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Feb 5, 2022

Degrees of Separation—Chp. 1

Lorena “Lor” lives a life of unknowns. Left with only a few names and scraps of a story, she’s travelled Colombia for more than a decade as a storyteller, building her sense of self brick by brick. She’s not her empty past—she’s the future she’ll build for herself. When a tentative attempt at putting down roots takes a heartbreaking turn, she returns to her nomadic ways and takes to the forest, wandering aimlessly—or so she thinks. Unknowingly heeding the Encanto’s call, Lor soon finds herself amidst a family linked to her past, and meeting someone whose own sense of self has gone through as many twists and turns of her own.

Pairing: Bruno x femOC

Rating: T, will adjust accordingly

Genre/Tags: Semi-slow burn, post-movie, romance, angst, fluff, comfort, someone-actually-listens-to-Bruno-time, involuntary visions

Prologue

Chapter One

ONE WEEK LATER

When it came to assessing a new town, there were a few tried and true methods that never failed her. First, it was a smile and a nod—seeing how people responded to that told her plenty within her first few minutes there. Second, how easily could she obtain the necessities? Was there someone readily willing to trade a stranger’s hard work for a meal or two in return? Third, how did the people react when she offered a helping hand? Did they shy away? Or did their community spirit extend to all who set foot within their borders? And fourth—how did the children react to her? How did their parents?

The gaggle of children at her feet was a good sign—their parents, eavesdropping and smiling from a few feet away, was a very good sign. In an odd way, an even better sign was how many of the children didn’t seem to have parents hanging around them at all—they knew, they trusted, that their children were safe within the town and its mountain embrace. Random passersby took care to give an observing, sweeping look over the kids, lending to the old adage that it took a village to raise children. They met her eyes and smiled.

Lor frowned, taking a deep breath as she dropped her voice lower, waving her hand in a sharp gesture. The bright afternoon sun shone down in a spotlight, catching on the yellow bead bracelets rattling with her dramatics. “Her father slammed his hands on the table and stood. ‘That’s enough! I’ll hear no more of it! You’re going to marry the prince!’”

A gasp rippled through the crowd of children. They stared up at where she sat on the slanted palm, its trunk bowed horizontally like a bench before turning upwards, growing high and proud into the sky. The children shimmied even closer, sitting criss-cross on the trim green grass until they were practically at the hem of her dark blue skirt. High above in the palm, a toucan squawked impatiently, as if it too awaited the maiden’s reply.

“The maiden didn’t care for her father’s demands. For the maiden knew things her father did not—the mice told her all about life in the prince’s home. They told her about the mousetraps under every piece of furniture. They told her about his boring stone castle, and how every wall hanging was in a boring grey, and how his gardens were full of thorns with not a flower to be seen.” Lor leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially to the children as if the prince might overhear, “they told her he had a penchant for cheese so stinky, even the poor rats couldn’t stand it.”

A chorus of laughter went up, shouts of ‘ewwwwww,’ and ‘gross!’ and from a girl with flowers pinned into her curly puff of hair came, “my Abuelo likes stinky cheese too.”

Lor smiled wide, leaning back on the trunk as the children resettled. The crowd of adults began to grow now too, and a man in a striped shirt with a moustache and smiling eyes fished a few coins out of his donkey’s saddlebag. He looked around for a cup, a hat—anything by her feet he could drop his money into, but found nothing. Lor was still smiling as she bowed her head in thanks but held out a hand as if to say, ‘that’s not necessary.’

“The mice also told her about the bullies he kept as friends and the unkind ways he treated the little old Abuela who cooked his meals. The maiden didn’t want to marry the prince, not for all the money in the world. After all, she had better things to do. There was a whole world to see, adventures to be had, and, she was sure, a dragon or two to fight—” Lor winked, “—or befriend. It depends very much on the kind of dragon and the kind of maiden who finds him.”

The man with the moustache was not deterred. He retrieved a tin out of his saddlebag and dropped in the coins. The metallic tink! caught the attention of a few of the milling adults, and soon more coins went in. Lor tried not to pay it any mind—it was no good to interrupt a children’s story to discuss money. The tin was being passed around as a boy—a teenager really—dressed in a yellow print ruana, politely slipped his way into the crowd. He watched with an easy, laid back smile, curls tumbling as he tilted his head curiously. He seemed to take stock of the crowd, the children, then Lor. The toucan squawked again and the boy looked up, giving the bird a wave. Lor was mid-sentence, describing the maiden’s midnight escape from her father’s home, when he came around the group of children. A girl with braided pigtails peeking out under a wide-brimmed hat spotted him, smiled brightly, and patted the spot beside her.

Lor tried not to react when suddenly she was staring at a duplicate of the pigtailed girl, the two of them sitting side by side.

~~~///~~~

“And that, my dear little friends, is all we’ll hear of Maiden Maleta’s adventures for today,” Lor announced, much to the dismay and protests of the children.

“What?!” Exclaimed a boy holding what looked suspiciously like a coffee cup, “but the bad guys are going to catch her, we can’t stop now!!”

Lor smiled, regathering her long brown hair and adjusting the pale green tie she wore as a headband. “It’s called a cliffhanger, my dear. We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow.”

A murmur went up as the children began to make guesses, but Lor stood, hands held out in front of her. “No no, I can't possibly spoil it for you. Run along everyone and see if you can guess what happens next.”

The kids scattered and a short way off the gathered adults parted to let them through before drifting off to see about their own business. The moustached man approached, the tin generously jingling with each step.

“That wasn’t necessary, Señor,” Lor bowed her head graciously as the moustached man stuffed the tin into her hands.

“Please, it’s a gift!” He grinned, “I can’t track everyone down to give them their coins back, can I?”

Lor wanted to protest, but there wasn’t much to say to that—or to the scant few coins left in her own purse. She thanked him and he retreated to his donkey, passing the curly-haired boy in the yellow ruana making his way through the swath of remaining children eager to talk to him.

“Camilo!” Called the moustached man, waving from the saddle. “My best to the familia!”

“Thanks, Osvaldo!” replied the boy cheerily, and as the moustached man rode off, Camilo’s attention turned to Lor.

“A fellow performer, I see,” Lor said casually as she could, as though she’d not just watched him shapeshift right in front of her not fifteen minutes prior. She’d been to a lot of towns in her years of travel—keeping her calm had let her keep her head thus far.

The boy, Camilo, laughed a little self-consciously. “Ehh you might say that. You must be new to the Encanto, I haven’t seen you before. I didn’t startle you, did I?”

“Mmm,” hummed Lor, half sitting back against the leaning palm trunk. “Surprised maybe, but not startled, no. I saw a woman carrying an entire bridge above her head when I first came into town, so you might say I did some asking around already.” Camilo grinned, an easy, casual air about him and she returned his smile. “You must be one of the Amazing Madrigals.”

“That would be my cousin Luisa with the super strength,” Camilo said with a laugh, holding out his hand. “Camilo Madrigal.”

“With the shapeshifting,” she shook his hand, “I’m Lor—with the storytelling.”

Still watching from his perch on high, the toucan squawked again and took flight, headed towards the far end of the town. Camilo waved it off.

“A friend of yours?”

“A friend of my brother’s,” Camilo replied with a light shrug, “Antonio’s gift is talking to animals.”

“Oh, well, naturally,” Lor deadpanned. Her remark struck its target and the boy laughed,

“No, really—”

Lor held up her hands in front of her, “Oh no, I’m not doubting you. Your cousin with the bridge, remember, she was seriously the second person I saw.” That had been an interesting smile-and-nod test. “Just tell me one thing.”

Camilo nodded, but when Lor did not respond right away, his amusement eased, expression growing more serious.

Lor leaned in conspiratorially as she had with the children during her story. She took a thoughtful breath. “Do I have to keep an eye out for any flying Madrigals to dodge?”

“Nothing like that,” Camilo said laughing, nodding his head towards town. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led them off the grass onto the cobbled streets, taking a few jogging steps ahead of her so that he was almost walking backwards in front of Lor. “So it’s like this,” without preamble, Camilo suddenly shifted into a tall woman with a head of red curls, a pleasant, angular smile, dressed head to toe in shades of yellow. “There’s mamá, Pepa. Her mood affects the weather,” he pointed to the sky, a blaze of azure streaked by faint whisks of cloud. “Clear skies mean nothing’s gone catastrophically wrong. Then there’s my older sister, Dolores.” They walked into the main street and the milling crowds hardly reacted as Camilo morphed again, this time into a delicate young woman in red and yellow. Her red bow and puff of curly hair bounced in time with Camilo’s excited steps. “She has enhanced hearing. She can probably hear us now.”

Lor smiled gently at his eagerness, following along with an easy walk. She glanced around as if searching. “Hello, Dolores, wherever you are. Your brother’s wearing your face.”

That earned another laugh as Camilo suddenly shrunk down into the size of a young child—an utterly adorable young child—clothed in the same yellow as the rest of Camilo’s family. A child’s wide brown eyes looked up at her, and Lor tried to suppress her amusement as Camilo’s older voice came rushing out. “And Antonio’s my little brother. He’s the youngest.”

“And the animal whisperer.”

Camilo nodded, shifting back into himself. He straightened his ruana as he slowed his space, stopping short of a muraled wall, the Madrigal name painted proudly above a group portrait. “That’s my Abuela,” he said, pointing to an older, candle-carrying woman at the top of the group. “She’s the head of the family. And the Encanto, really.”

“The family matriarch.”

“Exactly, yeah. The three below her are her triplets. I told you about mom,” he moved on, pointing to a man painted in the middle. Draped in a ruana of green, he was not painted with the same pleasant smile the others were. Instead, the artist had rendered him with the faintest frown, brows raised, blank eyes tinted a faded shade of white. A green hourglass floated before him and he stared out at the town in silent, solemn judgement. “This is her brother, Tío Bruno. He can see the future.”

As a traveller, Lor had lost count of the number of towns and villages she’d visited. It was why she was able to break down her assessment of one so quickly; her safety, her survival—it all depended on how well she read a village, analyzing the silent story its inhabitants wrote with their actions. Perhaps it was this fine-tuned intuition, this sixth sense borne of necessity that had made the shift in atmosphere feel so sudden—a few heads jerked their way, passersby slowing their pace, the subtle lowering in volume. Amidst the good cheer and hearty welcome she’d experienced in her first few days there, it was the first hint the Encanto had given her that something, anything, could be amiss.

“The future, hmm?” Lor acknowledged softly, her own eyes of pale brown unable to break from the somehow empty, somehow all-knowing gaze staring back at her. “That’s quite the weight to hold.”

Camilo wavered, casting a quick look to his left and right as he spotted the same signs as Lor. He didn’t shrink—he smiled even bolder. “Tío Bruno’s pretty great, actually,” he announced, louder than necessary. “I’m glad he’s back, we all missed him.”

Lor didn’t respond to that. He might have been talking to her, but it was plain to see the words weren’t meant for her. Instead, she pointed to the next woman in line, a middle-aged, kindly figure dressed in blue, the tops of small plants poking out of her apron pockets. In her hands was a platter of arepas, pink paint swirling above them like hearts of steam. “This must be the third triplet?”

“Tía Julieta, yeah. She can heal people with her food. Then there’s my cousin Isabela, she can uh,” he waved a hand in demonstration, “she makes flowers and plants appear. Cousin Luisa, you already saw—”

“—with the bridge.”

That, finally, managed to bring back some semblance of Camilo’s smile. “You got it. And that’s Mirabel. She doesn’t have a gift, but…” he was searching for the words, whether because he didn’t know how to explain it himself, or how to explain it to a newcomer like Lor. His smile brightened and he shrugged decidedly. “Mirabel’s a gift of her own. Without her, we wouldn’t have the magic anymore.”

Before Lor could even respond to that, Camilo was spinning on his heel and headed back into the street. “Then there’s my dad Félix and my Tío Agustín, but they aren’t up there. No flying Madrigals.”

Lor clicked her tongue, shaking her head in mock seriousness as she followed. “That’s a shame. At least I won’t have to worry about ducking.”

“You know if you—“ Camilo stopped short, raising a quizzical brow as he leaned to look past Lor. The swell of pride on his face was hard to miss. “Hey, good for her.”

Lor turned, readily spotting Luisa sans bridge. She carried a pallet now, loaded down by a partial pyramid of clay coloured bricks. Despite the smaller load, she was walking slower than she had with the bridge, keeping step with the girl next to her. Bedecked in a blue skirt emblazoned with embroidery, it wasn’t hard to recognize Mirabel from the mural. She too carried an armful of bricks, albeit a far smaller one.

“It’s sometimes hard to convince Luisa to let us help her,” Camilo explained, “I should go help while I have the chance.” He took a skip-like half step then stopped with a snap of his fingers. “Can I catch up with you? I had a question.”

Lor gave Luisa a thoughtful look. How did they accept help? “It looks like she has bricks to spare. I’m headed that way anyway—why don’t I lend a hand? Then you can ask away.”

Camilo brightened, jerking his head towards the two girls. “Alright, c’mon I’ll introduce you.”

Lor followed, stretching out her arms over her head to work out the stiffness—this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for the afternoon, but alas.

“Luisa! Mira!” Camilo waved them to a stop, and with a dramatic flourish he gestured to Lor. “This is Lor, storyteller extraordinaire. Lor, meet Luisa and Mirabel.”

“Camilo very kindly exaggerates,” she said, taking great care not to stare as Luisa shifted the entire pallet of bricks onto one hand. Brushing aside the curl falling into her face, she offered her free hand.

“That was you I saw yesterday, right?”

Lor shook her hand, “as I was coming into town, yes. A pleasure to meet you both.” She gestured back at the painted wall across the street, ”Camilo was just giving me the family mural tour when you both passed by.”

“Speaking of—” Camilo started, pointing at the bricks, “can we lend a hand?”

“Both of you?” Luisa asked.

“I don’t think the tour was done,” Lor explained, smiling gently, “but Camilo wanted to help. I’m heading that way anyway so I might as well not go empty-handed.”

Luisa seemed to consider that a moment—in all likelihood she could handle the entire load of bricks herself—but it was Mirabel who smiled and stepped in.

“The rest of it is around the corner,” she began, stepping forwards to hand off her armload to Camilo. He didn’t protest, and Lusia motioned for him to follow. With a quick glance back at Lor, he shugged, adjusted his grip, and went along.

Mirabel wiped her hands on her skirt, smiled brightly, and offered one. “That’s better, hi!”

“Hi,” Lor returned the smile and gestured to the street, “lead the way.”

“Right.” Mirabel turned back in the direction she’d come. The cobbled street of yellow and orange-tinted stones rose at a gentle incline, lined on either side by charmingly coloured homes draped in flowering bundles and creeping vines. From front steps or balconies, several people waved at Mirabel as they passed.

“So…you just got here?” Mirabel asked in a quizzical tone, not unlike her cousin Camilo’s.

“The night before last. Yesterday was my first full day.”

“We don’t get many visitors,” she mused, leading them around the corner.

“Ahh, that would explain a couple of odd looks I’ve gotten,” Lor admitted, and though she spoke lightheartedly, she mentally noted that remark. “Actually, I didn’t even realize there was a town here until I was practically on top of it—I’ve travelled this area of Colombia before, it’s a wonder I’ve never heard of it.”

“It the Encanto’s mountains,” Mirabel gestured around them at the towering rim of green surrounding the entirety of the town, save for a dramatic split on the far end, tearing a mountain in two. “It can be hard to find us.”

“An encanto indeed. You’ve got quite the little paradise here.”

They reached the remaining bricks a minute later. An entire second pallet sat in a square, paved plaza. The sun seemed to shine… brighter upon their entry, and it wasn’t until Mirabel waved at the smiling, red-curled, yellow garbed woman that Lor recognized Pepa—a perfect match to Camilo’s portrayal.

Mirabel stooped to pick up a stack of bricks, taking great care not to snag her embroidered blouse on the rough stone edges. Either the mural Camilo showed her was old or else the added designs were especially new—or perhaps both—but Lor could spot several extra embroidered patterns that hadn’t been on the girl’s portrait. Bursts of yellow butterflies across her skirt caught the light, brightening the dark teal fabric and the colours around it. She’d added green, too, in an abundance—small hourglasses dotted the edges of the busy side of her blouse and skirt.

Lor knelt to the bricks, pointing at the delicate thread work of one pink and yellow butterfly, “Is this all your handiwork?”

“Hmm?” Mirabel followed the pointed finger, “oh this! Yes, I do it all myself. It’s uh, it’s a little bit of something for everyone in my family.”

“You’re all close, that’s very fortunate,” Lor spotted the flowers with ease; the rainbows, the animals, the dumbbells, the clever reference in the chameleon, and the many, many butterflies. Lor paused on the hourglasses—evidently a new addition. ‘I’m glad he’s back, we all missed him.’ “You do beautiful work.”

“Thank you!” They stood, arms full of brick, and Mirabel gestured with her chin towards Lor. “Did you do that embroidery, too?”

Lor didn’t have to look. It wasn’t by any means the artistic flourish of Mirabel’s that she wore. Rather, the dark blue of her skirt and the petal-like lapels of her purple blouse were scored in thin stitches of a golden yellow thread, much the same shade as her bracelets. Back in her bags, a gold chain necklace was the final missing piece. “I did. All it takes is a little coherence in each piece to tie the story together.”

“What story?”

“Who’s to say? I’m a storyteller—the look of a costume adds to the mystery.” At Mirabel’s intrigue, or perhaps confusion, Lor winked. ”The real secret is none of it means a thing. It’s just yellow thread. The hair tie is left over from the stripe on my skirt when I had to mend a tear. My wrist wraps are leftover fabric from my belt. It’s all tied together so it looks purposeful when it’s really because I travel light.” She nodded towards Mirabel’s outfit. “Similar to how I imagine that top of yours belongs with that skirt. It’s not meant for mismatching—it’s deliberate.”

“That…” Mirabel tapered off, slowing as they rounded the corner back into the main thoroughfare. “That makes perfect sense. Do you sew, too?”

The pair walked on, their conversation interrupted intermittently by greetings from someone they passed, and many, many well-wishes directed towards the Madrigals. Kindly, many offered Lor their greetings as well.

“It helps when I can convince Camilo to model it for me,” Mirabel explained some ten minutes later, talking about her most recent design she intended as a gift for her mother. “That way I know it’ll fit her.”

“Speaking of—” Lor began, spotting him and Luisa a short ways off, restacking the bricks in front of a partially constructed house. Camilo finished up, hurrying over to Lor and Mirabel to take a few bricks off both their piles.

“There’s about a half pallet left,” Mirabel said as Luisa approached, already headed back in the direction they’d come.

“I’ll get the rest,” she replied with a nod, breaking into a jog in the same stride she waved at Lor, “Nice meeting you!”

“You too!” Lor replied, crouching to add her bricks to the pile. Clapping the dust from her hands, she stood to find Camilo watching her intently. “Alright,” she chuckled, moving under the generous shade of the neighbouring building, the walls stuccoed in a faint blue. “What is it?”

Camilo shrugged as casually as humanly possible. “I was wondering, do you…do you need any help with your stories? I just thought with my gift, well, if you ever want an extra hand, I’d be happy to help.”

Lor tried very, very hard to keep the amusement from showing on her expression. It wasn’t as much a question of if she needed help, as much as it was a question of whether there was room for him—Camilo, with his endearing dramatics, wanted in the play.

“I knew I spied a fellow performer,” Lor said slowly, giving him a thoughtful, appraising look. She held that silent beat a moment; a brand of her own dramatics. She tapped her foot decidedly, smiling. “Alright. I have plenty of Maiden Maleta stories, but this one ends tomorrow. She escapes the princes’ men, but they’ll be back. If you can think of a finale, I’ll adjust it from there. You think you can work with that?”

Camilo grinned with the type of infectious excitement that even had Mirabel smiling from where she stood watching, listening. “Not a problem. I’ve got it.”

Lor held up a hand. “I have one condition, though. I don’t make it a habit of risking offending the matriarchs of magical families by not making proper introductions.” In her line of work, she was used to children hanging around her, oftentimes teenagers, too, who had a love of theatrics. And though she never minded the company, she also always met their designated adults. “Bring someone with you, alright?”

“You come across a lot of magical families, do you?” Camilo asked, easing one impish brow.

“Oh, well, I’ve lost count,” Lor replied with a nonchalant wave, “you Madrigals are at least the seventh. Do we have a deal?”

She couldn’t have offended him, based on his laughter. He nodded, “Sure, I’ll rope someone along. Mirabel, you should come too. I’ll catch you up on the plot.”

“I'll see you both, then,” Lor said with a bow of her head. “I’ll be there a little early tomorrow so we can prepare. But I’m afraid now I really must be off. Señora Pérez made me a deal for meals in exchange for help with the dinner rush.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow, Lor!”

“I look forward to it.”

She could still hear them as they walked off, Camilo nudging Mirabel with his elbow, “I know just who to bring, but I’m gonna need your help to convince him.”

~~~///~~~

“I’m seizing the moment so would you wake up and notice me?”

“Dolores, I see you.”

In the six months since Dolores’ carefully rehearsed confessional on Casita’s front steps, Mariano had turned his words into an art form. Enhanced hearing didn’t mean Dolores could also magically make sense of everything she heard all at once—most of the time it just meant her days were full of a steady stream of jumbled white noise. If something snagged her attention or piqued her curiosity, it took concentration to single out the voices of a conversation amidst a town full of people and, apparently, it showed on her face. Mariano did more than see her—he’d somehow managed to learn to read her, too. When her concentration rose, he never interrupted. Even now, sitting across from one another at the small outdoor table, waiting on their food from Señora Pérez’s small eatery she ran out of her own kitchen, he simply reached across the table and took her hand patiently. Dolores curled her fingers around his, squeezing gently, turning to look into his eyes. Her expression must have shifted because now he spoke.

“Mi vida? What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Dolores said softly, her voice hardly ever above a whisper tone. “It’s probably nothing.”

He watched her fondly, that relaxed smile of his calming. “You can tell me about it.”

Six months of looking into those eyes and her heart fluttered every time. How many years had she spent listening for his voice from afar? It was true, throughout his day he could be loud and boisterous, the tenor of his strong voice easy to pick out in the whole of the Encanto. That particular voice she’d learned quickly enough. It was his other tones, though, she learned later on—the respectful, gentle, soft-spoken cadence he took with his Abuela and Mother, the two women who’d raised him. He listened more than he spoke when it came to those two, which made that voice all the more precious; and it was that voice that lulled her to sleep countless times as he murmured the poems he worked on before bed. It was also that voice he so often used on her now, fond and warm and loving. ‘You can tell me about it.’

“There’s a woman in the kitchen with Señora Pérez,” Dolores nodded her head in the direction of the house. “She’s new to the Encanto.”

“Did she do something?”

“No, it’s not that. She tells the kids stories. She was kind to Camilo and he liked her, as did Mirabel and Lusia too, it seemed. It’s…” she tapered off, brows drawn in thought for a beat before she shook her head and dropped her voice even quieter. Mariano leaned in to listen.“It’s probably nothing,” she repeated, “but Tío Bruno had a vision last week and I still haven’t heard him tell anyone what it was. It was about the same time I heard her—” she sat upright with a squeak, “she’s coming.”

Carrying two steaming bowls, the woman emerged from Señora Pérez’ side door, headed straight for her table. She wore an apron over a long skirt of blue and a blouse of purple, both stitched decoratively in yellow. Her gaze drifted table to table, nodding in reply to the brief greetings sent her way.

“Here you are,” she began upon reaching Dolores and Mariano’s table, but if she intended to say more she was cut off as Dolores jumped in,

“You’re Lor, aren’t you?”

“I—yes, that’s me,” she said, somewhat surprised. But when she met Dolores’ wide-eyed gaze, there was a sudden flash of recognition in her eyes of pale brown. “You must be Dolores Madrigal.”

“You said hello to me this afternoon with Camilo.”

Lor set down the two bowls, smiling with intrigue as she lifted a brow. “So you did hear that.”

“I could hear you coming over the mountain last week.”

Lor barked a sudden laugh, slapping her hand over her mouth as a few patrons at nearby tables turned to look. “In my defence,” she started, holding out her hands, “I sing to keep myself busy, not because I’m good at it.”

The reaction was so utterly unexpected that Dolores couldn’t help but smile. She was pretty, this stranger. Long brown hair, tanned skin, a curved nose much the same as Abuela and Isabela’s. There was a youthfulness to her expression, to her laugh, but the intermittent ceases by her eyes and mouth hinted that perhaps she was older than what she seemed at first glance. “You can sing,” Dolores replied, but shook her head, “but I also heard how your story ends.”

“Mmm,” hummed Lor sagely, “you know how one story ends. That’s a new one I’m working on, not today’s. I may have to skip that one while I’m here, though.”

“Are you only passing through?” Mariano asked.

“I make it up as I go along,” Lor replied, noncommittal and brief. She offered her hand. “Apologies, I’m Lor.”

“Mariano Guzmán.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Lor said, returning her hand to her apron pocket and nodding her head to the both of them. “I won’t keep you. Enjoy your meal.” She retreated to the kitchen, both Dolores and Mariano watching her go.

“She seems nice,” Mariano said, though it almost sounded like a question for Dolores’ approval.

“She does,” Dolores agreed, picking up her spoon. Stirring around the aromatic soup Señora Pérez decided on that night, she watched the swirls of spices thoughtfully, “I just have this feeling I should pay attention. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of her.”

--------------------

A/N: That’s all for Chp. 1--it turned out longer than I expected but for the sake of Lor making introductions, I didn’t want to cut it shot. Let me know what you think!