I truly and deeply enjoyed the train journey up here, but I was a little dismayed that my preordered breakfast just...never showed up. I do wonder a little if this is a known issue because foreigners haven't got a way to request refund/reimbursement without a Finnish bank account, so I imagine a lot of us write the money off as a lost cause, which might be a tidy little perk for the vendor. I, however, intend to be a pain about it.

There is also a specific bus, the Santa Bus, that is meant to come once an hour starting at 7:30, but as far as I or anyone can tell, the 7:30 bus just didn't show up. I ended up brokering a deal with one of the local cab drivers, who loaded me, four Korean tourists, and a couple from Glasgow into his van and took us here for the princely sum of five euro each. Santa Bus tickets are four, so it was worth it not to wait an hour for the next one. Losing a finger to frostbite costs way more than a Euro.

I'm off in a minute to brutalize the post office and my credit card by sending upwards of 25 postcards, and then I'm going to find a place to drop my bag and explore. I'm sure a winter wonderland awaits. I hear there are reindeer and while I tried reindeer meat in Helsinki and did not care for it, I wouldn't mind meeting a few. Plus I promised to wave to my parents on the webcam, so I need to scope it out to find my best angle.

Story by me, art by the amazingly talented @lutraslutra! The artwork in this chapter is absolutely breathtaking!

Rated M, strangers to lovers human AU with banter, falling in love, a touch of angst and a happy ending! If you need to daydream about cold and winter, that's your chance!

It has been an incredible honour to work with Lutra on this fiction! We've had so much fun!

Fiction summary:

Rovaniemi! The perfect destination for a solo holiday! Quiet, charming, full of history and art! A solo trip there was just what Aziraphale needed to lift his mood after being bombarded by the pink chocolate boxes and heart-shaped cards that Valentine's Day aggressively threw at him from every shop window. Self-care and self-love, that’s all Aziraphale wanted out of that holiday.

Enter Anthony J. Crowley.

The handsome, charming novelist who chatted Aziraphale up on the plane.

Well, nothing wrong with a holiday fling, after all.

Just for the week.

And he’d never think of Crowley again, of course.

Excerpt from chapter 8:

The first thought that crossed Crowley’s mind was that Aziraphale was wearing too many layers as usual and was going to be seriously hot on the plane, the ridiculous, beautiful, stubborn thing that he was. The second thought that crossed Crowley’s mind was that Aziraphale was in Rovaniemi. 

Read from the beginning on Ao3.

Read chapter 8 on Ao3.

Many thanks to the former Winter Omens Big Bang, now @gosummerbang.

My endless thanks to @ireallyneedmoretea for beta reading, supporting me and being my friend.

📍Rovaniemi Finland 🇫🇮

Step into the magic of Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi,

Finland 🎄🎅🏻❄️

A must-visit winter wonderland for all holiday lovers!

Page: Andrea Cappelli