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“Hey, it’s snowing!”
“Hmm?”
“Wow…it’s really snowing! It looks like a blizzard out there!”
Chuckling softly, Artemis drew his eyes away from his phone. He gazed at the woman seated opposite him. She was transfixed with the snow outside, a grin of almost childlike wonder spread across her face. Copperish skin shimmered in the sun’s feeble rays, and her auburn hair - now just a bit longer than it once was - swished across her multicoloured eyes as she turned back to face him, a mischievous glint in those same eyes he always found himself getting lost in.
“Let’s go out there.”
“Excuse me? It’s absolutely freezing, and the last thing I wish to do is catch a cold just before the festive season!”
“Awww, c’mon. It’s not that bad.”
Artemis was fairly confident it was, as she so elegantly put it, ’that bad’. He could hardly even see out of the window, for god’s sake, and he would not be so undignified as to dress up as something more alike to an overburdened coat rack than a human being just to go frolic out in the snow like some sort of small child. Unfortunately for him, his guest was already marching towards the door and zipping up a jacket that looked suspiciously like his mother’s.
“Captain! Get back here! I will not hesitate to leave you to freeze, I feel obliged to let you know!”
“Oh, Arty, lighten up! Just grab a jacket; I’m sure you’ve invented one that keeps you warm and doesn’t make you look like an Eskimo. It’ll be fun! Oh, and that’s Commodore to you!”
And with that, she was out of the door. Artemis was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he really didn't want to appear a fool by wrapping himself up nice and tight to keep warm. Whilst she was right with his invention of a warm and stylish coat, he had lent it to Beckett not so long ago. So, to his dismay, he was stuck with a woolen fleece like some sort of simpleton. On the other hand, he was left with the choice of maintaining his dignity but disappointing and maybe even upsetting her, and - oh d’arvit, who was he kidding? Pulling on some annoyingly cumbersome boots and the aforementioned frustratingly average fleece, he followed the Commodore into the ocean of white that lay outside his door.
She spied him trudging out and practically bounded over.
“Arty! This is great! Oh, we never get snow down there, and it's so soft!”
He couldn’t deny that. It was soft, and looked like the snow you’ve only ever seen in movies. It made that satisfying crunch sound when trampled underfoot, and was nearly blindingly white. It was beautiful. And then he looked up. She was giggling, spinning sound, hair flying and fanning everywhere, casting snowflakes off of it like a tree shaking off last night’s rain. Her cheeks were tinted with red, little spots of joy that brought a similar shade of pink to his own cheeks. Her smile was radiant, and for a second, he understood why a face could launch a thousand ships. For all the sights he’d seen in this world, in this life and the last, he’d never seen anything so -
“Beautiful.”
“I know, right? Get over here! Let’s build a snowcentaur!”
“A snow…centaur? How would you even… the legs… what?”
“I’m messing with you, Arty.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to make some snow angels, then? It’d be a shame to just come out here and chill ourselves to the bones and then go back in with nothing to show for it.”
He nearly said no. He nearly said that they’d fade away soon enough, so what’d be the point? But then he looked at her, that goddess that he was blessed enough to call a friend, and realised he never could say no to her, nor even wanted to try.
“...Yeah, Holly. I’d love to.”