The city itself first appeared as nothing more than blurry light on the horizon, a sign of hope in the bleak, dark, continuous blizzard that had dominated the environment the further north they had travelled after patching the ship. It had been a miserable week all told, and the heat off the pipes diffused heat unevenly throughout the ship. Water rations were renewed but had frozen over a number of times and most of their waterskins had burst when they had made the mistake of making them too full and leaving them in areas too far away from the warm pipes.