His name was Xing although he was no longer sure if that was true. So many names over the years, so many lives he had lived that they seemed to merge and swirl like the snow all around him. Despite prodigious layers of furs draped over him his old frame was cold. That was the cruelty of living, when you finally get a good idea of how to do it you start to die. He chuckled at his own melancholy. That was not like him. The wind shifted the snow into swirls of living ice that danced around him seeming to lick at his furs in an attempt to draw out the last of his heat. With a simple gesture and a quick thought he cast a small magic that made a small tornado of wind that sucked the drifting snow into it until it was a solid vortex of ice. He watched his creation as the ice shifted and swirled and danced for him. There was a day when he had awed the imperial court with such small tricks as though they were great magics that could change the world. He had, long ago, had the appearance trappings, and office of an important man.
