[Child of the 7th Age]

The next morning, as Nitir clambered out of bed, a blast of cold air hit her as she threw back the covers and her feet hit the hard stone floor. Shivering, her teeth chattering, she ran to the nightstand only to find the water covered with a thin film of ice. Outside, in the main chldren's room, she could hear enormous noise and commotion. Fearing that the Orc commander might be banging at the front door, she raced to the children to make sure everything was alright. She didn't even bothering to slip on a skirt over her rstling petticoats.

But the cause of the commotion was clearly evident as she peered through the door looking at her unruly charges. The children were jumping up and down on their bedrolls, and running up to the windows with great glee, pointing and shouting. One of them had unlatched the door to the workhouse and propped it open with an old stool. And the biggest boys had pulled their breeches on and were racing about in the yard. One of them came in carrying something in his hand which he quickly let go of and hurtled across the room. A large gloppy snowball came careening across in front of Nitir's noise and squarely hit Lindo in the backside as he was turning to wash his hands at the frozen nightstand.

Nitir could not help giggling at the sight of Lindo with snow on his behind. She ran to the front of the building and glanced outside only to discover that there were already several inches of the white stuff collected on the ground, and it was still fiercely coming down from the heavens. It looked as if they were in for a very long, cold, and snowy day. There would be no chance for Bullroarer to take his lads out to hunt in such bad conditions.

Nitir hoped that their visitor, whoever he or she might be, would have the good sense to prepare for this unexpected storm. Then she turned about in the room and began the hard task of restoring order to the jumping, squealing children.