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a-robin-among-thorns · 6 years

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Too Old For Your Age

Part 2: By Torchlight

Original inspiration post, Part 1

I can’t really call these drabbles anymore since I’ve started playing with an overarching theme and they appear to keep getting longer. Either way, my sincere apologies that this took so long. Life, school and good ole fashioned writes block, you know the song and dance. That said, part 3 WILL be much sooner I promise.

One last thing, Chise is 19 in this story. I put that in context clues in the first part but felt it might be best to state that out right.

Word Count: 3,537

Dinner proceeded without much grandeur, although it felt ever so slightly different sitting right next to Elias.

Feeling somewhat guilty watching Ruth placed alone at the start of dinner, Chise had almost contemplated returning her chair to its original side. That was until a sharp ‘Don’t even think about it.’ flashed through her mind followed by an almost imperceptible smirk from her familiar.

It was supper like any other, vegetable stew, lemon and garlic chicken breast, baked potatoes and all with a generous serving of bread, butter, and honey, but it had been peppered by little pats on her shoulders or fingers occasionally curled around an unoccupied hand. She even found herself settling her palm on his forearm absentmindedly. Until she realized what she was doing and suddenly became very invested in buttering her bread.

‘You keep that up and you’ll end up with an entire stick of butter on there.’

She sighed and resolutely tore a buttered end between her teeth.

Ruth snorted around shoving half of a potato down his gullet. ‘Why is this making you upset? It’s not as if you don’t hold hands and such with him constantly nowadays.’

‘I’m not upset!’ She felt so strangely defensive and she couldn’t fathom why. ‘It’s just…that’s usually, because he started it or he’s upset and I want to make him feel better. Just doing it without a reason... feels greedy.’

‘Why? Elias does it all the time to you just because, and I know you don’t mind. Why do you think he would?’

...that’s different.

Ruth disguised an eye roll with a glance to the counter. ‘If you say so.’

Once supper was finished, Chise helped Silver clear the table and was about to make her way for her evening bath when she came across the party favor bags on the counter. Should she try and come up with something else to do this night? Or would that be too stifling?

‘As shocking as it might sound he does enjoy doing things with you.’ Chise shot Ruth a glare who answered with a scoff.

She let out a small sigh, grabbed her bag and made way for her room.

As her hair dried from her bath, she emptied the contents of the little party favor onto her bed for a better look. The crayons were nowhere to be seen, likely given a more permanent home by Silky. Two Little plastic dinosaurs came from the bag. They were cute, but Chise couldn’t think of anything to do with them. Lastly was the paper book, upon closer inspection; a comic book. It was rather small, apparently, a sample size specifically to be given out at parties. On its cover was a boy in a red and black striped jumper and a black furred animal, both wore mischievous grins.

‘Dennis the Menace and Gnasher...’ She read.

Her mind briefly flashed to a night years ago where once again she had been unable to sleep thanks to an intrusive imp taking residence on her futon. Unaware of her plight, her cousin lay on his belly, a sheet pulled over his head while he read his manga by a flashlight.

Well...he does likes to read before bed anyway.

Her slippers quickly rapped down the stairs before briefly pausing in the foyer adjoining the kitchen and living room. She could hear Silver Lady still rummaging lightly in the kitchen before she slipped in.

“Silver,” Chise called lightly gaining the brownie’s attention, “I was wondering...do we have a torchlight anywhere?”

Silver cupped her chin between her thumb and forefinger in brief thought before putting down the bowl she had been washing and moving toward the counter. With a light hum, she opened a drawer and pulled out a short cylinder, handing it to Chise delicately. It was certainly an old torch, bearing slightly tarnished silver casing and a large convex bulb. Yet Chise always found any ‘modern’ technology housed in the old manor to be amusing and charming.

Chise smiled fondly and hugged the torch to her chest. “Thanks, Silver, I’ll take good care of it.” Silver nodded and returned to her work.

Steeling herself with a quick breath, Chise entered the living room where Elias had retired for the evening in his lounge chair. He was the very picture of a scholarly gentleman, One elbow propped with a lazy grace against the chair arm and his muzzle was buried in a book with a title she couldn’t read. And here she was in her pajamas with a comic book.

She suddenly felt very foolish and tried to retreat when he gazed upward at the soft footfalls of his apprentice. Crap. Caught. He cocked his head curiously, waiting for her to speak.

She sighed. No turning back now. “Elias? Are you doing anything important?”

“Not particularly, why?”

“Well...I was wondering if you’d like to try another childhood activity with me?” She was grateful that both of her hands were filled preventing her far too frequent fidgeting. “It’s not hard and since you usually read before bed I thought you might like it. But you don’t have to if you’d rather not.”

He marked his page and closed the book with a light thump, giving her his full attention. “Of course I’d like to. What are we doing?”

“Um...I thought we could read this comic together before we go to bed.”

“That sounds nice.” He uncrossed his long legs and started for the couch when Chise interjected.

“Actually! I was...um thinking...we could read in your room? There was one other part to this...” she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Of course we can. Just let me have a few minutes to change to nightwear.”

He strode up the stairs, leaving Chise in the living room. She could mentally feel Ruth chastising her for being needlessly awkward but chose to ignore it. She followed into his room shortly where Elias sat in his dark blue pajamas on the edge of the bed waiting for her. His dressed down state had a calming effect on her nerves and she smiled a bit more confidently.

“Could you stand for a moment?” He complied.

Grabbing the heavy comforter, she began tugging the blankets, moving to tuck them on the headboard. After the ends of the blankets were successfully curled around the top and bottom of the bed, she took one of Elias’ large pillows and propped the bottom end of the blankets against it. Lastly, she took her own tiny pillow to prop a small opening on the side of the bed. Comic and torch in hand, Chise wiggled into the little doorway she had made that was just big enough for her to crawl through. Settling herself against the headboard, she saw Elias peeking through the entrance looking uncertain but amused. Grinning, she patted the mattress in invitation.

He struggled to maneuver his head through the entrance and almost succeeded before his horn caught on the comforter. The fort came down with a rush of air as Chise yelped. She could hear Elias shaking his head free as she pulled the blankets off. Once untangled, he glanced up at Chise sheepishly, muttering an apology.

“No, its fine, this was a silly idea anyway.” She said with a chuckle.

Elias took one of the blankets in hand, peering thoughtfully.

Nettles in the shadow...False holly in a ring...

The blanket in his hand snaked upward before unraveling and melting into a dome encasing the entire bed. The only light came from Elias’ ember eyes, which gazed at Chise expectantly.

“How is this?”

She smiled, fondly remembering this a similar barrier that had shielded her from storms. “Perfect, we probably should have started with this.”

She clicked the torch on, bathing the two of them in a gentle yellow light. Elias propped his remaining pillow against the headboard before sitting cross-legged against it. He glanced at Chise and patted his thigh. Chise couldn’t help but scoff at his forward yet somehow polite invitation. After she had crawled into his lap, Elias snuggly wrapped his arms around Chise’s waist sneaking in a quick nuzzle to her cheek. Chise liked to fancy herself used to his affection, yet it could still put a nervous flutter in her belly from time to time.

“So what are we reading?” From her seat in his lap, Chise could feel Elias’ every word rumble through her body.

Still gripping the torch in her left hand, Chise arranged the comic book across her knees. Elias dipped his head against her shoulder for a closer vantage. His eye bobbed like a red firefly in his dark socket, first down at the open book then back to Chise.

“I’ve seen this strip before, although I’ve never actually read it.”

“Really?” He nodded lightly so as not to jostle her shoulder.

“It’s been around for over half a century and appears in the newspaper occasionally. Oddly enough, a strip of the same name came out in America around the same time.”

“Huh, how funny.” She wondered to herself how much he knew of America. She had only vague knowledge of the new world but would like to visit if given the chance.

“I hear comics in Japan are laid out a bit differently.” He stated curiously.

She thought for a moment. “They are, most of them are in black and white. And the panels go left to right instead of right to left.”

“Why is that?”

Chise couldn’t help but grin at the unfiltered interest in his voice. Despite the unhappy memories of her homeland, she did still foster a fondness for her culture and enjoyed sharing little bits of it with Elias. Ever eager to learn he always seemed receptive to her little vignettes. He’d even expressed interest in learning Japanese. They had agreed that it would be a venture better suited for winter when they would have a bit more time on their hands while the garden slept.

“Because Japanese is written vertically from right to left. Unlike English which is written horizontally from left to right. So it makes sense that the panels are laid out in the same direction the sentences are read.”

“Ah, and the color?”

“Well, they’re usually written by only one person and the come out pretty often. Black and white makes it quicker to do and less expensive.” She had seen a few American comics in libraries and was awestruck by the expanse of color.

“Did you ever read them as a child?”

“Once or twice. I liked Doraemon.” Although she was a tad uncomfortable with how closely she resembled the bumbling boy Nobita.

“Let’s buy a copy next time we’re out then.”

She shifted a bit to fit more comfortably against Elias, who fully settled his large head against her shoulder, and began to read the thin book out loud. Despite her best efforts, reading English was something Chise still struggled with from time to time. But she had found reading out loud with Elias occasionally to be handy practice for not only for reading but her pronunciation as well. Tonight she put a little extra effort in making the words on the page lively through dramatic flourish and character voices. The comic was colorful with expressive silly art. Its humor was a bit on the crude boyish side, but she found herself smiling at the troublemaking antics. Elias even uttered a chuckle at the ornery boy sawing a table in half because he was bored.

About five minutes in, a very large, and obvious in hindsight, a flaw in the plan presented itself. The book was a collection of short strips, reminding her somewhat of 4-koma manga, and was, overall, about ten pages long. Even with both of the sample comics from both her and Elias’ bags, the pages had been read from cover to cover and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. She placed the thin pages on her lap in defeat.

“That was...really short. Sorry, I should have waited till I had a longer one.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He paused in thought for a moment. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

He withdrew his right hand, with very noticeable reluctance, and traced a rectangle in the air with his forefinger. He stuck his hand through the shape he had made and quickly retracted bringing a tan book in tow. Chise took it in her hands as he lowered it to her lap. On the cover were illustrations in green ink of a man and woman in Victorian garb surrounded by three children in nightgowns and a large dog wearing a floppy bonnet sitting between them. On the left of the title stood a man in a long coat and hat sneering down at the children. On the right, a girl with feathers in her hair held a hatchet. Resting on the title with his arms draped over it lazily, a boy with an almost fae-like disposition in his features smiled at the scene below.

“Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie.” Chise read with intrigue.

Elias’ chin bobbed slightly against her shoulder as he resettled his arm around her waist. “You might also know it as ‘Peter Pan’. It is my understanding that this story was first a stage play later transcribed into a novel.”

“There’s a film based on it too. I think I saw a bit of it once in a daycare.” She turned the book over, feeling the slightly cracked spine and edges against the pads of her fingers.

“Is this an original copy?”

“Yes, I received it as payment from a colleague in London about a century ago, when it was still new. Silver likes to have up and coming literature on the living room shelves when the chance arrives.”

Ah, so those were Silver’s collection. Chise had thought it a little odd that Elias had taken to collecting poetry and fiction for decoration in the main room. Although she often found him leafing through the pages when there were no matters or orders pressing on their necks. He may not have started the collection but he appeared to appreciate it.

“Have you read it before?”

“I’ve skimmed the pages but not thoroughly. There are many like it in the living room, but I had heard it was undignified for grown humans to indulge in stories for children.”

She often had to remind herself that despite the confidence in which he went about his actions, Elias was very worried about how he appeared to others. Much like she was. “Did that bother you, being seen as undignified I mean?”

He was silent for a moment, as he often was when he searched for words to give meaning to the uncertainty floating in his chest.

“I suppose it did at the time. I was- what did you call it? Self-conscious about how I was viewed. I didn’t want to give anyone any more reason to stare at me than they already did. But over time I came to realize that people with preformed opinions would think what they would regardless of what I did, so I might as well do as I pleased.”

Chise considered this. She had dealt with preformed opinions as long as she could remember but her approach had always been to be as subservient as possible in hope that she would at least be tolerated. The idea that she didn’t owe some kind of apology for taking up space or causing trouble was still one she was unused to. That she could live in and act in any such way simply because she wanted to.

“That said,” She was pulled out of her brief contemplation by Elias readjusting his position against the pillow “this is one indulgence hadn’t considered revisiting in quite some time. I’m rather eager to find out what it holds.”

Smiling, Chise leaned her cheek against the row of sharp teeth lining Elias’ jaw. Elias’ appreciative hum rumbled through her back and shoulders as he returned the gesture.

“Let’s find out then.”

They decided it would be best to trade off reading, Chise taking the job as narrator and any female characters while Elias took the rest. Chise had a little trouble with the slightly outdated English diction, but Elias was patient in explaining anything unclear to her. Before long they were engrossed in the tale of the boy who refused to grow up.

Chise enjoyed the quaint attitude the book had toward its outlandish whimsy. She laughed a bit at the scene of Wendy recovering from a bullet while a house was built around her, saying it reminded her of her long rest before meeting Titania and Oberon. Elias mentioned the several cases where the book’s depiction of magic to be intriguing particularly the gold pixie dust. He said that might explain why he had heard tell of aerials insisting to human children that they could fly if they just grasped a bit of the light they left as they flew.

They hadn’t planned on finishing the novella in its entirety that night, yet at some time near three in the morning, Chise closed the book without needing to mark it. She rubbed her eyes with her palm a taking a long yawn. She muttered pardon me around her droopy eyes before noticing the Elias had stiffened in his crisscross position, no longer resting his head on her shoulder but staring out at nothing.

“Elias, is something wrong? Did you like the story?”

“Nothing is...wrong and I liked it...except maybe the ending?” The question in his tone seemed aimed at himself rather than anyone listening.

Chise shifted, setting aside the torch and book so she could hold his hand as she settled against his chest. His free hand found her shoulder, rubbing it absently as he stretched out into a more comfortable position that they could fall asleep in. Chise felt the pent-up tension in his frame ease just a bit.

“What didn’t you like?”

“When Wendy and the lost boys returned to London but Peter chose to stay in Neverland, I felt uneasy. And then again when he returned years later and felt betrayed that Wendy had grown and married even though he had been given every chance to stay with her. It felt...familiar but in an uncomfortable way.”

Chise drew another yawn trying to fight the fluttering in her eyes.

“I don’t know if there’s a specific name for that feeling, empathy? Nostalgia maybe?” She shrugged “but I think you saw a bit of yourself in Peter and what he ended up doing felt scary because it felt like something you have done or might do?” What a shameful teacher she was! Elias was being open and honest while she couldn’t keep her eyes open!

He hummed. “That might be it.” He said flatly.

He was very scared to admit it, but in addition to what he had confessed to Chise, there had been one scene in particular that sent ice down his spine. When Peter had flown ahead to London, trying to bar the window and prevent Wendy from leaving Elias had thought of how he had almost lost the love of his bride through no fault but his own. He had very nearly been the boy flying at the window sill, watching in hurt and betrayal as his Wendy formed a life without him.

He gripped her shoulder a bit tighter.

“In some ways you are a bit like Peter, unstuck in time I mean.” Her blinks we’re getting much longer as she continued. “But Peter refused to grow up, even when given the chance. You really don’t give yourself enough credit sometimes.” She was rambling a bit, her words considerably less guarded in her half asleep state. “Anytime you do something wrong you always admit it and I’ve seen you grow from it. Even this, I mean yeah we’re technically indulging in childhood but not because we don’t want to grow up. But because growing up too soon took childhood from us and kept us from growing properly.” Elias noticed that Chise was including herself in this observation and wondered at it. Perhaps it was simple drowsiness. But perhaps not.

Chise rested her cheek against his chest, “We’re not in Neverland anymore.” Her weight went slack against him as her eyes sealed shut like a flower closing its bloom.

Elias quietly watched her shoulders rise and fall as light snores whistled through her loosely parted lips. He wasn’t sure he understood everything she had meant, or if Chise had even understood while sleep was setting in her, but felt comforted by her easy assurance. If she thought he was different from Peter Pan, he would believe her. He had learned that her intuition was right far more often than it was wrong.

He released the spell holding the quilted dome overhead and it floated on top of them before wrapping them up in warmth. Something caught his eye on the right of the bed and he shifted carefully to grasp it.

Elias was very quiet, except for the occasional chuckle, so as not to wake his Chise while he thumbed through the comic one more time before bed.

#the ancient magus bride #mahou tsukai no yome #mahoutsukai no yome #elias ainsworth #chise hatori #elias x chise #chise x elias #robinthorn #fan fiction #fan fic #stormy writes #too old for your age #Evidently I can't just write simple fluff I have to inject feels into everything blah!#this one is kinda all over the place so I hope it comes across as coherent

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travelworldnetwork · 5 years

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Excursion to the beautiful iced rocks of Horin-Irgi or Cape Kobyliya Golova on frozen Lake Baikal. Photo: Shutterstock

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Siberia's cold is unfathomable. It wraps its savage fingers around my neck and crushes the tips of my fingers. It grates my lungs with every razor-sharp intake of breath. It freezes my brain so I can no longer comprehend what the Old Believer, an Orthodox priest, is saying. His black cassock is rigid with cold, his beard a cascade of icicles, his words a warm spill promptly vaporised on the chilled air. What on earth possessed us to come to this most infamous of outposts, this far-flung emptiness where people have been sent to die – or to live, improbably – and in this least humane of seasons?

Nine days and more than 5000 kilometres earlier, we're oblivious to what awaits us as we bathe in the weak sunshine that's broken briefly through a snow shower and is casting long shadows and buttery columns along a charming Moscow prospect. The temperature is a mere minus-four degrees – a veritable summer compared to the frozen perdition we will face down the line.

Still, the cold here is impressive. We snap-chill a bottle of wine in the snow that's powdering our hotel windowsill. We blink away whirling snowflakes and wrap scarves around our tender noses while queuing to see Lenin's corpse lying waxy and wan and warmer-than-the-living in his sombre mausoleum. As we walk back from a supermarket one evening, I slip on black ice and am hauled to my feet by two men even as I am falling, even as the contents of my shopping bag are rolling downhill.

Frozen waves at lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy

"Spasibo!" I cry out in response – thank you – and they nod nonchalantly. They are well-practised in the rescue of random ice-trippers, these men.

What are we doing here, in the darkest depths of a Russian winter? Attending to priorities: it's my birthday in early January (a significant one), and to celebrate I'm taking the train from Moscow to Vladivostok. What a pity I wasn't born in June.

I'm joined in my Arctic wanderings by 10 family members – an audacious gang of parents, young adult children and a couple of brave boyfriends (the cold is the least of their worries, I imagine). Swaddled gamely against the extremes, they lug small libraries with which to occupy their minds on this interminable journey, and mental fortitude with which to face off against the infernal cold.

COLDER BY DEGREES

At midnight we board the train at Moscow's Yaroslavsky Railway Station, stopping just long enough in the bitter freeze to acknowledge the monument marking the starting point of the fabled Trans-Siberian railway. The route arcs in a broad south-westerly sweep, traversing 9288 kilometres and seven time zones before terminating in Russia's Far Eastern naval garrison, Vladivostok. It is the longest railway line in the world.

The Ural Mountains are cloaked in darkness when we pull into Yekaterinburg in the early hours of the morning. For 33 hours we've peered out from our compact, four-berth compartments at the uncoiling landscape, at fluorescent cities dimming into canvasses of black ink; at forests glittering with diamond snowflakes; at swathes of farmland gradually solidifying into cities then disintegrating again into empty fields of snow. Overzealous heating has shielded us from an ever-changing climate; we step off the train into an incomprehensible minus-18 degrees.

It's New Year's Eve. Yekaterinburg is lit up like a carnival, the Iset River is a boulevard of ice. The Gosudarstvennyy Akademicheskiy Theatre stands like a baroque wedding cake on a bed of snow. Inside, we queue at the coat racks where patrons throw off heavy swaddling to reveal glamorous frocks forced into hiding by the cold. We join them in jubilantly bravo-ing a performance of The Nutcracker, a Christmas spectacle manifesting onstage in vivid counterpoint to the frosted scenes outside. "Zazdarovye!" we cry at midnight, farewelling the old year with shots of vodka and welcoming the new with flutes of champagne.

FROM TSARS TO SAINTS

Yekaterinburg is a city of death and rebirth, of constructivist architecture built on the foundations of the Bolshevik Revolution and the execution of the Romanovs here in 1918. Though writers passing through on their way to Siberia recalled an unpleasantly industrialised settlement, Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was deeply impressed by the spirit and ideas of the people, says local guide Olga Taranenko.

"They decided to destroy everything that reminded them of the old regime, and construct a new city."

But the new has been replaced with the old: churches have been re-consecrated and the once-reviled Romanovs – Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children – canonised. A cathedral stands on the site where the family died, its red granite walls "reminding us of the bloody events", Taranenko says. Even their once-secret burial site outside the city is now sanctified, a cluster of buildings comprising a monastery dedicated to the Romanov saints. Their remains were removed from here and interred in St Petersburg in 1998.

St. Basil's Cathedral and Spassky Tower on Red Square in Moscow on a summer evening. Photo: Shutterstock

IN SIBERIA

It takes 63 hours to reach Ulan-Ude, capital of the autonomous Republic of Buryatia. We sail from Europe into Asia, crossing oceans of snow, passing railway stations licked with bright paint and fitted with neon signs alerting us to the temperature: minus-22 at Omsk, minus-20 at Barabinsk where we emerge from the train's swelter into a cold so strident it cleanses our stale bodies and shocks us awake. We buy pierogi stuffed with cabbage and potato at a platform kiosk and watch as a railroad engineer crawls beneath the train, lies upon the snow-caked tracks and fiddles imperturbably with the frozen undercarriage.

Somewhere near Novosibirsk four men appear in our compartment doorway and sing us a song. They're from Perm, and are on their way to Lake Baikal to ice-skate. We applaud their cheerful ditty, though we've understood not a single word.

"You write about Baikal?" asks one of them, spying my notebook. I nod; he punches the air with his fist. "Baikal you will love," he says. ''Thank you for visiting in its most beautiful season."

Sledding across the ice of Lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy

On the second day of this leg I awake to flooding, late-morning light. I've missed the Yenisei River and an endlessly evolving landscape. We're fast-forwarding through time, gaining hours as we race away from the sun. Our group sprawls across several compartments, locked in games of chess, trapped inside books, embroiled in conversations or hypnotised by the Siberia scrolling by through ice-rimed windows. At mealtimes, the youngsters squeeze into the parents' compartment for makeshift feasts we've cobbled from shops and stalls along the way: bread and cheese and salami, instant mash, caviar sold by platform hawkers for a handful of rubles.

On the third day, I wake before dawn. We've halted in Irkutsk; I climb from the train into an ethereal gloom. The train recedes along the tracks, its outermost carriages erased by the silvered fog. It's minus-36 degrees, and today I turn 50. Never have I've felt so cold, nor so joyfully alive.

A LAKE FROZEN IN TIME

All day long the train crawls along the south-eastern edge of Lake Baikal. The water sloshes sluggishly, turns gradually to slush and then to solid ice as we curve northwards along the lake's eastern shoreline. Opposite it, fields slope into gullies, snowy whitecaps ripple the plains, fog cushions the tree-line like some mammoth exhalation. We see runnels protruding like ribcages from beneath thin coatings of ice; buckwheat might still be farmed here, says our guide Ksenia Martynova, though after the collapse of the Soviet Union many of Siberia's farms fell into ruin, too.

Temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh – the Monastery of the Holy Imperial Passion-Bearers. Photo: Alamy

Lake Baikal is the low-point of our journey; the temperatures plumb those unfathomable depths, tearing the breath from our lungs and freezing the blood in our veins. It's the high point of our journey, too, for this place is so otherworldly, so far beyond our imaginings, it stuns us into wakefulness and renewed gratitude for the world. So extraordinary is this shared experience, it will bind our family forever.

We disembark at Buryatia's capital Ulan-Ude, a city that embodies the great collision between Europe and Asia, Russia and Mongolia, Christian Orthodoxy and Buddhism. Stray dogs wag their tails, oblivious to cold, it seems; residents stride along streets wreathed with glacial condensation.

"The real Siberian is not the person who doesn't feel the cold," says local guide Goldan Lenkhoboev. "It's the person who dresses properly for it."

Our own polar-wear has served us well until now, but the cold seeps into our marrow in the village of Tarbagatay, where Fr Aleksei shows us around the ethnography museum he's curated. It's a flimsy, unheated space filled with artefacts belonging to Old Believers – Orthodox Christians who were exiled or fled from European Russia in the 17th century in the wake of church reforms, and whose way of life has changed little since then. The cold here is so piercing I can barely focus; it's a visceral reminder of the conditions into which Fr Aleksei's people – and so many others – were once cruelly banished.

We've seen not a single tourist on our journey so far, and now we have the whole of Sukhaya village to ourselves – except for the young Russian men doing burnouts in their Ladas on the ice-slicked shores of Lake Baikal. This fabled body of water – the world's deepest lake and the largest freshwater lake by volume – extends beyond the village in a brumous mass. It has put up a valiant fight against the deep freeze: waves heave and buck and petrify midair. The ice splinters beneath our boots, and when we skate on it the next day we notice air bubbles and water lilies trapped beneath its surface.

On Orthodox Christmas Eve, January 6, we drip sweat inside the banya (traditional sauna) at our guesthouse, submit to Martynova's birch whips – said to improve lymphatic flow – then run outside and smother ourselves in snow. Finally, we're learning to embrace the cold.

THE END OF THE LINE

It's another 62 hours from Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok. The frostbitten landscape flicks past our windows like a slideshow. It's inconceivable, from within the confines of this overheated compartment, that the conditions unspooling outside might kill us if we immersed ourselves in them unprotected; the snow-draped fields are beaches of silica, the larch trees jaunty filigrees against a blue sky. Young marines bound for the naval city run for the train, their breath puffs of smoke on the chill air; the temperature is slowly rising: minus 20, minus 15, minus 10, the neon signs say. A cook comes around sporadically with freshly made pierogis; we lie in wait and clear her tray in exchange for a few rubles.

At Khabarovsk the railway doglegs southwards. We will the train to slow down, but at dawn it pulls into Vladivostok. This is a revelation of a city, we will discover, a place of bright skylines and frozen bays, striking harbours and exceptional restaurants. But we're not yet ready to greet it. We linger on the platform – pleasantly bracing at just minus-eight degrees – and pose for a photo beside the monument marking the end of our epic journey. We've travelled 9288 kilometres – a full third of the world's circumferential span. And there's not one of us who wouldn't climb back on that train before it returns to Moscow, and do it all over again.

Catherine Marshall travelled with assistance from Intrepid.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN IN NUMBERS

9288 kilometres total length, from Moscow to Vladivostok

1916 the year Moscow and Vladivostok were connected via the railway line

7 number of time zones crossed

60 average speed at kilometres per hour reached by the train

1/3: span of the globe covered by the railway line

7 days it takes to complete the journey, without getting off along the way

16 major rivers crossed by the railway

87 towns and cities the railway passes through

FIVE OTHER JOURNEYS WORTH TAKING IN EXTREMES

DEATH VALLEY IN SUMMER

If you visit the US's Death Valley at the height of summer, you might find out just how hot hot can get: 56.7 degrees as measured in 1913, the second hottest temperature on record. As long as you take all the necessary precautions (such as keeping hydrated and ensuring you have mobile contact) you can enjoy the landscape at its most primordial and without the shoulder-season crowds. Or enter the annual midsummer Badwater Ultramarathon, which starts at 85 metres below sea level and ascends 4000 metres across 217 kilometres and three mountain ranges.

VICTORIA FALLS DURING PEAK WATER

You'll need to take a raincoat if you visit this world wonder in the wet season, when islands upstream from the falls – accessible by boat in the dry season – are drowned by summer's deluge. View the spectacle of hundreds of millions of litres of water a minute gushing into the great cataract separating Zimbabwe from Zambia. Peak water, as it's called, runs from around March to June and (in good news for the bottom line) precedes peak season.

AMERICAN MIDWEST DURING TORNADO SEASON

Eye-of-the-storm itineraries exist for those who dream of observing springtime twisters up-close in a region of the American Midwest known as Tornado Alley. Journeys centre on midwestern states such as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska during May and June. Sightings aren't guaranteed, but participants are likely to see supercell storms and the impressive lightning shows that often accompany them. See stormchasing.com

ICEFIELDS PARKWAY IN WINTER

In winter practically everything is iced over along this 230-kilometre-long route linking Lake Louise and Jasper in Alberta, Canada: lakes, waterfalls, peaks, forests, glaciers and bitumen. Winter tyres or snow chains are essential. Travel cautiously, dress warmly and stop regularly at lookouts for views of glacier-licked valleys and snow-laden forests. Bears will be hibernating but you'll see bighorn sheep, elk and caribou – and possibly wolves.

KAKADU IN THE WET

Most people assume the NT is off limits during the wet season: too damp, too sticky, too hot. But the wet season is a wild and magical time when waterfalls overflow and floodplains brim with water, intensifying the landscape's lushness and attracting numerous birds. Some roads are closed during the wet (which runs from around November to May) limiting access to sites, and animals are more dispersed; but visitors will have the park almost all to themselves – and it will cost as little as half of what it would in the high season.

FIVE MORE GREAT COLD WEATHER JOURNEYS

EUROPE'S CHRISTMAS MARKETS

These festive markets have been brightening winter-darkened cities since the 16th century. Cities such as Prague, Vienna and Berlin are transformed into charming bazaars selling an assortment of artisanal food, arts and crafts and merry experiences. The markets draw crowds onto light-spangled streets – and help draw travellers who might otherwise visit during the continent's unbearably busy summer season.

QUEBEC'S WINTER CARNIVAL

The people of Quebec City have turned their iciest month, February, into a celebration of all things winter: ice slides, outdoor cinema, dance parties and ice-skating, night parades, snow baths, dog sledding and a canoe race in which competitors paddle along the St Lawrence River through masses of ice.

ANTARCTICA

Strictly speaking, a visit to Antarctica is a summertime jaunt, since this is the season when pack ice melts enough to allow cruise ships to pass through. Nonetheless, the landscape is still a magical realm of ice – pack ice, sea ice, icebergs, glaciers and that icy water in which brave adventurers can take the briefest of dips.

GLACIER EXPRESS

This storybook voyage between Zermatt and St Moritz began as a steam train journey ferrying well-heeled holidaymakers between these glitzy Swiss ski resorts. The 275-kilometre route transports passengers through a winter wonderland filled with dazzling mountain peaks, soaring passes and snow-filled valleys.

HARBIN'S ICE FESTIVAL

Residents of this this northern Chinese city harness its unfathomably cold winters during the International Ice and Snow Festival, creating elaborate ice sculptures – including recreations of famous landmarks like the Great Wall of China. Brave festival-goers can join swimmers for a ritual dip in the frozen Songhua River.

TRIP NOTES

traveller.com.au/russia

russiatourism.ru/en

FLY

Etihad flies to Abu Dhabi twice daily from Sydney and Melbourne and once daily from Brisbane and Perth, with onward connections to Moscow. See: etihad.com. Korean Airlines flies several times a day from Vladivostok to Seoul, with onward connections to Sydney and Brisbane. See koreanair.com

TOUR

Intrepid Travel's 15-day Russia Expedition: Winter Trans-Siberian Adventure is priced from $3055 a person twin share and has many departures beginning from December 2019. Private group bookings are also available. See intrepidtravel.com.au

KEEP WARM

Appropriate winter gear is essential for this journey. For the coldest outdoor excursions, layer clothing in the following sequence: thermal vest and leggings, jeans or thick pants and a long-sleeved shirt, thermal jumper, polar jacket and waterproof shell, tube scarf, beanie, glove liners and waterproof polar gloves. Snow boots paired with warm socks are essential – Sorel and Colombia are highly recommended. Pack lightweight clothing for the train; it will be warm and quite possibly overheated.

STAY SANE ON THE TRAIN

Compartments are compact but comfortable, with two bunks sleeping four people each; clean bedding is provided. There are two toilets with hand basins and cold water at the end of each carriage. A provodnista or provodnik (female or male carriage attendant) is in charge of each carriage; they keep it clean, provide passengers with beverage glasses and ensure the samovar is filled with hot water. It's a good idea to buy a few snacks, teabags or sachets of coffee from them as they receive a small commission from sales and appreciate the custom.

There are regular stops of various durations; schedules are posted in the carriage. There are often kiosks on the platforms or in the stations selling bottled water and food. Some food should also be bought at supermarkets prior to departure since not all trains have dining carriages. The trains are well-used by locals, many of whom will approach foreigners for conversation. Take small gifts from Australia to share with them.

from traveller.com.au

#Travel Guide

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