Live To Serve, Serve To Live

Chapter 4: Random Scene 2: We Don't Talk About Bruno

"You're a bully!" Bruno told her, but he was smiling. In truth, he was impressed. 

"Only to those that deserve it," Ayla assured him, winking. She winked at him a lot, he'd noticed.

"You've never been that mean to me," he muttered.

"You haven't deserved it," she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

As if anyone outside his family had ever said anything of the sort to him before.

"Well, don't hold back on my account," he chuckled nervously. "I'm the 'Curse Of Encanto', I'm, uh, used to it."

"'The Curse Of Encanto'?" she repeated, snorting. "Oh, yes, I heard some call you that. They like to say all sorts of things about you in that town."

"What have you heard?" he asked, cringing a little even as he did. He already knew what they said about him, he didn't need to hear it from someone who had been so kind to him.

"That you talk to rats, for one," Ayla answered, nodding her head to Ratito. That got a small laugh out of Bruno, who remembered her first words to him. "But mostly that you're a beastly, mischievous man who hands out curses like candy. So, a little truth and a lot of slander."

"Oh? Is that it?" Bruno asked, relieved. That was all she'd heard? Made it rather interesting that she'd chosen him of all people to travel with her, but at least it wasn't too bad.

"Mostly, yeah." She scrunched up her nose. "Why? What else do they say?"

Bruno hesitated. She was so nice to him, he didn't want to ruin that. But... She'd already called what she heard slander. So maybe...

Bruno shrugged. "Oh you know; I kill goldfish, make men fat and bald," he was, perhaps, just a tad bitter as he added, "ruin weddings."

Ayla laughed. "What? Seriously?"

"Yep." Bruno chuckled, glad she didn't seem to be scared off.

"That's ridiculous!"

Ridiculous. Bruno grinned, eyes wide in delight. She thought it was ridiculous.

"I, I guess it is a little silly, huh?" He laughed with her. "I mean, I don't always have very good reasons for things, but I hope you can see my very good reasons to not use my Gift lightly anymore, hmm?" He sobered a little. "It's hard being blamed for things I can't control all the time, you know?"

Ayla's laughter petered out as well, her smile growing gentle. No one outside his family ever looked at him like that. "Well, I promise that if you ever give me a vision — not that I'm asking — but if you ever do and something horrible happens, I won't blame you in the slightest."

"Really?" he asked, surprised and wary, hopeful but not quite daring to believe it.

"I swear on my honor as a merchant," she said, very seriously. "That's an incredibly important swear, if you didn't know."

"I didn't."

"Well, it is."

Bruno doubted that. But he understood the sentiment. "Thank you, then. That... means a lot."

"You're welcome." A few moments passed in a silence that wasn't exactly awkward but wasn't exactly not. "Sooo..." She smirked, breaking the quiet. "What else do they say about you, oh Curse Of Encanto?"

Bruno grinned. And if it was just a bit mischievous? Well, there was no-one around to write a song about it.

"Oh, you know..." Bruno started, walking around her. "Seven foot frame, rats along his back." He held up Ratito in demonstration, standing on tip-toe with his arms spread out menacingly.

"No," she protested with a chuckle, shaking her head, "they don't."

"They do!" he confirmed, nodding.

"But you're so tiny!" she argued.

"Hey." He pouted at and crossed his arms, looking away in offense. "I'll have you know, I'm very tall." He waited just a moment before grinning. "All my rats say so."

She burst into more laughter. He liked her laugh, he decided. He was lucky to get to hear it so often. "What else, what else?" she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet like an overexcited child.

"When he says your name, Ayla," he leaned in a bit too close to whisper the name in her ear, having too much fun to notice just how far into her personal space he'd gotten, "it all fades to black."

He twirled behind her, covering her eyes with his hands. She pulled his hands away and twisted to face him, making him briefly worried that he'd crossed a line, but she was still grinning so he decided it was probably okay.

"He sees your dreams," he made his eyes glow just for a brief moment, startling a gasp out of her, "and feasts on your screams!"

"Bruno!" she yelled, startled, as he suddenly pulled her down to their bedrolls. She shoved him, and he shoved her back, both of them cackling. "Bruno, you're ridiculous."

"Careful, Ayla, don't you know the rule?" he asked, batting his eyelids innocently.

"What rule?" Ayla asked curiously.

"We don't talk about Bruno. No, no, no, we don't talk about Bruno," he informed her, smiling wistfully. He loved singing that.

Camilo had been so mortified when he learned Bruno knew about his song, so Bruno had made it a point to memorize it and sing it whenever he could. His sobrino wrote such catchy lyrics, he wanted him to know he was proud of him, despite the subject matter.

"Is that a rule?" Ayla asked, joking. "Because they seem to talk about you a lot..."

"It used to be," Bruno explained casually. "Back when I was living in the walls."

"You... What?" Ayla blinked.

"I ran away and secretly lived in Casita's walls for ten years." Bruno wasn't surprised she didn't know. Not many people knew where he'd been the decade he was gone, and he wasn't keen on telling them lest they use it as fuel for more hurtful rumors. But Ayla wouldn't do that, so he felt okay telling her. "People didn't listen much to the rule back then, either, though. Not if they had something insulting to say, anyways, though they considered it an exception to 'warn' people."

"I... That..." Ayla blinked rapidly. "Isn't your mother in charge of the town?"

"It's technically unofficial, but yeah." Bruno laid back, looking at the stars. They were pretty. His eyes began to glow softly as he watched time slipping between them, saw them twinkling into existence and bursting out of it, over and over again. That was pretty too.

"So you ran away and your mother made a rule that no-one could talk about you unless they were 'warning' someone about you."

"Well, the villagers were actually the ones who came up with the warning exception, but more-or-less, yeah," Bruno confirmed, still staring up at the stars. He felt peaceful. He was out in the open, so far from home, yet he was happy. Because Ayla was here and she was nice to him and he felt safe despite all the unknowns.

Looking away from her as he was, he missed the look of horror that crossed her face. Schooling her features into a soft, somewhat sad smile, she touched his arm. "Bruno?"

"Hmm?" he hummed, turning towards her. She was mesmerized for a moment by the glow of his eyes.

"I want to make another promise," she told him, making him raise an eyebrow in curiosity. "I promise that if there's ever another rule like that, I'm going to keep talking about you. And I'm not going to be warning people."

"Oh?" He smiled, still looking at her even as he gave into Ratito's nudging his hand for pettings. He knew he should probably turn his powers back off, but it felt so nice to let it out and she didn't seem scared, and it was interesting seeing the wrinkles form on and retreat from her face. "What would you say about me, then?"

"That you're a sweet, funny little man who loves his family and takes very good care of his rats," she answered, making his smile grow. With a wink, she added, "And who passes out in large tunnels because he holds his breath too long."

"Hey!" he laughed, eyes finally flickering back to normal, "I had a very good reason for that!"

"Yeah? What?" she challenged.

"...okay, so not a very good reason," he grumbled. "But what was I supposed to do, just let bad luck fall down on us?"

"Aw, you could never bring bad luck to me." She grinned, squeezing his arm. He hadn't realized her hand was still there. It was... Nice. "You're my good luck charm."

Bruno froze, blinking rapidly. He only started moving again when Ratito began squeaking in protest at the halted pettings.

"Bruno? Are you alright?" Ayla asked, worried.

"You are the nicest person I've ever met," Bruno told her, tearing up a little. "I'm glad I listened to Hernando and came with you."

"Hernando?" She scrunched her face in thought. "I could've sworn I knew all the names of your family already..?"

Grinning, he used his free hand to flip his hood up, pulling it over his eyes. "I am Hernando, and I fear nothing!"

"Um..."

"Don't worry, still just me," he told her, flipping his hood back down. His smile faltered when he saw the look on her face. "I, um, I do that when I want to be a bit braver. I'm... I'm not crazy. It's just acting."

"Acting, huh?" she asked, not commenting on the 'crazy' bit. He decided not to take that badly. "Do you like acting a lot?"

Bruno's grin came back. He could spend hours talking about acting. His different personas, the way he trained his rats to act out his telenovelas, he wouldn't shut up about it if he was allowed to go on as he pleased. He'd never really gotten the chance to really talk about it without interruption, though.

Until that night, anyways, when Ayla let him explain everything. She let him ramble on and on and on, as much as he wanted, until they both fell asleep.