Chapter Text
Nina had always loved the Christmas season in Ketterdam, even though Kaz reminded her at every turn that it wasn’t like her Ravkan holidays. No, when you lived in Kerch, every ‘holiday’ was still in service of Ghezen, and though the twinkling lights scattered throughout the city were Nina’s favourite part of the winter after the Feast of Sankt Nikolai, she was all too aware that business still reigned supreme in this city.
Still, when given the opportunity to walk along the embankments under the lights for Matthias’s first winter in Kerch, she’d jumped at the chance. They’d stopped at a vendor’s booth near their apartment that was selling warm spiced wine, and the alcohol, combined with Matthias’s arm curled around her shoulders, pressing her into the side of his body, had kept the chill away from her bones. Thankfully, the presence of the ocean typically held most of the extreme weather at bay, so they didn’t have any snow to contend with, but the wind off the canals still managed to be harsh and unyielding if you weren’t careful.
Now, as they finally reached the main road, hundreds of sparkling lights were strung every which way, from lamppost to lamppost, across and around the walkways, illuminating every inch of the paths.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Nina sighed, the heat from her breath steaming as it came into contact with the cold air around them.
“Yes,” Matthias replied, his hair shining positively golden under all the lights. “It reminds me of Tustärjna,”
Nina turned to look up at him, furrowing her brow. “Tustärjna? I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s an old tradition. Most don’t practice it anymore, but my grandmother does, every year,” Matthias said simply. “She would light candles every night for a week, and place them in the windows to beckon good spirits to the household. Then she would make food to place on the doorstep as an offering, and we would recite prayers before bed, and on the last night, all the lights in the house were darkened, and we would watch as the stars appeared in the night sky, and if we were lucky, Djel would send a snowfall, accepting our offerings and prayers, and the good spirits would remain with us until the new year.”
“And if he didn’t?”
Matthias smiled wryly. “It was Fjerda, Nina, darling. There was always a snowfall.”
And so, a few weeks later when the Christmas season was over and the new year was fast approaching, Nina announced that they would be celebrating Tustärjna that year. Their lights remained in the windows instead of candles, and on more than one occasion they’d forgotten about the offerings left on their porch, and Trassel managed to treat himself to a second dinner, and most nights Nina forgot at least part of the prayers, but they were happy to do so. On the final night, they huddled together on their couch, both watching as the stars slowly winked into existence as best they could over the brilliantly lit city.
“Happy Tustärjna, Nina,” Matthias whispered into the night sky.
“Happy Tustärjna, Matthias.”
The next morning when they awoke, they would open their eyes to see a truly miraculous sight. For the first time in decades, snow had fallen upon Kerch.