The first snowfall of Nod-Krai was said to be beautiful.
The second was said to be dangerous.
No one spoke of the third.
Because those who witnessed it,
rarely remembered how they survived.
In the northernmost reaches of Teyvat, where the world dissolved into endless forests of silver birch and frozen seas, winter was not merely a season.
It was something ancient. Something that listened.
The people of Nod-Krai lived by old customs and even older fears. Every child learned the same warnings before they could read.
"Do not answer voices in the snow."
"Do not follow lights after sunset."
"Never wander near the Final Night Cemetery when winter deepens."
The paths there had a habit of forgetting where they belonged. Roads twisted into circles. Travelers vanished only to stumble home at dawn, unable to remember where the missing hours had gone. Some never returned at all.
Most believed them to be little more than stories.
Nerina Belova was one of them.
A traveler from distant lands of snezhnaya, carrying nothing more extraordinary than a Cryo Vision and an endless curiosity for forgotten places. She had crossed mountains, sailed frozen waters, and slept beneath more stars than roofs.
Nod-Krai was simply the next destination on her journey.
She laughed with innkeepers, thanked old women for bowls of hot stew, listened politely to every warning about haunted cemeteries and living snow...
...and ignored nearly all of them.
Because (in her defense) she had never encountered a mystery that wasn't worth seeing with her own eyes. However, she still had no intention of finding the Final Night Cemetery. No intention of seeking its solitary Lightkeeper. No intention of uncovering legends that had slumbered beneath the snow for centuries.
Snow simply chose differently.
Far beyond the villages, where the sea crashed silently beneath sheets of ice, stood an ancient lighthouse upon black cliffs. Its silver beacon had never gone dark. Storms had come and gone. Kingdoms had risen and fallen. Even the names of those who built it, had been swallowed by time. Still... its light endured. Within its quiet walls lived the last Lightkeeper.
Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins. One of the last snowland fae to exist. A man spoken of more often in whispers than conversations. Some claimed he was a legend. Others believed he was a ghost who merely pretended to breathe. Children imagined an immortal guardian who spoke with the dead while tending the lonely lighthouse overlooking the Final Night Cemetery.
None of them knew the truth..
He tended forgotten graves whose names had long since disappeared beneath snow. He polished brass lanterns that no visitor ever admired. He catalogued centuries in weathered journals no one would inherit.
Morning tea. Afternoon maintenance. Evening patrol through silent gravestones. Lonely nights. Then another winter. Then another. Until the years blurred into something too vast to measure.
Loneliness did not wound him anymore. It had simply become another room within the lighthouse.
The day they met, neither of them had been searching for the other. The storm arrived without warning. White consumed the road. The forest disappeared. The world folded into endless snow until up and down became strangers.
Nerina pulled her cloak tighter as icy wind swallowed her footprints almost as quickly as she made them. "Well.." She turned in a slow circle. "I think I'm lost."
Her Cryo Vision answered. A gentle pulse. A flicker. It rested warmly against the cold, humming with an emotion she couldn't name. Ahead, a pale light flickered between snow-covered trees. Then another flicker. They drifted forward like wandering stars invitingly.
Without understanding why, Nerina followed.
The storm, which moments before had threatened to bury her alive, gradually eased with every step she took forward. The snow itself seemed to bend around an invisible path. As though winter had decided she was no longer its prey. Meanwhile, high above the cliffs... The ancient lighthouse shuddered. A single vibration echoed through stone older than memory. Its silver beacon brightened. Dust slipped from forgotten rafters.
Deep within its foundation.. Something sleeping stirred.
Flins looked up from the journal resting upon his desk. For the first time in centuries... The lighthouse had acknowledged someone's arrival. Not a spirit. Not one of the wandering souls who occasionally lingered beyond the cemetery gates. Someone living.
He descended the spiral staircase in measured silence. He opened the heavy wooden door... before the knock could even come. A young woman stood on the threshold, covered almost entirely in snow.
White flakes clung to icy blue hair and frost dusted her eyelashes. Her cheeks glowed pink from the cold as she looked up at him with bright, apologetic big eyes. There was a long silence. Then she offered an awkward smile. "I'm really sorry..." She glanced back at the raging blizzard before looking at him again. "I think your snow kidnapped me."
Another silence. Long enough for the wind to howl between them. Somewhere beyond the lighthouse walls, unseen by either of them, the lingering spirits of the Final Night Cemetery watched pateintly.
The lighthouse had opened its doors. Its Lightkeeper had welcomed someone inside. And beneath the endless snow of Nod-Krai... A forgotten bloodline had finally found its way home, though neither of them knew it yet.
Trope : Flins!Snowland fae, Nerina!human [or not..], slow burn, mystery, supernatural, awkward humour, romance, romance, romance, romance, happily ever after (because im the y/n!?!?)
[ Inspired by genshin vibes heavily because i love how they tell their stories eeekk] ALSO MY TARGET AUDIENCE, lovely @rumitome 🤍
