"Stop it! I can't run tag with you. Someone's coming."

She gestured with one hand and, when the wind retreated, absently brushed strands of silver blonde hair out of her eyes. She knelt on the icy edge of the path and looked down for any sign of the suppliant coming to visit her sisterhood. A pity one would be arriving on the first day of winter. Usually she spent her first day on watch exploring the paths branching from the cavern near here, or playing games with the wind.

But not this first day. Oneida sighed. A change was coming, climbing its slow way up the hills. Change. A word she and her sisters rarely used. A mortal word. Mortals invariably sought for change when they came to visit. The ancient mortals had envisioned the Nala as agents of change. Unlike her sisterhood, they truly believed change was possible.

A wave of unease swept over Oneida. Unlike the ancient mortals, the Maker hadn't believed in change. Well, enough fretting! Change was coming. And in the guise of a mortal!

The thought made the headache caused by Spring's avalanche return. Through Summer and Autumn, she'd been able to forget it but now she felt as if the cracks near her place in the cliff were starting to split open in her head. Better to put it from her mind, and enjoy the day before her.

Oneida reached down and allowed her long fingertips to stroke the translucent gray white hummock by her knee. She loved snow, but ice was her special delight! She drew comfort from the hardness, the crystalline density, the stubborn endurance of it! Her first memories, aside from the forming thoughts of the Maker, were of snow burdened skies and gray rock glittering with ice. Her sisters hated ice. They whispered of black frosts and pitied her for her assigned season. She smiled to herself. Pity her? She who saw the sparkle of ice crystals in the snow and the giddy swirl of newborn snowflakes in the playful wind? If there were any flaw in her existence it was that her duties didn't permit her to walk about at night.

Oneida gasped. There, struggling up the path only a few hundred feet below, was the visitor. Oh, Merhule! She wasn't even at the cavern. Oneida gathered up her skirts in preparation for running along the cliff edge, then paused.

What was the stranger doing down there? Dropping her hems, Oneida crept closer to the edge, her head cocked to one side inquiringly. He had stopped near a cluster of icicles and was staring up at them. Perhaps, he thought they might crack apart and strike him if he proceeded? No. Oneida watched thoughtfully as the man tilted his head to one side and then the other. Ah! She remembered that spot. Dawn light refracting through newborn icicles created the most exquisite rainbows in that very place. Often, she would stand just so.

Oneida jumped up. After a final swift caress of the largest icicle and a sigh, the stranger was resuming his journey upward. Now, she was even later than before. Oneida whirled about and ran along the cliff edge, slipping and sliding expertly along any available ice patch to hasten her speed. Her actions were instinctive, her thoughts on the stranger. So different from the ones before him. A Change indeed. But what kind?

Reaching the cave mouth, she sprinted directly toward the first fire cistern. Already the cavern was too warm for her comfort but that made little matter. She lifted the huge stone urn, dumped coal unto the cistern's tiny banked flame, and then moved toward the next.

Once she'd protested about the cavern's warmth to her sisters, only to have them piously repeat ancient beliefs: the fires, the underground springs, everything was there for the convenience of travelers, not for the humble watchers. At the time, she'd complained about the fires? heat, their explanation for it had seemed a worthy one. But not now.