A fear of cold which is embedded in the race consciousness plays a significant part in the story, together with the semi-sentient lorin and other creatures.

[3] The protagonist is a precocious youth, Alika-Drove, whom Coney manages nonetheless to make engaging through Drove's struggles with the forces around him.

In the story, Drove learns about his world, about what drives the adults of his species to make the choices they do, he falls in love, and he grows up.

The narrator Drove is in the end driven by love for his girlfriend Browneyes, and grief for his friends who have perished in the killing cold, to abandon his refuge and find whatever waits for him outside.

The tavern owners' daughter, thus a permanent resident of Pallahaxi, and Drove's first love: in the end he staggers out into the killing cold to try to find her, if she is still alive.

He is portrayed as an arrogant know-it-all who has already bought into his parents' status and concomitantly their view of life, and of other people: yet in the end Drove feels pity for him, as Wolff seems doomed to die in the killing cold.

Ribbon's baby brother, whom Drove regards as a frequently annoying presence, and yet remembers him with pity "very long ago a small boy woke safe and happy".

A semi-sentient species covered in long white fur and which in Drove's experience are used only for dumb labour, usually in an agricultural setting.

The ending is poignant, as Drove remembers with pity and affection his friends, especially Ribbon, who are dead, and goes into the cold to see if his first love Browneyes is still alive.