Krulak knew better than to be out when the sky turned to lavender but he'd been in a no win situation. HE could stay the night away from camp and hope to survive the coming storm or he could hope that he could make it the three miles back to his cabin before the storm settled in. Against his better judgement he decided to make the jaunt back to his home. Sure they'd all make fun of him, except the younglings who would praise his bravery.
It was the elders who still remembered the Old Ways that warned against going out turning the Lavender sky. There was supposedly a monster, a dragon that could disguise itself as a beautiful woman but she was trapped beneath the ice. Except during the Lavender Sky. That was when she could come out. When she came out she would capture any man she could find and if she found him pleasing she'd take him away to but if she didn't she would devour him.
It was just a story.
The incoming storm was very real and Krulak had never known a man to just disappear into the snow and never be found. They always showed up after the first thaw, he had known men who'd frozen to death thinking they could handle a storm. It wasn't really a choice. He lowered his head and starting putting one foot in front of the other.
The storm was far faster than Krulak had expected, he should have been back at the cabin before it even started snowing but it had crept upon him silently. It was when he was almost exactly halfway between the tiny cave and his cabin that it overtook him. He'd been storms before but nothing like this, it seemed like it was something alive actively working to block his path and confound him at every turn. Krulak grumbled, going back wasn't an option but he could hardly tell which was forward. He only knew that stopping wasn't an option. He might have survived in the cave, he'd have no chance of surviving if he didn't find some kind of shelter.
Time took on a strange pace in the white flurries. He wasn't sure if he'd spent minutes or hours pushing forward in the hopes of finding shelter. There was nothing his footsteps to tell Krulak how much time had passed. It was a frightening sensation to be in the middle of a storm and yet his finger tips felt like they were sizzling. So did his toes. Krulak's legs were starting to get heavy and he was sweating. He wanted to strip down but he knew better. He knew he had to keep pushing on no matter how badly it hurt and how much he wanted to just curl up and rest his eyes for just a bit.
Then he could see a cabin, it wasn't his. At least he didn't think it was his. His wife, Susan, should have been awake and the fires should have been burning but this cabin looked larger than his but no smoke was rising from the cabin. Maybe it was abandoned. Krulak tried to rack his brain for any empty cabins in the area but he couldn't think of any but he also wasn't sure where he was and he'd die if he didn't find shelter soon.
The snow was suddenly much more intense blocking his vision enough that he had to walk all the way around the building twice before he could find the door. When he did find the door he had to search for the knob for and when he finally found it he collapsed across the threshold.
