A howl from the icesnow mountain tore through the village. Ice in snowflake patterns clung to the windows, turning the wood inside out. For most doors in the village it was worse. Made of lighter wood to open and close more easily, they opened their interior to the cold and closed the ice inside, bursting the door open into pieces. A second door, a hastily erected barricade, kept the cold at bay. 

Inside was barren. Stone table and shelves repurposed to a hearth, the wooden chair and books now embers. No smoke, only light and warmth. It killed nonetheless, a fire always consumed oxygen, but at least being inside was less scratchy and more muffled. 

Any hole to outside was, of course, sealed. Remained sealed during the ice winter. Only when the snow lessens, and the bite is not as cold, and the wind seems to go into a lull is the roof opened and outside air let in. To someone unfamiliar with the place, the roofs look comical, like Christmas hats hung up in the air. The hope was that thirty metres above the house the snow would stop piling up. But that day was not today. That day was the coming weeks, after the cold ascended above to the clouds. 

Huddled close to the embers were family or friends, warming each other with harsh rubbing and stomping boots. Cold comes for everyone, but preys on the lonely. 

When the last embers die out, and the whole phase is over, a sense of normalcy returns. The residents set out for food and wood almost immediately, trying to forget the grief through motions, only to be preyed upon and hunted down in the next cycle. 

One cycle, a child figured out a way to use inherent magic to stay warm. Inherent magic can only be taken from the recently deceased. 

And so the time of the maddening ice begins.