Snow Place Like Home

Posted on Mon Mar 23rd, 2026 @ 1:03am by Ensign Henry Taylor & Tessa di'Orion

Mission: Lower Decks
Location: Holodeck 2

Henry hadn't spoken much that morning, listening to Tessa tell him about her latest medical rabbit hole. But, he'd had a little smile on his face the whole time. They'd eaten breakfast, showered, gotten distracted, showered again and were cuddled up on Henry's bed while Tessa showed him the nervous system of a male Argosian.

"As you can see, with their six eyes, most of their primary brain area is focused on the ocular nerves and processing all of the visual data that they're bringing in. That leaves this secondary brain down here," Tessa indicated a spot just over halfway down the spine, protected by another bony protrusion, "To handle the inputs from the rest of the senses, well maybe not smell and taste, but part of that as well. They actually have taste buds on their fingertips as well as their tongues." She grinned up at him, but clearly he hadn't been listening as intently as she'd been explaining, "What're you thinking of?" She asked after a hesitation where her smile started to fade ever so slightly.

"Oh, nothing," Henry said, smiling again. "I just...had a thought as to how we could spend our day off together," he said, kissing her cheek. "If you're in the mood for an adventure."

She leaned into him even more at the thought, relishing his touch, "Me? Interested in adventure? When am I not in the mood for that? I mean, I'm Tialan, my entire life is an adventure at this point and I love adventure! So long as I'm there with you, that is... What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking, replicate something warm to wear, and join me in Holodeck Two. I reserved us a couple of hours starting in an hour," he said. "Wanted to surprise you."

"So you were betting on that I'd agree to go with you to your desired location?" Tessa asked as she sat up, but softened it with a smile, "You know me far too well." She leaned up to give him a kiss.

An hour later, bundled up against imaginary chill, they stepped inside the holodeck. "All right," Henry said, half to himself, "here we go. Computer: initiate program Taylor-Winter-One."

The holodeck beeped obediently, and they were immediately surrounded by tall trees, a clear blue sky, and six inches of fluffy white snow as far as the eye could see. There was a crisp scent to the air, and a cold breeze hit their faces immediately.

"Welcome," he said, "to Walnut Woods, one of Cleveland's best parks to walk through in the winter."

Tessa rubbed her gloved hands together as she huddled inside the jacket that he'd suggested she wore when the cold hit her face. At least her ears were protected by the white beanie hat that covered the crown of her head and her eyes brightened as she saw the pristine snow on the ground. She ran ahead of him for just a few steps, the crunch of the snow new under her feet than the film she had experienced back on Tial. She turned back to him and grinned widely at him, "This is beautiful!"

Henry grinned back. "This is our standard winter season back home where I'm from," he said. "Crisp air, bare trees, and, of course, snow. The temperature may take you some getting used to, but I think you'll enjoy the effect." He scooped up a handful of snow and held it out for her. "What do you think?" he said. "It's remarkable when viewed up close."

Hands outstretched, Tessa skipped back over to Henry and took a small amount of what was in his hands and sifted it through her gloved fingers, the fur of the wrist cuffs preventing it from going up the arms of her jacket with their own cuff of furry warmth. “It’s softer than sand,” she remarked in wonder, “But still grainy in its form...”

"Those are the ice flakes," he said. "They say because of how the crystals grow in the air as they fall, each one is unique." He put some on his finger and blew it away until individual snowflakes could be seen on his dark gloves. "Humans often cut out paper to make decorations that look like them, although we're not nearly as creative, or as intricate, as nature.

The girl leaned in closer to look at the flakes from the least distance possible, her breath melting them even as she observed them, "Fascinating!"

"And it has one benefit sand doesn't," he said.

She withdrew slightly and smiled up at him brightly, "It doesn't get everywhere and itch?"

He scooped up another pile of snow and took a bite of it. "It's refreshing," he said, grinning.

Tessa gave him an odd look, but then laughed as she leaned in to take a bite of it herself, the snow melting into water in her mouth, "Well of course it is, silly, it's just fluffy frozen water! Now, if you added some flavoring to it, then it'd be even better!"

"That is a thing, actually," Henry said. "Humans take shaved ice that has a snow-like quality, and put flavored juices on the top and eat it as a sweet. We call it a 'snow cone'. It's a bit sugary, but it's great when you're a kid and that's all you crave." He looked around the woods. "Come on, let's look around." He held out his hand, grinning at her.

She took it eagerly, walking next to him with just her face and ears exposed, looking nearly Russian in the fur fringed accoutrements that she wore. After a few minutes, she shifted her grip from his hand to holding onto his arm as they walked, leaning her head up against his shoulder while her eyes danced around the woods.

They walked through the trees for a minute, looking at the way the snow piled on the trees. They watched a squirrel poke its head out of a hole in one of the trees and rush along a branch, scattering snow over them before running off, leaving a white cloud of flakes drifting after it. Eventually the trees gave way to a good-sized clearing of perfectly smooth, white snow near a frozen river. "This'll be perfect," Henry said.

"Perfect for what?" Tessa asked, looking up at him, "I mean, it's absolutely beautiful, but it's too cold to consider camping out here right now, unless you have a cabin programmed in that you haven't told me about?"

"Human Tradition Number Six," Henry said. "Building a snowman."

Tessa shook her head slowly, "Humans have a lot of silly traditions..." She said quietly, "But most of them are pretty cute in their own right." The Tialan let him go and looked him up and down, "But how can you get this stuff to support itself on two legs and still have the arms attached?" She reached down to pick up some of the snow and packed it together before crumbling it again, "Not enough strength to hold it all up, I don't think."

"A traditional snowman doesn't have legs," Henry said. "It's comprised of three spheres of snow stacked on top of each other. When rolled and compacted, the snow holds up pretty well. Then we'll decorate it with a few odds and ends around." He knelt down and gathered up a large amount of snow, pressing it into a sphere the size of a large melon and began to roll it, the snow sticking to his initial sphere and making it grow in size. "See?"

"Wouldn't that particular size be considered a snow-boy?" Tessa asked as she paced around him and his sphere that had grown to the size of a large pumpkin, "It'd have to get really really big to be a snowman." She crouched on her haunches and began to pack her own ball of snow in mimicry of him. Some of the human traditions were really fun, so she was determined to try most of them.

"Just give it time. It'll grow." He began pushing it around the clearing, the ball rapidly growing in size, carving a path as he moved. As he made a circle around the clearing, the ball eventually got large enough that he couldn't get his arms around it, but he did his best to keep it spherical as he rotated it and continued to roll it. "See?" he said when it had gotten nearly a meter and a half in diameter.

Tessa's ball was still little more than the size of a basketball as she struggled to get it moving around, also the fact that it looked like a very lumpy basketball didn't help. She was now on her hands and knees trying to rescue her mess of a creation, dragging snow in with her hands to add to the ball. Her face was a testament to concentration, but she looked over at his ball at his exclamation and leaned back to sit on her feet, "How'd you do that so much better! I can't even get mine to roll!"

Henry smiled. "Years of practice," he said, coming over to her and kneeling next to her. "Round it out first," he said, scraping some snow off and packing other bits on. "Now, give some gentle pressure so the snow sticks." He guided her hands and showed her how much to press it into the snow, rolling it and picking up some snow along the way. "Now, rotate and roll again." He turned it ninety degrees and rolled again, the ball growing rapidly. "Give it another shot. Aim for about a meter across so it's slightly smaller than mine as the middle section."

As with most things, Tessa was a very quick learner and soon had the ball rolling, rotating and moving along. It took longer than his had for her to get to the right size, but after several minutes she was appraising it for how wide it was, in a few places, "It's still a bit lopsided... But will it do?"

Henry looked it over and turned it towards his. "Give it two more rolls in this direction," he said. They pushed it together and as it got near his, he stood and ran his hands over it, shaping it into a relative sphere. He then wiped his hand on the top of his snowball, giving it a slightly flat top. "Okay help me lift," he said, standing to one side of Tessa's ball.

She gave him a look and settled herself on the other other side after brushing the snow from her knees, "Ready? And go." She commanded.

They carefully picked up her sphere and placed it on top of Henry's, positioning it as dead center as they could. "Perfect," he said. "One more for the head and we're set."

"And then what?" Tessa asked as she picked another spot to start gathering snow at, "And how big should this one be? Smaller than that one I'm guessing?"

"Correct," Henry said, eyeing the river nearby. "Okay, you start on that, I'm going to grab some other supplies."

"Other supplies? What other supplies?" Tessa asked, but she wasn't paying attention to him, instead to the small ball she started off with.

"Computer," he said, "remove the ice from the river." The computer beeped and the river's icy surface vanished, replaced by a gently running body of water. "Okay," he said, removing his jacket. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Okay, I'll be here!" She responded, already planning the path to terminate as close to the headless snowman that was there, "Don't do anything stupid without me!"

"When have I ever?" he said, rolling up his sleeve. He walked to the river and knelt down near the bank, putting his jacket down in the snow. He looked through the crystal-clear water for his quarry, and began picking out contenders. He reached forward, his hand plunging into the icy water and grabbing a dark, smooth, round stone, a bit bigger than his eye. He placed it next to him and scanned the riverbed again, finding another suitable candidate. He added it to the first one, and dove back in for more.

The snow had muffled every footstep she'd taken towards him after leaving the ball of the head over by the snow-body, but it wasn't until she was leaning over him that she made her presence known. "Whatcha doing?" She asked from maybe a couple feet away from his ear.

"Jeez--!" Henry said, almost losing his balance as he was elbow-deep in the water. He steadied himself and recovered from the surprise before pulling out another black stone from the water. He shook the freezing water off his hand and arm and pulled his jacket and gloves back on. "Pulling some river stones. Usually we use pieces of coal for this, but since we don't have any handy, dark stones will suffice. Takes about a dozen." He picked up the dozen stones he'd collected and stood up, leaning down and kissing her. "Dirty trick, sneaking up on me," he said, grinning before walking back to the snowman.

"Sneak up on you?" Tessa didn't object to the kiss, hanging onto his arm again as she caught up to him with a smile, "I didn't sneak on purpose, you just weren't listening close enough!" Her smile was bright and cheerful, "Where are the stones going? Once we get the head on, of course, which is perfectly ready to go!"

They put the head on top of the snowman and Henry handed Tessa a few of the stones. He placed two on the head, working them into the snow until they stayed on their own as a pair of eyes. "If you'd be so kind as to give him a smile with those," he said, before taking the last three in his hand and putting them down the center of the middle sphere like coat buttons.

"A smile?" Tessa stood back and looked at the snowman with a very serious look as she pondered how to do it, then very carefully began to work them into the snow from the middle and working her way out. "It's harder than it looks!" She had to manage the curve and after a few minutes, stepped back and smiled at her work, "How's that?" She started to turn to get his opinion on the matter.

"Very cheery," he said, approvingly. "It just needs two more touches." He walked over to a tree and broke off two small branches, coming back and sticking them in the sides as arms. Finally, he looked up. "Computer, I need a straight, raw, orange carrot with the greens removed."

A moment later, the conical root vegetable appeared at his feet in the snow. He picked it up and handed it to her. "Would you care to do the honors?" he said, smiling.

"Well, I suppose I could." She accepted the carrot and looked it over before looking back at him and gave a shrug, muttering to herself, "Well, it is a snow man..." She carefully positioned the carrot in the proper place, the very top of the third and largest ball of snow.

As she walked up to the snowman, he scooped up more snow, making a smaller sphere in his hands. He looked up and his eyes went wide and he doubled over, laughing. "No...no, Angel," he choked, catching his breath, "it's his nose."

"Oh?" Her eyes looked from where she'd placed it to the face of the snowman and finally nodded, "Oh!!! I see!" She plucked the carrot from where it was and smoothed the snow where she pulled it from, then repositioned it in the right place.

As she repositioned the carrot, Henry grinned and nodded. "There we go. A proper snow warrior, standing guard."

"I thought you said it was just a snow man? If he's going to be a warrior, we'll need to get a stick good enough to make a spear or a sword! I don't think we could make it out of snow and have it really hold up... Or maybe an icicle?"

"That could work," Henry said, his mischievous smile returning. "Believe it or not, Terran children learn much of the rules of human combat in snowfields like this. In fact, there's even an old Earth song about a snowman that comes to life and invades a town square with a broomstick, daring the townsfolk to catch him." He gestured at the snowman's face. "You can see the danger in his eyes."

Tessa peered in closer. "No, I really don't think so... Maybe if we could find some fire opals to put in place of the eyes, then we could see the righteous anger there! But I think that your story is one you've been hiding from me for too long! A snowman invasion sounds like a fun one to have to fight off! How did the-" She got cut off.

While Tessa examined the snowman, Henry silently moved a few steps back and to the side. When he was in position, he pulled his arm back and let fly, the snowball sailing and hitting Tessa perfectly in the side of her hood, some snow hitting the hood, but a chunk of it streaking across her face. He immediately crouched down and scooped up more for another projectile. "Human Tradition Number Seven: Snowball fights."

Her eyes were open wide as she turned to look at him, shocked and mouth as wide as her eyes while he bent down to get more snow. "You... You... You..." The second snowball impacted her in her chest and spattered up into her face again and then she was in motion with a shriek and she dove for the ground, grabbing a handful and hurling it towards him where it just dissipated in the air, mystified at how his had remained in one piece before she scrambled off towards a tree, grabbing more snow on the way and hastily compacting it before rushing a throw at him that missed by several meters.

Henry was on the move as well, using the cover of the snow cloud she'd created to mask his movements. He may not have been much of a front-line soldier, but he knew how to have a snowball fight. He took up another position by the tree line and gathered up a good-sized mound, shaping it into a ball, tracking her movements, waiting for his moment.

She grabbed more snow and this time her smaller snowball came much closer than before. She ducked down behind the tree and stopped to think, even as she grabbed another double handful, "You.. You! You're a traitor!" She called out before leaning out to throw this one and running towards another set of trees, feeling the snowball barely missing her as she dove behind the small hill and rapidly building another snowball and flinging it in the general direction.

"Just keeping you on your toes," Henry called out, ducking behind the trunk of a tree, kneeling to build up an arsenal.

As she panted behind the tree. "Surrender now, or there will be no mercy!" She saw her chance and ran for the three trees that sat behind the cover of his tree and began to set up her plan.

"Talking to yourself?" Henry taunted. "I have no intention of surrendering, but you may do so if you wish, Your Grace." He glanced around the tree and lobbed another shot as she ran. As it flew, he also ran for a new position, two more snowballs in hand, which he launched as cover fire as he moved. He got behind a larger tree and stayed hidden a moment. He heard her move and grunt but then silence. He looked around carefully to see her position.

The fur poked out from the side of the tree, clearly a part of the hood of her jacket as she was pressed against the tree. The voice came from behind the tree defiantly. "No surrender, huh? You can't say I didn't warn you!" The fur jiggled as a hand came around with a snowball that fizzled out after just a few feet, the loose snow spray happening once again, obscuring vision for several seconds, but she apparently didn't move.

Henry dove to the side as the shot came near, but the blur of snow made him jump again, back towards his original position, trying to throw off whatever aim she had. He rolled further and came up to his feet, grabbing snow and immediately compacting it to a ball as he watched her. He was now a few feet left of his original position, and saw her crouched down against a tree, probably building her next shot.

He crept up silently, trying to let the crunch of the snow give him away. When he got close, he dove forward and grabbed...an empty coat. He landed on top of it and stood up in surprise, before he felt some snow land on his head. "Aw shit," he groaned, realizing his mistake and looking up.

"Hello, sweetheart." The voice came from above him and Tessa grinned evilly down from several feet above his head and she stomped down hard on the snow-laden tree branch, the accumulated inches all coming down at him at once.

Henry was suddenly knocked down and covered head to toe, surrounded by a pile as the large branches under her deposited everything on him. It also had the effect of shaking half the tree, causing more snow to rain down. Unfortunately, this included a large chunk that knocked into Tessa.

The laws of unintended consequences hit Tessa in the form of snow from above her that hit her shoulder and she yelped in surprise and shock rather than in pain, putting her foot out to rebalance herself, but instead hitting a patch of ice that made her lose her balance, gloved hand losing it's grip on the trunk of the tree. Gravity proceeded to play it's own nefarious plot as she began to plummet.

Henry cleared the snow from his eyes just in time to see her sway and lose her grip and he stood up quickly. He took one step to position himself and as she slipped off the branch, he reached up, grabbed her mid-air and pulled her to him, landing backwards into the snowdrift, with her on top of him.

He coughed as she landed on him, his arms now locked around her protectively. He winced from the air being knocked out of him and the sudden addition of a knee to his groin, but he didn't let go until he knew they were down and safe. "Well, I suppose I could surrender," he said, giving her a smile.

"I'll have to consider allowing it." Tessa gave him a matching grin from only a couple inches away, "Clemency for rescuing me to counter the coup attempt?" She gave a micro-shrug, not really wanting to move her hands from where they were, but leaning up to give him a long kiss, "I suppose."

[TBC]