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ironychan · 4 months

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A Little Human (as a Treat)

Part 1/? - Un Voluntario

Part 2/? - Un Escursione

Part 3/? - Una Complicazione

Part 4/? - Una Famiglia

Part 5/? - Una Aiutante

Part 6/? - Una Ricerca

Part 7/? - Un Confronto

Part 8/? - Un'Emergenza

Part 9/? - Una Speranza

Part 10/? - Una Sera

Part 11/? - Un'Interruzione

Part 12/? - Una Fuga (Prima Parte)

Part 13/? - Una Fuga (Seconda Parte)

@dysphoria-sweatshirt @writer652 The squid is a Dana Octopus Squid, chosen because they're large, their range includes the Mediterranean, and they're really freaky.

Much like Flavia, Luca was already falling asleep as he walked back into the ocean. He could see that Alberto and Giulia were also yawning, and he expected they would return to his house, curl up among the seaweed, and drop off right away. Tomorrow would hopefully be less exciting.

As they crossed the moonlit seagrass fields, however, he started to realize that there were an awful lot of people out and about at this time of night. He could see sea monsters with glowing jellyfish lanterns beating at the seaweed and looking under corals as if to flush out a shark. That thought gave him a momentary rush of adrenaline, but it wasn't enough to really wake him up again. A rogue shark was bad, but it was something the adults could deal with while he slept.

At least, that was the way it seemed until Atinnia Trota swam frantically up to them.

“Oh, thank goodness you're all right!” she exclaimed. “I stopped in at your house and when I saw nobody was there I feared the worst.” Signora Trota turned to Arturo, who was following behind her – he looked almost as tired as Luca felt. “Go tell the Aragostas I've found the Paguros and they're all right.”

“Yes, Mom,” said Arturo, rubbing one eye. He headed off to do so.

“What's going on?” asked Lorenzo.

“You haven't heard?” Signora Trota asked. “There's a squid!”

Daniela grabbed Luca and pulled him close. “Another one?”

Now Luca's heart beat a little faster. He'd only been three or four years old when the community had their encounter with a giant squid, and he didn't remember anything from the time, but he'd heard the stories. It had helped itself to everybody's livestock, culminating it tearing the roof off Old Man Cormorano's barn to get at his groupers. Terzo Cormorano himself had been nearly killed, and was supposed to have had nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Not a giant squid proper,” said Atinnia. “It's half the size of that one, but that's plenty big enough. We were afraid it had eaten you all, and you know they eat things alive!”

Daniela's eyes went wide. “You said there was nobody home?” she asked.

Signora Trota nodded, and without a word Daniela let go of her son and darted off.

Still tired, it took Luca a moment to realize what had upset his mother. Then suddenly he was wide awake. “Grandma!” he exclaimed, and followed his mother. Lorenzo, Alberto, and Giulia were close behind.

They arrived at the house to find all the jellyfish glowing, and Daniela was at the table with Nonna Libera, who was thankfully just fine. She was merely a sound sleeper, and hadn't even heard the neighbours calling out to her.

“Honestly, Mom,” Daniela said. “What did you used to do when I was a baby and cried at night?”

“Your father handled it, dear,” Nonna Libera replied, looking up as the three children entered the house. “I think tonight would be a good night for you three to go sleep up top.”

“Oh, yes, definitely!” Daniela agreed. “Luca, you and your friends go right back to town, now. Your father and I will help hunt down the squid, and you can come back when it's safe. Mom, you go with them.”

“Wait,” Luca protested. He was starting to wake up a little more now, although his eyes still itched. “What about Ciccio? His Dad said he didn't know where he was staying.” If Ciccio had gotten hurt because they'd talked him into doing this today, Luca would never forgive himself.

“I'm sure he's fine,” said Daniela, “but that's not our problem right now.”

“But...”

“No, Luca. Go to the surface.” Daniela patted him on the head. “Now, look me in the eye...”

“I know you love me, Mom,” sighed Luca.

“That's my boy!”

“Come on, Luca,” said Giulia. She was worried, too, but the odds that Ciccio would be attacked by the squid were slim, surely. “We can camp out in the treehouse. That's always fun.”

“I'll go with them,” Lorenzo said.

Heading back to shore was a very different journey than going out to the house had been. Luca was still tired, but he was now far too terrified to nod off. Every shadow, every glint of moonlight flickering across the bottom, and every fish flitting through the weeds made him jump. He, Alberto, and Giulia stayed close as his father led the way and Grandma brought up the year.

“Do squid really eat things alive?” Alberto asked.

“They sure do,” said Giulia, and Luca nodded. Squid wrapped their catches up in their tentacles and then ripped chunks out of them with a sharp beak. Luca himself had never been bitten by one, but Cosimo Pianuzza had. The older boy had a wedge missing out of the fin on the back of his right arm, and that had been only a tiny squid. A giant one, or even one that was merely big, didn't bear thinking about.

“How do you catch a giant squid?” Giulia asked Lorenzo. “When Papà wants to catch the little ones he's got special lures with lots of hooks.”

“I wasn't there, but I think they got its arms all tangled in a net,” Lorenzo replied. “If even one tentacle is free, it can still attack you, and...”

“Hello! Lorenzo!” a voice called out. “I'm so glad you're all right!”

“Oh! Hello, Vittoria,” said Lorenzo, waving to Signora Aragosta. “Yes, we're fine. I'm just taking the kids and my mother-in-law up to the town. No squid up there.”

Signora Aragosta must not have thought of that. She was startled by the idea, but it was an illustration of how much the community's attitudes towards humans had changed that, after a moment's thought, she said, “would you take my twins too? I think the older girls can hold their own, but Gianna and Giola are so small.”

“Of course,” said Lorenzo.

“I'll be right back,” the neighbour promised.

“No, we'll go with you,” Lorenzo decided. “We don't want to just float around out here waiting for the squid to find us.” He began to follow.

“I'll only take a moment,” Signora Aragosta promised. “The last time anyone saw the quid it was over and the old Cor... I mean, at the Donzella's place.”

That got the children's attention. “That's where Ciccio said he was going!” Alberto remembered.

“Are their guests okay, Signora Aragosta?” Luca asked.

“I don't know anything about them having guests,” Signora Aragosta replied, “but I'll bet Silvestro and Giorgia are re-thinking their plan to move there if the place attracts giant squid.”

“Come on!” Luca said to his friends, and took off towards the Donzella home. Alberto and Giulia were right behind him, while Luca's father shouted for them to stop.

“Get your tail back here, young man!” he called out. “Your mother told me to take you somewhere safe... you can't go towards the squid! Come back!” He swam after them.

Signora Aragosta didn't know what to do about this. She looked at Nonna Libera, who smiled gently and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Let's go get your girls,” she said. “I'll take them up to your aunts' place.”

“Thank you, Signora Gambero,” Vittoria replied.

Luca shot across the fields like a sailfish on the hunt. He would be in trouble when his mother found out, but that didn't matter. They had to make sure Ciccio was okay. They'd gotten him into this – if he got hurt, it would be their fault. More important yet, the book of magic said that both parties had to be present in order to switch back. If they couldn't find Ciccio, Flavia would be stuck out of the water instead of stuck in it.

He was gasping for oxygen as he arrived at the Donzella's house, and felt a little sick as he surveyed a scene of considerable chaos. The row of kelp behind the house was shredded and partially uprooted. The barn, which had been recently repaired, had lost its roof a second time and one wall had partially collapsed. There was no sign of a squid, but there was also no sign of Ciccio.

Signora Donzella was swimming back and forth between the barn and the house in an indecisive panic, while her husband sat quietly on the rubble of the barn, staring into the distance. A half-dozen neighbours were gathered around, trying to comfort or clean up, while others swam the perimeter looking for the marauding cephalopod.

“Signor Donzella!” Luca approached the community blacksmith. “What happened?”

It seemed to take Signor Donzella a moment to realize Luca was there. “I'm sorry,” he said, “what did you say?”

“What happened here?” Luca repeated. “Where's Ciccio?”

“We woke up when we heard the boys shouting,” said Donzella. “We saw the roof cave in and the squid swim out of the mess, and then it was gone.”

“The boys?” asked Giulia. “More than one?”

“Yeah. Silvio, Ciccio, and Ciccio's friend.”

“Which friend?” Alberto asked. They only friend they'd known that Ciccio would have had with him was Giordana, but she was definitely not a boy and nobody was likely to mistake her for one.

“I don't remember his name. The babysitter. The boy with the whiskers,” said Donzella.

Luca looked to see if either of his friends had any idea who that might be. Neither of them did. The only boy with whiskers who they associated with Ciccio was Ercole, but they didn't hang out any more. Even if they had, it wouldn't have been possible for Ercole to be down here... and he wouldn't have been babysitting young sea monsters under any circumstances.

Giorgia Donzella came darting over. “Your friends came to us looking for a place to stay the night,” she explained. “The one with the prickles said he'd had a fight with his father. Silvio was going to keep them company sleeping in the barn. He volunteered.” She was lacing and unlacing her fingers and playing with her fins, distracted and helpless.

“When we got outside, we found this,” her husband added. He gestured to the wreckage of the barn. People had been taking it apart, looking for anyone trapped in the ruins, but they had found nothing.

“They must have escaped,” Luca said hopefully. “We can help look for them.” As tired as he might be, this was clearly something that needed doing.

“Oh, no, you don't, young man!” said Lorenzo, panting as he finally made it to the group. “You three are getting out of the water, remember?”

From the row of damaged kelp, a teenage boy called out. “Signor Donzella! We're done checking the sponge beds, they're not there, and they're not at the Haunted Fish Graveyard! Mom and Dad are still going through the Kelp Forest.”

Giorgia nodded. “Thank you, Basilio!” she replied. “Oh... I hate just waiting here. We should be doing something... our son is out there somewhere.”

“No. We need to stay in case they come back,” Donzella told her. “If Silvio arrives and finds us gone it'll be him panicking.”

Giorgia nodded, and then perked up. “Wait! I bet they went to the forge!” she said. “Silvio knows that we stayed in the forge with his egg before, because giant squid don't like hot water!” Her face then turned from hope to horror. “This is a different type of squid, though! That's what people are saying. What if it doesn't mind the heat? I'm going!” She turned and swam off.

“Giorgia!” Signor Donzella rose from his seat to go after her. “Wait! What did I just tell you?” He sped after her.

Lorenzo tried to herd the young people back towards the shore. “Come on,” he said, “we're doing what your mother said, remember? We're going to dry land where the squid can't find you.”

“Yes,” said Alberto, “we are!”

“We are?” asked Giulia, startled. She'd expected Alberto and particularly Luca to insist on staying and helping to search for Ciccio and Silvio.

“Yeah, I have an idea,” Alberto told her. “I've seen your squid lures. We're going to the Island.”

“Daniela said to take you to the town!” Lorenzo protested.

“The Island will have to do,” Alberto told him.

Twenty minutes earlier, Silvio had told his guests that they needed to get to the forge, but there wasn't going to be time. The squid was remarkably fast for such a large creature, and by the time Silvio finished speaking, it was almost on top of them. Ciccio swam up again, while Silvio dived through the bar door past Ercole and slammed it shut. The squid collided with the doors, but the door was one Signor Donzella had made out of a section cut from a ship hull, choosing the solid metal specifically to keep such dangerous creatures out. Silvio had just barely had time to slide the bolt into place, and while the door shook, it held.

The door was not the only way into the barn, though. There were also a couple of windows. These were quite small, and for a moment Ciccio was reassured that the squid would not possibly fit – but its boneless body was almost infinitely malleable. The only hard part of it was its beak, which was easily small enough to get through. The water temperature seemed to drop almost to freezing as the rest of the animal squished and squeezed to get through.

Ciccio knew he had to do something. He could see where the fresh stones had been added to the roof just that day. How fast did barnacle glue set? Could he get one free to let Silvio and Ercole escape? He went to the base of the repaired area, grabbed the edge of a particular stone, and with his feet braced against the older wall below, pulled with all his might.

The stone shifted, but did not come free. Ciccio looked around for a tool and found the broken shaft of Silvio's pitchfork. He stuck that into the gap he'd made, and pried. This time, he managed to lever the piece to the side. The big stone didn't come out, but a dozen smaller ones that had been sitting on top of it were jostled enough to drop into the interior of the barn.

There was a startled shout, and for a moment Ciccio worried he'd buried Silvio and Ercole. Then they wriggled out the hole, panting and covered in scrapes, but alive and whole. For a moment, all three boys hovered there in the water, staring at the hole in the roof as a few more stones dropped out of the edges of the hole and vanished into the darkness. Had the squid been buried? Was it dead?

“Mom and Dad are gonna be...” Silvio began.

His voice was drowned out by the sound of the rest of the roof collapsing, and then the squid rose out of the billowing silt like a monster emerging from the crater of a smoking volcano. The light at the end of its tentacle was now blinking with regular, brilliant pulsations like a heartbeat, but with an odd quiver underneath them, giving the impression that the animal was shaking with rage. It only had one tentacle with a bulb at the end, Ciccio managed to notice. Was it injured? Had it come here into the shallows searching for easier prey?

Then Silvio grabbed his hand and shouted at him, and he managed to take in the fact that this creature was rising towards him, furious and hungry.

“This way!” Silvio shouted, and took off, leading the way into darker water.

“What about your parents?” Ciccio panted, as he and Ercole followed as fast as they could.

“They'll be fine!” said Silvio.

He might have been right, because the squid was determined to follow them. Ercole, not a good swimmer, was now having trouble keeping up. He could go forward, but he hadn't quite mastered steering at high speed and kept having to correct as he drifted to one side or the other. Ciccio grabbed him by the back of his shirt to drag him along.

Silvio led the way into a shallow trench that kept getting deeper and deeper – the ravine where the sea monsters set their eel traps. It would have been a creepy place on an ordinary night, with the glowing algae lighting it up just enough to make out the shapes of weird corals and many-legged crustaceans lurking in the cracks. With the flashing of the squid's single bright tentacle close behind them, it was terrifying. Dark shapes and black-edged shadows appeared and vanished out of nowhere, and Ercole kept yelping and whimpering every time.

“Shut up!” Ciccio told him. “Shut up!”

Ercole was not listening.

Ciccio had of course never been to the forge, and he had kind of wondered what such a place could look like underwater. He'd never been a decent mental picture of it from any of Arturo's mentions, and since Ciccio was usually wanting Arturo to go away so he and Giordana could spend time together uninterrupted, he'd never asked for one. It turned out to be very deep in the trench, where the walls were at least fifty metres high – looking very far away and ominous when silhouetted against the blue glow of the algae. The water was warmer here, and continued to heat up as Silvio led the way, until they found themselves outside a structure built of piled-up boulders.

Unlike the sea monster houses, where the stones were glued tightly together to keep out the currents, these had been chosen and piled in such a way as to leave wide gaps between them so that light and water could enter the forge – and the heat could leave. The centrepiece of the space was a chimney belching out dark, hot water from a point halfway up the wall of the gorge. This billowed up into a chimney of close-packed stones that directed it up and away.

“It won't come in there!” Silvio declared.

Silvio slipped easily through one of the openings. So did Ercole. Ciccio had more trouble. He was a lot wider than the other two, and some of the openings were not going to admit him. There had to be bigger ones somewhere, though, because Signor Donzella himself was much bigger, and he must be able to get in. Ciccio passed by several that were too narrow, and then found one that looked right. Silvio and Ercole took his hands and helped him through, then dragged him over to the far wall, the hottest place in the forge.

It was a deeply uncomfortable place to be. The water shimmered a little as it flowed up, and there was a smothering feeling that Ciccio didn't know the cause of. Had Luca been there, he could have given the answer, as it was another thing he'd learned in a book: hot water couldn't hold as much oxygen as cold. It made breathing hard work, and when Ciccio looked at his companions, he saw their gills flexing hard to get the water through them.

There was more light inside the forge than out. All around the chimney was a faintly bioluminescent slime that fed on the minerals in the outflow. Higher up, the softly glowing jellyfish sea monsters kept in their houses were also shedding a faint pink light. The boys were not able to make much use of this light, however, as it was entirely drowned by the angry strobe-like flashing of the squid's photophore outside. This flicked on and off with the regularity of a lighthouse, coming from a different place each time as the squid investigated the openings.

“What do we do if it comes in?” Ercole whispered.

“It won't,” said Silvio, but his confidence was a little shaky. “Anyway, we must've woke Mom and Dad up. They'll get help.”

“Will they? I've heard that some fish eat their young,” Ercole said.

“That's fish! Not people!” Silvio scolded him.

The squid flashed again, this time revealing several tentacles feeling around the rocks, testing the opening Ciccio had come through.

It was no good, Ciccio realized. Maybe this was a different kind of squid, or maybe it was just that desperate, because it wasn't going to let the hot water stop it. It found an opening it liked, and started squeezing through.

“Down the bottom!” Silvio ordered.

They swam down to the bottom of the forge chamber. The water was cooler here, which was a relief, but there was also an opening to a smaller cavern. This was lined with more glowing algae, and divided within into several rooms. Ciccio dimly remembered being told that the Donzella family had used to live here at the forge, but Giorgia hadn't liked how far it was from any neighbours. This must be their old house. It had several windows bigger than the ones back at the barn, but unlike those, they had thick metal shutters on them. Silvio darted inside, and began banging these shut.

Ercole went after him and dived under the overhanging shelf of stone the family had used as a kitchen counter, where he curled up with his hands over his head and his tail wrapped around himself. Ciccio came last and turned to shut the front door, which he assumed would also be made of salvaged metal.

There was no front door. The rocks showed rust staining where hinges had once been attached, but now there was only the yawning opening.

“Silvio!” he said. “There's no door!”

“What?” Silvio looked, and even in the wan greenish light of the luminescent algae, Ciccio could have sworn he saw the boy go pale. “Dad took it out to put on the new barn! I forgot!”

Flashes outside told them the squid was coming, and now they were cornered. Ciccio's stomach turned inside-out. For a moment he was frozen, unable to even think for fear.

Then, suddenly, he knew exactly what to do.

He had no idea where the urge came from, but he swam back into the opening, turned his back to the outside, and started sucking in water. It was like taking a deep breath, only instead of letting it back out again, he just inhaled more, and more, and more. His skin began to feel tight, and the waistband of his shorts cut into him until it became painful. Within a few seconds, he felt the button pop and the seams begin to stretch.

It belatedly occurred to him that maybe this hadn't been a good idea, but by then he couldn't stop. He swelled up until he filled the entire doorway, and then the fit got tighter and tighter. The stitches tore on his shorts. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ercole and Silvio staring at him and hanging on to each other in terror. A moment later, he was forced to close them again as his face, too, began to swell.

Ciccio had the poison spines of a pufferfish. Apparently he could also do this.

Finally, he reached a limit. He was well and truly wedged in the doorway now, incapable of moving even if he'd tried. With his eyes closed tight, he had to rely on hearing to tell what was going on around him.

There was plenty to hear and most of it was Ercole, wailing in terror. “I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Especially not as a sea monster!”

“Shut up!” hissed Silvio.

“It's going to eat us! There won't even be bones!”

“Shut up! It'll hear you!

“I wanna go home! I wanna... OW! Did you just bite me?”

“Yes! Now be quiet.”

It was too late, though. Moments later, Ciccio felt the questing tentacles. They wound around a couple of the sponges still on his spines and pulled them off, then retracted, not wanting to get pricked. Then the squid started feeling along the edges of the doorway, hoping to find a gap or perhaps a protruding limb so it could pull Ciccio out. He gritted his teeth, hoping it didn't find anything – and hoping it wouldn't actually prick itself on a spine, because he didn't want to know what that would do.

After what seemed like way too long, the tentacles retreated. Was the squid leaving, or was it only considering its next move.

“Ohhh, that's weird,” whispered Silvio.

“What's weird?” Ciccio asked through clenched teeth.

“We can see your bones when the light comes through.”

A few more moments crawled by in silence, and then Ciccio heard the rattle of metal on stone. Ercole let out another wail of despair as the squid moved along the row of windows, trying them one by one.

“Dad put the shutters in just in case we ever got another squid,” Silvio said quietly. “I hope they hold.”

“If won't matter if they hold if Ciccio can't,” Ercole said. “Ciccio – how long do you think you can stay... allora... inflated?”

“I don't know,” Ciccio replied. He was already finding it tiring and it was starting to be painful. He hoped it would be long enough.

Suddenly, the rattling stopped. Ciccio felt something brush against his over-stretched skin, and would have shuddered if he hadn't been wedged in far too tight to move. He started hearing what sounded like distant voices. Could this be a rescue?

Having gathered the stuff they'd need to carry out Alberto's idea, the kids plunged back into the water over the continued protests of Luca's father. They left Nonna Libera sitting on the beach with the two Aragosta girls, one under each arm. Luca at once set out for the forge, hoping Signora Donzella had been right about Silvio wanting to go there.

Signs were good. Halfway there, they ran into Signor Pianuzza, carrying his daughter.

“Don't go that way!” he called to them. “The squid is in the ravine! Vittoria told me she'd sent the girls up to Alberto's Island to keep them safe – I'm heading up there with Alessia.”

“It's okay!” Luca said, “we're going to catch it!”

By the time they arrived at the forge, there were at least a dozen people there ahead of them. Most of these were gathered around outside the big forge cavern, watching or throwing objects. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the crowd that had been following the kids through San Giuseppe mere hours ago. That gave Luca a moment of pause, but he reminded himself that he and his friends hadn't gone to that town to hurt anybody. The squid had tried to hurt people already.

“Stay back!” one of the adults told them. “It's in there!”

Luca went and looked inside anyway.

It was difficult to see what was going on inside. The squid's single large photophore was flashing like a strobe, making things seem to move in jerks. There were three people Luca could see, and he managed to make out that one was Signor Donzella, the second was Niccolò Branzino, and the third Luca's own mother Daniela. The two men were holding sharpened spears, while Daniela had a harpoon Massimo must have given her. They were circling the squid, jabbing at it and then darting out of the way of the tentacles.

“Mom!” Luca shouted out.

“Luca?” she looked up in horror and surprise. “I told you to go to the town!”

“We've got something to catch it!” Luca replied. He moved aside, and let his friends bring up the item they'd hastily put together on the Island. Using Alberto's extensive collection of Human Stuff, they'd made a Christmas-tree-shaped cluster of ropes, cords, and nets with a fishhook on the end of each – a giant squid hook. Now, they just needed to get the squid to attack it.

Right now its attention was elsewhere. When it realized Daniela was distracted, it wrapped a tentacle around her ankle. She cried out, and the two men hurried to help her. Daniela jabbed the harpoon at the only part of the squid she could see for sure in the flashing – the bright bulb on the end of its tentacle. The sharp point pierced it, and glowing goo burst out into the water, coating everything and suddenly making the inside of the forge very visible.

Tools and half-finished objects had been scattered around, and part of the chimney that produced the hot water had collapsed so that the vent was now spewing out into the room rather than up towards the surface. Stones had fallen to land in a pile around the cave where the Donzella family had used to live. The windows there were shuttered, and the door was blocked up by something with long spines, like a giant urchin. Were Silvio and Ciccio hiding in there?

Alberto and Giulia helped Luca thread their giant squid lure through one of the openings and let it dangle, and then called out to the three adults still fighting the creature.

“Up here!” Alberto shouted. “Lead it up here!”

“This way! Careful of the hooks!” Giulia agreed.

By the glow in the water the three adults could see them waving, but did not understand the strange construction they were gathered around – except for Daniela, who had spent enough time in the Marcovaldo house to recognize it at once. She turned and swam for the opening, darting around the dangling hooks. The squid, furious and in pain from its burst photophore, gave chase. Signor Donzella and Niccolò followed it on either side to herd it towards the lure if it got distracted.

Daniela wiggled out, and the squid reached for her, only to get a tentacle caught on one of the many hooks. It reached with another to free the first, and the second arm caught, then a third. Daniela joined the kids in jiggling the ropes to get more hooks moving. Before long the squid's arms were hopelessly tangled, but it could still swim by squirting water out of its siphon. When it realized it would soon be helpless, it released a cloud of gooey ink and then took off into the bottom of the trench. Daniela and Luca had to let go of the ropes in a hurry so they wouldn't be dragged along with it.

It took a minute or two for the ink to disperse, but eventually the moonlight started coming through. Giulia and Daniela had gotten the worst of the blast, and both were covered with dark stains. Daniela's hands and arms were also splotched with phosphorescence. She tried to wipe some of it away on her clothes, but soon gave up and gathered all three kids in for a hug.

“You brave, amazing, brilliant... I am so proud of you, and if I had my way you'd all be grounded for a season! Why don't you do what you're told?”

“It was Alberto's idea,” said Luca.

“Wait'll I tell Uncle Massimo I helped catch a giant squid!” Alberto grinned.

Daniela shook his head. “Young man, I hope your uncle...”

“Get out of the way!” Giorgia Donzella interrupted. She pushed past the group, and she and her husband entered the forge and began calling out. “Silvio!”

“Junior! Where are you?”

“We're down here!” came Silvio's muffled voice. “We're okay!”

The Donzellas went down to get their son, while Luca wriggled out of his mother's grasp. “Is Ciccio with you?” he asked.

“Yeah, he's fine,” Silvio said. “At least... I think he's fine.”

That didn't sound good. Luca and his friends followed the Donzellas to see.

#pixar luca #luca 2021 #luca paguro #alberto scorfano #giulia marcovaldo #ercole visconti #fanfiction #a little human (as a treat)

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argent-l-p · 2 years

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I Would Walk Backwards into Hell for You

One Shot based on my interpretation of the Encanto Madremonte AU by the lovely @c-rose2081

Trigger warning! Blood, Injury, Violence, Possibly Death, Swearing, and Description of Injuries.

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“Some people, they'll never accept him, but some will and he seems to know how to find the good ones.” -Grandma Paguro, Luca

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It becomes easy to track prey when its skin has been split open and blood begins to spill. Predators had adapted their senses to such a degree that they could pick out the metallic iron scent of blood from miles away. It didn't matter how far something tried to hide itself or how much distance one could try to put between them and sharp teeth, a hunter would always pick up the scent.

In much the same way, they can identify familiar smells; the flowers around them combined with the river, the smell of rot within another rival's territory, and the smell of rain about to fall. So, it should not be surprising that the oldest Madrigal grandchild immediately sprinted into the jungle at the smell of blood coming in the direction of her home with Mirabel. And neither should anyone have been surprised at what happened to the would-be murderers.

It was supposed to be a quick and easy trip from their hidden home to Casita. Isabela had seen how focused Mirabel had been on her sketches of the new flowers that had bloomed in the nearby river and had insisted on going by herself to Casita. It was supposed to be an opportunity for her to keep drawing and for Isa to begin to make her trips alone.

She had kept one ear trained on her sister as she had left, "No te preocupes Isa! I'll be fine." The smile on her face had comforted her anxiety about the situation then, but imagining it now as she ran and vaulted over dead trees, the screams of men off in the distance and the smell of fear, she wanted to tear her teeth into whoever made her bleed.

Isabela was finishing her visit to the Madrigals when the wind shifted and the smell of blood came from upwind. She had thought it had been an animal. It wasn't strange that other predators brought down a kill in her area of the jungle, most of the prey animals having moved closer to it for the protection it garnered. Her ability to sustain herself through photosynthesis had remained and that made her a somewhat safe option to prey animals. She was a predator, yes, but she had never needed to hunt like so many others. She had almost ignored it until she realized that it didn't smell like that of an animal.

Snapping her head around to look over the walls, dread had begun to pool in her heart and he stomach began to drop. She stood from where she was crouched next to Antonio and tuned out any noise coming from around her. Her ears flickered, she started to breathe deeply, and her muscled began to tense; she had never looked more like a hunter than she had now.

At her sudden movement, the little boy startled, "Isa? Isa what's wrong?" But she wasn't completely there anymore, Isabela was now completely focused on the smell. To the east there were a couple of homes built into the jungle, the people who lived there preferring a more secluded home to the bustling streets of the Encanto. She had seen their inhabitants before in passing, but their jobs didn't have a great risk of injury, so that meant, "Mirabel!"

The tree in the middle of the courtyard had suddenly, and almost violently, moved. Isabela had all but thrown herself onto the incoming branch, running up to the very end and was launched over the eastern wall. When she reached the ground, plants and trees began to sprout, helping her reach the jungle quickly and into the already reaching arms of the forest. Bark began to climb up and cover the little skin that had been exposed, the familiar weight of her mask settled along her temples and over her face.

Branches reached for her and a path was cleared as she sprinted through the dense greenery, roots erupting from the ground and strengthening to allow the trees to move. Vines wrapped around her waist and pulled her into the air, whipping around like snakes ready to strike. The jungle itself was livid and raged against the earth, animals that had been sleeping ran from the warpath being carved in Isabela's wake, and Madremonte, who had never once lost her temper, was out for blood.

It was almost too easy to track the smell of spilled blood once she reached the edge of her territory. Hearing the snap of wood, she turned on her heel and watched as Mirabel stumbled out from the right and lifted her into the trees before she hit the forest floor. Looking at her sister Isabela began to feel the beginnings of a growl rumbling in her chest as her more obvious injuries were noticed. Mirabel had a deep slash wound running down the length of her arm, her temple was bleeding as if she had been struck from the side, and there were cuts and bruises on her hands. Looking into wild eyes, she grabbed her sister 's shoulders and grit her teeth, "Que paso? What did this?"

Her sister took in a ragged breath and curled in on herself, "Cazadores, Isa. They snuck up behind me and they had machetes; They were hunting us, Isa."

Any thought of scaring away a large predator was completely ripped away from her. Hunters had been a somewhat common fixture in the jungle as far as she can remember, they were the ones that brought in meat that wasn't fish caught in the calmer parts of the rivers. There had been poachers before, those who had tried their luck in hunting the jaguars and rarer animals, but never had there been hunters who focused on her. She had been a legend and a guardian of the jungle, barely a superstitious entity in the minds of the residents of the Encanto. She didn't exist for the better part of a decade and Mirabel was a Madrigal, she would have been protected, but obviously that wasn't the case anymore.

Far below them, she heard the snapping of branches and slowly turned her head down in the direction of the noise, ears flicking into the best position to listen closer.

"She couldn't have gone that far. She was bleeding and I slammed the bottom of the machete into her head."

"Well, la perra isn't here. We had her right where we needed her! Just one more minute and her head would have been ready to present to Senora Madrigal!"

"Both of you quiet! We can still find her. It's early and we have all day, let's not lose any more ground on her."

There were three of them walking under the tree, two sounded young, younger than the men she had watched on the shores of the river, and the last one had a voice that felt like rough stone and smelled of smoke. They were so familiar, but where had she seen them?

The plants below shifted ever so slightly, creating a trail heading off to the right and away from them. The blood left on the plants during Mirabel's flight from danger was obscured by the movement and overlap of vegetation. The jungle itself had moved softly in order to not alert the men of their position, the leaves of the tree catching the dripping blood in their wide bowls, branches bent to gradually obscure their bodies from below, and far off in the distance a log was toppled by the roots of a tree.

The great crash of wood on the ground made the men whip towards the sound and seeing the path of pushed over branches the older one smirked, "Hombres! Looks like there's a trail. Stupid girl didn't even try to hide." He lifted his machete up to point, "Let's not waste any time talking, we still have the older one to hunt."

Their movement went past them and she could still hear them talking as they moved away, "What do you think Senora Madrigal will give us when we give her the abominations?"

A snort escaped one of them, "I think that getting rid of them will give us freedom to ask for what we want. Personally, yo quiero garantía que mi nina will have a betrothal to the boy."

"Idiota, delivering their heads will make them give us whatever we want. Senora Madrigal will be your tickets into guard and to higher positions, so don't speak when we are offered a reward."

Snickers sounded off the trees as the younger men laughed and Isabela had to restrain herself from dropping down on them and tearing their throats out. They talked about them like they were prey; like they were mere animals to kill and skin.

Not for long, she thought with a curl to her lip. There was a reason why she was the most feared being in this jungle and there was a reason why people from outside the mountain range kept the more foolish poachers from trying their luck in breaching the barrier.

Turning to her sister she helped her higher into the tree, keeping an eye on the direction the trees shifted, it wouldn't be good if they came back this way. When Mirabel was situated up in the canopy, she looked her in the eye and turned serious, "Stay here. Whatever you hear, stay and don't move until I come a get you, mi rayo the sol. Entiendes?" At her sister's shaky nod, Isa smiled, her teeth bared and climbed down part of the tree and into the waiting branches of the next tree over.

It wasn't hard to find the three men, they were noisy and could be heard far before she even approached them. Looking at them from above, they weren't very impressive. The younger two men didn't look anywhere near prepared to hunt anything and the older one repeatedly made louder noises that alerted anything with ears to their presence. She watched as they stood still for a moment and as they turned their heads to look for the trail, she realized where she recognized them from.

As far back as she could remember there had been groups of people patrolling the very edges of the valley, but closer to the interior were structures that housed more people. Some were older and looked like they had been through battle, while most were young warriors yet to see combat. She had evaded and walked alongside them from the shadows, but as recently as Mirabel's thirteenth birthday there had been discontent amongst some of the older men and women. She had gone to investigate once to survey the situation and discern whether or not she would have to intervene in some capacity, and watched as an older man yelled at one of the regular inhabitants of the barracks; he'd had two boys with him, barely old enough to be considered adults. They had ended up being run off when the older took a swing at the other man and dragged the boys away.

Isabela shook her head and refocused on the men as they were led away by sound of rustling branches further away, none of that mattered at the moment and if need be, she could always drag their bodies back for identification.

A pair of almost slitted golden eyes watched as all three walked in single file and waited for them to enter a particularly dense area of underbrush to let a low and sinister rattle loose. They all froze and she watched as one by one understanding began to bloom on until it appeared on the old man's face. He swallowed as his face started to pale, "Josue, was there any blood in the ferns this way?"

A startled and fearful voice answered, "N-no. I thought you had been tracking the trail, Abuelo! The plants looked like they had been moved through!"

"Espera, what do you mean?" The other Young One, looked around wildly, hoping in vain to spot where the sound had come from.

Isabela began to creep forward and the roots started to reach up like clawed hands when the older man finally understood what was happening. Already pale faces turned deathly in pallor when he breathed out in a trembling voice, "We're being hunted."

In an instant, roots shot out from the earth and pulled one of the younger men into the earth, his screams abruptly cut off as he was yanked under and away from the area. The root systems tangled themselves around his arms and legs, mercilessly taking him though the earth and out into the open air as rock face of the cliffs gave way to twisting trees violently shooting out to wrap around his body. The trunks tightened, constricting his limbs until sickening snaps erupted from all four. Both his arms twisted in unnatural direction and his legs dangled uselessly in the air, pain lancing across his body making him shriek and wail; He would live, if only to satiate her anger.

In the wake of the commotion, the other two sprinted away from their third and the Old One started to yell, "Run! Don't look back!" The groaning of trees echoed around them as they ran away, one ahead of the other and rapidly leaving their counterpart behind.

A large dead trunk was suddenly thrown in front of the one left behind and he was forced to turn sharply to the right, dropping his weapon in favor of getting over suddenly rising roots. His increasingly desperate attempts at escaping were met with growls and too close rattling from above. His mistake was made when he startled so badly at a hissing to his right, that he never heard the crashing of a large tree coming down. Too late to move, he noticed movement in his peripheral and was knocked down. An intense weight landed on his legs, the overwhelming pressure forced a strangled yelp from his lungs, and every attempt to free himself only resulted in more pain. So focused on trying to get up he lacked the foresight to make sure the danger was gone. A second trunk began to slowly topple over and by the time he went to look up the additional weight had landed and forced him into unconsciousness.

With two of three threats taken care of, Isabela crashed through the canopy and chased after the one in the lead, the older one, never giving herself away as the canopy closed overhead and it suddenly turned dark. Closed off from the light, Isabela was practically a phantom and the Old One, a dead man walking.

Something that most in the family didn't realize was that even though Isabela had returned to a more stable form and looked more human, she was more Madremonte than she was Isabela. She was not like Mirabel who had only lived with the complete takeover of her curse for less than an hour, Isabela had lived close to sixteen years co-existing with the changes of her body; Nails were claws and canines sharp enough to cause major injury.

So, when the Old One faltered in his step, when he decided that Mirabel was prey and not Madremonte's precious one, he made a mistake that would cost him everything. She gained on him quickly after taking care of the last man and now that it was just him left running, she outpaced him and launched herself back.

Knocking him down, she dug her claws into his skin and broke through the barrier. Isabela didn't feel the burning sensation of a blade slicing through her thigh, didn't feel the lacerations of a machete on her back, all she could feel was the boiling well of rage beginning to overflow. She slashed her hand down giving him the same injury they had given Mirabel and gave him more for the terror he had wrought.

When Isabela finally noticed the blade, she seized his hands and broke them, every bone snapping as if they were made of flimsy branches. The machete dropped to the floor, wet with her blood and his. I wonder if he used it to hurt Mirabel, she thought and it served to push her further into the punishment she had chosen for him.

As he writhed and screamed on the ground, the jungle quieted until only the sounds that could be heard were the shrieks and cries of the other men. She stood and brought the weapon with her, vines starting to slither and entangle him, binding his body to the ground with no way of stopping what was coming. That incessant look of arrogance was replaced by primal fear all prey had when they realized there was nowhere to run, and Isabela bared her teeth with a grin and leaned down, "No deberías de haber echo eso, maldito hombre."

In a quick flash, the blade was buried deep within his thigh and roots shot through his hands. Any blood that might have spilled was stemmed by the tight fit of wood through the wounds and the slight magic that lived within her plants. He would live even if she had to drag him back from hell itself to answer for his crimes against who she adored. Slowly, the noises of the jungle returned and light filtered down from above, the trees settled once more in their homes and watched the scene like tall sentinels waiting for the next order.

(Isabela couldn't have known, but in that moment every living thing released the breath that had been held in the moment Mirabel cried out.)

With only a twitch, branches began to form cages around her captive prey and vines swooped down to wrap around her. As she was lifted up into the canopy, patches of skin began to appear from beneath their protective cover and her mind mellowed now that the danger had been eliminated; all that mattered now was Mirabel who was waiting for her to come back.

Approaching from the canopy, she could see her sister waiting for her, eyes darting around to spot any incoming threat. There were no words that Mirabel could use to express the deep-seated relief that coursed through her at the sight of her rock-protector-sister-Isa. When she was close enough to hug, Mirabel simply fell forward into safe and protective arms, resting her weight on Isa as she was pulled in close.

A rattle vibrated against her cheek and Isabela soothingly rubbed her back, "It's okay, Mira. I'm here, I'm here." When she felt a thumb wipe under her eye, she realized she was crying and not the tears she would shed if she was sad, the type that dripped continuously without stopping and made it hard to breathe. No, these were tears of terror, relief, and pain. The type that leak out without warning and are the only reaction a body can muster under duress. She was too tired to think or speak, so Mirabel buried her face in her sister's neck and clung to her for a long time, until her exhaustion caught up to her and she was asleep.

Isa waited until she could feel breaths even and picked her sister up carefully, vines tying around them both, holding them together as she scaled down the tree to the canopy and moved away towards the distant light of Casita and the Madrigals who waited for them to come home. Blood dripped slowly from her back, leaving a trail of red behind, but she never stopped, never let it slow her down. She could eat some of the food Julieta made later, they needed to get somewhere safe for the night.

The next few hours were blur, when they arrived the Madrigals rushed to them, frantically calling for them. Their cries turned to screams as they saw the red painting their bodies and the last thing Isa could definitely remember with clarity was that she had been sat down with Mirabel in her arms and given food to eat, worried eyes staring at her from all around.

The following week would become chaos as she recounted what had happened to Mirabel and she had heard from the men, how she had hunted them down like they had done to her Precious One and how they had planned to do to her after. Prompting led her to bring the matriarch and the town guard to the guilty, and she watched from above as their eyes widened at those that stared at them from their prisons.

She, along with the rest of the village, would learn that Senor Guerrera had been planning hunt the "devil sent" Madrigals and deliver their heads to Alma in an effort to curry favor and allow his grandchildren entrance into the guard that they had been denied.

They were sentenced to exile, the town watching from all around as their judgement was handed to them and were told to ready what they could to be brought with them as they were taken away from the Encanto. The Old one would never be able to rid himself of the violent tremor of his hands, Josue Guerrera would lose all feeling in his legs and Simeon Guerrera would be the one to escape with only a limp as a reminder of her wrath.

Around the Madrigals, the Encanto stood next to them in support of Isabela and Mirabel, but this also became the reminder that while Isabela had begun to return to them in increments, they would be wise to remember one thing, if only to ensure they didn't become prey.

Isabela was Madremonte, the protector of their hidden paradise, and she would not suffer fools who decided to remain willfully ignorant of the fact she would burn the world for Mirabel.

#mirabel madrigal #encanto madremonte au #encanto au #madremonte au #isabela madrigal

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