#the leopard

Bendicò was clever enough not to rush over to the busy Don through the middle of the bushes and flowers. He knew exactly where he was allowed to place his paws without getting reprimanded for it. It put another smile on Concetta‘s face when she saw the dog reach her father so carefully and yet so unable to hide his joy, his tail wagging wild enough to start a small storm in the garden.

Her father‘s humming got interrupted by a chuckle when the dog‘s snout met his shoulder and happily nudged him to say hello. He removed an earth covered glove from his hand to offer some scritches to the dog‘s head and turned his head to find his daughter not far behind, a sketchbook in her hand.

The smile that softened the blue in Don Fabrizio‘s eyes challenged the shining brightness of the lemon trees around him. It was a smile reserved for his second eldest daughter alone.

„Looks like you found me.“

The Sicilian sun was merciless but less cruel down here beneath the shadows of the trees and nearby the garden’s fountain. Concetta settled down on one of the stone benches and gently placed het sketch book in her lap.

„Who said that we were looking for you?“

Don Fabrizio‘s calm quiet laugh had a particularly relaxing effect on Concetta. She‘d often wished to be able to draw it, but so far hadn‘t managed to capture its sound in the curves and lines of her depictions.

„It is probably just the hopeless vanity of a father.“

Concetta found herself infected by the mocking smile on her father‘s features, but softened her own version of it, getting out her pencil and holding it up for her father to see.

„Perhaps not all that hopeless.“

Don Fabrizio huffed a laugh, before turning around to devote himself to his garden work again, slipping his hand back inside its glove and acting indifferent to his daughter‘s next painting project being him. But Concetta noticed with a smirk how he straightened out his back. Bendicò slowly trotted back to her to lie down in the shadow offered by the lemon trees that surrounded the bench.

The sound of her pencil scratching over paper added to the sound of trickling water coming from the fountain and to the song of the cicadas echoing all over the place.

The small shovel of her father drummed the earth in a relatively rhythmic pattern. Funnily Concetta found herself drawing her busy and concentrated father with the small crooked smile on his face, the one he occasionally sent in her direction, while he was working the ground. She still didn’t quite manage to depict the brightness and softness of it and started wondering if perhaps it simply wasn‘t human. Perhaps it was just the unpaintable smile of a leopard, with it being the family symbol and the surname her father was so proud of.

„Papà, you look like a gattopardo,“ Concetta couldn‘t help but comment, knowing it would make her father feel honored. As she‘d expected, he lowered his shovel and turned his head to send her one of his soft ironic glances.

„A gattopardo?“ He hummed thoughtfully, his voice so deep the words sounded more like a growl, reinforcing the animalistic aura about him. „And what is it about me that is giving you this very noble idea?“

Concetta shook her head slightly, lacking the words to describe her impression to him. „I have to show you!“

She got to to her feet and walked the small patch of garden path that seperated her from the prince on the grass. He grew taller the closer she got, straightening out his giant upper-body while remaining on his knees. Even in this position, he was almost as tall as Concetta, once she came to a halt next to him - one of the many leopardic characteristics about him.

From up close, his daughter could make out crumbs of the dark earth her father was plowing through on his cheeks that were slightly reddened from the effort and the heat. The blue of his eyes stood out like that, bright like a cloudless sky.

With a smile, she bowed down just the littlest bit to hold her drawing of him under his bespectacled nose. „Do you see what I mean?“

Moving his eyebrows up on his forehead, her father tried to find the perfect spot on his glasses to really look at the painting he was being offered. Concetta felt a little bashful, when he took it out of her hands to hold it further into the bits of sunlight that shimmered through the shade of the tree above them. He hum-growled again and a quiet chuckle rumbled through his chest. „A leopard… I see an old man working the garden.“ A fond smile grew on his features, but it was the irony in his eyes that made Concetta smirk as well.

„I didn‘t say it wasn‘t an old leopard,“ she teased, chuckling, when her father huffed a meaningful laugh and shrugged his shoulder as if to say ‚What did I expect?‘

„It‘s important to look the truth in the eyes,“ he sighed, lowering Concetta‘s drawing and squinting up at her mockingly. „A hard depiction of the truth, piccolina.“

At this Concetta had to laugh, almost sympathetically. She moved her arms around her father‘s shoulders that were at the height of her own and squeezed him heartily. „Old and grey this gattopardo may be, but he is still majestic!“

The prince produced a low unconvinced hum as he moved his hand to Concetta‘s forearms, gently holding them against his chest. „Hopefully that is what you meant by me looking like a gattopardo - and not actually some old harmless kitten.“

„Harmless I dare hardly say,“ Concetta laughed, almost playfully now, her skirts ruffling when she used some force in leaning against her father, trying to push him over with her hands against his chest. „You are not lacking in strength, I believe.“

Don Fabrizio barely felt the half-hearted effort of his daughter pushing against him, a soft, fatherly side in him twitching at the playful almost child-like little game of testing of strengths. He chuckled good-naturedly and felt possibly a little too proud about his strength being so kindly presented to the world - or rather to Bendicò who was the only one around - by his daughter‘s struggle.

„If you could push me over, I would truly worry about the fate of this family,“ he stated kindly, but grew a little tense nonetheless, when his daughter‘s fingers dug a little too forcefully into his ribs. Concetta, of course, noticed it instantly. Her green eyes crinkled at the corners and an almost villainous smile grew on her features.

„That would of course be an entirely different situation, if I were to cheat!“

Of course, was all Don Fabrizio thought, this was the outcome of a playful moment with Concetta, his daughter being the only one who knew about his ticklishness and, besides, the only one who would dare to use it against him. Their relationship was built on sarcasm, irony and gentle teasing. So ever since his daughter had grown old enough to hold her own against him intellectually, she had felt encouraged to challenge her father in ways she would not have dared to before. A few prods to the side on one of their many journeys in the carriage had sufficed to reveal a certain ticklish weakness of his. It had been the start of a series of attacks on his person which ultimately always ended with him holding Concetta’s wrists away from himself to be able to continue peacefully whatever he had been doing up to that point. He adored Concetta too much to truly try and put an end to this repetitive folly. He could not muster it. His daughter‘s cheerful laughter whenever he tried to stop her annoyingly successful tickling hands melted the small amount of embarrassment within his chest to liquid fondness. He usually just ended up trapping her in his arms, hugging while simultaneously disarming her. And she would try to free herself from this embrace, still giggling from the joy it brought to her that there was this one thing that could defeat the titan, the principe, the gattopardo who was her father. And, of course, it made her beyond happy to be able to make him smile.

„Non cominciare qualcosa che non puoi finire!“ (Don’t start anything you cannot finish!) He warned her now, trough gritted teeth, already feeling the corners of his lips twitching at the sensation of fingers poking in his side.

„Ma papà, potresti ben sorridere di più per il ritratto!“ (But papa, you could really smile a little more for the painting!)

Don Fabrizio made a pretty unusual noise, when his daughter managed to weasel a hand under his very present biceps, his upperbody starting to sway on the spot and his gloved hand making a move to stop that cheeky hand from torturing him.

Concetta was laughing happily like she always did when she got a reaction out of him, and did not think about stopping to poke and prod him.

He was simultaneously huffing due the sensations the tickling provoked under his arm and due to Concetta‘s unrepressed mirth. She was a serious girl, always worrying about this or that (mostly Tancredi). Seeing her be this careless always felt like the kindest blessing. It warmed the full expanse of his soul, much more than the Sicilian sun ever could.

Nevertheless. He was the prince of Salina. And as much as he enjoyed fooling around with his (grown) child, he had a position to represent. Within his family as much as within the community of people living on his grounds. He could not let himself go entirely.

So after allowing a more heartfelt laugh to exit his lungs at his daughter‘s incessant torment of his ribcage, he grabbed for her fingers a little more decidedly than before. „Sto sorridendo! Sto sorridendo!! Vedi!!“ (I‘m smiling! I‘m smiling!!! See!!)

Tilting his head to the side, he revealed a half breathless, half pleading smile, coaxing another series of giggles out of his daughter who only shortly tried to free her hands from his grip again.

„D‘accordo, papà,“ (Okay, papà) She chuckled, leaning against her father as a replacement for a hug while her hands remained immobilized. „Ti voglio bene, sai.“ (I love you, you know.)

Feeling another stream of warmth flood his chest, Don Fabrizio moved his head back to be able to look at his smiling daughter. He had to admit, he had not expected to become such an emotional father. Perhaps it was due to his age. At 50 years, he had grown sentimental. The grey, old leopard he was got teary-eyed as soon as Concetta so much as put her head on his shoulder. But it was good. It was good to age this way.

When she‘d been a mere ragazzina he‘d whirled her around in the villa to make her laugh. Now he allowed her to tickle him to get the same result. Actually, the father-daughter-circumstances hadn‘t changed in their foundations.

He let go off her hands to give her the freedom to hug him again. Gently he squeezed her arm and (mostly about himself) shook his head with a smile.

„Anch‘io ti voglio bene, piccolina.“ (I love you, too, little one.)