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feverinfeveroutfic · 5 months

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hanukkahbingo 2023

Fic or Art/Graphic Title: alone in the dark, chapter three: “Without a Paddle” Author/Artist Name: josiebelladonna Fandom: Testament (Band) Jewish or Jew-Ish Character(s): Alex Skolnick (and how) Bingo Squares Being Filled: latkes (u1), dreidel (h1), miracle (h1), "a great miracle happened there" (u5), debate (h5) Rating: Mature Warning(s): Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings Link to Work: x @aimmyarrowshigh

Candles surrounded me and Christine as we took our seats at the table next to Wendy and her grandparents; things were so cold in that house that they let the bags of groceries rest on the kitchen floor behind them, including the bag with the frozen food. I had a hunch that things were going to be rather awkward, given the fact that I was still wearing my leather pants and the fact that Christine had just touched me and kissed me as if it was all going out of style. My face was still warm from her kisses, and because we had eaten at a restaurant before then, there was no way I could eat even more. But we hung out there at the kitchen table as her grandparents ate their dinner so they wouldn't be alone in the dark with all of this warm food. They had some of the pie as well as a whole roasted chicken that stayed fresh and warm in spite of the cold; they did in fact have a hot plate that worked on batteries, and thus, they were able to have mashed potatoes as well. I was eager to have some for the next day, given this blizzard was going to be with us for a while.

I knew it wasn't latkes, but I wasn't going to turn down warmed mashed potatoes and chicken for nothing, however. They also offered me and Wendy some freshly pressed cider, and Christine some sparkling cider given she wasn't old enough to drink yet.

Every so often, through the cold candlelight, she flashed a glimpse over at me as she took a sip of her sparkling cider. Even in the darkness, I could see the look in her eyes. She wanted another taste of the Skolnick.

“He's too old for you, honey,” her grandmother said with a straight face.

“That's what I told her!” Wendy declared. “Teenagers, Mom. You know how we were back then.”

“Oh, of course! We had our feelings then, and some things just never change.”

I took a sip of the fresh cider, which they had also bought from down in Carson City: apparently, it had been freshly squeezed in the grocery store, so it still had some small pieces of apple skin and some pulp inside. I liked a little pulp but the flavor knocked me right between the eyes once I took a sip; it was the kind of cider that came straight out from an orchard, too, so I had that rich flavor of the apples as well as a little hint of alcohol in there as well.

In fact, it came to me so strongly that I nearly choked once I swallowed it.

“Are you alright, son?” her grandfather asked me. “Is that cider too strong for you?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” I assured him with a quick shake of my head. “In fact, I would say that this cider is just right, actually.”

“How's the chicken, Grandpa?” Christine quipped right then.

“Oh, it's delicious. It'll be even better come the morning.”

“This kind of reminds me of all of the warm, humble food we eat at Hanukkah,” I noted. “I reckon the mashed potatoes are perfect, too.”

“We're sorry it's not latkes,” her grandmother told me with a shake of her head.

“Oh, no, it's okay! My family's not traditional with our Jewishness so... there are a lot of things that we don't do. We're a lot more easygoing with it all, but we still are who we are, though. We could make latkes tomorrow, though. Nice little taste of the diaspora once daybreak comes about.” I took another sip of cider and I could feel my belly starting to swell up from all the decadent food I had eaten. It was after Thanksgiving and nearly Hanukkah: I deserved an indulgence every now and again, even without my parents there with me.

“How do you make latkes?” Christine asked me.

“It's not hard at all,” I told her. “Have you ever had potato pancakes?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“They're a lot like that, except they also have some onion, an egg, and matzo meal in them. Or—” I turned my attention to her grandmother. “—baking powder if Bubbie doesn't have matzo meal in the house.” And she smiled as she took another bite of potatoes. “They don't sound like much but a couple of them fill me right up without even a second thought. We usually eat 'em with sour cream and applesauce, which always puts me to sleep after the fact.”

“When is Hanukkah, by the way?” her grandfather asked me.

“First night's on Monday when the sun goes down,” I replied. “I was hoping to get home to be with my parents because I missed Thanksgiving and all. I also don't have a lot of money, either. It was either get something to eat and be left out in the cold, or have a hotel room and nothing to eat.”

“So, it's a good thing that my daughter and granddaughter scooped you up out of the cold, eh?” He showed me a smile.

“Oh, absolutely! I'm happy as a clam, as it were. Had a nice big sandwich with some French fries and a cup of coffee.” I turned my attention over to Christine, who, for a brief moment, licked her lips at the sight of me. If only I could see inside of that mind of hers.

“We only have two guest rooms,” her grandmother joined in. “I just wonder where you're going to sleep.”

“I'll take the couch,” I offered.

“Oh, no, Alex, I'll take the couch,” Wendy promised me right then.

“No, no, no, Wendy, this is your parents' house, you should take a nice comfy bed. Besides, I've slept on plenty of couches before in my twenty six years, it's not that bad in my eyes.”

“It's not really all that comfortable, though,” she pointed. “It's one of those sofa beds.”

“I've slept on a few of those before,” I said. “As long as there's no bar right in my back, I'll do it.”

“Alex, you're our guest,” Wendy insisted. “I'll take the sofa bed, you take the guest room. It's only fair.”

I sighed through my nose and lowered my gaze to the glass of cider on my lap.

“Okay, I'll take it,” I said in a low voice, to which Christine giggled at me.

“He's a good boy,” I heard her grandmother say to Wendy right then.

“It wouldn't be Hanukkah without a little bit of witty bickering,” I declared as I downed another swig of cider, a much heartier drink that time around and to the point it nearly made me cough. But I got it down, and I ran my fingers through my hair and I stood to my feet, and I offered to take their empty plates over to the sink. Wendy was right: I was a guest in the house, and thus, I should act like one.

“What exactly do you do, son?” he asked me in a low voice as he stood up before me.

“I'm a musician,” I said as I held his plate in one hand. “I brought my guitar with me and everything. Starting from when I was about eleven years old to about three years ago, I played strictly rock n' roll and heavy metal. But now I've branched out into the jazz world.”

“You sound like a very diligent fellow,” he remarked, to which I shrugged my shoulders.

“It's just... what I do,” I told him. “My parents raised me to be focused on what I do. They were sort... begrudging, I'd say, about it. About towards my path to music, but they've actually been very supportive of me nonetheless, and especially the case when I moved over into jazz territory.” He set a hand on my shoulder out of comfort.

“Good job, young man,” he told me, and the amber candlelight danced over the lines in his face, especially the ones that lined his smile. I then took Christine's grandmother's plate to the sink, and I doubled back to Christine herself with the bottle of sparkling cider to find out if she wanted some more in her little glass cup.

“Unless you want a little burp-off in the next room,” she teased me.

“And it wouldn't be Hanukkah without some tomfoolery, either,” I added as I put the cork back into the mouth of the bottle.

“Tomfoolery, is that what you said?” her grandmother chuckled.

“Oh, yeah. My brother and I would always play and joke around right before dinner time or before we got the Hanukkah gelt on each night. We'd joke about each other's feet and whatnot. You know, typical brother stuff. Speaking of which, mind me intruding, but did you happen to get some chocolate while you were down in Carson City?”

“As a matter of fact, we did!” her grandfather proclaimed, and his face lit up at the sound of that. “And son, I promise you are not intruding. If you want something to eat, go ahead and get something to eat. You're a guest, but you're good company, though.”

I then offered to put away their groceries for them, especially the stuff that needed to go in the fridge and the freezer. While I was putting away a gallon of milk and some cream cheese, I caught a whiff of something at the corner of the bag, something pungent and sharp, and I had a hunch as to what it was as well.

“Phew, something in here stinks,” I told them.

“It's probably the cheese,” her grandmother said. “It's a wedge of blue cheese—once the power returns, I'll make us some cheese and bacon rolls. I will admit that it does in fact stink, but it's not—it's not that bad, though.”

“Bet it's not as bad as Alex's stinky feet, though, Grandma,” Christine cracked.

“Hey, my feet don't stink that bad!” I said, and I couldn't help but chuckle at that. It reminded me so much of my brother and me that I cursed myself for not calling him when I called my mom back at the airport.

Once I had put everything cold away, the bunch of us sat down at the table for a card game and a round of Monopoly before bed. It wasn't a gathering on the first night of Hanukkah where we were thankful to not have our throats slit over the course of the year, but at least I took it all to heart and I stayed snuggled down between Christine and her grandparents; her grandmother offered to give me a blanket given it was that cold in the kitchen, but I promised her I was feeling alright.

“I will take it to bed with me, though,” I assured her with a little smile. “I like cuddling down in bed, especially on a night like this.”

“And especially on a night when you're left up the creek without a paddle, either, I would assume,” she added.

“Oh, absolutely.”

I had completely lost track of time, but within time I was feeling ready for bed. I could hardly keep my eyes open once I had bought three houses and a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue over to Christine for two thousand big ones.

“I can't hardly do math right now,” I confessed to her with a yawn.

“I can't, either,” she said. “But that's all you got, two thousand?”

“Yeah.”

“Ooh, yeah, it's almost midnight,” Wendy told us. “Let's pick up again in the morning, and hopefully the snow will have stopped by then.”

But it didn't sound like it was going to slow up any time soon, however: if anything, by the sound of the howling winds outside as well as the pelting of the snow on the roof and the side of the house, it sounded as though it had just begun. Nevertheless, Christine showed me the second guest bedroom, a cozy little room with one of those beds that tucked up against a wall and the corner like that of a couch with a small desk and a spindly little chair, the back of which I draped my coat over.

“No idea why there's no closet in here,” she confessed to me. “But sometimes when it's Mom and me, she likes to have this room so I can have the one with the closet.”

“Kind of makes you wonder why your grandfather won't put one in,” I told her as I rubbed my hands together and pried my shoes off without using my hands.

“I remember him talking about it once,” she said. “But that was one time, though, and it was quite a while ago. It was also said in passing, so I don't really remember if he really said it or if I was just dreaming it.”

“I've heard of things like that,” I told her. “Kind of makes you wonder why your brain won't latch onto the whole thing because you never know what might be important down the line.”

“I don't really know, to be honest,” she absently replied, complete with a shake of her head. “It's like... a feeling that I want to remember but I don't really know how to access it again.”

I cocked my head to the side at the sound of that. Strange that a teenage kid would say that, especially after I had been told I was precocious as a teenage boy not too long ago. But there was something else there, something that lingered over her, and it wasn't the shadow from the darkness of the room left behind from her upright flashlight: it wasn't a literal shadow that swept over the crown of her head, but something else. I gazed into her eyes, hidden away with darkness, and yet I could see something in there.

“What?” she asked me.

“Something still haunts you,” I pointed out, and I waved a hand before my chest. “I can feel it, plus it bothers you, too. There's something in your bones, and you're afraid to say it aloud.”

“Alex, it's traumatic,” she said to me. “I'm also afraid of fully talking about it right now when there's no electricity at the moment. You know... Mom can overhear me. Sound travels in this house like you wouldn't believe. You think you have a moment of privacy but the walls are paper thin regardless of what you do.”

I was taken aback by that. I wondered what exactly she harbored away inside of herself such that Wendy couldn't even hear about it. There had to be a way: I glanced behind me to the side of the bed closest to the face of the wall. I lay down on the bed behind her with my back to the wall so we could be face to face with each other. She glanced back at me: through the dim light, I could see the bewildered look upon her face.

“What're you doing?” she demanded in a hushed voice.

“Come here,” I coaxed her in a soft whisper, softened even more by the pillow under my head and neck. She raised an eyebrow at me, much to my own confusion. “You kissed me, rubbed up against my leg, and practically gave me a handjob, I think you can lay down with me. Close the door, too.”

Christine then reached over and shut the door most of the way save for a small crack between it and the edge of the frame itself. She lay down right next to me so I could see the shape of her body against the pale light of the halogen flashlight, but the back of her head faced me instead.

“Face me, though,” I insisted, and I couldn't help but chuckle at that. She rolled over onto her other side so her face was right up by mine. The sight of her there before me brought some butterflies to the stomach as a side dish. I licked my lips as she rested her hands right between us: I thought back to that one time where my ex and I had a moment alone together, and I had thought about asking her to bed because I could feel something in between the two of us. But we never did head off anywhere with that feeling, however.

She always left me unfulfilled and I had no one to blame for it other than myself. But Christine came along like a little spider and injected her venom into me to uncover those hoary old feelings again, and there I was, face to face with her.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay? Okay what?”

“Tell me,” I begged to her. “Tell me everything.”

She swallowed. “I don't think I'm ready to talk about it with a complete stranger, though,” she confessed.

“Like I said, you've touched my body,” I assured her. “You've touched my body in this time period in which I feel so—so—ugly and undesirable. You came onto me and flirted with me. You expressed yourself towards me. You have shown me that I can be a safe place for you. Now... take your time. There's no rush to tell me. Whatever it is, I think I can face it as you have faced it yourself.”

She lowered her gaze to my body, and through the darkness and the shadows, I could make out the little smile on her face.

“Okay,” she finally whispered.

“Okay?” I raised my eyebrows at her. A part of me wanted to reach out and touch her, but I also had my worries. She had already touched me, but I wondered about the power of my own hand upon her. Silence fell over us like a blanket, as did a deep chill from the immense snow and frigid winds outside. Her smile disappeared as she closed her eyes. She resembled one of those little porcelain dolls that opened their eyes once they were perched into an upright position, even with the short little mop of red hair upon her head.

She then opened her eyes and locked them onto my own.

“I almost died,” she whispered back to me, to which I raised my eyebrows at her.

“You almost died?” I echoed her. The silence over us seemed to be heavier than it was a moment before. “How and also... may I ask when?”

“Two years ago, actually,” she replied; and it made a lot more sense as to why she insisted on not saying it aloud, and I was glad that I had suggested being face to face with one another. “It was right before I dyed my hair. I like to tell myself that I nearly died so I dyed my hair to remind myself of that. I was out here in Reno with my grandparents, and I was riding my bike up the street and a tree branch came down all of a sudden.” I gasped at that. “It landed on me, but luckily I was wearing my helmet, otherwise I don't think I would be here right now. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital with a bandage on my head. Grandma told me she noticed I hadn't come home yet so she went out looking for me and she saw the neighbors helping me off the street. She got my grandpa and they drove to the hospital with them. I was out cold for two days. The nurse told me I was lucky to be alive because my heart actually stopped for a full five minutes. I was pronounced clinically dead for five minutes and then I came back.”

“Wow,” I breathed. “What was it like?”

“You know, it's funny, I remember seeing this big bright light,” she recalled. “A bright light plus my ex's voice. I remember him telling me to come back home. And that's what I did.”

“You came back home,” I said.

“I came back home. And I decided to rid of the old me and bring forth a bit of polish on my part.”

“Wow. That's—that's incredible.” I could scarcely speak at that. “That almost feels like a miracle of sorts.”

“It kind of was a miracle,” she followed along with a nod of her head. “Grandpa tells me that we're Vikings and being tough and tenacious is in our blood. It's even more interesting when I say that they took a scan of me and they found no brain injuries on my part. There was the worry that I could have a stroke at some point because of it, but... it hasn't happened to me. And moreover, they never told my parents, either. They didn't want them to worry about me because they have plenty to worry about as is.” She shrugged her shoulders. “A tree fell on me and I survived.”

“I am... stunned,” I confessed to her with a shake of my head. “I am absolutely stunned, Christine. So the tree just collapsed?”

“Pretty much. According to my grandpa, it was an old tree that had broken apart in a few windstorms that winter. I had seen the branch hanging pretty low over the sidewalk prior to then but I assured myself that it was still intact. I was riding past and the first part of it fell off, and the next thing I knew, the whole thing was coming down on me. I didn't have enough time to whip back, either. The whole thing pretty much just rained down on me.”

She sat up next to me, and she reached for the flashlight on the nightstand. She clicked it on as she shifted around on the edge of the bed; I sat up behind her to check it out for myself. She lifted up the tail of her hair and shone the light down to show me a little scar about the size of a pea pod on the back of her neck.

“Oh, yeah, I see that,” I remarked; I ran my fingers over the surface of her skin to better feel the scar tissue there. “And this is what's left behind from it?” I asked her.

“Yes, and—” She gazed back at me with the flashlight pointed up to the ceiling. “—I had compressed two vertebrae in there, but the doctors were worried that I had broken my neck as well as my spinal cord from it because... you know. A two thousand pound tree fell on me. So, they did an emergency surgery to reattach the vertebrae. The cord was fine, hence why I was able to survive it, but... still. It just about broke my neck.”

“And your mom hasn't even seen the scar?” To which she shook her head.

“Like I said, she doesn't know anything about it, and if I'm honest, I'm a little bit afraid to tell her as well,” she confessed to me in a low voice. I cocked my head to the side for a better look into her eyes, as dark as the earth underneath the snow pack out there.

“What?” she asked me. “What're you looking at?”

“What's your last name, by the way?” I asked her.

“Peck.” She paused. “Why?”

I directed my gaze over to the window on the other side of the room. Careful not to do anything to upset the bed and make the floor boards squeak underneath us, I climbed off the bed and ambled across the carpet for a look out through the curtains. Darkness stayed firmly ensconsed over the neighborhood, but that didn't so much as damper my curiosity. I turned my attention back to her and the flashlight that shone up onto the ceiling overhead.

“So, tell me—where did the tree fall on you?” I asked her.

“Just right up the street here.” She gestured out the window, and I knew I was going to have to take a look once the weather lifted up again. “We'll be able to see it once we have some light outside—it was this big, hundred year old cottonwood tree and they had to cut the rest of it down and burn it all because of me. It's just a little stump about the width of the chair over here.”

I returned my attention to the blackness out there, and I closed my eyes. I was not a man of prayer by any means at all, but hearing her story and realizing what she had gone through then, and I could only wonder what else she had experienced in the last two years. I was a little afraid to find out, and as far as I knew, I had all night as well as the morning hours to crack the proverbial code that surrounded her.

“Nes gadol hayah sham,” I said in a near whisper.

“Come again?” she asked me, and I turned to her, and I could hardly contain my excitement as well.

“A great miracle happened there,” I breathed out.

“A great miracle?”

“Yeah. Your last name does come out of Britain but it's also somewhat of a Jewish last name, like I've heard it in junction with the Jewish world every so often. During Hanukkah, you know, we have the dreidel. On each side, you have Hebrew letters, and they spell out an acronym for the phrase nes gadol hayah sham. Or, rather: 'a great miracle happened there.' It actually refers to the Maccabees and their story of survival, but—” I clasped my hands onto her shoulders. “A great miracle happened up the street here. You survived something that would have killed you. You found the way out of the light and back down onto the earth where you should be right now.”

“That's beautiful,” she quipped. “Beautiful and... a little crazy, I might add?” I chuckled at that, but I was being serious. I ran my fingers through my hair, and I sauntered my way back to the bed to join her once again.

“So, that's all there is to it?” I asked her.

“Oh, no, there's plenty more to my story,” she assured me as she stood up before me. “But... I don't really know if you have the stomach for it, though.”

“I do, I do,” I assured her, and I fetched up a yawn right then. Or maybe it would have to wait until the morning. I had lay down on the bed next to her, and now I was ready to go to sleep.

“Go to bed, baby,” she encouraged me.

“Go to bed, baby, is that what you said?” I asked her, and she leaned into the side of my neck for a kiss. I curled my toes into the carpet at the feeling of her smooth skin against my own, and I knew the best way to deal with it all was to go to bed. She gently patted the side of my face.

“When you and I find another moment alone, we'll have another little chat,” she vowed to me. “In the meantime, I have to go to bed now.”

Before I could give her a little kiss good night, she gave me another one and ducked out of the guest room with nothing more than the flashlight at the helm. She left the door slightly ajar so I could feel the rush of the cold from the hallway. No way I was going to sleep like that, however; I closed it all the way, and then I took off my shirt, followed by my pants. I put on my pajama bottoms and climbed back into that bed: I kept the flashlight on the nightstand all the while. Silence blanketed the house, silence except for the winds.

I thought about the camera in the other guest bedroom and I thought about all the jokes she had made towards me. All the little kisses. The way that she rubbed up against me while I wore leather pants.

She may have been seventeen but she tapped into me as if she had been so intimate with me all this time. I reached up and clicked off the flashlight so the room fell completely dark.

I couldn't help myself. I couldn't resist the feeling.

And I wrapped my fingers around it and gave it a little tug.

#hanukkahbingo #hanukkah 2023 #hanukkah #alone in the dark #as the seasons grey fanfic #as the seasons grey #fanfic #fanfiction #testament fanfic #testament #testament band #alex skolnick #oc tag #also on ao3 #writing #text

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rose-bookblood · 1 year

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Holiiii!!!! Happy Tiny Scene Sunday, Rose! I hope you are having a really good day/night!

now

pls write that scene of BBtS and Winter Holidays????🥹🥹🥹🥹

Thanks, I love you! you are the best!

(@ink-fireplace-coffee)

Anything for you <3 So sorry it took me this long, I was actually debating not posting this until next winter because it's just so late. But it is technically not spring yet, so...

I had a lot of fun with this, even though writing the gang all together is chaotic and hard as hell, their dynamics come very naturally to me. I don't think I ever showed you guys the wild Cecilia-Jeremy duo before, but here it is, basically summed up.

Set during the third year, so the one before when the books’ events happen. It ended up being fucking long, oops.

Just a note: Ruby is Evelyn’s younger sister (yeah, lots of BBtS characters have siblings I’ve never mentioned lol).

CW: brief mention of food

“I never say this,” declared Evelyn as she let herself fall on the sofa, “but I’m so full I might explode.”

Andrew, half-perched on the armchair, glanced at her. “I told you not to eat the chocolate lava cake.”

At that, she sprung up and almost jumped off the couch. “The chocolate lava cake is sacred. It’s the only thing I’d be tempted to sell you for.” A pause. “Besides pizza. And ice cream from that parlor we always go to when we come back home. And a particularly good salmon and mango uramaki.”

“What I’m extrapolating from this conversation is that there is a lot of food you’d sell your literal best friend for.”

Evelyn wiggled a finger. “I said tempted to sell you for. But I would resist the temptation.”

“I’m not sure,” intervened Nathan, seated on the other side of the sofa, “that is the compliment you think it is.”

Andrew shot her a resigned look. “We grew up together and it’s the best I’ve ever received from her.”

“That,” – Evelyn crossed her arms, nose wrinkled – “is a blatant lie and you know it.”

“I am,” chimed up Victoria, “so glad you’re enjoying yourselves. If you could also appreciate the effort we made decorating the room for tonight, that would be great.”

Heat stung Evelyn’s cheeks. “Sorry. You did an amazing job.”

The apartment had transformed into a winter wonderland, a perfect match to the snowstorm outside. Pine tree branches and garlands sprinkled with snow hung on the walls. Between one of Serena’s potted plants and another, icicles-studded twigs stood inside vases wrapped in white knitting. Fake snowflakes dangled from the ceiling, their texture so fine it was impossible to grasp what material they were made of.

Lily furrowed her brow. “Did you kidnap a plant bender to get all those wreaths?”

“And,” – Andrew dipped a finger inside a small heap of snow – “an ice bender too, apparently.”

“We didn’t kidnap anyone,” huffed Victoria. “We have friends other than you guys, you know.”

“Which means we asked for a favor,” added Annabelle from Jeremy's lap.

Victoria scrunched their nose and shrugged with their arms crossed. “Yeah, that was subtextual.”

“I'm getting kind of lost here.” Nathan did, in fact, blink repeatedly.

Andrew stopped playing with the snow, then rubbed his palms one against the other and plopped back on the armrest. “Right. Let's get back on track. I was telling Evelyn she's not going to be able to fit even a cracker in her stomach tomorrow.”

With a background of snorts from Victoria and Jeremy, Evelyn tsked. “It's not like you to underestimate me so badly. I'll have enough space to devour an embarrassing number of latkes and enough energy left afterwards to argue with Ruby over whether they're better with applesauce or sour cream.” She paused, tight-lipped. “The answer is sour cream.”

A moment of silence fell on the room. Cecilia, who had been twirling a fake snowflake on itself, stopped it between two fingers and quirked both eyebrows, while the others exchanged blank glances.

“I really thought she was about to say something meaningful,” said Annabelle.

Lily had a resigned stare. “Rookie mistake.”

“We were talking about food,” puffed Evelyn. “Did you expect a treatise on… I don’t even know what!”

“You looked particularly passioned, though.” Nathan offered a half smile.

Once again, Victoria barged into the conversation: “Tell me we’re not going to spend the evening discussing how underwhelming Evelyn’s conclusion was on a scale from one to ten.”

Annabelle didn’t miss a beat, “Eight.”

“A solid seven.” That was Andrew.

Jeremy smirked. “Twelve.”

Evelyn’s mouth hung open, then turned into a pout. “You’re all assholes.” She turned to Andrew. “I’ll text dad that you’re banned from every single Hanukkah meal this year.”

“But would you have the courage to tell your mom?”

“Ok, that’s enough.” Before Victoria could kick everyone out, Serena stood and pulled out three board game boxes from a cabinet. “What are we playing?”

Cecilia picked up the colorful boxes one after another. “Our options are Game of Goose, Man, Don’t Get Angry!, or Battleship.”

“Game of Goose.”

Cecilia side-eyed Andrew. “That’s so boring. I vote Battleship.”

Evelyn lifted her hand. “I also vote Battleship.”

It was Lily’s turn to side-eye her. “We already knew.”

“There was a fifty percent chance I’d choose Man, Don’t Get Angry!.”

“You know I hate it.”

“Because you get angry before the game has even started.”

Meanwhile, Cecilia had gone back to spinning fake snowflakes like a miniature blizzard. One dangled in front of Jeremy’s face and hit him on the nose. His jaw set, he slapped the snowflake with his knuckles, sending it straight into Cecilia’s cloud of curls.

“I choose Man, Don’t Get Angry!,” said Annabelle from Jeremy’s lap, oblivious to their and Cecilia’s shenanigans.

Lily’s head whipped in Annabelle’s direction, her eyes aflame as if she had committed treason. “I’m with Andrew. Game of Goose.”

Nathan shut his lips to stop himself from chuckling, then just said, “Agreed.”

Serena held up her hands, each one with two lifted fingers, and the gems – a ruby, amethyst, opal and tiger’s eye – embedded in the gold bands of her rings glinted as they caught the light. After Nathan spoke, she lifted a third finger on her left hand. By her side, Victoria made a thumb up.

“Ok, Game of Goose is winning with three points,” they announced. “Battleship and Man, Don’t Get Angry! are tied at two.” They wiggled their index to leave no doubt on whose the second vote for Man, Don’t Get Angry! was.

“Make that three,” said Jeremy.

Victoria leaned over the coffee table to high five him, then grinned to Serena. “You’re last, babe.”

“Vote Battleship,” stage-whispered Evelyn.

“So nobody wins?” deadpanned Jeremy.

Serena looked genuinely contrite about her role as tie-breaker. “Sorry, but I have to side with my partner.”

A loud smack reverberated through the room when Victoria clapped their hands once, then blew a kiss in Serena’s direction. She pretended to catch it with a giggle.

“Please, stop.” Lily grimaced, more in the game’s direction than the couple’s, and started setting up the board and the pieces with a frown and wrinkled nose. “We need to form the teams.”

Even with the six-players version of Man, Don’t Get Angry!, they were too many.

Lily turned the board so the blue side faced Evelyn and Andrew, who had interlaced their arms, Hanukkah ban forgotten. “The usual, I assume?”

“You bet!” Evelyn closed one hand for emphasis. “Don’t mess with success.”

“You two lost the last time we played.”

“We got third place.”

Andrew shrugged. “Sorry, Lily, my teammate is right.”

“Yeah, hit it, teammate!”

While Andrew and Evelyn bumped fists with their free hands, Lily addressed first Serena, on the couch between Evelyn and Nathan, then Victoria, opposite from her. “And you too?”

As soon as they nodded, Lily stood from the recliner and switched places with Serena, who jumped onto Victoria’s lap.

“Jeremy and I are the last team,” said Annabelle, “so you, Cecilia and Nathan are playing solo.”

Cecilia abandoned the fake snowflakes and moved from her spot to sit in front of the yellow circles on the board, elbows propped on her crossed legs.

With her usual meticulousness, Lily handed everyone their respective pieces and dice, then announced: “Now you can roll them.”

The clatter of wood against wood filled the room, immediately followed by disappointed noises. A single six stood out among a series of twos and threes.

“I go first.” Cecilia tilted her head in the die’s direction with a stoic look.

She positioned her first piece, then rolled again. Another six appeared and Cecilia repeated the motion. Six.

“You’ve got to be fucking shitting me,” muttered Jeremy.

Cecilia barely blinked before rolling the die a fourth time. Six.

“You’re cheating.” Jeremy glowered at her while another of her pieces entered the game.

“I am not.”

“It’s impossible to score a six so many times in a row. You’re not rolling the die well.”

“Statistically speaking, it is possible.”

This time, Cecilia made a great show of shaking the fist that held the die, and threw it on the coffee table with enough force to send it under the couch.

“No one touch the goddamn die,” roared Jeremy as they removed Annabelle from their lap and sprung up.

“Babe,” her placid voice rang across the room as her partner urged Andrew, Evelyn, Lily and Nathan to get off the sofa, “it’s a game. Don’t get so worked up about it.”

“Yeah,” – Victoria’s wide grin threatened to turn into roaring laughter – “it’s in the name.”

Jeremy ignored both and, with Nathan’s help, hoisted the couch. When the die caught the fluorescents’ light, he almost dropped it.

The whole room erupted into laughter as Jeremy grumbled a “It’s a fucking joke”. Victoria’s body shook so hard they sank to the floor and dragged Serena with them. Cecilia made a chocking sound, then fell on her back. Nathan’s arms wavered with each wheeze and Evelyn raced to grab the die, in between snorts, before disaster struck. They were on public property.

A string of curses left Jeremy’s mouth and prompted a second wave of chortling. Actual tears clouded Evelyn’s view as she set the die back on the table.

“We’re playing Battleship.” Fire lit in Jeremy’s glare, and Evelyn could have bet the tart smell of smoke permeated the living room.

Cecilia raised herself from the parquet and moved the first piece as though nothing had happened, despite the fact that Victoria still banged a fist on the rug, meanwhile Serena suppressed her laugh with one hand on her mouth. “Why? You voted Man, Don’t Get Angry! yourself.”

Jeremy’s left eye twitched.

Lily was the first to collect herself and sit back in the same spot. Nathan and Evelyn followed suit, whilst Andrew and Serena helped Victoria off the floor.

“Can we resume the game?” Lily scanned the friend group with an arched eyebrow.

Cecilia nodded and fiddled with the die.

“If she scores a six, I swear—”

His words cut off as Cecilia rolled the die. It landed on the coffee table corner, then plopped near Evelyn’s feet.

She knelt, glanced at the die, then at Jeremy. “You don’t want to know…”

Jeremy stomped toward the kitchen, leaving a series of words that sounded like ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ and a mix of both echoing in their wake.

Evelyn snorted, then passed the die to a now narrow-eyed Andrew, who buried his face in his free hand and sighed, “It’s a four.”

Serena’s fingers reached for the die, then she called to the kitchen, “Jeremy! Jeremy, it’s a four!”

Everyone else cackled loud enough to be heard across the hallway.

Blue Below the Surface taglist: (lmk to be added or removed) @tommie-hildebrandt @stormharbors @chaotic-queer-disaster @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @vellichor-virgo @lividdreamz

@ink-fireplace-coffee

#tiny scene sunday #my writing #writing excerpt #wip: bbts #blue below the surface

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agents-of-virtue · 1 year

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A Very Roanoke Winter

@the-roanoke-society

What Winter Holiday they celebrate: Chanukah! Rebekah is Jewish and therefore she celebrates Hannukah. (Which actually overlaps with Christmas this year, funnily enough)

Favorite Holiday Food: Latkes and sufganiyot! Latkes are fried potato pancakes and sufganiyot are sort of like little jelly filled doughnuts.

Favorite Holiday Drink: Hot chocolate with all the fixings. Can you have it year-round? Technically. But does it just taste better during the winter months? Y e s.

Favorite Holiday Activity: Telling/listening to the story of the Maccabees. Hanukkah may not be the most important holiday out of the Jewish calendar, but after everything she has been through, the story behind it is important to her.

Favorite Holiday Tradition: When she was younger (before she was kidnapped and forced into a cult), her family would get together for a large dinner on one of the nights of Hanukkah and have what was known as The Great Debate. Which would be when everyone would get up in arms about the proper toppings for latkes. It would always end the same way with everyone agreeing to disagree and it would happen Every Year.

Favorite childhood memory for this time of year: Her favorite childhood memories are always from the last night. Seeing all eight candles lit on the menorah was always something she treasured seeing.

Snowball fight or build a snowman: Building a snowman.

Ice skating or sleigh ride: Ice skating! Especially on the lake in the gardens.

Hot chocolate or Egg nog: Hot chocolate. 110% hot chocolate over anything.

Frost sugar cookies or build a gingerbread house: Frost sugar cookies!

Buy gifts or make gifs: Make gifts! She's a crafter at heart. Painting, needlework, sewing, crochet, you name it, she's probably done it.

Curl up in blankets or sit by a fireplace: I raise you: sit by the fireplace while curled up in blankets. Double toasty warm.

Least favorite thing about winter: How cold it is. It's really a double edged sword. On one hand, it gives snow and the ability to curl up by a nice, roaring fire! On the other hand, most of her plants are now dead and she doesn't have many fond memories of cold places.

Snow or no snow: S n o w. Even if she doesn't really like the cold or cold weather, snow is one of her favorite things about this time of year.

Anything you'd like to add: Bekah has a natural curiosity about other holidays. She's always willing to learn something new about them, but won't necessarily participate in celebrating those holidays.

#agent annabelle #the roanoke society #secret santa

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critterfloozy · 1 year

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Festivals of Light - Holiday Commentary

So each of the chapters of Festivals of Light is about a holiday that's based on a real life holiday. It wouldn't make much sense to use Hannukah for all of them and I didn't want to use US-style Christmas just because it's the default, so I branched out. (I did consider trying to do it with different Jewish holidays being assigned to different people, but it felt weird to pretend that they aren't in dialogue with each other).

So, the explanation of what is somewhat accurate (as far as I can tell) and what I changed under the cut:

Chapter 1 - Hannukah

So this was about Hannukah, but in reality, I did my best to veer away from mentioning many Hannukah traditions, and most of the references are more about being Jewish. I didn’t want to set the bar for authenticity too high in the first chapter, considering that the rest of them aren’t my traditions, and wanted the introduction to be more about the ‘complication’ than the set dressing.

The complication here being that feel when you’re the only person in the room who celebrates your holiday, and your well meaning friends want to celebrate it with you, and you’re happy to share it with them - but then you have to explain everything and you just wish they’d understand.

Also, you killed your parents, but that’s a little more niche.

Anyway, the stuff that was accurate:

Sufganiot (pronounced soof-goan-ee-oat) - powdered doughnuts with a fruit filling. Jester’s comment about them being similar to something they have in Nicodranas is a reference to the fact that Polish paczi are extremely similar, so you can have at least two Eastern European religious holiday pastries.

Latkes - I sort of assume that folks know what these are, but they’re fried potato pancakes, like a fritter. Typically served with applesauce or sour cream.

Brisket is sort of traditional, but like for one of the days, not for all of them. That’s like a week of brisket. People forgetting about vegetarians on a meat day is pretty damn accurate, which is why Caduceus commandeers the veggie plate for himself.

Crickets are maybe kosher, but three people who don’t keep kosher arguing over kosher rules on a holiday is definitely Jewish (though more of a Passover thing)

As is debating over the details of the holiday’s stories, though also more of a Passover thing. With Hannukah it’s more people forgetting who the Maccabees were fighting and why.

The Blumentrio interrupting each other is intentional - there’s some studies to show that there’s an interrupting Ashkenazi Jewish style of conversation, it can be difficult to unlearn.

I’m kind of cracking myself up at the fact that I mentioned ‘No Decorations!’ twice. Look, you can have Christmas-like decorations for your Hannukah celebration, or just keep on getting menorahs (I had a roommate that had eight?). But I’m in the ‘better to add a Jewish flair to Christmas than make Hannukah Christmas-lite camp. This is a personal preference.

“Scroll of Protection on the Gingerbread House” - A Mezuzah is a small scroll placed near the entrance to a home with the Sh’ma inscribed on it, often thought as a method of protection. The Zemnian version would be a miniature scroll of protection, because wizards. (This was something I did as a kid, we’d use either a mini M&M or a twizzler)

What I changed:

This is a one day celebration that doesn’t involve a menorah, and involves lighting then immediately extinguishing a ring of candles instead of lighting a candle day by day. The story was also obviously altered, though the Zemnians and the Maccabees aren’t that dissimilar (the Maccabees did forced conversion, not exactly a great time.

Chapter 2 - Santa Lucia

I’m in the upper midwest US, so most of the people I know who celebrated Santa Lucia day did so as kids in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Which I assume is going to be different than how Scandanavians would celebrate it today (I also watched a couple youtube documentaries on the rest of the holidays, but I tried to use firsthand accounts when I could).

In general, the themes I picked up were that there were two camps: people who hadn’t been a Santa Lucia girl and thought it was the best thing ever, and people who had, who seemed to treat it like ‘and here my eldest daughter troubles began’.

So I thought it’d be a good thematic fit for Beau’s complication - what do you do when you hate a holiday, but your kid loves it?

The stuff that was supposed to be accurate:

The child in white robes with a red sash and a wreath with candles delivering pastries and coffee for breakfast one of the traditional ways of celebrating. Typically it would be the eldest daughter (why Beau considers it a girly thing), but I didn’t want the fight to be over whether their kid was too femme and wouldn’t think that Beau and Yasha would care too much about gender norms. Nowadays putting fire that close to your child’s head is frowned upon, so people usually use LED candles. But I do know some people who wore real candle wreaths back in the early 80’s.

Santa Lucia day processions are also a thing, where girls can be elected to be the main Santa Lucia girls and the other ones get only one candle and no red sash. Boys can also be part of the procession, wearing a cone cap with stars and only one candle (they’re called ‘star boys’).

Saffron buns, also known as lussekatter (pretty much pronounced the way you’d expect), are S shaped yellow buns - the recipes (at least the ones in English) typically give cardamom as optional, but they do typically have two raisins in the curves of the S. Like every other food mentioned here, it’s very tasty.

The origins of Santa Lucia seem pretty darn Pagan and were just retrofitted to fit Christianity, a little like how the Fire Princesses were originally honoring Desirat, but the actual meaning was dropped before the practice (not saying the real life Pagan practices were the equivalent of worshipping evil goth phoenixes)

The last part I’m going to mention is actually Yasha’s celebrations - it was something I ran into when brainstorming Inventory; it’s common for at least some semi-nomadic groups (IIRC some Mongolians, didn’t write down the specifics) to have holidays celebrated less based on specific days, and more for occasions. Especially the idea that you have a giant feast before you go on the move - you use up all the stores so you don’t have to carry them with you. This part I’m a little more shaky on, but I wanted to at least introduce the concept of having holidays not on a specific day.

The stuff I deliberately changed:

Not much! I wanted to leave as much wiggle room as possible for when I got stuff wrong. Again, typically Santa Lucia girls aren’t boys, and I changed Anri from having a tray to having a basket because I thought I was stretching credulity to have him successfully carry a dozen pastries on a tray. I also have no reason to believe that the Santa Lucia girl elections would be based on who could be the girliest.

Chapter 3: Sailor’s Holidays

So Fjord seemed like a good choice for the complication of ‘I didn’t grow up celebrating anything so every celebration feels fake and weird’. Which means there’s not much in this section. There is a reference to Sailor’s Holidays - the idea of throwing a party when they cross the equator for the first time, for example. But I ran out of time to do research, so it was mostly taken from Master and Commander.

The chapter’s title, ‘For the Rest of Us’, is a reference to Festivus; a satirical holiday.

Chapter 4: Puerto Rican Christmas/Las Parrandas

I did Las Parrandas for Veth because my husband’s Nuyorican and Nott/Veth is his favorite character. A lot of the stuff mentioned is more

Veth seemed like a the right character to choose for the complication of ‘I feel like I have an obligation to spend some time with my just kind of shitty family during the holidays’, given that she says that her parents were great, very loving, but shows not desire to let any of her family know that she’s alive through the entire campaign - even once she’s back to being a halfling. The thing was that I didn’t want her family to be kind of shitty because they were Puerto Rican-coded. I actually like my in-laws. I don’t know how successful I was at that, but there was an attempt.

I did like what this recontextualization did to Yeza - he’s not fitting in with the rest of the Felderwin folk any better than Veth does, but for different reasons.

What’s supposed to be accurate:

In Felderwin Heart and Hearth lasts until the New Year; it’s a little old-fashioned (I think), but you can find people still celebrating the entire Christmas season - from Christmas Eve until Epiphany.

I don’t think the ‘stopping the car so that they can pick fresh fruit off the side of the road’ is necessarily Puerto Rican, it’s more likely to be somewhere between ‘just my mother-in-law’ and ‘growing up in a rural area’. In her defense, the mangoes are fucking delicious and like $2.50 apiece at Cub up here. (I am definitely Fjord in this scenario, thinking the cops are going to jump out of the bushes).

The party taking place in the cartport is a nod to the Puerto Rican habit of using a carport for everything except the act of storing a car, especially holding dance parties there.

Dominoes are prevalent throughout Latin America, and stereotypically played by the same types of old guys who you’d see playing chess elsewhere.

Coquito is sometimes referred to as ‘Puerto Rican eggnog’, and has rum, coconut milk, evaporated milk, delicious spices, and more rum. I’ve been assured that the proper way to store and serve coquito is from a two liter sprite bottle with the label ripped off. Alas, sprite doesn’t exist in Exandria, so I decided the apothecary would also sell sweetened carbonated water, and they could rip the labels off that. (Carbonated water really came about in the 18th century, but whatever, this is a fantasy).

Revvetha Ardi (Veth Ardi) and Dawn Coo’s competition is a reference to the fact that Bacardi is more popular in the north half of Puerto Rico - their distillery is in San Juan - and Don Q is more popular in the south half of Puerto Rico. The billboards change a little after Caguas, but don’t quote me on that as the official divider.

I had an existential crisis over whether or not they’d eat Mofongo in Felderwin - I decided that canonically, Felderwin could easily be subtropical (and have winter orange groves), but would they have plantains? So if you’re wondering what the fried food Fjord is smelling is, probably some Exandrian mofongo.

Jester refers to the three wise guys - that’s the three kings/wise men. The one thing that I was told I needed to include was either them or an equivalent, and decided that it would take too much holiday-building to first create a story about Heart and Hearth to then create some secondary characters that nobody but Felderwin cares about. I think I decided that they were just some wise men that visited Felderwin when it was originally being settled post-Calamity, giving gifts of essential oils, perfume, and gold.

Las Parrandas - The tradition among Puerto Ricans is essentially to party, move your party to outside your neighbor’s house in the middle of the night, sing loudly (with accompaniment) until the neighbors invite you in, you party for a bit and then everyone moves to the next house. This usually happens between 10pm and dawn, so they’re getting an early-ish start in Felderwin.

The stuff I deliberately changed

The main thing is the lack of overt Christianity, but otherwise, this was another one where I changed as little as possible to make up for whatever mistakes I’d make otherwise.

Chapter Five - Diwali

This is the one where I was thinking of stripping the real world holiday’s trappings out entirely. Partially because it’s not really a winter holiday (It’s typically late October/early November), and partially because my first-hand sources were mostly my coworkers, and I’m a lot more limited in the amount that I’m willing to ask them for a fanfic instead of my husband or my friends. Also, for chapters two and four, I deliberately had an outsider POV of the holiday, because that’s my POV. That wouldn’t work for Essek’s complication: the idea of returning home as an atheist and remembering both the love for the holiday and that your love meant that maybe you took a closer look at what was going on than others and that destroyed your faith.

But Diwali is a celebration of the victory of light and knowledge over darkness and ignorance, which felt very Luxon-themed, and the story of an exile returning (albeit a very different story of an exile returning), which seemed appropriate for Essek. It’s the Festival of Lights. And at some point, the fear of cultural appropriation crosses the line into a fear of interacting with other cultures. I did a good amount of research, there’s not really a publisher involved to act as a gatekeeper, I’m not exactly a BNF in the fandom that could prevent other people from telling their own version, and explicitly did not name any of the holidays in question in the fic itself to try to prevent anyone from taking it as a point of reference without reading this first. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s the best balance I could come up with.

Anyway, what’s supposed to be accurate:

Diwali’s sometimes a one day festival, sometimes a five day festival - depending on region, how devout the family is, whether they’re working for a US corporation that only gives them a single day off, ect. The third day of the five day festival is considered the most important (and the one day people tend to celebrate). What happens on the other days (if anything) depends on the region, but usually involves shopping for items that signify wealth, cleaning/washing or ritual purification, and visiting family. Which is why the Nein show up on the third day, and Essek is thinking of the logistics of displays of wealth and the consecuted visiting their former families.

A ghazal is a type of poem, often about romantic love and separation.You can find the modern version in older bollywood films.

Rangoli are patterns of colored sand made on the floor, typically found in front of homes to welcome visitors. I feel like people know what these are, but just in case.

I figure folks know about the diyas (the little lamps), but generally other small-things-on-fire-for light are part of it - candles, lanterns, sparklers, lots of fireworks. So many fireworks the air gets hazy, apparently.

Pakoda are deep fried flat pieces of flour, that’s a pretty tasty snack.

The day that Essek asks Verin to visit is Bhai Duj; typically the day when brothers would visit their sisters. I figure the Kryn probably have a looser idea of gender.

What I deliberately changed:

There’s not really a public celebration day for Diwali the same way that I portrayed the Light Day Ceremony - the third day is the day people are more likely to go to the temples to worship, but in general it’s a family affair.

Also, Diwali celebrations take place mostly at night - which doesn’t really work with the sunlight worship of the Kryn. In short, pretty much nothing from the Bright Queen’s presentation would be considered accurate for Diwali. (That also means that prisms and glass chimes aren’t accurate)

Shops are typically closed to allow the families to observe. The shop stalls that were open were supposed to be foreigners that come in for the Light Day Celebration tourism, but that’s only alluded to by Verin.

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