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White as far as the eyes could see, stinging his cheeks, blinding him, almost as cold as the icy luminescence of the head office.
Aziraphale pulled the sable fur tighter around his rigid frame, shivering against the needle pricks of the rising gale. He realised he had been conned as soon as the beautiful white mare he had purchased started turning a tired brown in the snowfall, collapsing only a few miles into his journey. He had to abandon her right there, the poor old thing, and now he was stuck. His galoshes were drowning in the deepening snow and dampness had started to seep in.
The angel sighed. It looked like he would have to pay for his naïveté by accepting yet another reprimand from upstairs. There was no way that he and all of his toes were getting out of this little impasse without a frivolous miracle; his destination was a long distance away and Aziraphale was frankly dying for a hot chocolate with a splash of vodka in it. Maybe even literally dying.
He was about to reach out and pull down a spark of magic when a thin but familiar noise caught his attention, a translucent, melodic jingle, like icicles clanking together, the unmistakable chime of a troika carriage. Aziraphale frowned, fruitlessly peering into the blizzard. Who would be devil-may-care enough to travel in these ever-worsening weather conditions of a typical Russian October?
The song of the bells drew closer until, finally, a vague shadow peeled itself from the white-out, approached at an almost unnatural speed, rushed past him in a dazzling cloud of icy fluff. Stopped. Travelled backwards. Aziraphale stared from underneath his frosted eyelashes. As far as he was aware, horses were not supposed to do that kind of thing, at least not with a sleigh attached. There could only be one explanation, the one that was already warming him from the inside as the carriage came to a neighing halt beside him.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Crowley’s mouth grinned at him shamelessly, framed by a fashionable Van Dyke beard, eyes sparkling warmly from underneath a fur-lined Mariner’s cap that barely contained the heap of snow-dusted red curls. “Who are you blessing out here, angel? The polar bears.”
“There are no polar bears here, Crowley,” Aziraphale huffed as indignantly as his freezing lungs would allow. “Because we are not at the pole! What are you doing here, may I ask?”
“Oh, y’know, heard there’s a little upheaval brewing in Petrograd, so thought I’d pop by, encourage that modern thinking. What are you doing here, apart from turning into a pretty ice sculpture, that is?”
“I happen to be on my way there too, to, uh – discourage those ideas.”
“Huh, so y’don’t think all people should receive according to their needs?”
Aziraphale’s fingers would have normally taken this opportunity to play with each other, but the thick, solid mittens put a spanner in the works, so he had to resign himself to a stiff little wiggle.
“Head office doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea.”
“Course they don’t.”
Crowley stretched out a leather gloved hand towards him. At least Aziraphale assumed those were leather gloves.
“Come on then, Angel, hop on, I’ll give you a ride, before you turn into a penguin. You’re already waddling like one.”
“Am not,” Aziraphale protested habitually, happily accepting the demon’s waiting hand. He climbed onto the carriage, letting himself down on the cushioned seat with a sigh of relief as Crowley draped a woollen blanket over his knees.
“This is worse than Wessex, right?”
“Indeed.”
“Dunno about you, but I’m freezing my sodding bollocks off...”
“That is an excess of information, my dear fellow…”
Their voices swirled each other, mingled, melted together, trailing off as the carriage disappeared into the uncertain fog of approaching revolution.