Author's Note: Prompt by TheElootist
L is for Leeward
It was the off-season, the safe season, the season where Avalanche was supposed to keep his treads solidly out of trouble…but sometimes Mother Nature destroys your expectations.
Avalanche's day had started out fairly normal. He had woken up, eaten breakfast with the family, and put in a solid morning's work in the mine. When lunch rolled around, his mother the mine forewomen had waved him over and asked him to grab some needed supplies from one of the stores in the nearby town. He had, of course, agreed to help and because there was snow forecasted for that evening, he set off immediately.
Like most of the vehicles his size, Avalanche wasn't street legal, but that didn't slow him down. The little dozer had grown up at this mine, so he knew how to get anywhere he wanted using backtrails and sidewalks. Rolling across the Wyoming plain, he hummed to himself and enjoyed the feeling of snow and soil under his treads. When he arrived in town, he snagged the needed supplies as well as a coffee for himself before heading back to the mines.
It was only Avalanche saw the wall of clouds barreling towards him did small dozer reflect finally reflect on how concerned the shopkeeper had been when she had learned that Avalanche was planning on driving back to the mine on his own. The storm looked like a beast which took his breath away for a few moments, then Avalanche turned his eyes to the path in front of him and powered forward as fast as his treads would carry him.
Even though Avalanche had given it his all, he was still so far from home when the squall slammed into him. In what felt like an instant his world turned from color to pure white and the little dozer couldn't even see his blade through the driving snow. He knew that he would freeze in this storm if he didn't find some form of shelter, and that knowledge gave him the motivation to keep moving forward.
Through slitted eyes, he used his blade to slowly grope his way forward until the snow was too deep to feel the trail in front of him. Lost and shivering, Avalanche rapidly realized that his only option to live was to keep moving. As the sky above him started to darken, the dozer's hope also began to fade…then he felt the ground disappear from under his blade.
Gingerly, Avalanche reach forward to find that he had indeed found a break in the landscape. With a ravine located the dozer could feel a warm bubble of hope rising within him. The landscape had just handed him a tool for survival and Avalanche had the training to make the most of it.
Pressing his blade to the frozen ground, Avalanche plowed himself a path into the shelter of the ravine. When he reached the bottom, he was somewhat disappointed by how shallow it was, he couldn't afford to complain. Every moment he spent in the storm his body temperature continued to drop. Even now he could tell that he was severely hypothermic, and he desperately needed an outside source of heat to bring his body back into healthy operating temperatures.
Groping around in the darkness, Avalanche was able to successfully locate some scraps of wood and clumps of dried grass washed down the ravine by the last year's spring runoff. Pushing tinder into a pile, Avalanche banged his blade against a nearby rock to create a shower of sparks while he protected his infant fire from the winds with his body.
It took a brief eternity for the dozer to successfully start his fire, but once he did Avalanche could feel as a knot of fear let go. The wash of warmth made Avalanche instantly drowsy, but he fought desire to sleep and turned his attention to the task of creating a shelter. Snow was rapidly filling the ravine, so Avalanche decided to use the white stuff to his advantage. Bending his blade, he carved out a snow cave in the leeward side of the ravine, then he dragged his tiny fire and as many flammable materials as he could find into his impromptu shelter.
The heat from the little flames instantly began to warm up the interior of the snow cave, and Avalanche was finally able to relax. He tended his little fire until he had finally warm enough to trust closing his eyes. As he drifted off to sleep, he knew that was probably going to have to get rescued in the morning, but for now, Avalanche knew that he was safe in his shelter as the storm howled around him.
End Note: And we are back! What are your prompt ideas for the M?
