An Advent Tale I

The winter night was dark and cold. The first snow had covered the land in a dampening blanket and rested beneath the pine trees like a gray beast lurking on the living, waiting to swallow them into its freezing belly. Through this black and white landscape came a single figure walking, the air around him having crystallized into glittering frost against his clothes and skin. His back was bent and his movements were stiff, but there burned determination in his eyes and nothing in the world could have stopped him from taking one more step forward… and then another one.

His walk through the endless forest hade been long and hard, but this night he lifted his gaze from the snow to see lights in the distance. A little cottage daring the cold in the middle of nowhere. Empowered by this welcome sight he went on and arrived after some time on its doorstep. Just as he lifted a hand to knock the door was opened and before him stood a young woman. She was lean and beautiful with short chestnut hair, but there was something distinctively dangerous about her. The way she stood tall in front of him, the way she met his eyes. He let out the first breath that had come out of him in days, but there was no heat left in him to turn it into a cloud of mist.

And so it began.