Chapter Text
It all started when the first snowflake fell.
It was not unusual for the winter to bring colder weather, even in Sumeru. This time around, however, the temperature dropped drastically within only a few days, catching most people by surprise.
Today, on the first day of the last month in the year, the fall in temperature seemed to slow down. It was slightly above the freezing point. The vast majority of the nation’s inhabitants were displeased with this, and so they stayed inside.
As the mortals kept to their homes, so did two divine beings stay in the comfortable warmth of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
The Wanderer sat with Lesser Lord Kusanali on the floor of one of the rooms of the Sanctuary of Surasthana (repurposed as a living room after her rise to power), surrounded by pillows and blankets. (This was obviously not the Wanderer’s idea)
In Lesser Lord Kusanali’s lap lay Princess, the cat that the Wanderer had brought home to her a few months ago. He was purring loudly, and Lesser Lord Kusanali smiled.
The Wanderer was busy with a needle and thread, mending the cat’s toy. It was only a few days since he had made it, and it had already been ripped open…
The Wanderer looked up when Lesser Lord Kusanali sighed. “I like it here, but I want to be outside… What’s a god of nature without the nature?”
“You’ll catch a cold.”
“You don’t know that I will!”
“You don’t know that you won’t.”
The little god pouted. “But it’s all new experiences! I’ve never felt this kind of cold before!”
“Which is exactly why you won’t be used to it.” The Wanderer crossed his arms.
She opened her mouth to say something to that, but then, she looked at the direction of the window. Suddenly, she gasped, her eyes wide as saucers.
The Wanderer whirled around, ready to face any danger she might have seen—
…White. Everything was white.
They both approached the window and looked out. It was snowing. A lot. Enough for it to look like the entire nation was already covered in it.
…Well, nothing special. Time to get back to sewing—
“Wow… this is incredible!”
The Wanderer looked down at Lesser Lord Kusanali, who now had a big smile on her face. “…It’s just snow.”
“It’s beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like it before!”
The Wanderer frowned. He had personally never seen snow in Sumeru before, either, and the Archon had never been outside of the nation. Up until a few years ago… she’d never even been outside of the Sanctuary. Could he really keep her cooped up inside, just to keep away a little cold?
He did not have time to decide, because Lesser Lord Kusanali was already on her way out the door.
“Hey—Hold on!” the Wanderer hurried out after her.
“Aw…” was the first thing he heard from her as he stepped outside. “The canopy of the Divine Tree is blocking the snow from falling on the space outside…”
The Wanderer sighed. “That’s too bad. I don’t understand why you wanted to come out here. You can see the snow perfectly fine from the windows inside.”
“I wanted to touch it! I want to know how it feels! Huh, the ground is very cold…”
“Lesser Lord Kusanali, you’re not even wearing shoes!”
In a somewhat rare display of absolute childishness, Lesser Lord Kusanali put her tiny hands at her hips and said, “I will find some snow! I won’t go inside before I’ve felt it!”
The Wanderer groaned. “Five hundred going on five… fine. You stay here, and I’ll fetch some snow for you. You’re not walking in it with bare feet.”
She gave him a bright smile. “I’ll stay right here! Thank you, Wanderer!”
The Wanderer rolled his eyes and flew off immediately.
Not interested in meeting anyone in the street, he flew away from the city, to the island on the other side of the western bridge. As soon as he landed, he crouched down and picked up as much snow as he could hold in his hands, and then he flew off again. Fast as he was, had his hands been naturally warm, the snow would have melted before he could reach the Sanctuary. Fortunately, they weren’t. He supposed his inhumanity did have its perks, sometimes.
A few minutes (at most) after he had set out, he returned to where Lesser Lord Kusanali stood. It seemed as if she had been staring at the snowfall since he left, but she clapped her little hands when she saw him coming.
The Wanderer held out the snow towards her, and she eagerly reached over to touch it. At first, she just poked at it with a finger, retracting it again at the cold sensation. Then, she took some of it into her hands, squeezing it and gasping in wonder as it stuck together.
“It compresses unlike anything I’ve felt before! I understand now the things I’ve read about it! There really are endless possibilities with this substance!”
“None of which are very useful outside of childish play…” the Wanderer muttered.
“Play is also useful!” Lesser Lord Kusanali protested. “It’s important for one’s health to have fun sometimes! That applies to everyone, including both me and you!”
The Wanderer rolled his eyes. “Well, you have now touched the snow. Let’s go inside.”
“But now I want to play in the snow!”
Seriously?
Before he could either argue or simply drag her inside, he heard footsteps approaching from below the platform outside the Sanctuary, and he quickly threw the snow in his hands to the ground and brushed his hands off against his shorts.
His Archon looked confused, but just as she was about to question him, a horribly high-pitched voice came from behind him, “Nahida! And Wanderer…” the difference in enthusiasm for the two of them made the Wanderer scoff as he turned around.
The voice had, as he had already guessed, come from the Traveller’s obnoxious fairy companion, flying along next to the Traveller himself.
The blond outlander held up a hand in greeting. “We saw you flying towards the Sanctuary, so we thought we’d say hi.”
Lesser Lord Kusanali smiled at them. “Traveller, Paimon, hello! Isn’t all this snow wonderful?”
The fairy nodded wildly. “It is! It doesn’t snow often in Sumeru, does it?”
“It doesn’t. I’ve never experienced it before! I barely even know what to do with it,” the little god laughed.
The Wanderer noticed that the Traveller was silent. He wasn’t usually all that talkative, but he seemed to be contemplating something.
“Anything to add, hero?”
The Traveller looked up and seemed to make up his mind. He nodded. “The snow reminded me of something. In another world I once visited, there’s a holiday centred around the last month of the year, until either the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day. It’s a bit hard to explain… It’s technically a religious holiday, but a lot of people celebrate it even if they don’t believe…”
“Believe?” the Wanderer questioned.
“Ah, right, in that world, there uhh… isn’t actually any concrete proof of the existence of any gods. This particular religion seems to base most of their belief on a book describing their god’s apparent actions.”
“…So they worship a god who may very well not exist?”
“Well, for a lot of that world’s population, it’s more important for them to have something to believe in than to be able to prove it. The thought of something larger than themselves is comforting to them. They also don’t seem to have any magic in their world;
maybe they wish they did.”
“They sound miserable.”
Lesser Lord Kusanali shook her head. “Actually, it sounds like they have found a useful way to deal with the aspects in which their world lacks. And if they have no magic, then they must also be safe from monsters and the Abyss, right?”
The Traveller grimaced then. “Well, yes… They make up for it with nuclear bombs and drones, though…”
“…Ah.”
The Wanderer raised an eyebrow. “Nuclear bombs?”
“Hm… think of a special bomb strong enough to possibly reduce an entire Inazuman island to ruins… Actually, I think they did do that to an area that looks a bit like Inazuma… twice…”
“They were blessed with the lack of magic to mess their world up… so they chose to invent weapons to mess it up anyway.”
“They kept threatening each other with them, too… Anyway! They did have at least one good thing, though: Christmas! People would decorate their houses with lights and different decorations, listen to Christmas music, eat festive food, and just generally enjoy themselves. Oh, and snow was also a very big part of the festive mood. It helped them momentarily forget the bad things in their world.”
Lesser Lord Kusanali’s eyes were practically glowing. “Even without much detail, that sounds so fun!”
“Yeah!” the fairy piped up. “Traveller, how come you’ve never told Paimon about this?”
“I had honestly forgotten until now…”
Lesser Lord Kusanali clapped her hands together. “I want to know more! What kinds of food did they eat? What activities did they do?”
The Traveller thought about it for a while, then smiled. “I’ll make a list for you! It’ll take a few days, but then I promise I’ll have a list of Christmas traditions for you to study. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the music very well…”
“That’s fine! Thank you so much, Traveller! I can’t wait to learn more about this ‘Christmas’!”
“Then I’ll get to it! Come on, Paimon, let’s get back to our room!”
“Oh, okay! It was nice talking to you, Nahida!”
“And you too, Wanderer,” added the Traveller, and the Wanderer rolled his eyes.
Once they were gone, Lesser Lord Kusanali turned to him again expectantly.
The Wanderer crossed his arms. “We’re going inside. We may not be standing in the snow, but it’s still too cold to be outside without the proper clothes. Don’t even try to hide the fact that you’re freezing.”
“Aw…”