#kotlc chanukah week

[songgbird]

KOTLC Hanukkah Week: Found Family (Prompt 1)

Whoa, an actual post from me :0 anyways, I thought I’d take part in the KOTLC Hanukkah Week! Today’s prompt, found family, was written in collaboration with @confuzzled-fox! TW: Fire

“Careful,” Sophie cautioned, a bit on edge watching Marella poke at a candle. “I don’t want to set anything on fire.”

   “But setting things on fire is fun,” Marella replied, grinning. Keefe, beside Sophie, nodded in mock-solemnity.

   “I thought we were trying to set things on fire,” Tam chimed in, head tilted. “Isn’t that what Marella’s supposed to do?”

   “True, but we can’t really have Chanukah with a burnt-down house,” Sophie answered, directing a pointed glare at Marella (who was now poking more aggressively at the blue candle).

   “You’re no fun,” Keefe said. Marella made a noise in agreement. Dex, who was sitting beside Fitz, snorted.

   “Stop ganging up on Sophie.” Biana narrowed aer eyes at Keefe and aer girlfriend. Ae was probably the only one aside from Sophie who was taking the current events somewhat seriously—even Fitz, ever proper, was nearly laughing aloud.

   “Thank you, Bee,” Sophie said, smiling softly.

   Finally, Marella snapped, her pointer finger catching on fire. She held it above the shamas’s wick, and the string caught. Fortunately, Marella let the flame on her finger flicker out without setting anything else ablaze.

   The group stayed quiet for a moment, watching the wax drip down the sides of the candle. Then Marella stepped back and nudged Linh, who perked up at the touch. They stepped forward, uncertain, and grabbed the shamas. Quickly, trying not to let the dripping wax fall onto their fingers, they turned it sideways. The rest of the group—sans Tam, as he had voiced his concern (more complained than anything else) about the singing portion of the tradition earlier—started to chant the familiar prayer as Linh moved the candle to one side of the candelabra.

   Linh maneuvered the shamas to the singular unlit candle and held it there until the latter caught fire. They then returned the first candle to its former position in the middle of the menorah. They looked relieved—presumably from not setting any of their fingers on fire. After all, this was the first time they’d done this, as far as Sophie knew. The twins had told her that their family hadn’t been very religious at all, and she knew for a fact that Channukah hadn’t been much of a popular elven holiday (no holiday was, for that matter) before she’d started celebrating it in the Lost Cities.

   “Nice job,” Tam congratulated his sibling. They smiled and lowered their gaze to the floor, embarrassed.

   “You did great!” Marella added, slinging an arm around Linh. Biana nodded, smiling as well, and put aer hand on Linh’s shoulder. The rest of them chimed in with their appraisal. Linh shrugged and hummed an acceptance of the praise, pushing their long silver bangs out of their eyes. Their wide grin told the group how happy they were with their accomplishment.

   “Now can we open presents?” Dex asked hopefully.

   “Presents?” Keefe parroted, looking at Sophie eagerly.

   “Okay,” she responded, laughter evident in her tone. “We can open presents now.”

   “Yes!” Dex rushed out of the room, ready to grab xyr presents.

   The others followed xem out, leaving only Sophie, Tam, and Linh. Sophie smiled at Linh. “You did great,” she said, voice soft.

   “Thanks,” Linh answered, the one-word reply containing all the emotions they couldn’t say out loud. Dex and Keefe yelled for the three to head into the neighboring room, and so they did.

#kotlc hanukkah week #kotlc #fanfiction #sophie foster #tam song #linh song #biana vacker #fitz vacker #dex dizznee #marella redek #keefe sencen #fire tw

[gay-otlc]

A Little Bit Of Love, And A Whole Lot Of Trust

Day 1 of KOTLC Hanukkah week: Found family

Summary: Linh celebrated Hanukkah before fae got banished, Marella celebrated before chais mom... and Maruca's family never really celebrated. Stina is determined to give those three a good Chanukah.

Content warnings: Cursing, religion

Tagging: @tiergan-andrin-alenefar, @everblaeze-and-balefire, @if-only-wishes-were-answered I think asked to be tagged?

AO3

Linh hadn't celebrated Hanukkah since getting banished, and even before, it wasn't all that fun with faer parents. Tam had made it kind of fun, playing dreidal and eating too much gelt, but it still wasn't great. And now, Tam wouldn't even be celebrating with faer- the two were still arguing.

Calm, fae ordered faerself, because fae was training and did not want to dump water on Stina. Again.

But Hanukkah, Linh missed that.

"Celebrate at my house," Stina offered, when fae complained to her. "Ever since I came out to my parents as lesbian, they've been bugging me to find a nice Jewish girl."

Fae grinned. "Technically, I am all of those things. Thanks, I'll come. over."

"Cool! What do you like your latkes with?"

"Um... applesauce?"

They nodded sagely. "Acceptable. I'll see you this evening?"

"See you then!" And fae allowed faerself to hope that maybe this Hanukkah would be fun, with faer girlfriend... or whatever the hell they were. Still, fae was looking forward to it.

---

Marella celebrated Chanukkah a lot as a kid, but after chais mom... um. After. The family never seemed to be as festive.

Chais mom was never in a good state for eight nights in a row. Maybe four nights, tops, of lighting the menorah and singing the prayers and having family fun. And then chai and chais dad would try to celebrate, but it was never really family fun if the family was splintered. All it really did was make chaim more aware of the missing piece.

So chai never really celebrated with the family. Sometimes, Marella would light the menorah chaimself, but after chai manifested... chai always worried about setting the whole house on fire. Shit, pyrokinesis just had to ruin everything, didn't it?

Chai liked Chanukkah, chai did. It was just... hard, at chais house.

"Then celebrate at someone else's house," Linh suggested. "Stina invited me over- I can ask them if you can come too."

"Um, that would be nice, yeah."

"I'll call you right back," Linh said, hanging up on the imparter. And indeed fae did. "She said yes! We'll see you this evening."

"Awesome, thanks!" Hell yeah, I can't wait.

---

Maruca never really celebrated Hannukah- hir family wasn't that religious, no matter how much ze wished they were. The Chebotas were High Holidays Jews, if that. But ze had been gradually making Jewish friends, from Biana to hir three... girlfriends? Crushes? Besties? Ze honestly had no idea what the hell they were. They were just... them.

Still, the Jewish friends made hir feel connected to Judaism, for the first time... ever. Ze thought ze would die of joy when Linh made Hamentaschen and gave hir one last Purim.

And ze went to Biana's b'nae mitzvah, and ae looked so at home reading from the Torah. And ze didn't know any of the prayers, so that was really embarrassing for hir, but despite that, ze also felt... kind of at home.

But ze didn't really know how to bring that up to hir parents, that ze wanted to be more religious. So maybe ze would have to celebrate Hannukah with hir three favorite Jews.

"Stina, can I celebrate Hannukah with you and your family? I need some fucking latkes." Also, I need you guys, but that's embarrassing.

"Wow, am I suddenly popular or something? Marella and Linh are coming over too. Anyway, yeah, come over whenever. Chag sameach."

Maruca had no clue what that meant, but maybe ze would find out?

---

When Stina's parents asked her to bring home a nice Jewish girl, three of them was probably not the expectation. Still, they loved all three occasionally nice, Jewish, sort-of girls, and she was totally excited to celebrate with them all.

It did not live up to expectations. They lit the candles, and sang the prayers, but mostly she was focused on their friend's reactions.

Linh looked sad, probably missing faer brother. (Stina totally wanted to slap both of them, but irrelevant.)

Marella had been taking tiny steps back from the candles the whole time, stuffing chais hands behind chais back. In Stina's time training with chaim, chai had definitely gotten better around fire, but it apparently still made chaim nervous.

Maruca just looked completely baffled. Ze was trying to mumble along to the prayers, which was totally adorable, but ze clearly had no clue what ze was doing.

None of them looked sufficiently overjoyed at the latkes. That was a big fucking problem, and Stina was determined to fix this. She invited them over for the next night of Chanukah. And the next. All eight.

By the eighth, Linh had called faer brother to wish void "chag sameach," which was definitely progress. Marella lit the candles chaimself and brought chais parents- including chais mother- over so the adults could all gush about how cute the four were. Maruca sang the prayers confidently.

Chanukah with their parents was fun. Stina found it infinitely better with her whole family.

#title is a lyric from identify by the maine lmao #i like it bc of the trust line since their short story was trust issues #but they love and trust each other 🧡 #anyway #that one polycule #we need a tag for them don't we #maruca/marella/linh/stina #kotlc #kotlc hanukkah week

[gay-otlc]

What do I tag the KotLC Chanukah Week stuff?

I've been tagging it "kotlc hanukkah week" but it probably works with any spelling??? Also please tag me in whatever you create that makes it most likely that I'll see

#kotlc hanukkah week