Uno
Springtime had come to the vineyard.
The sun's golden embrace brightened and swelled upon the land. The morning mists slithered away, and the woody trunks of the grape vines were free to bathe in the dew and arise to the newness of life. Everywhere, the blessing of birdsong peppered the stillness. Snails and slugs and all variety of insects roiled in the earth and crept up the stones and the trellises and the walls of the villa. The dirt paths through the rows and rows of vines were soft and moist, and in one particular row, at the very far edge, where the gurgling of sylvan streams was heard on the breeze, Lovino rolled back his shoulders and began the spring pruning.
It was no easy task. The energy of the vines radiated all about them, and he could feel it pulse and resonate with the vitality of his own heart. When he snipped off a bough, he could perceive a dull, painful throbbing in his fingertips before the plant acknowledged he was taking care of it and lessened its broadcast. Pain and relief. Pain and relief. He closed his eyes and tried to emanate some forewarning to his leafy beauties, but the language of Nature was a fickle thing, and mere thoughts alone were hardly enough to convey it.
He took a break and looked back on the thousands of vines left to be dealt with. He could finish the task on his own in a week or so, if he slept minimally and took light tomato sandwiches as his meals. How strange to think he'd usually be enamored by the thought of being home around this time, and now that he had all the time in the world at home, the fantasy was crushed into ennui.
But he had always been teased for being excited about outdoor labor, so he had no reason to complain. Ever since that fateful day in autumn, he'd tried to keep himself as out-of-sight and to-good-use as possible, so neither his mamma nor his brother nor anyone else would dare try to scold him, or worse, console him.
"Hey, I found you!"
And his routine had been thwarted at last.
"What do you want, Felice?" Lovino grumbled, dropping the pruning shears and leaning back until his shoulders popped. He wiped his already-sweaty hair away from his forehead and wrinkled his nose at the newcomer.
His little brother Feliciano, heir to the family fortune, last music-powered fairy in Allegria, poison to his roots, hovered about teen feet above him on great, glittery tannish-gold wings. Lovino could feel the fairy dust floating down and sticking to his skin. Felice hadn't properly dressed; the wing-slits on the back of his shirt weren't tied, and it billowed around him like a wrinkled cloud. He wasn't even wearing shoes. His tiny feet were only lightly-coated with early morning mud — unlike Lovino's boots which were encrusted with the stuff.
"I got back from Herr Edelstein's last night! It's my spring holiday, and I get a whole week home! Aren't you happy to see me?"
"I can't talk now. It's going to take me a whole week to get all this pruning done. No time for a holiday."
Feliciano screwed up his face and grinned. "Eh? You don't think you're going to prune them all by yourself, do you? We've got servants for that."
"I've got time on my hands."
"Just because you were expelled back in October? Lovi, you're still trying to prove yourself just like you were at school. You don't have to do a ton of work to make us love you." Then he floated on his back and added with a smirk, "I won't love you if you don't spend any time with me."
"You're fifteen, wealthy, and cute. Come to me when a dozen girls have rejected you and your stomach hurts from too much gelato."
Feliciano did a front flip and landed just behind where Lovino stood, his wings folding down nicely. He turned and hugged his brother around the shoulders. Lovino's skin was warm and tanned from all his gruntwork in the sun. He always smelled earthy, like even his sweat was infused with raw botanical energy.
"I missed you, big brother."
Lovino slowly folded his own wings upward to nudge the other away. "I'm dangerous. Don't get too close."
"You're not dangerous. You're just super powerful!"
"Right. I've got a power that isn't entirely under control because I was expelled for something that wasn't even my fault."
Feliciano gave the biggest sigh. "I know it was unfair. You were trying to make the campus pretty for when I visited, and your magic got too excited. If it weren't for all the trapped students and property damage, I know they would've let you stay."
"Maybe," Lovino said. "They lost out on one pretty powerful garden fairy."
With this, Lovino held both fists out in front of him, thumbs up. He eyed the vines before him and took a few deep breaths. A brief flash sparked and glittered in the wild green of his eyes before he squeezed them shut and focused.
There was a second heartbeat within him. He pulled it up and up before it pooled and pulsed in his chest — a reservoir of magic. Lovino reached out with his power like an astral limb and touched the plant. He let the reservoir release, and with the slightest of mental instructions, his power weaved and shaped into a spell for healing and growth. Gradually, he opened his fists. Green static crackled on his fingertips and the points of his ears.
The plant grew stronger. He could feel its vital gravity increasing the more they were connected. The dead boughs fell away, and new shoots of green burgeoned and stretched and curled. The trunk thickened, and the vines tangled anew. Fresh leaves grew thin and veined and delicate. Among the sleepy vines sluggish in the mud was a beautiful child of nature, born again in the relief of spring.
Lovino didn't realize he was smiling until he released the spell and his brother traced his lips with a finger. He swatted Feliciano's hand away and huffed.
"You've gotten so much stronger! You don't have to touch it or look at it to make it grow? What does that feel like? Do plants really have emotions you can feel too?"
"They don't have complex emotions. It's more like… they're either flourishing or they're stressed out. I can sense that in my body, and when I use magic to connect us, those feelings intensify, and I just let the energy flow between us until we both feel okay."
"Mamma said you inherited papà's empathic powers."
"Yeah, but I can't sense people. Only plants."
"You just have to practice with people. I'm still figuring it all out. Hey, speaking of practice, all your footprints are the reason I could find you out here. Why don't you fly? It would be so much quicker."
Lovino turned the pointed nose of his mamma to the sky. "Exercise."
"Flying is exercise! And it's fun! Don't tell me you're still crashing into trees!"
"I'm not crashing into trees. I'm… I crashed into the lake at school, and I had to take these stupid remedial lessons that covered everything I already knew, but then I got expelled, so I was never able to finish them, and it was recommended I stay on the ground for a while."
The biggest and brightest grin spread under Feliciano's cute button nose. His wings flicked up and fluttered in anxious excitement.
"Then that's the first thing we'll do on my holiday together — finally finish your flitter training!"
~N~
Part 2 out March 15th - a super-mini-series for our favorite Italies.
Make sure to vote on my profile and check out my other fantastic stories. For more on Lovi's school days, read Grape Leaves!
Published by Syntax-N March 12th, 2020. Drink water. Eat oranges. Reposters cursed.