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[nonmagical]

[Dolores will find a red scarf, gloves... and a pair of earmuffs left her for in a small box. There's no indication where or who it came from, but it's got her name on it!

Literally. Her name is embroidery into the scarf.]

text; un: undecided

[camaleonico]

[ It's a grey day, drizzling off and on — still mild enough to go outside, but just rainy enough to be gloomy... and Camilo's bored out of his skull. He hasn't seen anyone since breakfast, and feels he's spent officially enough time on his own just trying to busy his attention.

When the house is unusually quiet like this and he has too much free time, and the certain mood strikes him, he sometimes sneaks into Pepa's room to relax alone. Dolores is probably the only one who realizes he does this sometimes, surely having heard him on a couple occasions, but all he does in there is just lie on Pepa's loveseat, where their mother often reads to calm down, herself, and either plays on his phone, naps, or reads a book from her bookshelf. It mostly consists of mediocre romance novels... but that's exactly the kind of mind-numbing thing he seeks on days like this.

Except now his mind is too numb, having blown through an entire book in two days out of sheer boredom. It wasn't even that good. He wants to do something, go somewhere, but he's tired of being alone. He's not as great at being alone as others in their family are, truth be told... So: logically, naturally, it's time to bug Dolores to hang out. ]

yo
what you doing?
I'm bored.

[escuchando]

[Dolores is still struggling to settle in here. Being uprooted from the valley and having her gift still constantly on the blink is bad enough, but she also finds it difficult to relate to the other people here and that her youngest brother doesn't know who the family is is a constant source of worry.

So she's withdrawn, to an extent. Not quite enough to make anyone too concerned but probably enough that Camilo, of all people, would have realised.

She's holed up in her own room when she gets the message. Dolores still isn't sure how she feels about these 'phones', and it takes a little while before she decides to pick it up and tap out a reply.]

I'm not doing anything important.
Shall we go out somewhere?

[camaleonico]

Yes, we shall.

check this out. I saw it the other day. didn't go in. no clue what it is. looked cool though so I took a picture. what do you think?

[ He attaches a photo of a bright golden door surrounded by elegant columns. Dolores may well have passed by it herself if she's ever prone to exploring the University District. It certainly is an eye-catching place — whatever it is... ]

[escuchando]

I've seen that!

It's some kind of exhibition. Do you want to go and take a look?

[camaleonico]

let's do it, why not. looks interesting enough from the outside at least. probably more interesting than Mamí's romance novels...

[escuchando]

Camilo! You really should have come to talk to me before you got that desperate for entertainment.

[Honestly...]

I can be ready to go in twenty minutes.

[camaleonico]

[ He's sniggering to himself at that, grinning at his phone. He's pretty much dressed and ready, just lazy, so he Thumbs Up reacts Dolores' last text (and Haha reacts at her first one), and doesn't send a real response. He'll take those twenty minutes to go collect himself an afternoon snack while Dolores gets ready — they both have their investments.

By the time she's done, she'll find him in the hammock downstairs near the front door, munching on half an empanada and aimlessly trying to coax Bianca the black sheep toward him without moving from his spot. But the sheep doesn't pay him any mind. Camilo looks bored...! Not having a whole town of people in constant and myriad need calling on them all the time is— not as refreshing as it seemed it'd be? He practically scrambles to get out of the hammock as soon as he spots Dolores on her way. That startles the sheep at last, who bleats and scurries away, earning a roll of the eyes from Camilo as he gets to his feet. ]

Listo. Vamos.

[ He reaches a hand out toward the coatrack, and, never missing her cue, Casita responds by throwing Camilo's coat and an umbrella at him, which he catches gracefully...-ish. He catches it. ]

[escuchando]

[She at least needs some time to change her clothes and fix her hair, but twenty minutes later she is heading to the hammock where her brother is lounging and if he hadn't got up of his own accord he might have found himself being tipped out onto the floor.

Another time, perhaps.

Dolores gives a nonverbal cue for her own coat but gets it passed to her (rather than thrown at her) and she doesn't manage to quite hold back her smirk as he fumbles to catch the umbrella.]

Smooth, Camilo.

[As she pulls on her coat she looks over her shoulder to where the sheep ran off.] ... What were you doing?

[camaleonico]

[ Casita often serves Camilo's sass right back at him — he deserves a dose of his own medicine sometimes. He's not the only prankster in the family... He straightens himself up, casting a shady eye at the coatrack and a more sheepish glance at Dolores as he puts his coat on, popping his lapel pointedly with a clear of his throat. ]

Nothin'... Hanging with Bianca...

[ And by "nothing" he means, he was trying to feed the sheep a piece of his empanada. And the sheep did not want it. Because it's a sheep. But he was just that bored... They couldn't leave soon enough; Dolores obviously made it down in the nick of time. ]

[escuchando]

[Camilo undoubtedly deserved everything that Casita saw fit to throw at him, including the umbrella.]

Nothing, huh... [Dolores does not look like she believes this to be true, but they have somewhere to be! So, she does not linger on it and instead starts nudging Camilo towards the door. If they start chattering here they're never going to leave.]

Come on, let's go. Before your boredom gets you into trouble.

[camaleonico]

[ He gives a short chuckle at that, throwing her a sly smirk, but sets off in stride with her all the same. ]

It already has, reading Mamí's books... Not good, by the way. Really cheesy. Kiiiinda hilarious, though.

[ Which is why he kept reading... It's practically comedy for him. Comedy that makes him cringe, too. Aaaand cry once but he doesn't wanna talk about that. ]

[escuchando]

[She nudges her elbow against his arm as they walk, not quite hard enough to knock him off-balance (though he can be a little clumsy sometimes, so who knows...) and shakes her head. Of all things to read, when she knows that there is a massive library in the city, he had to choose their mother's romance novels?

Well.

Dolores would be lying if she said she hadn't taken a couple of them, but she read them all years ago.]

I thought you might like to read something with more swords and less kissing.

[camaleonico]

Eh. Equally dramatic.

[ He gives a little shrug. That's what it's all about, right? It might not be his ideal first choice of books to enjoy, but he can find something decent with anything... It was mostly because they're in the house, he'd say... but really it was just because he likes to hang out in their mother's room and they happen to be there. ]

There was one with swords and kissing. ...It was aight.

[ But just aight. ]

[escuchando]

[Dolores shoots her brother a wry smile and resists the urge to nudge into him again. Sometimes it's just too much fun to pick on her brother like that.]

Just all right?

[Maybe they could find him something more interesting to read? Or at least something that he would think of as more than 'aight'.]

Do you know anything about this thing? It looked like some kind of exhibition.

[camaleonico]

[ He shoots a wry smile right back, letting out a tiny chuckle under his breath. He knows Dolores just resisted teasing him more, he can tell, and so just casts her that knowing eye, smirking wide. He's eager to change the topic, though, because woof, their mom's books were... not his favorite. ]

I dunno what it is. It's something like that. It looked cool outside, though — sooo I guess we'll find out!

[escuchando]

[It feels normal, at least, to be teasing her brother like that and Dolores has begun to entirely appreciate such glimmers of normalcy in this strange world. When he smiles back at her she grins, shaking her head at him, but his eagerness to see this new thing is catching and her steps quicken as she slips her arm through his and squeezes his elbow lightly to her side.]

Whatever it is, it has to be more fun that sitting in the house reading romance novels. [She teases him, still smiling.]

I brought a little money, just in case.

[camaleonico]

[ They're vibing on the same level, Camilo thinking much the same thoughts as Dolores links her arm in his. He has so scarcely felt glimmers of normalcy since arriving here; although the whole city is still quite alien to him, just hanging out with his sister like this feels familiar. In truth, they seldom took casual arm-in-arm strolls even back home, so often at the beck and call of everyone else in town — and certainly with less entertainment around, regardless. They had so much normalcy, the quality time like this didn't feel so urgent and needed... But after everything their family has been going through here, it feels like they need each other's support so much more than ever before, and while it's uncomfortable talking about that need, these moments of simple intimacy are more comforting than he can say. Glimmers of normalcy, indeed — even if it's a new normal.

When Dolores mentions she brought some cash along, Camilo's smile turns a little slyer and crinkles the corners of his eyes in amusement... because, still, yes, very much on the same wavelength. ]

Hah. I brought money, too — just in case. Now we've gotta buy something cool~

[ They've gotta, you know. Camilo's been okay with managing what little money he gets in Kaisou, but... man, he does enjoy spending it on enjoyment. He's not a natural saver like some people. And frankly, there's just a lot of cool stuff to throw his money at in this city! "Alien" doesn't strictly mean "bad," after all. ]

[escuchando]

[They certainly had very different lives at home. Camilo was always at the forefront of everything, the prankster, the on-door greeter, always helping and creating mischief in equal measure. Dolores tended to fade into the background even in family situations and she knows it, but it is a purely deliberate decision that she makes in order to tolerate the constant cacophony of noise around her.

It's more difficult here - the encanto was an oasis of silence in comparison - but she can tolerate it for the sake of spending some time with Camilo.]

I'm sure we can find something that will be up to your standards, hermanito.

[His sly smile has her grinning, then laughing as she looks away from him.]

There is a lot to buy here, hm? It makes me wonder how much people really think that they need.

Action; backdated to 05/09

[neverbreaks]

[ Luisa had been asleep for three days, but she had somehow managed to miss so much.

Isabela was gone. She hadn't noticed when she'd been awake, had thought that maybe her older sister had just been doing her own thing, but there was no trace of her anywhere anymore.

So after her conversation with Mirabel and after Luisa had cleaned up and had gotten ready for the day, she feels a little...lost. She wanted to go out and look for Isa, but no one else had seen or heard from her. What if there really isn't anything left to find.

After a while of feeling unsure though, Luisa eventually finds her way up to Dolores' room. After all, she and Mirabel may miss their sister, but Isabela and Dolores had always been close too.

She can't help looking across the way for a moment though, a pang in her heart seeing Isabela's door so dark, before turning back and knocking on Dolores'. ]

Lola? Are you there?

[escuchando]

[Able to hear every single thing going on in the village since she was five years old, Dolores has become a master of hiding her feelings when she wants to. Sometimes things are too overwhelming, but most of the time... no one would ever know how many people's troubles she carries whether she would like to or not. She liked to think she had known Isabela better than anyone, even though they never advertised the fact, and losing her so soon after her arrival had hit... hard.

Not so hard that she would drop into a deep depression over it - she would be fine, as she usually is - but she does sigh to herself when she hears the knock and the concerned voice. Not the first.]

I'm here.

[The words slip around the edge of the door as she opens it, then she pulls it wider. She smiles a faint smile up at her cousin and shrugs one shoulder as if to say 'now, what'.]

Do you want to come in?

[neverbreaks]

[ Honestly, Luisa hadn't quite that far ahead, other than wanting to come see her cousin. She doesn't really have an idea of what she would do now that she's here.

She responds to her cousin's offer with a nod, and slips into the room, waiting until the door is closed again before speaking. ]

Mirabel told me about Isa. [ And she knows that Dolores would already know, had likely heard their conversation already. But telling her cousin is more like a warning of what she wants to talk about now. ]

Text, un: Clearskies

[weatherforecast]

i think im getting the hang of this texting thing!!!
camillo has been teaching me the little faces!
(^◡^)
look it is a very happy little man!!!
i hope you are having a good day i love you very much!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[escuchando]

Mm...

[Luisa isn't the first person to talk to her about it, and though it's a sting to do it she won't turn her cousin away. Dolores lingers at the door she just closed for a moment or two, then she shakes her head and forces a smile.]

It's going to be strange without her around, no?

[She isn't sure if anyone really knows how close she and Isabela are. How much Dolores' hearing had let her understand about her 'perfect' cousin.]

But it's... fine, isn't it? She's at home now.

[escuchando]

[Oh, this is cute...]

I'm having a good day mama, it looks like you've been very busy!
I got some special things for my ears so that it isn't so loud for me when I go outside.

I've been exploring the city a little.

[weatherforecast]

that's good!!
we should go together sometime
it feels like a long time since we've had a girls day out?

[neverbreaks]

[ Luisa knew somewhat how close her sister and cousin had been, even if she didn't know all of it. She had spent plenty of times feeling left out when the two older girls had done stuff with out her, being too young to join in some of their games and talks.

But she at least realizes that Dolores probably knows Isabela better than she or Mirabel had...and in that same vein, Isabela is probably the one who knows Dolores best too.

So she can't help but frown a little at her cousin's smile, knowing that it wasn't as real as she tried to make it seem. ]

That's true. She's safe at home...but that doesn't mean it'll hurt any less that she's not here anymore.

It...doesn't have to be fine.

[ They don't have to be fine. ]

sometime around Christmas;

[prontissimo]

[ Alberto makes a point to get gifts for all the Madrigals (even the rats — especially the rats); even without Bruno here anymore, they're still the closest he's ever had to a family. Of course they all get gifts. One day when he's come over to Casita with Luisa's standing invitation to visit the rats in Bruno's tower on his own, he does sneak some gifts over for everyone. He's learned a lot about Christmas, in part with Isabela's guidance on some traditions, and he's trying his best to observe what he's heard about. Presents are supposed to be surprises opened on Christmas morning, that much he's got — so he doesn't make any fanfare about dropping off the gifts. They're all wrapped poorly but with clear effort. Likewise, the Christmas cards attached are, well— much the same... But it's very much the thought that counts. And the effort — he put a lot of effort into all his gifts, being that it's his first Christmas ever. He wants to do this right.

And he feels pretty confident he did. Because he recently discovered Shrinky Dinks. It's a shrinky, dinky Christmas for all Alberto's friends. Inside Dolores' parcel, she'll find a collection of handmade earrings, shrink film drawings glued onto bases made of hardened hot glue. Unpolished, sure, but it serves its purpose — and the artistic intent counts for a lot. He even tried to render a crude semblance of La Casa Madrigal for the one pair! He doesn't know Dolores as well as the others in her family yet, but he's already quite fond of her, and her wise words in their time spent together have had more resonance than she knows; and so, like the rest of her family, her kindness is rewarded with Alberto's... thoughtful... artwork... ]