Starry, Starry Night
Isabela had been looking at her door. Studying her door. Staring blankly at her door for way longer than necessary to make a decision. Glaring at it, wondering if she should just get rid of it all to have one less decision to make, but she had a feeling Casita would take issue with the removal.
She sighed, and waved her hand, watching the flowers morph into vines and the vines into shrubs and the shrubs into flowers, slowly cycling through every color, shape, size, and texture, and nothing seemed to be it. She stopped on a mixture of vines and some long-throated flowers whose colors couldn't commit to being fully red or orange.
Maybe? The variety did catch the eye...
“That looks pretty,” said a voice from somewhere around her navel.
She looked down to find Antonio cocking his head sideways at the display. “You think so?”
“Mmhm! And look! The colibrís like them.”
Three tiny hummingbirds hovered around her door, moving from flower to flower hungrily and occasionally zooming around Antonio.
“Can you make a few more? Please?”
“Sure thing.”
She added another handful of flowers to the vines and smiled when Antonio asked, “Can you make some blue ones? I like blue ones, like your dress.”
Art was definitely much easier when Toñito was involved.
“Will you let them stay for a while? They just like the flowers, but they can come back to my room if they bother you.”
“Not at all.”
The tiny little birds seemed to have been following the conversation, for they left off buzzing around Antonio and came to circle her a few times in thanks. One of the bolder ones landed on her head. She reached up a hand for it and brought down to run a finger gently down its back. “Just don't go in my room or I might lose you on accident, okay?”
Whether or not the hummingbirds understood, they didn't seem disposed to leave their banquet.
“Do they have any other friends that I can help?”
Toñito beamed. “I can ask! But it might be bugs. Do you like bugs?”
“I... like your bugs. But they stay out of my room, too, okay?”
“Okay!”
With a hasty “Thanks, Isa!” he sprinted off towards his room, leaving his prima chuckling.
——————————-
Antonio didn't return as soon as she would have expected, but having settled the matter of redecorating, she wasn't too bothered and went back into her room to work a little more on other projects. She really did enjoy the contrast of color hanging outside her door and spent much of the rest of the day and evening see what other combinations she could produce. Her room looked a little too much like a five-year-old had spilled paints on every conceivable surface by the time she went to prepare for bed, but the depth and warmth of it kept her smiling even as she brushed out her hair and donned a nightdress. She had just folded back sheets stained an absurd mixture of pink and green when she heard it.
Thump.
Thump.
What in the world?
She followed the clamor to her door and pressed an ear to the wood.
Thump.
Thump.
Maybe Antonio had found some more friends for her after all.
Thump.
“Shoo. Shoo! Please!”
She cracked the door and found herself face-to-face with Tío Bruno. Well, his stomach. The rest of him was hanging one handed from her door frame as the other swatted at something.
“Uh, Tío?”
With a small, startled “¡Ay!” he dropped to the ground in a heap. She looked around for his adversary, seeing nothing but the vines and flowers looping lazily around the frame and a few butterflies picking their way slowly across the foliage. One of them found itself caught in Tío's wake as he fell and fluttered frantically in the wind before coming to a rest on Isabela's outstretched fingers.
“Don't –!”
Tío had his arm raised as if to bat it away but couldn't bring himself to land the blow on his niece's hand.
“What?”
“Just... just put it down.”
“Why?”
She brought her fingers closer, to study the little bug. It was about half the size of her hand, with dark wings but vibrant blue spots that shimmered when the light caught them. When it spread its wings to lift off, she heard a tiny popping sound with each beat. Up, up, up, and down... on her head. Six small legs struggled for purchase before coming to a standstill where her hair parted, and she determined right then and there to have a conversation with her primo about his animals and personal space.
“You found them!” called a high voice from across the way. Isa and Bruno looked up to find Antonio running around the balcony with a grin.
Isabela lifted her eyes to indicate the top of her head. “More friends?”
“Uh-huh! But just the butterflies. These ones really just like the vines, so they won't have to fight with the colibrís.”
“They're really pretty, Toñito.”
“Are they, though,” said Tío. He had picked himself up and brushed the dust from his fall off his arms and the front of his ruana, backed several steps away from Isabela as he did.
“You don't like them?” asked Antonio. His lip quivered a little.
Isa worked very hard to hide the snicker forming as her uncle's distaste of the bugs fought with his affection for Toñito.
“I-I..uh...they, um...sure, they're... alright.... when they aren't in the house or crawling all over you.”
Isabela raised an eyebrow at her uncle and lifted the energetic little bug out of her hair and cupped it in her hand once more. The butterfly probed at her palm curiously then fluttered over to her primo, who studied it for a few seconds.
“She likes your vines, Isa. Can she stay?”
She flicked her eyes between the hope in Antonio's and the panic in Tío's. “Uh...”
“She needs a place to lay her eggs.”
“Absolutely not,” Tío said.
“But... what'll happen to the babies?”
“She can lay them somewhere else. We've got plenty of trees far, far away from Isabela's room.”
“But she's tired.”
Tío made a clumsy sort of gesture as if to wave it away from Antonio but seemed unable to bring himself close enough to chase it off. “She'll be fine. They aren't that far.”
Antonio's pout deepened, but before he could really work himself up to a wail, Isabela said, “I don't mind, really.”
Tío paled a little.
“They're...” he reached down to cover Toñito's ears and mouthed “bad luck” while her cousin giggled. “...the black ones, anyway.”
“She's not all black. Look!” The butterfly obediently spread her wings in Antonio's hands to display the iridescent blue spots in the moonlight. “Please, Tío? Please?”
Bruno opened his mouth then closed it then opened it again several times before his love for his nephew finally won out. He looked over at Isabela. “Can you make a trellis with more of the vines...outside the house?”
“Absolutely! C'mon, Toñito!”
—————————————-
The eggs laid and the mother safe and the other butterflies tended to, Isabela had dismissed their care and upkeep from her mind during the following weeks, figuring that if they needed anything, they would find Antonio.
She kept the display he had chosen up for a while but had finally decided that it was time to change it up again and found herself back in front of her door, staring at it indecisively. She had just about settled on scrapping the flowers entirely for shrubbery when a shout made her jump.
“ISABELA!”
She couldn't help it. She laughed from her belly loud and long as Tío marched stiffly towards her, covered in a number of blue-spotted butterflies.
“Aw, they like you!”
“Yeah... well...”
He hastily shut his mouth as one of them landed on his nose and looked at it cross-eyed.
A pattering of feet made them turn. “She says thank you!” Antonio said. “She wanted to introduce you to her babies!”
“Um. You're welcome... you have... a lovely family.” Tío moved his lips as little as possible as he spoke, obviously afraid that one of them would fly in. The butterfly on his nose flapped her wings languidly a few times then extended its tongue in what was unmistakably a kiss. Bruno shivered violently in revulsion, all composure gone. “ – that I will continue to admire from afar.”
The butterflies rose as one, giving Tío's hair a slight ruffle as they left, Antonio trailing after them. Isabela and Bruno smiled until after Antonio was out of sight, then Bruno rounded on her.
“Exactly how close to my tower did you build the butterfly garden?”
“Too close.” She snickered. “I'll move it.”
((originally posted on AO3 by me))