me from entering my own home.
I stepped into a beautifully maintained and quiet courtyard. I could hear the distant footsteps of several servants scurrying about, all of whom I could tell were homunculi as my mental mini-map adjusted to include the newly created home.
The valuable estate that had come into being mere minutes ago was a stunning example of the same sort of gorgeous architecture as the Casa Madrigal. It was a large home which was a nearly exact replica of home of the main family of the movie.
The colorful thing welcomed its owner though in a way that was only perceptible to him, as the home’s magic was fiat-backed to be undetectable by anyone who wasn’t authorized to listen in. This caused the not-so-distant Dolores to gasp in shock as someone she had been actively listening to seemed to vanish, though the fact that he vanished after opening the gate into his own home wasn’t lost on her.
In the minds of those who cared about such things, Fernando had only been living in his new private residence for a few days. He had spent time there before, but he had only just finished moving in last week and few people had begun to notice any of the house’s quirks.
Dolores, one of the most beautiful members of the Madrigal family dashed out of her room, running to go pay a visit to her home of Fernando. She quickly and quietly sprinted down the stairs of her home, intending to dash toward her neighbor and check in on him.
She also secretly hoped that by encountering him in the privacy of his own room she’d be able to ask him relevant questions about what he had said earlier in the morning both to Luisa and to himself. Her curiosity propelled her forward.
The home itself began to musically greet the quiet owner of the place, tiles bouncing up of their own accord to touch the soft face of the strange god responsible for the place’s existence. It did this quietly so as to not disturb the servants who occupied and staffed the home. Andrew, or “Fernando”, chuckled at this display of playfulness from the place he was now calling home.
In the inner courtyard of the home, there was an empty area for all sorts of activities for anyone who wanted to do things outside without leaving the property. I studied the empty area, a near-exact replica of the inner courtyard possessed by the home owned by the Madrigals, and I rose my hand.
As I rose my hand I divinely recalled the potent deathly hallow known as the Elder Wand to my hand. The thing winked into existence in my hand and I smiled as I felt its weight.
“Accio Canvas.” I uttered, internally, while I stepped out from behind the gate leading into my home. I was capable of both silent and wand-less magic but I didn’t mind the feeling of using my wand as a focus. As I stepped into the courtyard I heard the noise of a canvas flying through the air towards me. It sailed out of a room that in Casa Madrigal would have belonged to Pepa, but for me was little more than a storage space for arts and crafts supplies.
When the thing was right in front of me I reached out and plucked it out of the air, all while using my powers over creation as a primordial god to effortlessly create an easel on which I could put my canvas. By the time I had done all of this I was standing in the middle of the inner courtyard and I could feel the heat of the early morning Colombian sun beating down on me. I heard the still-distant and incredibly soft footfalls of Dolores Madrigal gradually moving towards my current location.
A servant of mine, a homunculus whose form was that of a beautiful woman stepped out of the kitchen on the other side of the courtyard and saw me. She immediately gasped, since I was capable of silent movement and no one but Dolores had heard me make it here. She hadn’t realized that I was here, she had been hard at work making me a meal for whe I arrived back home after a doing a day’s labor with my father.
While I was walking here I had gone ahead and quietly caused a clone of mine to appear right outside of my home. That clone would easily go and complete the rest of my work for the day with my family, but not before going and grabbing one of Julieta’s famous arepas for Enrique.
“Mr. Fernando, good morning!” The homunculus uttered, shyly. I smiled and turned to her, my mind filling with memories detailing her life and our relationship.
“Good morning Anna.” I said to her, smiling brightly. Without moving and with the same mental effort I might give to solving a simple math problem I created a seat for myself in front of the easel I placed the canvas on. I did this by utilizing the powers of the domain of creation, one of the free domains I had been given due to the essences I had drunk, hours ago.
As I turned to face the canvas I also willed my wand to disappear back into my hammerspace inventory. The thing vanished, returned to the non-existent realm it resided whenever I didn’t need it. I easily replaced the wand with a paintbrush and willed a supply of variously colored paints to fill the air around me.
I sat down in the chair in front of the easel and began to study the canvas in front of me. I studied it for a matter of moments and began to wonder what sort of animal I ought to put on the thing for Antonio.
My intention was to paint him a picture of animals since I knew that the little boy was very interested in all sorts of non-human creatures. It was right when I was about to begin to paint that the sound of distant footfalls, ones I had been ignoring, began to become not-so-distant. Dolores was closing in on my home.
I began to lift my paintbrush to the floating groups of paint and when the tip of my paintbrush had been dipped in the softest shade of brown paint that I had conjured I placed the brush on the canvas. I quickly began to paint the barest outline of a giant anteater.
I had enough time to be able to paint a good portion of the animal, over the course of the next few minutes, before Dolores reached the edge of my property. When the well-dressed perpetual spy reached my gate she peered inside and saw me and gasped. It took her a second to regain her composure, and though I wasn’t looking at her I had to work to not laugh.
She had been surprised to see me because of her confidence in her gift. When she hadn’t been able to hear me anymore she panicked and assumed something had gone wrong. The truth was not something that she could really conceive, that there was an area close to her home where she couldn’t hear what was going on.
I didn’t bother turning around and instead I motioned for Anna to go and let her in. Anna was a fairly pale woman who was dressed in a professional maid’s outfit. She had curly black hair which she allowed to be fairly wild and she had the demeanor of a gentle fairy, in that she was an unorganized but energetic sort whose lackings as a maid were more than made up for by her energy and enthusiasm.
The cheerful maid eagerly responded to my unspoken command and dashed off to go and open the gate for the Madrigal. As she reached the gate she smiled and welcomed the strangely gifted member of the magical family, who politely nodded at her and stepped past the threshold. Right as she did I watched her facial expression change.
She was beginning to hear the various sounds of this arcane house as readily as I could. I paused my painting and turned to greet her, but right as I turned around and peered at her I immediately felt the potent pull and activation of my “Judgment” power. That particular power was the one that filled me with an awareness of the good and evil acts conducted by those I studied.
My mind began to fill with memories that belonged to Dolores. These memories cataloged Dolores’s life, including a very important decision of hers; her choice to keep secret the true circumstances revolving around her uncle’s disappearance, and to also keep his true location a secret. My own eyes widened when I realized that because she knew about the location of her uncle, so did I… In the depths of the magical manor the Madrigal family lived in.
“Bruno…” I whispered, causing Dolores’s own eyes to widen so intensely they almost bulged out of her skull.
“Whoa, what is this about Bruno?” Dolores asked, approaching me nervously. I snapped out of my surprised state upon hearing her speak, and I immediately began to lie.
“What? I didn’t say ‘Bruno’. I said ‘You know’!” I told her, speaking rather confidently and naturally thanks to the subtle effects of various perks coupled with the mighty powers provided to me by my essences.
Fortunately for me, Dolores gazed at me curiously for a second, like she was checking me out, and then she sighed. I could tell she had opted to believe me, and so she proceeded to approach me, a question on her mind and on her lips.
“Fernando… I think that you are right. We need to talk.” She told me, as she approached me. It was at that point that she saw the floating puddles of paint, which caused her to stop walking toward me entirely. I smirked at the Madrigal with a practiced, easy-going look.
“Yes, Dolores, we do. I have some exciting news to share with you.” I told the young heroine, a smug look on my face as she closed the distance between the two of us and began to stare, fixedly, at the puddles of floating paint in the air.
