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sissytobitch10seconds · 4 months

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The Warmth of Winter

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows Summary: They're diverse in more than their appearance and skillset. They've learned to navigate their cultures in things like pet names and high society expectations, but holidays are still an adventure in the making. Warnings: Angst and canon-typical trauma Word Count: 16,794 Ship(s): Kaz Brekker/Jesper Fahey/Nina Zenik/Inej Ghafa/Matthias Helvar/Wylan Van Eck

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A/N: So this had been something that was cooking in my head for a while but was a rushed product when I decided that I actually wanted to. I haven't edited this at all so there might be some continuity errors or typos. I tried to catch everything with a glance-through but we all know how well those work. Also! These are all based off of real songs and real traditions but have been edited so that they fit better into the Grishaverse world. I'd be very excited to talk both about the traditions that these came from and what I've created here if you want to comment or send me an ask on my tumblr! I hope that these holidays have treated everyone and that the new year brings good things. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Nina: White Winter Hymnal

Ketterdam was always dark. In some form or another, the sky was blackened with something that kept the sun from reaching even the highest of buildings. There was some amount of stormcloud that would be swirling just off the coast, threatening to come closer and douse the town entirely. The coal from the ships would smog the harbor and the chemicals from the factories would pitch the rest of the city into darkness. In the winter, the sun would disappear from behind the ever-present clouds long before it was meant to. The city would be plunged into darkness that required the illumination of fires in hearths and lamps feeding from oil and gas.

Nina often missed the ever-expanding bright blue skies of her homeland, when she was looking out of the top windows of her new home. That wasn’t to say that Ravka didn’t get storms, in the winter it was hard to see more than five feet in front of one’s face because of the intensity of the fog and wind. It was just that there was more separation between the seasons that there was here in Kerch. Back when she had been growing up, she had eagerly waited for the arrival fo the first snow that would blanket the entire land in white, and then get so sick of it that she nearly cried when the green began to peak out of the snowbeds. In Kerch, there was nothing but rain, fog, and colder months. They did get snow occasionally, but nearly as much as the mainland got because they were so very humid.

She was particularly feeling it that year, especially since she was around her partners. They reminded her so much of the friends that she had made back when she was at the Little Palace. She had never truly fit in with any of her classmates when she was in school but there was a borderline forced camaraderie between the Corporalki because they were used so frequently by the Darkling in a way that none of the other Grisha Schools could really understand. Her partners reminded her of that time in her life because they argued and bickered but at the end of the day, they all loved each other because of something that they had been through together.

Nina felt listless as she tried to lay in the bed, asleep. Her brain kept flickering with images from the missions that she had taken with Zoya and the one that had gotten her taken by the Druskelle. When she finally gave up on sleep and instead tried to meditate on some of her happier memories, all she could think of was all the Heartrenders that she had seen lost in the battle at the very end of the Civil War. It left her with a kind of pain in her chest that she would never be able to describe even if she had someone around her to try it.

She rose from her bed and grabbed the shawl that was resting on the post. She had her own room in the Van Eck estate where they had decided to bed down for the winter. They usually occupied the upper apartment level of the Silver Six since the large mansion carried a lot of pain for Wylan, but it was too drafty for the winter. They also had to show the other merchers that they would always be home and that they were upstanding even if they were a bit unconventional. The household had already had to host three different parties that were unannounced and they had only barely moved into the winter seasons.

The shawl that she had grabbed had been made for her custom by Marya. The woman had come back to herself when she finally moved back to her home, at least to some extent. Nina related to her husband’s mother because she too would become lost in the longing for something that she didn’t understand and had suffered a massive change in her body that no one else would ever really understand. Marya almost felt like the mother that she had lost when she was brought to the Little Palace.

“Get yourself together, Zenik,” she whispered as she wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. She turned towards the darkened window, trying to peak through the heavy drapes that kept out the outside lamps that illuminated the garden.

The rest of her partners had decided that they were going to go see a show earlier that evening. They had offered to have Nina come with them but her feelings of homesickness and listlessness had prevented her from feeling as though it were really an option. The only thing that she could do was let herself exist in her own mind so that she could process where her brain was and why it was behaving in the way that it was. She missed them dearly now that it was creeping closer and closer towards the early morning instead of late night.

The only good thing about them being gone was that no one was going to be able to catch her as she paced the hall to help her process. She understood that she did look a decent amount like a ghost, in nothing but a shawl that was the deepest red draped over her shoulders and a long white nightgown.

She let out a low breath as she stepped out of her room and into the main hallway. She had thought that the isolation would be good for her but she was beginning to think that it had only allowed her to stew deeper in the feelings that she was trying to process.

Slowly, Nina stepped down the hallway. The floor was the thick wood that signaled how rich the Van Eck family was instead of the tile of her home country. She passed onto the deep red rug lining the hallway and continued on her way. Memories of what had happened when they were first in that home flashed through her mind. She had been so sure that she was going to lose Matthias again, but in a way that was much more permanent than what had happened before. She wanted nothing more than to run away with all of her Crows so that they could live happy, carefree lives. She knew that they wouldn’t ever be satisfied like that, they had to be mixed up with anguish and pain so that they could truly believe and trust the happiness that they were given afterwards.

She let out a low breath as she tried to let the heavy thoughts free from her mind. It was a struggle, to try and balance the world that she had come from and the soldier’s training that she had been raised on with the life that she was leading now.

Nina pressed her hand to the door that led out to their expansive back gardens. There was a small shed where Wylan and Jesper worked on their experiments together and then a larger guest house where Marya spent most of her time painting and finally getting to live the life that she had earned. Around the buildings was a swirling path that led way past the flowers and bushes, all of which had gone dormant because of the cold weather. There were a couple of winter crocuses that Matthias had planted when he had heard that they were Nina’s favorite, but they weren’t doing too well with the moderate temperatures of Kerch instead of the freezing winters in Ravka.

She stepped out of the house and down onto the steps that led out into the garden. She really should have put shoes or socks on if she was going to go outside, but she hadn’t realized what was what she was going to do when she started it. Her breath emerged from her mouth in plumes of white steam, the warmth immediately contrasting with the temperature around her body. She began to shiver ever so slightly as she walked further down into the garden.

She and her partners had so many memories tied into that place. It was where she had said goodbye to her mentors and friends for what felt like the last time, where she had almost watched Matthias die again and again while they were waiting for Genya to heal him, and where Kaz had proposed to them all. One day, the garden may be the place where their children took their first steps or where Matthias bonded with another dog.

For now, it was the place that was embracing her sadness and echoing the emotion that was emitting from her heart throughout her body. She walked until she got to the bench halfway through the rose bushes, where she sat down so that she could admire what she could see of the night sky. Like always, there were dark black clouds that hung low over the stars and moon so that the only thing that could be made out was the briefest twinkling.

Nina hadn’t longed that badly for her home in a very, very long time. She had hated it at the Little Palace but she still wanted to go back to the familiar safety of it. Tears welled up along her lashes as she finally let the sadness and sickness for her old home bubble out of her. She tilted her head down and then up before she realized that thick white flakes of snow were drifting down from the sky.

She was shivering with no way to stop it because she had lost that power long ago, but she wasn’t about to go inside. The snow might not even stick to the semi-frozen ground and it would be melted within a couple days. She so rarely got to experience it when she missed it so much that she was going to stay out as long as she could.

Minutes ticked slowly by as the snow accumulated on the ground. It stuck to the leaves and sticks of the plants around him, glistening with the joy she hadn’t had in so long. It turned the entire world around her into a dream that had been pulled straight from her past. Even though some of it was already melting back into the earth, there was enough shining silver on the path around her that it brought back a whorl of memories.

She remembered the first time that she remembered it seeing it show when she was a child. She had just moved from her home with her parents to the orphanage that she would spend the rest of her days in until she was tested and found to be a Grisha. She had lived too close to the coast for any kind of lasting snow, especially with how far south they were. When she was in the orphanage, she often had trouble sleeping because it was so cold. She had crawled onto the beds of one of the other girls, one who had taken care of her until the draft had taken her away. She had been held, like she always was when she sought out the body heat of another. While she waiting to fall asleep, she had stared out of the window at the first couple falling flakes of snow as they steadily made their way down to the earth.

The snow was so different then. It had changed when she had been moved to Os Alta. She couldn’t find comfort from any of the other students, locked away in her own tiny dormitory room. She had dreamed of the big, comfortable suites that the Grisha got when they were moved to the little palace. Her room while she was a student had been big enough for her to lay down between her desk and single bed. There was a communal bathroom down the hall from that. What Nina lived in now was similar to that, each of them having their own room and then a bathroom that they shared if they didn’t count the master suite that they occupied when they didn’t need time alone.

Her life that she cherished and loved so dearly was very similar to the one that she had come from and yet still so different. She had been miserable when she was at the Little Palace, even if she didn’t realize it at the time, and yet she still missed it.

The words found her lips before she could think about what she was doing.

I was following the

She tapped out the repeated part of the song on her leg so that she didn’t go over or under. It had always been the hardest part for her to sing and now that the others weren’t there to correct her, she had to make sure that she did it correctly.

I was following the pack, all swaddled in their coats

With scarves of red tied 'round their throats

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow

And I turned 'round and there you go

And Mikhael, you would fall and turn the white snow

Red as strawberries in the summertime

Briefly, she became aware of the presence of her partners in the distance. She knew that she had been pushing it by staying outside as long as they had. They would be home late from their show and they would definitely check on someone if they heard someone out in the snow, it was what they did. She knew that they were clustered together by the door as they watched her but she couldn’t make herself turn so that she could see them properly. It hurt too much, her heart ached something heavy and fierce in her chest.

I was following the pack, all swaddled in their coats

With scarves of red tied 'round their throats

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow

And I turned 'round and there you go

And Mikhael, you would fall and turn the white snow

Red as strawberries in the summertime

Tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered the first time that she had sung the song. The students wore gray uniforms that were all the same with little pieces of the color from their order. When they graduated, they would be gifted with a kefta to show that they had gone far and worked hard to become a fully fledged Grisha. That meant that in the winter, they wore big gray coats with red scars. The Corporalki color was of course red, which meant that they stood out against the snow like cardinals against a cloud.

Fedyor had been quite a bit older than her, he was close to graduating when she was only barely taken away from her orphanage to train. She had been absolutely enamored with him and he had become something of an older brother to her. Nina always demanded that she be at the front of the line so that she could hold his hand when they went out to the training grounds. They were all so young that they were kept chained together using their scarves, just to make sure that no one would get lost.

I was following the pack, all swaddled in their coats

With scarves of red tied 'round their throats

To keep their little heads from falling in the snow

And I turned 'round and there you go

And Mikhael, you would fall and turn the white snow

Red as strawberries in summertime

The last couple of words drifted from her lips and into the bitter air around her. She felt a warm hand settle down on her shoulder and tilted her head up so that she could see who it was. As soon as Matthias’ bright blue eyes clocked into her brain, she burst into massive, shaking sobs. He didn’t even blink as he leaned down and picked her up so that she was cradled against his massive, solid chest. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she shivered against the cold now stinging her cheeks.

Her partners quickly tailed after Matthias once he had broken through them to get her into the warmth of their home. Nina was barely aware of what was happening as he brought her through the halls to the master bedroom. Everyone got ready for bed as quickly as they could and then clambered under the quilts next to her, adding to the heat from the fire crackling merrily in the hearth.

“Are you okay?” Wylan asked as he reached out to touch her hand.

She shook her head. “That… that song was always meant as a warning for us. It meant that if we went too far away from the group then the Shu or the Fjerdans would get us and kill us. We didn’t know how true that was until we were older and we were actually being sent out on missions. We used to sing it while we were working with each other or when we were playing in the snow. It was something that every young Corporalnik knew, it was something that fundamentally shaped out childhoods…”

“Not everything that we get taught as children is a good thing,” Kaz supplied with a half shrug.

“I know,” she wept. She stared down at her hands as she tried to stop the tears, but it was a futile effort from the beginning. “I saw so many of my friends die. Even Fedyor… he’s gone. Did you know that we were both considered the Darklings Heartrenders before he even got Ivan? It was because I was basically Fedyor’s little sister, so I got everything that he got. It was the only time I truly felt wanted as a child.”

“I never knew that you felt that way,” Matthias whispered. “I thought that you enjoyed your time at the Little Palace.”

Nina sighed. She had known that it was coming but it was still going to be hard to explain. “I did and I didn’t. It was all so complicated given the politics between the Grisha schools and where we had all come from. The Darkling wanted to make sure that we were divided and isolated enough that he could continue to control us without anyone noticing. But at the same time, those classes were full of people that could have been my family if I had stayed with them longer. Zoya and Genya were my best friends, my mentors. I miss them so much this time of year, especially when I think about being a kid.”

“I understand,” Inej whispered. She leaned over and placed a kiss on her wife’s head. Nina sniffled and smiled as she leaned into the touch. Soon, there was a handkerchief to clean her face and hands to pull her down into the warm safety of her bed. The thoughts, feelings, and memories were still buzzing around her head but they were all so much easier to deal with when they were around her.

---

Wylan: I Saw Three Ships

The parties were probably his least favorite part of the job that he found himself doing. His partners had expected it to be the reading and interacting with the other Merchers. He was a lot softer and more forward-thinking than them, partially because of Marya’s influence and partially because of his real gasp on the Barrel. He didn’t know it as well as his spouses did, but his brief time there had helped him know more than his coworkers.

He could deal with them when he was at meetings, it was easier than he had first thought that it was going to be. The only thing that he had to do was make sure that he held his tongue when he was already speaking in terms that no human used outside of an office or boardroom. He never had to talk or mingle with them until it came to the winter months.

It was as if the change of the seasons was determined to make Wylan’s life as hard as possible. The temperature didn’t change as much in Kerch as it did in places like Ravka, especially when they were living as close to the coast as they were in Ketterdam. The shift made all the old wounds that they had long since recovered from back in their criminal days ache like they were new. They all got crosser with each other because of the pain, which resulted in far more tears and reunions between the partners as they apologized for what they had done.

On top of the pain that he had endure and watch his partners fight with, the lack of light from the outside world made it even harder to work. He had to struggle to make out poorly written numbers on the same amount of ledgers in oil light instead of holding them up to the window. Jesper also got more restless in the winter which meant that he had to outsource his reading to some of his other partners. That was normally fine except for the fact that Inej still struggled to read in Kerch, Nina’s voice almost always lulled him to sleep, and Kaz would make snide comments around the very important documents that Wylan was working with.

The thing that he hated most of all about the winter, outside of the dim colors and drab gray days, was the socialization that he was expected to do. He had a half thought theory that he hated the people he worked with because he had never really been socialized around Merchers when it mattered, his father had stopped taking him places when he was eight after all. Regardless of what the reason was, he knew that he hated having to attend all of the balls and parties that the other Merchant families were holding. The problem was that if he wanted their votes on the reforms that he was working to get into place, then he had to play nice with them. As much as he detested it, Kerch law was mostly based off the person that had the most social rankings.

Having his partners by his side made it so much more enjoyable. Inej was always grounded and working in the city during the winter months because her crew wanted to be with their families and the waters got dangerous. That meant that she was around their estate a lot more, which was a relief when Wylan needed someone to complain at that would offer reasonable advice on what to do.

He also brought some of his partners along with him when he attended the parties. Nina was trained on Kerch dances for the missions she used to do with the Second Army, so she came with him to balls. He loved getting to see the other Merchant men gawk over her low necklines and swooping gowns, the regal form that she carried even though her station had never been anywhere near royal. Matthias was big and bulky but also kind so he came when Wylan thought that he was going to end up murdering one of the wives of his coworkers. Kaz and Inej were both banned from coming to the parties because they always turned it into work which had gotten close to ruining their overarching plans one too many times for Wylan to feel comfortable. Jesper came when Wylan needed to bring his husband, and it was always more fun to have the questions floating around about who Wylan was actually married to.

The last party of the year was happening that night, but he was preparing with all of his partners instead of just some of them so he was happy about it to some extent. He had been through a grueling holiday season so he had decided that his entire household could accompany him to the last one, even Kaz and Inej. They had both promised him that they would be on their best behavior and he knew that he was stressed out enough that they would actually mean it.

They had just finished getting ready, which they had started an hour early because everyone always ended up taking far longer than they meant to. It was easy to get distracted when the task at hand was doing one’s hair or putting on clothing, especially when surrounded by the people that they all loved so dearly.

Nina and Inej were wearing gowns in the same matching blue color, a deep sea-reminiscent color that was perfect for the theme of the party that they were doing to. Inej’s dress was form fitting to her body since she had gotten so used to that when she was skittering around the rooftops of Ketterdam. It clung to her neck in a high collar that was pinned with the Van Eck family crest so that it was clear who she had come with. The sleeves were long and came to a point towards her middle finger, which had been painted the same color blue instead of black as the rest of her fingers were. The skirt billowed out from her waist with intricately made fabric that shifted color to green and red when she moved. Inej had her hair braided so that it formed a crown around her head, something that was specifically Suli instead of Kerch.

Nina’s dress had a low swooping neckline and sleeves that came over her shoulders in sheer fabric that came to a point on her bodice. Her skirt was pleated and come out in an even bigger circle than Inej’s, as almost all of her gowns had. Her hair was braided with two thin braids behind her ears and the rest of her curls hanging loose around her neck. She had the necklace that Wylan had given her, once again holding the Van Eck ruby in the center over her heart.

Kaz was dressed the same as he always was. The suit was pressed into thin lines and very dignified, which was accentuated by the way that he held himself. Wylan noticed, with barely restrained glee, that he actually had the tie pin pressed into place in the prominent place so people would know their connection. They were technically supposed to be separate from each other because of their occupations, but if anyone asked Wylan would simply tell them that Dirtyhands had stolen it from Jesper.

The aforementioned Zemini was wearing something that was a mix between the Barrel flash that he had been so fond of when they had first met and what he had to wear when he accompanied Wylan to meetings. His undershirt was a lovely yellow color that was complimented by the deep blue of his vest and the pleated skirt that swished lovely around his waist. He had a suit jacket that went with it, but it was draped over his arm because he was so excited that he was overheated. His hair had recently been done in the traditional braids that the Zemini wore when they were in the cities, something that he said he had always wanted but never had been able to get.

Matthias had expected to be dressed in the black Mercher suits that Kaz and Wylan wore, but Nina immediately informed him that she would never see him wearing something that predominantly black ever again in her life. She had worked with a tailor that Kaz had vetted so that she could dress him in the same colors as herself and Inej. It was still the basic suit so that he wouldn’t bring that much attention to himself, which was a good thing based on how many heads he turned with his massive size alone. He looked handsome and borderline regal in it, even if he was slightly awkward and how he was supposed to move in something that was so foreign compared to what he used to wear.

As soon as they were all dressed and ready, the piled into the coach that Wylan had paid to have pick them up. It was unlikely that they were going to stay at the party long enough to require their own coachmen come in from the break that they had given him. They were also all more than okay with walking, even Kaz with his unbearable pain in the winter preferred moving on foot to being trapped in a box pulled by horses. They still had to arrive in style even if they were going to slip out through a side door and then disappear into the night so that they could enjoy each other’s company when they got the first chance.

The ride was pleasant given the company that he was keeping. He had struggled a couple of times in his marriage with his partners, but he adored them with his entire heart so he knew that they would always make it work. He didn’t even have to worry about that now because they were all excited to be stared and gawked at by the upper class that couldn’t comprehend a relationship such as theirs existing near their homes.

The carriage arrived and they were introduced to the man holding the party, which went very quickly. Wylan made sure to introduce every single one of his partners, even Kaz and Inej, before they drifted into the party. They could already hear the whispers following after them, wondering why a member of the Merchant Council was consorting with such devious Barrel scum such as the King Bastard. Wylan was reveling in it. Chaos was the thing that he needed to brighten up the winter season.

Soon, they divided so that they could enjoy other parts of the party. Nina and Inej danced with each other, ignoring the men that tried to shark them or ask them for the next. Matthias and Jesper were flirting with each other in the corner. Kaz and Wylan were pretending to have a very serious conversation with the son of a wealthy brothel owner, though he didn’t have a single clue what they were really saying to him.

As the night continued, they changed and shifted their groups. Inej and Kaz stepped out onto the balcony when they got overwhelmed. Jesper and Wylan had to actually socialize with a few people that knew them so that they could keep their reputation about them, though it was over quickly. Matthias and Nina were whispering about all of the foods that they were having, looking besotted and excited with each other and the new experience.

The night as beginning to crawl to an end by the time that Wylan managed to get all of his partners back in one place. He had expected them to leave far earlier in the evening, not to stay until the party was almost finished. He supposed that they all needed to have a bit of fun and be out of their own home. The winter made them feel cramped, especially since Matthias, Nina, and Inej traveled the most out of the six of them.

They were gathered in one of the lower rooms that was open to guests so that they had some time to themselves. Jesper was spread out on one of the couches with his head pillowed on Nina’s legs and his knees draped over Matthias’ thighs. Inej was perched on the back of a chair with her shoes discarded down on the floor. Kaz was sitting in another chair, his cane in front of him clasped in both of his gloved hands. Wylan himself had seated himself on the ground in front of the hearth.

Silence slipped around the room as they naturally came to a lull in the conversation, tired and worn out from the party that they had just endured. A small smile began to grace Wylan’s face as he heard the familiar notes of a song that he had sung every single Ghezen’s Day for as long as he could remember. The lyrics began to float from his lips before he even realized he could recall it well enough to sing it himself,

I saw three ships come sailing in

On Ghezen’s Day, on Ghezen’s Day

I saw three ships come sailing in

On Ghezen’s Day in the morning

And all the bells on Kerch shall ring

On Ghezen’s Day, on Ghezen’s Day

And all the bells on Kerch shall ring

On Ghezen’s Day in the morning

A smile split across his face as he realized that another voice had joined him. He turned his head to the side and saw that his husband, his wonderful husband that was so different from him and yet his mirror of another life, had his head bowed down slightly as he sang. He started the next verse with a grin stretched so far across his face that his cheeks ached with the force of it.

Let us all rejoice again

On Ghezen’s Day, on Ghezen’s Day

Let us all rejoice again

On Ghezen’s Day in the morning

I saw three ships come sailing in

On Ghezen’s Day, on Ghezen’s Day

I saw three ships come sailing in

On Ghezen’s Day in the morning

“I didn’t know that you actually knew that song, Kaz,” Wylan beamed. He wasn’t able to ignore the butterflies that moved throughout his body as he realized that everyone was looking between the two of them. It was unlikely that even in the time that they had been in the Barrel and living at his estate, anyone other than Kaz was aware of that song and it’s importance to the non-criminal Kerch people.

Kaz scoffed and shifted the hold that he had on his cane, “Of course I know that song. Anyone that doesn’t never had a proper Ghezen’s Day.”

“What is Ghezen’s Day, exactly?” Matthias asked, his eyes flickering low between all of them.

“Love, you’ve been living here for how many years and you still don’t know what that is?” Nina laughed.

Wylan tilted his head towards his wife, “Nina, do you know what Ghezen’s Day actually is?”

Her lovely rouge-smudged cheeks turned a shade of scarlet that he adored. It was hard to make Nina Zenik blush, but all five people in the entire world that could do it were sitting around her. “Well, I suppose I don’t know the more Ketterdam-specific traditions but I do know what it’s about.”

“Do enlighten us, then, my dear,” Kaz said. There was a knowing smirk growing across his face that gave Wylan another rush of excited adrenaline and love for the people he was surrounded by.

She pursed her lips, obviously able to tell exactly what their husband was up to. “I know that Ghezen’s Day is a celebration of Ghezen and a mark of the new year.”

“I thought that the new year started with the break of spring,” Jesper protested, Inej nodding alongside him.

To save Nina from having to wrack her mind that hard when she was already so tipsy with champagne, Wylan jumped in to explain, “For a farming culture and a traveling culture, it does. For the Kerch, the end of the new year is when a financial book would be closed after a good year. There’s actually a tradition among some smaller families with kids that have started their own careers to come and show their parents what they’ve done. The most common gift on Ghezen’s Day is either a roter umschlag, which are given to children and generally have up to a hundred kruge in them, or a new ledger.”

“Outside of the city and the Merchant Council, Ghezen’s Day is celebrated as the found of the country. The three ships mentioned in the song were the founders of the three largest cities in Kerch. They founded Ketterdam first,” Kaz looked almost like he was taking a personal pride in that matter. Wylan couldn’t help but giggle.

Inej spent the rest of the trip back home complaining about how the Kerch could only focus on their money and had nothing else in their culture. Matthias kept asking questions about the end of the year, accompanied by Jesper giving unhelpful answers that he thought were correct. Nina had more in-depth questions to ask about the traditions and why so many parties were held if it was near the end of the books in a good year. Wylan explained that it was actually a sign of someone needing to fill the back couple of pages so that they would be blessed with good luck in the next year. Overall, he was happy that he had brought his partners with him even if he wished that he could just stay home with them next year.

---

Kaz: A Soalin’

The fire crackled merrily in the hearth that they had gathered in front of. Ghezen’s Day had passed a few days prior, which meant that people were still spending time with their family or at church. Wylan had made his appearance at the midnight and morning mass as he was expected to as a devout member of the Merchant Council. Now they were all free to do as they wished the rest of the evening.

A lot of the time that meant that they would be getting up to no good, but they were so tired from having to run around for Inej’s newest plan and Wylan’s parties that the only thing that they wanted to do was relax. Kaz was having a wonderful day, which meant that he could actually touch his partners.

They had spread out one of the massive, fluffy quilts that Jesper had made the last time he had gone back to Novyi Zem on the ground to cushion them. They had made a nest out of the remaining pillows and blankets that they had dragged out from every bedroom that they could find. They had shifted the rest of the furniture around to create pseudo walls, though every so often someone would try to lean on the table and then shout when it moved behind their backs.

Inej was laying on the couch with her fingers weaving through Jesper’s tight braids to soothe herself. She had had a nightmare the night before so wasn’t feeling well enough to have full body contact with the rest of them. Matthias was wrapped around Wylan like they were both going to die unless every part of them that could be was touching the other. Nina was the one that was laying behind Kaz, her talented hands tracing shapes on the top of his hip while she engaged in a meaningless conversation with Jesper.

The night was calm and lovely until they heard a knock at the front door. Jesper startled and then reached down to his bare hips for his revolvers, only to remember that he was in his own home and was no longer in such high amounts of danger that he had to pack a gun with him everywhere he went. “Now who could that be? We shouldn’t be getting any visitors and the staff already went home,” Wylan complained. He unwound himself from Matthias and then climbed over the back of a chair so that he was down on the ground.

The rest of the polycule began to ready themselves to answer the door as well. Despite their years of caution while they tried to adjust to the new life that they had found themselves in, they were all inherently nosey and wanted to know what was going on. They brushed each other’s hair down, tucked shirts back where they belonged, and tugged pants up properly onto hips. Kaz began the slow process of getting to the edge of the blanket where he had left his cane so that he could come with them.

They were already gone by the time that he had raised himself into the chair and then to his feet. He hated the winter months because of how sluggish they made him, how the ache in his knee became ever present instead of something that he could push back and ignore. It made him feel like he was falling behind the others when he was supposed to be their leader.

He shook his head and reminded himself that those days were long behind them. He was still the mastermind, the one who came up with the schemes and got them out of a tight pinch when they fell into one. He was no longer the leader, no longer the one that gave orders that he expected to be respected. They were his equal and he was their husband.

Slowly, he limped down the hall so that he could meet the rest of his partners at the door. He stopped as soon as he heard the low notes ringing through the hallway. It was a clear night with no wind so that noise was able to travel long and hollow through the domed rooves of the Van Eck hall.

Hey ho, nobody home,

Meat nor drink nor money have I none,

And yet shall we be merry,

Hey ho, nobody home,

A soal, a soal, a soal cake,

Please good missus a soal cake,

An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry,

One for Petyr, two for Paul, three for he who bless us all,

A chuckle left his lips and a smirk crossed his face. He knew exactly what they were doing, but they were unaware of the trap that they had just fallen into. He turned and walked down towards the dining room. It was dark because they had taken their meal while they were cooking it in the kitchen. The staff had been sent home a week ago, though they still had a maid that came and helped with the vast amount of cleaning that a place like the estate took. It was harder to keep all of the rooms as warm as they needed to be for a human to occupy them when it was only six criminals and an elderly Kerch woman who kept to her suite.

He knew that he would have gone for the dining room if he was still young enough to be pulling a stunt like these kids were. He didn’t even have to see them to know what they looked like because he could already see them in his mind’s eye. They were dirty and run down, with clothing that was threadbare and in no way suited for the weather that they were having. Yet, despite their dirty appearance, their eyes would hold a sharpness and resilience to them that never should have had to form itself there.

Ghezen bless the master of this house and the mistress also,

And all the little children that round your table grow,

The horses in your stables, the dogs by your front door,

And all that dwell within your gates, we wish you ten times more,

Go down into the cellar and see what you can find,

If the Barrel is not empty, we hope you will be kind,

We hope you will be kind with your apple and strawber’,

For we’ll come no more a soalin’ til this time next year,

A soal, a soal, a soal cake,

Please good missus a soal cake,

An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry,

One for Petyr, two for Paul, three for he who bless us all,

Kaz pressed his hand to the door before he decided that he wanted to listen first. He slipped closer to the crack that he had made by turning the handle and then listened. He heard the window open with a creak, which meant that the crew breaking in was new. He would have always tested the hinges on the window to make sure that nothing would creak before he began to pick the lock. It was the one thing that had prevented him from being caught more times than he could count.

Feet hit the ground with a soft thud and then began to step forward. He took that moment to make his grand entrance, swinging the door open and stepping inside of the dining room. “I would have sent more carolers if you wanted me to be fooled. Also, that’s the wrong song to pick if you’re going after this house.”

“It’s tradition,” the boy sputtered. His hair was a dirty blond that was caked with mud on the side, like he had slept while half embedded in someone’s back garden. He had just about everything that Kaz had added to the list in his head, down to the shoes that were coming apart at the seams and half scarf wrapped around his neck.

“I know it is. Would you like to know how I know?”

“Is this going to be that kind of thing where it turns out that you’re just teasing me before you kill me?” the boy asked.

The streets are very dirty, my shoes are very thin,

I have a little pocket to put a kruge in,

If you haven’t got a kruge, a ha’kruge will do,

If you haven’t got a ha’kruge, then Ghezen bless you,

Hey ho, nobody home,

Meat nor drink nor money have I none,

And yet shall we be merry,

Hey ho, nobody home,

Kaz threw his head back and laughed. The carol had already stopped on their door down the hall, so he motioned for the boy to follow him using the end of his cane. The boy obviously knew that he was dealing with someone dangerous and made the smart move to do as he was asked. It was unlikely that Kaz would have hurt him if he had run, he would have just scared the boy silly by sending a member of the Dregs after him. There was no way that he was going to let a roving gang of children so similar to him continue to wander the streets when he could give them purpose.

He led the boy down the hallway towards the door, where the rest of the gang had just finished singing the song. Their eyes bulged out of their heads as they no doubt recognized Kaz and realized that he had caught the tail that they had sent for this house. “I was rather excited to finally get to hear that song again, I just wish that you had been a bit more subtle when you were picking your tricks. Don’t you know that the best way to do this is to make sure that you know your audience?” he asked.

“M-Mister Brekker,” the leader of the gang outside of the door said. He took a step forward with his hand outstretched towards the friend that had gotten lost inside of the house. The panic was evident on his face, which made Kaz chuckle. He liked being feared, even if he was going to provide for the boys that way that Haskel had provided for him.

“Sorry guys,” the boy next to Kaz winced.

He had known how the kids were going to react, but his partners were still a question up in the air. He almost let out a breath of relief when he saw that they just looked confused and slightly startled about what was happening. Nina placed her hands on her hips, her shawl slipping slightly so that more of her beautiful blue nightie was revealed to the outside world. “Love, what’s going on?” she nearly demanded.

Kaz stepped forward with his gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder to shove him back with the rest of his gang. He looked over the faces of the young children in front of him so that they were seared into his mind. He knew how many there were and what they looked like, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to run or hide from him now. “I want you all to meet me in the Silver Six next Monday.”

“Of course, sir,” the leader said.

At the same time, the boy that Kaz had just reunited with his friends asked, “Are you really letting us go?”

“Don’t fucking ask that, Willem,” the leader snarled as he grabbed his friend’s hand and then they began to run down the path. Several of the other boys were scooping up the bags that had been left in the bushed near the gates, which clanked and groaned with the stolen goods that they had gotten from the other houses on the Geldstraat.

The door shut and soon they were left alone again. “What is going on, Kaz?” Nina demanded again.

“I will explain to you as soon as we are back where we belong. Jesper, would you be a dear and go relock the window in the dining room?” he asked.

That alone made his partners share a confused look with each other but none of them said anything. They all filed back to the living room and sat back down in the warm nest that they had made for themselves. Kaz demanded that Matthias lean back against the couch and then made himself at home in between his husband’s knees so that he was laying against the other man’s broad chest. It eased the ache from his knee up to his hip to have it stretched out and warm.

“So what’s going on?” Inej asked as she perched herself carefully down next to Wylan, her back and long braid facing toward the fire.

“What those kids just did is something that I did often as a child. When I was left on my own on the streets at ten, I was picked up by a bunch of other children. The first couple hazed me until I learned to hold my own, and then they brought me in and began to teach me some of their tricks. One of them was to make yourself look as miserable and downtrodden as possible before you go sing that song to houses such as this,” Kaz began to explain.

“Seeing as everything in your childhood was miserable, I assume that there’s a catch of some kind,” Nina said. There was no malice to her voice because what she spoke was fact. Kaz’s life had been nothing but misery and pain until he met the people that were surrounded by him, even those few happy moments when he and Jordie had thought that they were going to get a good life were tainted by Pekka Rollins.

“The trick was that we would send a different person to the back of the house every time. They would break in, as a way to prove themselves, and then steal everything that they could. They would sneak it out while the rest of the group maybe got to enjoy coffee or coco,” he shrugged. “I think that most of the kids wanted to be warm and fed something sweet because of the kindness of the Merchant Wives, if I’m being honest.” He had always enjoyed the part where he was invited into the home far more than he did his turn to break in. It was nice to feel, even just for a moment, like he was wanted and cherished instead of something that had been discarded unwillingly into the streets.

“So are you going to give them a job?” Matthias asked. Kaz gave him a look and he only chuckled, the sound bouncing him around so that he gave an unhappy noise. “I say that only because you told them to meet you in your office. I think that you are not as unsentimental as you position yourself to be.”

“I suppose I’m not,” he huffed. He hated to admit it, but he knew that he was safe to be vulnerable around these people. They loved him and he loved them more than anything in the entire world. He was glad that he had finally gotten what he had spent so many years caroling to try and just get a taste of.

---

Matthias: Santa Lucia

He thought that he had left his awkward worrying behind when he had finally agreed to marry his partners. Somehow, despite the fact that he had been raised to court his potential marital partner for almost years and then ask a parent’s permission before he even thought about proposing, his marriage happened not long after he met the others. They had returned back to Kerch to help Inej bring down the Menagerie and the Sweet Shop after her first voyage. They were very close to getting caught by the Stadwatch again, so they had to make their aliases be married.

Matthias found then he actually adored the idea of being married to the people that he had fallen in love with and then had proposed to them later the same night after they had finished their plot. They had all agreed with a couple of silly caveats to the marriage, which had made it feel all the more like them. Nina and Matthias were the only ones that were legally married, of course, but they were all married under the eyes of their deities and each other which as the important thing.

Being married to the others had made him feel a lot more confident in asking for what he needed. He was able to experiment with the things that he wanted to experience and how he wanted to present himself. The only thing that he got in return was light teasing, enough to break tension without letting him get worried about what was happening. He had learned how to look into himself and figure out what was actually going on without shame.

He had asked his partners for things that were debauched, that would have made him think that he was unholy had he still been with the Druskelle. He had asked his partners for things that had gotten turned down in the past as well because they weren’t comfortable doing that with him. Everything had been recovered from and turned out alright in the end, which was making it all the more confusing as to why he was feeling so nervous.

Matthias wrung his hands in front of him as he stood at the top of the stairs that led up to the master bedroom where his spouses were gathered. He knew that he could do this, all he had to do was ask and they would agree. This was something that he couldn’t put off for another year, not when it represented twenty years since he had lost his first family in that fire. This holiday was too important to himself and his culture for him to do it on his own.

He took the first step up the stairs and then immediately felt lighter. It was as if his partners were calling out to him, drawing him closer to where they were hidden from the harsh winter winds with the promise of something loving and soft. He was able to take the next several stairs in stride until he reached the landing that led up to the master bedroom that he shared with his partners.

He only paused when he got to the doorway that led into their bedroom so that he could take in the appearance of his partners. It was getting towards mid morning and only a couple of them had risen properly from their sleep, about half of his partners were still dressed in their nightclothes while wound up in the nest of blankets on top of their mattress. Nina was splayed out in the center of the bed with her brown ringlets haloing her head so that she looked like an old saint in one of Inej’s ancient tomes. Jesper was next to her, his gray eyes still closed in mock sleep even if he was fidgeting more than he did when he was actually resting. Wylan was on his stomach on the other side of Nina, his head tilted towards Inej as her delicate fingers wove their way through his curly brown-red hair. Kaz was sitting at the end of the bed while massaging the muscles on the underside of his knee so that he could have some reprieve from the near-constant pain he got in the winter.

They looked so wonderfull domestic that Matthias felt his heart hammer loudly in his chest. He loved these people more than he knew that it was capable to love someone.

“Matty, are you going to come and join us or are you just going to stand there?” Jesper mumblned, proving that he hadn’t actually fallen asleep. Matthias let out a rumbling chuckle and then pushed himself off of the door so that he could slip onto the bottom of the bed beside Kaz.

“What’s going on, love?” Inej asked. She pushed herself up on one arm and then tilted her head to the side so that some of her longer flyaways fell down into her face.

“Why do you think that something is wrong?” he asked, once again nervous.

“You’re practically bursting with something. You wear your emotions on your face, which was why you had to be angry all the time before you realized that you could be a person too,” Kaz rasped. “Now tell us what’s wrong so that we can fix it.”

“I want to celebrate the Day of the Disir,” he blurted out all at once.

Nina was the only one that showed any kind of recognition about what he was talking about. He knew that she had studied his home country within an inch of its life, so she would likely know the overarching meaning of the holiday and the way that it was typically celebrated. She shifted so that Jesper was laying flat on the bed, no longer pillowed by her chest, and reached out for Matthias. “Do you feel comfortable celebrating without a Gothi?”

He thought about it for a minute, his mouth twisted. “I think that my mother and sister would understand if it was just me asking them to come and watch over our home instead of someone formally calling them to do so,” he answered. He had contemplated it for a long time before he had come to ask because it would be the first time that he was celebrating that holiday since he lost his family. They weren’t permitted to really celebrate anything other than Hringkalla when they training to be Druskelle because it was believed that it would result in them being too distracted.

“What’s going on?” Wylan asked, confused and worried about what was happening as he sat up.

Nina looked at Matthias to get permission to explain before he nodded his consent. She then turned back to their partners and said, “The Day of the Disir is a holiday celebrated by the Fjerdans where they ask the spirits of the female members of their family to come and watch over their home on the darkest day. It’s usually celebrated by lighting candles for them.”

“There is a member of my family, someone from my village, that we also sing to when the night falls,” he choked up when he began to explain it. He had gone over his plan again and again, trying to map out the exact right words in Kerch so that he could get the message of utter comfort and wonder that she had brought him when he was a child. “Her name was Lucia, and she is now a saint. But we use a different word for it, so she’s Santa Lucia.”

“What did she do to earn Sainthood?” Inej asked. She was being careful with her tone, making sure that it was even and kind as she spoke. Even though Nina was the one that had done all the research on his country and culture, she was the one that understood his spirituality best. He was glad that he had a spouse that was as devoted to her deities as he was.

Matthias was glad that she had asked that, because it had given him a chance to explain it without having to just dump all that information onto his partners basically unprompted. “She was the mother to four boys and the wife to a very strong warrior. The father would take the boys out every night so that he could train them how to be as strong as him, so that they could one day provide for their wives as he did. Every night, Santa Lucia would place a lit candle in the window so that they would be able to find their way back even in the darkest of the winter nights. The men that she cared for did not know that was how they always found their way back home so they left one night when she was so sick that she was bedridden. She begged them not to, because she knew that they would not be able to find their way back. She was only able to raise from her bed and light the candle on the Solstice, the darkest and longest night of the entire year.”

“So the candles are lit to lead the female ancestors back home so that they can continue to protect the house,” Nina finished. “I remember reading that in a book somewhere but it was such a small footnote that I didn’t mention it in the bigger explanation. I didn’t know that was where your village was located, Matthias.”

He nodded, ducking his head shyly when he realized just how much attention was on him alone. “I was wondering if you would all be willing to celebrate it with me. I know that we have already celebrated Mother Night for Nina and Ghezen’s Day for Kaz and Wylan…” he trailed off. He was worried that by introducing the Day of the Disir into their rotation that someone was going to feel like he was trying to overshadow them or try to push them to the side.

His worries were almost immediately squashed as Wylan and Jesper gave a cheer of affirmation. “I would love to,” Inej beamed, Nina and Kaz nodding alongside her.

It was already mid-morning when he got the courage to ask them, so they had to jump immediately into doing the traditions so that he could get through them all. They sent the kitchen staff home on an early day and then spent two hours making baked goods such as cookies and the flaky pastries his mother had said that his grandmother always loved. While they cooked, he taught his partners the songs he had sung as a child when he was running underfoot of the adults.

They had a light lunch and continued to work with each other. The house was decorated with a mix of Kerch and Ravkan winter holiday decoration, so Matthias added a couple of his own so that they would sit alongside the ones that his partners had already provided. He left a silver ribbon tied into a pretty bow on the mantle for his sister, an apron embroidered with wolves and holly leaves for his mother, and a beautiful glass full of mead for the other women who may come and visit them that night.

The rest of the day was full of laughing, talking, and no sorrow. He knew that meant that the disir were actually visiting them, or at least that was what his mother had always told him. The sun set a lot further into the afternoon when he was as far down as Kerch was, but it was still around the late afternoon by the time that darkness consumed the island.

Matthias was the most nervous about that part of the celebration, but a simple squeeze of Nina’s hand reminded him that he was safe with his spouses. He had gotten a package of straight white candles from the market before the winter had begun so that they were cheaper, so he had to dig the out of the back of his closet when the time came for them to light them. He gave each of his partners a candle and then set one down in the window.

He took a slow, deep breath to reassure himself that it was going to be alright. Next year would be easier, which the guidance of Djel and the disir to help him through it. They would all know what he expected from his holiday the second time that they were celebrating compared to what they were doing that year. Everything was going to be alright.

He stepped closer to the massive window in the front room and then lit the candle to place in the window. He began to sing the traditional song, the only one that really mattered throughout the entire holiday, as he made the run mark in the light of the window using the candle’s flame.

Night walks with a heavy step

Round yard and hearth,

As the sun departs from earth,

Shadows are brooding.

There in our dark house,

Walking with lit candles,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

While he sang, he lit the other candles and then began to walk them through their house. He was glad that they didn’t have a full time staff because it would have made what they were doing so much more awkward. He was embarrassed enough to be practicing something that he barely remember with people that he had never done it before, he didn’t need Kerch people that only tolerated him judging him on top of it.

Night walks grand, yet silent,

Now hear its gentle wings,

In every room so hushed,

Whispering like wings.

Look, at our threshold stands,

White-clad with light in her hair,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

They trailed up and down every hallway with the candles in hands. Matthias stopped on each floor, at the window that looked into the staircase, so that he could make the same rune marking. It was important to bring the disir towards the correct windows and show them that they were welcome. The fire would also drag out anything bad that the year had left behind.

Darkness shall take flight soon,

From earth's valleys.

So she speaks

Wonderful words to us:

A new day will rise again

From the rosy sky…

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

As the song came to a close, he turned north and then did the rune motion one more time. He then blew out his candle and watched the others do it as well. The single candle that would remain all night was the first one that they had lit, the one that would bring the women spirits back to protect him in the way that he needed so desperately. While he loved his spouses and was trying very hard to figure out the life that they led, the culture that was so different from his own, and everything else they needed, he had never felt more lost. He needed the guidance of the people that had come before him and the best ones to give that to him was his mother and sister.

“Was that everything you had hoped it would be?” Nina asked. She didn’t have the wide, teasing grin on her face that she almost always did. Her green eyes were shining brightly with hope and adoration instead.

“It was more,” he replied as he leaned down and pecked her lips. Inej was there a moment later, her small hand slipping into his so that she could drag him back to her room. He had promised her that he would go through her Sankta books so that they could see if anyone resembled his own saint. The others would likely splinter off to get ready for bed, but the day had been perfect so he honestly didn’t care that they weren’t all warm and surrounding him any longer. They would do it again throughout the upcoming year and they would definitely do it again during the Day of the Disir.

---

Jesper: Auld Lang Syne

Their home was quiet for once. It seemed to be that way more and more often whenever they crept into winter. Jesper knew that well, because the sounds of critters had always completely disappeared when they all migrated somewhere warmer or went into hibernation. Novyi Zem’s climate was different than Kerch, it actually snowed but not nearly as much as it did in Ravka and Fjerda. The ground would freeze first and then the quiet would come. It was a good time to look back on everything that had come before him, which was the tradition that he was trying to bring back.

He felt guilty for not having done it all the years since he had left his home and his father. Colm may not have completely understood the holiday that he was celebrating and why certain things were done the way that they were, but he had understood that his wife had wanted his son to know her culture and way of things. He had tried to keep the traditions going and the holidays celebrated every year since Aditi had lived. Then Jesper had moved to Kerch and let his life completely fall apart before he had to pick it back up for the five people that had won his heart over.

He had almost completely forgotten about the celebration of the New Year and Ukukhumbula Izinyanya. Novyi Zem was somewhere that was always being settled and thus the culture was ever changing, even if people like Jesper’s mother remembered the old traditions and celebrated them in the proper way. He didn’t think that any of his ancestors would be too upset at him for celebrating things the way that he was, especially now that he was celebrating them instead of just ignoring them as he had been before.

Jesper had first gotten the idea to celebrate his holiday that year because Matthias had asked them to join him in his celebration of the Day of Disir. It was one of the only times that he ever remembered that the Winter Solstice was actually coming because it was so different than where he had come from when he was in Kerch. Ghezen’s Day was something that was made up by men far later than Ukukhumbula Izinyanya had been, so it never fell where the other holidays did and let him get lost in the mix of it all.

This year, he was going to celebrate it the way that his mother had taught him. He had woken early the next morning after they had finished celebrating the Day of the Disir and then set candles down on their front porch. He had spoken the words of the prayer for a late celebration as he lit the two candles to make up for the day that he had forgotten. He made sure that he was awake early every morning so that he wouldn’t be caught by the others.

Celebrating his holiday with his partners wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but he always felt embarrassed by how much he missed his mother. Kaz, Matthias, and Nina had all lost both of their parents when they were very young. Inej had been ripped away from her entire family and was usually a world away from them on a good day. Wylan still had his mother but she wasn’t the same woman that she had been, the woman that he remembered working to help raise him. Jesper had his father and he should have been grateful for that, but he wallowed in the grief of losing his mother more than he wanted to admit.

When he did, he felt stupid. He knew that he should be thankful that he still had a parent that loved him even if Colm didn’t entirely understand him. He shouldn’t spend all of his time thinking about the parent that he lost when he still had one that was willing to turn the world upside down for him.

Ukukhumbula Izinyanya was his chance to finally get to mourn in the way that he wanted. His mother wouldn’t be disappointed him because Ukukhumbula Izinyanya was something she had wanted him to celebrate and it was a happy occasion. While there were occasionally tears for people that had passed very recently to the celebration, it was mostly a rememberance of the people that had come before and how cherished they were when they walked the earth.

The first day was meant to be for the patriarchal side of the family, but Jesper’s father was Kaelish so it was a half blessing that he had missed it. He wasn’t sure that any of his Kaelish ancestors were going to particularly enjoy being celebrated in a Zemini way since they were so fearful of all things otherworldly magical.

The second day was for the matriarchal side of his family, which was the one that he had really wanted to celebrate in the first place. So after he had done the prayer that he needed to make sure that he wouldn’t be haunted, he got to work in the kitchen. It happened to be the day of rest so their household would be empty of staff unless they specifically sent for someone, which they wouldn’t.

He searched the kitchen for flour, salt, and yeast so that he could make the same kind of bread that his mother had. He focused mostly on getting out the seasonings that she had always included to give it a bit of a kick when it was the only thing that they got to eat. They had dried rosemary and thyme that had been shipped from the Southern Colonies. Nothing was going to be as good as what she had grown in their side garden and then hung to dry in their kitchen, but he would make do.

His hands moved on their own as he got the measuring cups and then figured out the ratio for the loaf that he wanted to make. He hummed under his breath as he prayed for the women in his family, the people that had birthed his mother and turned her into the wonderful woman that she was. The Zemini worshipped their ancestors as ghosts, not believing in Saints or gods the same way that the other cultures did. It was similar to what the Shu did, because there were large Shu populations in the certain states that his mother had been raised in.

He placed the loaf of bread down into the bowl and then placed a cloth over it. He set his hands together so that his fingertips were touching and his palms were towards his chest. Slowly, he dragged his hands over the top of the bowl so that he had affected all of the dough inside. It rose as the yeast changed and activated with his zowa abilities.

“Jesper? What are you doing awake so early?” Kaz rasped, his cane clacking loudly as he transitioned from the wooden hallway into the tiled kitchen.

“I was just doing something that reminded me of my mother, is all,” he replied awkwardly. “You can go back to bed if you want, I’m not going to do anything stupid. Just baking bread.”

“Is this a holiday of yours?” Kaz asked instead of leaving like Jesper had expected. Sometimes he forgot that they weren’t the young kids from the Barrel anymore, tripping over each other to prove that they could work whenever and get more power from Haskell. They were a married couple that lived in a Mercher house and had a combined wealth that would make even the king of Fjerda blush.

“I… guess that you could call it that,” Jesper shrugged awkwardly. “It’s the Ukukhumbula Izinyanya week. I missed yesterday and I’m trying to make up for it by doing more than just lighting candles.”

“You could have brought it up yesterday when we were celebrating the Day of the Disir for Matthias,” Kaz replied.

“I didn’t remember until we were actually celebrating and I thought that it would be rude to try and force my celebration over the top of his. You saw how nervous he was when he came in to ask us if we would be willing to celebrate with him,” Jesper replied immediately.

Kaz let out a huff as he realized that his husband had a point. “Fine. But we’re going to celebrate with you today, if you want us. If this is something that you have to do on your own then I’m going to go upstairs and tell everyone to stay away from you.”

“No, this is something that we should all do together. Traditionally everyone makes bread and talks about their maternal family on the second day,” he explained.

The dark eyes that the zowa had fallen so agressively in love with flickered over the things that he had spread out over the counter. The little furrow around his mouth and between his brows became more prominent as he began to scheme about what his next step would be, “Can it wait until we get back down here or are you running out of time?”

“This can rise for a bit longer,” Jesper explained. He removed the towel from over the top of the bread to examine it. He hadn’t done it as well as his mother would have, so extra proving in the warmth of the kitchen would only serve to make it better.

Kaz gave a nod and then immediately turned around. The sound of his cane hitting the floor with his uneven gate echoed down the hall as he neared the staircase. By the time that he had gotten to the second floor, Jesper wasn’t able to hear him whatsoever. His body was buzzing with more energy than normal, which was making it incredibly hard to be patient. He tried to focus by pulling out honeys, jams, and whatever else he could think of that they would need for bread making and eating.

His mind had thoroughly convinced him that the others were upstairs complaining or laughing about him by the time that they had all piled into the kitchen so that they could accompany him on his journey through a celebration he barely remembered. Everyone had dressed in the clothing that they wore when they were painting with Marya or working with Wylan out in the garden, something they could get dirty but still made them all look so wonderful.

Jesper got everyone started on their recipe and then taught them the words to the song that they needed to sing while they were kneading the dough while it was proofing. He wasn’t experienced enough as a Durast to actually get all of their bread to raise properly without also giving it some natural warmth to prove.

By the time that everyone had a bowl full of dough in time for kneading, they were ready. Jesper showed them how to dump it out onto the floured counters and then how they were supposed to knead it. His voice was the first to call out to their kitchen, echoing over the sound of the bread in his hands and the fire in the hearth.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear

For Auld Lang Syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

Once he got to the next verse, Matthias and Nina had joined him. He couldn’t help the smile that began to stretch across his face, despite the saddening memories of his mother popping up in his mind, when he noticed that Nina was somehow out of key. Wylan was singing much slower than them but sped up once he got the hang of kneading the dough to the tune they were singing. Inej was a soprano, lovely and chipper as she sang in time with the others. Kaz was the last to start but when he finally did, they were all aware of the deep notes mixing amongst theirs.

For Auld Lang Syne

And here's the hand, my trusty friend

And gives a hand o'thine

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

For Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear

For Auld Lang Syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

For Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear

The chorus repeated again and again while they kneaded their dough to perfection. Jesper was glad that they lived in a house that was made to host huge, wonderful parties because that meant that they had plenty of tins for the bread to go in. He tucked each loaf into the oven so that it could bake until it was perfect.

The waiting had always been the worst part for him, when he had been unable to sit and listen to someone whatsoever instead of just struggling with it quite a lot. It was far easier when he was in the company of his companions and he knew that they were wasting one of the days that they could have been using to take down slavers for him.

None of them appeared to mind on the outside, especially Inej. They all told stories about the members of their mother’s families, at least what they remembered. Jesper talked about his mother and when his father had caught her mending his shirts with her powers. She would put her hands on her hips and suddenly feel as big as the house even if she was substantially shorter than Colm. He would fluster and babble in multiple languages until he finally managed to admit that he was still worried that people from his home country would find her and kill her for her blood. He talked about the time that she had accidentally added salt to their jam instead of sugar and the recipes that she had made to correct that mistake, foods he still craved but would never get. Finally, he told the story of how she died. He had never told his spouses about that before and it felt so freeing to finally have her heroic dead in the minds of the people that he cherished. His mother was a wonderful woman and deserved to be known by the people he had picked to spend the rest of his life with.

Kaz spoke about his mother as well. He told them the story of how she brought chickens into their home when he was three because she was afraid of them getting hurt by the rooster from the neighbors farm. He spoke about how she sang when she cooked and how that was the only sound his father would tolerate in the house. He didn’t talk about how she had died or when, he didn’t have to. They could all tell he barely had any memories of his mother left and was grieving that fact rather intensely.

Inej talked about her grandmother, who had passed when she was ten. She told them all about the difference in how her mother and grandmother made bread in the fire, and how they would always argue about it. She talked about the kinds of stories that she was told by aunts and grandfathers on that side of the family, how they regailed her with the tail of her parent’s romance and the saints whneever she wanted them to.

Wylan stayed quiet throughout the entire process. His mother was still very much alive and he had barely known his grandparents from her side. It wasn’t common for the Kerch to have extended families that they were close to because each of the children was expected to make their own way in the world without their parents to guide them.

Matthias talked the most, even though he had already told them about his family the night before. He spoke less than Jesper, somehow. He told them about how he helped take care of his little sister whenever he was asked, how the aunties in his village would pinch at his cheeks and pull his hair when they were braiding it, and what his mother would make him eat whenever he was sick.

Nina talked about the mother that she had barely gotten to know. She told them the only memory that she had, of her mother singing to her when she had the flu. She had gotten her voice from her father apparently, because the sound she remembered from the woman that had carried her was one of the best she had ever known. She also talked about some of the teachers that she had at the Little Palace before the Darkling had killed them all during the civil war. She spoke about the woman who had eagerly taught her every language that she could now speak, the woman that had taught her how to fight when her hands were bound, and the woman that had first braided her hair for her. They technically weren’t on the maternal side of her family but it was close enough given the high orphaning rates of Ravkan children.

The bread finished baking and Jesper pulled it out so that it could cool. They could barely wait to cut each of the loaves open and then dig into the soft flesh, dipped into butter, honey, and jam so that it accentuated the things that they had put inside of it. Jesper knew that his mother would never come back, she had log since moved on, but when he was doing things like this with people that he loved, he had never felt closer to her.

---

Inej: Carol of the Bells

Inej would have never called herself lazy, but she had always struggled to rise in the morning. She knew that it came with being a performer, because usually her act was towards the middle of the show and that was late into the evening. That had changed so that she rose even later in the day after she had started working for the Dregs. She would stay up night after night while staking something out for Kaz or while crawling around for secrets. She had to completely flip the other way when she got her ship. A captain had to be up with the rest of her crew and she refused to be known as one of the leaders that thought she was too good for the people that she hired. She rose with them and that meant that she was up with the sun, as soon as there was light to see what they were doing without the flickering of lanterns.

She had been with her partners for the duration of the winter so that she could give her crew some time off, but she barely worked with the Dregs any longer. She was the one that busted down the door and made the Fear of the Saints strike deep into the hearts of the men that they were terrorizing. She wasn’t the one that had to sit and watch the building for days on end so that they knew when their target would be coming and going. She had preserved her sleep schedule for the first time since she had started using The Wraith to hunt down slaving ships.

That had the unfortunate consequence of meaning that she was up lateer than the rest of her partners were. Wylan and Jesper had to be up for business and Council stuff, which meant that they would join her about an hour to an hour and a half after she had risen herself. Matthias was also still a soldier since he had been trained that way for the majority of his life, and he would wake with her sometimes. The others were trying to convince him that he could rest and enjoy himself when he didn’t want to wake quite yet, though.

Inej was alone in the mornings, but that was okay. She didn’t feel completely hollow and abandoned when she was alone, away from the people that she loved and trusted, anymore. She felt at peace with her saints and the world around her when she was on her own.

So she slipped from the bed and wrapped herself up in Nina’s shawl. The other woman’s perfume and favored soap were still clinging to the garment, so it almost felt like her wife was beside her as she made her way out into the hall. She undid the ribbon at the bottom of her braid and then began to run her free hand through her hair so that she could undo the snarls that had formed there while she was sleeping.

Her bare feet hit the stones before she had even realized that she had walked outside. She was used to winters that were so harsh that one couldn’t see their hand in front of their face even next to the coast. She had adjusted to the Kerch winters as well, drizzling wet with optional snow and clouded skies. The season that she had just spent with her spouses was colder than the others had been, but not more than the late fall air on the sea near Fjerda.

She kept her feet carefully on the slippery stones that led the path through the garden so that she wouldn’t have to clean them when she came inside. She knew that Wylan paid the staff that kept their house very well and would never have an indenture, so the people that worked for him like doing so, but she couldn’t help but feel bad when she made more work for them to do.

Inej hummed softly to herself as her toes adjusted to the nip of the early morning air compared to the stuffiness of the house. She walked further into the garden before her eyes spied something that had not been there when she had walked it with Jesper the day before. She crouched down beside a raised garden and then brushed her fingers over the bud of the flower to make sure that she could feel the silkiness of petals instead of the waxiness of leaves.

Joy threaded through her system as she turned back towards the house and nearly ran up the stairs to her bedroom. She shed her clothing after she had delicatly placed Nina’s shawl down onto her bed. She knew how precious that garment was to her wife and she would sooner throw herself from The Wraith’s crows nest than hurt it in her carelessness. As soon as she was bare, she wiped her body off with a bit of water and a cloth to feel fresh after her sleep. She then donned her outfit for the day, a flowing white chemise topped with a scarlet skirt.

She couldn’t wait until she had finished with her braid as she stepepd out of her room and headed towards the master bedroom where the rest of her partners would still be sleeping. When she got to the doorway, she saw that they had risen from slumber but were still safely under the nest of blankets on the bed.

“Kaz, how do you feel about touching today?” Inej asked. She had just finished wrapping a ribbon around the bottom of her hair so that it was stuck in place. She usually wore the silver or red that Kaz and Nina had given her respectively. Given what she had just seen in the garden, she had chosen to go for something blue instead.

“That’s an odd question before seven bells,” Kaz yawned as he rolled over. “I think that I can handle anything other than penetration today. Why?”

“I saw a flower bud. This winter has been a lot closer to the ones that I used to get in Ravka and since we had more celebrations than we usually did, I figured that we could also celebrate one from my culture,” she beamed. She gave a final tug to the ribbon in her hair and then clambered up onto the bed so that she was sitting in front of all of her partners, near-black eyes flitting over them expectantly.

Nina was always the slowest to rise, despite also being a soldier like Matthias. Hearing about another culture that she could learn about was enough to get her to actually wake. She shifted on the bed and then threw her legs over Matthias’ lap so that she was spread out like some kind of divine goddess. “They didn’t teach us all that much about Suli culture when I was at the Little Palace. What kind of winter holidays do you have?”

“We don’t have winter holidays. They’re considered to be frivolous because we have so little to hold us over,” she explained. “Only so much dry cheese and salted meat can fit on each wagon and we’re stuck in one place unless we end up on the coast, which happens very rarely. We instead celebrate the coming of spring with a dance and a song. I want to teach it to you.”

“I can’t dance,” Kaz rasped almost as soon as the words had left her mouth.

She thought for a moment that he was just denying her because they so often butted heads about the things that she had brought with her from her homeland. Then she saw that his ungloved hand was flickering down towards his bad knee and realized that he was being honest. He really couldn’t dance the bouncy festival dance that she had in her mind. She still wanted to perform it and it would be awkward with only five instead of six, but she would find a way to include him. “Well, you can single, can’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he nodded. “But I don’t want to mess it up because I have a limp.”

“Plenty of people sat out on the dancing because they had slipped or were feeling achy or had two left feet,” she shrugged easily. She had to sit out one year when she was seven because she had a massive gash on her leg from an icicle she wasn’t meant to be playing with. “As long as you’re participating, I don’t think that the Saints care how.”

“Can we have breakfast first?” Jesper whined, trying to burrow himself further under the covers. She thought that it was adorable that her husband rose with the sun at all times, which meant that in the winter he usually woke up around nine bells at the earliest.

Inej laughed and then squirmed off of the bed. The staff would be in later that day to make them dinner and clean the estate, but they were on their own for breakfast. Nina squirmed away from Matthias and hurried after their wife so that she could have a say about what they would eat.

The rest of the morning was spent as it always was. Eventually, everyone got up and got dressed. Inej noticed with no little amount of joy that they had all picked out outfits that were similar to the one that she was wearing. Nina was always dressed in something grand and beautiful since she had never been allowed to do that when she had been back with the Second Army. This time it was a lovely green dress with a sweeping neckline and massive angle wing sleeves. Wylan had a sky blue shirt one, which matched with the pants that Matthias had chosen. Jesper was wearing the toned down version of his Barrel flash that he now used for when he was going to meetings with Wylan. Even Kaz had put on something cream colored instead of his usual white shirt.

Once they had finished with their breakfast, Ine nearly dragged her partners out to the widest part of the garden where they could actually have their dance. She helped Kaz down to the ground so that his knee would be soothed and they could get on with everything.

She spent the next hour giggling and stepping on people’s toes as they went in the wrong direction or missed something. She found out that she was not the best teacher in the world, but she was far more patient than her mother and siblings had been. Once she had the steps of the dance down, she taught them some of the lyrics of the song. She knew them in both Suli and Ravkan.

According to her father, back when the Suli were still considered to be a welcomed part of the community for the roads that they traveled, the Ravkan townspeople would come and sing along with them. That had changed when the winters got harsher and the Suli were more and more often trapped in Shu Han or in the stranded edges of the road where no one else lived. Typically, some of her cousins that had Ravkan blood would sing the song in the other language so that they could get in trouble from the aunties that didn’t like it. They only did that so they could sit next to the tent with the food and steal from it when everyone was dancing.

Hark! Hear the bells, sweet silver bells,

All seem to say, ding dong.

Spring soon is here, bringing good cheer,

To young and old, meek and the bold.

Ding-dong-ding-dong, that is their song,

With joyful ring, all caroling

She knew that the beginning was going to be awkward because everyone was going to be trying to match the song up with the dance. She made sure to slow the tempo down since the song only got faster. It was supposed to be a game of sorts, swirling and whirling around the room while singing as quickly as possible. The faster the song, the faster spring would come.

Inej was aware of where her partners were at all times so that she could guide them through more difficult parts of the dance. She felt lighter on her feet and her soul than she had been in a long time, even when she was onboard her ship.

One seems to hear, words of the cheer

From everywhere, filling the air,

Oh, how they pound, raising the sound

O’r here and there, telling their tale

Gaily they ring, while People sing

Songs of the cheer, Spring soon is here

On, on they send, on without end

Their joyful tone, to every home

Jesper had just grabbed her hand so that he could spin her. She made sure that she placed her feet on top of his shoes so that she could avoid being stepped on. He had been trying his best the entire time that they were working together, but he was big and awkward when he was doing something other than shooting his gun.

When she whirled around and came to a stop for the end of the verse, she saw that Kaz was also singing. She had suspected that he as going to sit there sullenly, while assuring her that he did sing. She was overjoyed to know that he was learning what really meant something to her after so long of them butting heads over this.

Hark! Hear the bells, sweet silver bells

All seem to say, ding dong,

On, on they send, on without end

Their joyful tone, to every home.

Ding-dong-ding-dong

She ended the song in Wylan’s arms and Jesper was being held by Matthias. Nina had dramatically wrapped her arms around her own body to show that she was dancing even though she had ended up without a partner. They all looked at each other, faces red with exertion and chests heaving from the physicality of it all. It only took another second or two before they all ended up bursting into laughter.

It was all just as it had been back when she was home. She had never been the one to spot the first bud when she was a child, but she was with her new family. She was two women, two girls, two people. She had her family back in Ravka that moved and spoke the language that she thought in. But she was also the wife to the five most dangerous people in Ketterdam. She had never thought that those two worlds would join, but she was overjoyed about being wrong for the first time in her life.

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