Beautiful snow brushed across the trees, the wind gently cradling them. Snow piled on the roof of the house. Inside echoed the happy chirps of children, the most delicious smells drafted from the kitchen. A burning flame keeps the playing children warm. The house was a cozy place, detailed rugs covered the floor gently being lit up by the warm glow of the fire. While the children messed around on the carpet, a red one eyed dragon sat in a chair, legs crossed, reading an old newspaper.
"папа! папа! глядзець! (Look!)" A little girl hopped up on his lap with a book, crushing the newspaper.
"Я пытался это прочитать, бела. (I was trying to read that, bela.) Также говорить по-английски нужно практиковаться. (Also speak in english you need to practice.)" The one eyed dragon grumbled. "What do you need?
"Sorry папа," She responded sadly, then excitedly shoved the book in his face. " can you read this?" She begged.
Pulling the book off his face he glanced at it.
"It's just something about Christmas, a stupid human holiday, why do you care?"
"Germany was talking about some of the things he used to do to celebrate it-"
"No."
"Why not? It looks fun-" she whined, reaching for the book now being held out of her reach then turned her head to look at the human drawing with her brothers.
"Bela, I already said no."
"Oh let them have some fun!" Her mother laughed, poking her head out of the kitchen's doorway. " They need something to do, plus what could happen? Nothing bad, certainly. "
He rolled his eye, and growled "Fine. But I'm not helping you." He huffed, throwing the book at her.
"Дзякуй! Дзякуй! Дзякуй! (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!)" She squeaked.
"English."
The kids on the carpet who were pretending not to be listening, started to chirp excitedly as Belarus jumped off her fathers chair.
Her four siblings sat next to her in the middle of the room.
"Okay germs! What do we need to do, according to this fancy book of yours?" Bela urged. Germany thought for a while before readjusting his glasses. "Well, first we need a tree. Which me and Russia will take care of. Then we need decorations-" "oooo! I'll take care of that!" Kaz shouted before darting up the stairs. "What next?" "Hmmm" He glanced at the book "stockings for some reason, that's new to me. And lastly, cookies to leave out for St Nicholas. " He finished by giving her a recipe with translations.
"Me and Ukraine can take care of these cookies!" Bela volunteered her sister, grabbing the recipe.
"What- no. I'll take care of stocking. I don't bake." Ukraine protested. "мама, will bake with you."
"That will be fast, what will you do after that-" Russia tried to ask the flowered dragon.
"Sleep." She interrupted, sounding like she greatly needed it.
"But-" Bela was about to protest sadly.
"It's fine Belarus. Christmas is about fun, if Ukraine doesn't want to, or doesn't feel well enough too, she doesn't have to. If she wants to join us later in preparations or even when the party starts she can. " Their мама said calmly, to the younger dragon.
"Right" Bela nodded, cheering up, "Feel free to join us!" Ukraine just nodded as Bela darted into the kitchen to start baking cookies, мама following.
"Well I guess that's our sign to go, right?" Germany asked the eldest dragon who shrugged. "да уж, (yeah,) I'll go get the saw."
"Don't forget your boots, boys!" Mama called from the kitchen.
"We won't мама!" "We won't Miss Soviet!" The two declared at the same time, as they half heartedly threw their boots on, and quickly buttoned their coats then darted out the door.
When they left the house with a loud thud, Ukie picked herself off the floor and began the climb up the stairs. Up stairs, Kaz was dragging a box out of the siblings shared room. Inside the box were old toys.
"Что ты делаешь? (What are you doing?)" She asked curiously.
"Hm?"
"Что ты делаешь? (What are you doing?)" She asked again.
"украшения! (Decorations!)" He responded, while digging through the half full box.
"Ладно, мне нужно пройти через это. (Okay, I need to get through though.)"
"Oh, sorry!" Kaz pulled the box out of the doorway.
"Спасибо (thank you)" She stepped around him and into the room. The room was dark, only one window with the snowy night glow lighted the room. Under the window was a decent sized bed standing on twisted metal frames. To each side of the bed was a drawer. One for the boys and the other for the 'girls' Belarus and Ukraine. She decided instead of digging through her brother's drawers she was going to get one of the bags from under the bed. Bela had stolen and hidden them under the bed 2 years ago, when she was 4. Grabbing the bag, she stood up, making her feel nauseous.
"Kaz?"
"да, сестра?(yeah, sister?)" He peeked into the room.
"Можешь принести это вниз? Мне нужно лечь. (Can you bring this downstairs? I need to lay down.)" She handed him the bag.
"Yeah of course sister, feel better." He muttered looking at her, concerned as she flopped on the bed.
Feeling his worried gaze the little girl snapped "I'm fine! I don't need sympathy!"
Kazakhstan just looked like a puppy caught doing something bad and turned around to leave.
"Kaz, wait- I'm sorry!" She squeaked, reaching out for her brother. Kaz just looked back and nodded "I know, just feel better okay sister?" He said as he closed the door.
As Kaz descended the stairs, Russia was trying to brute force his way through the door with the tree. Pine nettles and snow fell everywhere from the greatly over sized tree. His dad just watched, clearly annoyed at the mess but he wasn't going to get mad at his favorite child. Kaz was kind of jealous he got away with everything. (Well that's what Kaz thought.)
"Why you pick such big tree?" Kaz asked, his English breaking a bit, as he watched as the eldest tugged and pulled on the top of the tree. "Germany picked it!" He hissed out of breath as he put all his strength into pulling it. "I DID NOT!" an also exhausted Germany called from the other side of the door that was being so heavily blocked by huge feathery branches you couldn't see him. Pulling with all his strength, the dragon's hand slipped, sending him tumbling onto the carpet.
Kazakhstan instinctively ran over to help his brother off the floor. "Here I'll pull with you." Russia just nodded and made room for him to grab the tree's trunk. The two of them pulled when Germany counted down to zero. After a few minutes the three of them were able to get it through the door and into the corner of the room with minimum damage.
"Where's Ukraine?" Russia asked, still panting from the tree struggle.
"Sleeping, I got the 'stocking' she found though." Kaz showed him the bag and turned to Germany. "What do we do with it?" The human paused and checked the book " We need to hang it on the fireplace."
"Isn't it…. A bit burny?" Kaz asked, "Do you mean flammable?" Germany responded.
"Y-yeah."
"It is, but books don't lie-" he showed Kaz a picture in the book.
"Makes sense-" Russia agreed with the human.
"Okay then, Russia, go hang it! and me and Germany will decorate the tree!" Kaz declared, grabbing the box from the stairs.
"Okay." He agreed and walked over to the fireplace. As he did that, Kazakhstan and Germany started decorating the tree with old toys, and were soon joined by Bela as the cookies were baking.
By the time everything was done, Ukraine had woken up and joined them down stairs, feeling much better. Mama read them a couple Christmas stories Germany found in the book, as the bag swayed scarily close to the fireplace. Their Papa…was somewhere gathering firewood. Cookies were sitting on the table tempting the small dragonling's. As the dragon family celebrated, telling stories both of myth and truth, the bag crept closer to the fire.
Their papa bursted suddenly carrying firewood, the force from the door opening knocked the bag into the fire. Which caught fire and blew out onto the carpet.
Being small children, the dragonlings burst into a panic. Bela was curled up sobbing about not wanting to die, Ukie was trying her best to comfort her sister, but was also on the verge of tears, Russia was just running around having a panic attack, and Kaz just started screaming. Germany was having some Vietnam flashbacks.. to what? Who knows. "
"Wait- that's it? You're first and only Christmas?" America looked at the siblings like he was just told aliens abducted his mother.
"Mhm." Three of the four siblings agreed, while Russia protested his panic attack.
"Really that's it?" America rubbed his eyes again, not believing it.
"Well, Germany said he was never going to trust a book again, after throwing it into the fireplace." Ukraine remembered fondly. "Yeah, and papa stomped out the fire!" Bela added. "After we got a little bit of Kavass from papa-" Kaz brought up. At that all the dragon's looked happy.
"Kavass?" The starry country asked.
"A slightly alcoholic drink-" Belarus answered.
"Our first taste of the liquid of life!" Kaz cheered holding up his shot glass.
"Which mama was not happy about!" Russia added, nudging Ukie and Kazakhstan. The dragons all just laughed at that.
"In his defense, if you can defend him, it was only a little bit of kavass which has barely any alcohol to start with." Kaz grinned, wrapping his arm around the human in a friendly manner and chugged his shot.
"Don't we still have some kavass? " The eldest asked.
"Yeah probably." The youngest nodded.
"I'll go find it!" Bela volunteered.
The rest of that Christmas night was spent drinking, eating, and telling stories. And America got his first taste of kavass, which he was very indifferent about.
1690 words
IMPORTANT
*Only the flashback/story part when the dragon were kids is cannon *
thank you for reading this! <3
I'll try to update more, just mental health doesn't want me too- :'3