Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

She lets the silence fill her, vast and bright as home.

It’s the kind of quiet that only happens after heavy snowfall — thick, forgiving, a hush that smooths the sharp edges of everything. The colony sleeps beneath a quilt of white, soft light bleeding from the biothermal streetlamps. Above the dome, the auroras twist in ribbons of green and rose, reflected in the ice like the planet itself is dreaming.

She stands outside the comms station, chin tilted back, breath crystallizing in the air. Her boots leave careful tracks on the compacted path. The cold doesn’t bother her much anymore; after six years on Isolde Prime, her body has learned to move with the chill instead of against it. Still, she misses the sound of wind through trees — there are no trees here, only metal towers and frost.

The door slides open behind her. “You’re out here again.”

She doesn’t turn immediately. “You say that like I’m supposed to be somewhere else.”

He steps beside her, close enough that she can feel the faint warmth radiating from his coat. Dr. Elias Hart, exobiologist, reluctant optimist, hopeless romantic. His parka hood is lined with faux fur gone a little ragged at the edges, and his cheeks are red from the cold.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he says.

“So are you.”

“I was.” He smiles, slow and tired. “Then I dreamed about the first storm, and figured you’d be out here watching this one.”

She glances sideways. “You make that sound like a bad habit.”

“Depends on the company.”

The lights above them pulse, soft as breathing. She remembers that first storm — the fear of the power failing, the scramble to secure the greenhouse domes, the way they’d worked side by side in the cold until dawn. That was when it began, really: not the flirtation or the laughter, but the quiet respect that came from surviving something together.

“Do you think we’ll ever get used to it?” she asks. “The cold, the dark, the way it always feels like we’re living inside a snow globe?”

He follows her gaze toward the horizon, where the sun won’t rise for another twenty days. “Maybe that’s not the point,” he says. “Maybe we’re not supposed to get used to it. Maybe we’re supposed to keep being amazed.”

She snorts, but softly. “That’s the kind of thing you say before you go back to Earth and write a book.”

“I’m not going back.”

She turns toward him, really looks at him this time — the steady eyes, the unshaven jaw, the kind of man who plants roots even in permafrost.

“Elias—”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small: a clear polymer sphere, snow swirling inside in tiny suspension. “The kids in the fabrication lab made these. Said they’re souvenirs for when we forget what the real thing looks like.”

She takes it, shaking it once. Flakes swirl like tiny ghosts, catching the lamplight. “You kept one?”

“I made one for you.”

Her breath catches — not from the cold this time. “You really are hopeless.”

“Hopelessly yours,” he says, grinning.

The silence between them is thick, but not empty. It’s the kind of silence that holds everything they haven’t said — the hours shared, the meals traded, the quiet in each other’s presence.

She leans in before she can second-guess it. The kiss is brief, but steady. His beard is cold, his lips warm, and the world seems to tilt slightly around them.

When they break apart, the snow begins again — soft flakes drifting down through the artificial atmosphere of the dome.

She tucks the snow globe into her coat pocket. “Merry Christmas, Elias.”

“Merry Christmas, Alina.”

The snow falls thicker now, wrapping the colony in white, and when he reaches for her hand, she doesn’t let go.