A Set of Secret Satinalia Surprises
Just a little something I wrote for myself today. I'm proud - it's SHORT! (for me)
It was Satinalia morning.
It was not a holiday Caterina allowed to be celebrated in House Dellamorte.
Lucanis learned to accept this long ago. For almost two decades, he learned to make his own holiday.
He exchanged gifts with Auntie and Vinny in the kitchen on Satinalia Eve after Caterina went to bed. The villa chef and her nephew treated him like family. Their family.
Satinalia morning was for him and Illario. His family.
Yes, Illario was inevitably hungover or still drunk from whoever he chose to spend Satinalia Eve with, but that was part of Lucanis’s present to himself. Annoying Illario without guilt.
Retrieving his gifts for Illario, he walked down the hallway on quiet feet. Knocking at his cousin’s bedroom door, he didn’t wait for a response before entering.
Illario was sitting up in bed, his long hair mussed and falling around bare shoulders. The room didn’t smell like alcohol and Illario didn’t look hungover.
There was a pile of wrapped presents scattered around the foot of his bed. “You went overboard this year,” Illario remarked with a yawn.
Approaching the bed, Lucanis handed his gifts to a surprised Illario. “Illario. Did someone break into your bedroom and leave you all these gifts?”
“It wasn’t you?”
“I told you it isn’t safe to leave the balcony door open,” he scolded. Crossing to the balcony, he closed and locked the door but left the curtains open to let in the sunlight. “Does someone want to kill you?”
“Inevitably,” Illario mumbled, turning a gift over in his hands. “This is…. Not that.”
Abruptly, he ripped open the colorful wrapping paper before Lucanis could protest.
It was a small wooden horse.
Lucanis shifted the rest of the presents and sat down cross-legged in his normal spot at Illario’s feet.
Both cousins stared at the wooden horse, as if waiting for it to come to life.
When nothing happened, Illario picked up another gift. “This one is for you.”
“For me?” Who did Illario know that would leave him gifts? Yet the package tag had his name written on it in an unfamiliar script.
“Open it.” Illario was now smiling.
He cautiously began opening it. “Is this a trick?”
“No, cousin. Not a trick.”
Lucanis inhaled audibly when the paper fell to the bed and what was left in his hand was a small wooden wyvern. “Illario.”
“Yes?” He reached for another package.
“This is a wyvern.”
With a chuckle, Illario paused tearing the paper. “Yes, Lucanis. It is a wyvern.”
“Who knows I love wyverns?”
“Me.”
“This is from you?”
“No.”
Pulling his eyes away from the perfect wooden statue, he glared at his cousin. “What is going on?”
“It’s a set of secret Satinalia surprises. Just go with it.” He finished ripping the package in his hands to reveal a small wooden flute.
Throwing caution to the wind, Lucanis picked up another gift with his name on it and opened it.
Twenty minutes later, Illario was admiring a new pair of gloves and munching on a crunchy churro cookie, both gifts from Lucanis. Lucanis was happily turning over the set of romance novels, his gift from Illario.
Putting those aside, they returned to the pile of wooden toys. In addition to the horse, wyvern, and flutes, there were blocks, beaded bracelets, knives, and shields. All made of wood. They built a fortress of wooden blocks and Lucanis defended Illario’s attack horse with his flute-wielding wyvern.
From her perch on the roof above Illario’s balcony, Gemma smiled at the laughter that quietly leaked out of the closed balcony door. Her Falon and his cousin deserved a joyful Satinalia morning.
No pressure to read tagging! (As always, just tell me to stop.)
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