Dirge was not known as the Land of Howling Spirits for nothing. The high winds passing over the craggy landscape produced that sounded like something between ethereal flutes and the screams that heralded the coming and going of the restless dead that until recently had plagued the Empire. The sound however were something that Dawn Star could easily live with; it was the ever present cold that she could not stand.

During the Second Battle of Dirge she had not noticed so much. It was during the summer so the cold was tolerable and between the heat of battle and sharing a tent with Furious Ming she had hardly noticed. But now it was the dead of winter, leaving even the hairs in one's nose frozen. Remembering her earlier time at Dirge she employed the earlier remedies that had kept her warm, namely making war and making love. She had sparred with Ming and they made peace later. Yet this only exasperated the problem.

She leaned forward and dropped the load of bile and last night's dinner. Like any other sane human being she hated vomiting with a passion. This hatred was multiplied as she had to it in the freezing cold of Dirge's ever-winter nights. As she lurched over the commode she braced herself for a second wave of nausea which never came. Not to worry, Dr. Ann said that the morning sickness would pass over the course of the next few weeks, about the same time her abdomen would begin to swell noticeably. Relieved that she was finished she quickly turned and half-ran through the cold to the warmth of bed.

Granted the suffering would soon be over. In a few days the Water Dragon would summon them to her comfortably warm heaven for a mission and by the time they had completed spring will have come. As she crawled into bed the Furious one mumbled that she was letting all the cold air in. As she cradled her head on his pectoral the retaliated that the Water Dragon wanted her to make sure that he could adequately defend against ice magic. Warmth and then sleep came mercifully quick.