Chapter 1

"Preposterous; no man could ever devise such a wondrous contraption!" Alicia exclaimed. Earlier that morning they had been informed that a man - a man! - had invented a new machine, a brilliant new device. Such was magnitude that Queen Reilia herself wished to meet its creator. Her head lady-in-waiting however, had other ideas.

"I'm quite sure he simply pilfered the plans from some lady while her back was turned!" another woman, on the opposite side of the ornate throne, added. "I've heard he can't even write - and come on, basic literacy is a must these days in the least! It's disgraceful."

"Yes! See, Lady Roxanne understands perfectly!" Alicia nodded enthusiastically so her bun bobbed like a hen's head in excitement. Reilia was silent throughout the ordeal, ignoring her sister and her informal advisor. The two were so within the typical lady's mind frame at the time she could ask anybody here the same question and achieve an identical result. Right now, what she needed was rational thought, not those two clucking old clichés about menfolk like litanies.

"Oh do settle..." she muttered under her breath. Despite her low volume and their previous high volume, the other two seemed conditioned to do so; immediately they fell silent except for the soft bump of their rears hitting the broad arms of the throne. One for each side, their tails swished complacently. "Ah, good. Now if you would, Alicia, do inform the man's wife to come along also, of course, can't have him unsupervised. I have heard things. Oh... And let him bring a friend, too."

Outside the palace's vast front gates, two guards were conversing, and beyond them, the market sprawled. Somewhere further still, deep into the residential districts of St. Gallsbane, a mother was lamenting the birth of her son. Eighteen years past this apparent tragedy had occurred and the woman was still bitter about it. Delkan's father, true to nature, assumed his proper position: safely out of the way in the corner, being quiet. Despite having a monumental temper, Eliza Redstoke was nonetheless incapable of bringing deliberate harm to so much as an insect. Then again, nobody was meant to do harm, that, as the wise-and-all-knowing Goddess had said, was a sin, harming living things. Secondary, Delkan mused, only to being born male. Still, people committed both, though the latter was a little less avoidable.

"Eighteen and not even a suitor! Honestly Delkan, have you even been trying? I'll have you know your father was married to me when he was years younger than you!"

"Yes, Mother. Though with all due respect your mothers arranged-" he began, tentatively, but Eliza was having none of it. She strode around the plain wooden table in the centre of the room, past Michael on his stool and bustled over to his son.

"That may well be but I know how you would hate an arranged marriage just like that - I do love you, you know - I'd rather you make sure the lady likes you and would treat you right before I go asking. Far better for all of us in the long run." she rebutted, occasionally prodding him in the chest for emphasis. She was obviously trying to loom, however the young man was head and shoulders above her. Another advantage of having them married before puberty. Such a good thing men were taught not to know their own strength... Or fight back... Or... Well, Delkan never had reason to anyway. Though comparable to a lit firework Eliza was, in heart, kind. That and her husband was about as capable of inflicting harm as a lame rodent. On a stool.

"I see you understand, hmm?" she nodded after a while, looking pleased, Delkan repeated the gesture, true to what was steadily becoming a ritual.

"Yes, Mother. Though it if vexes you that much I'll marry whoever you were to choose if that would please you...?" he tried, verbally pussy-footing with the tentative steps of a cat who'd been shoved off the bed enough times for doing it to wonder if he'd gotten any chance of an anomaly yet.

"Alright, good lad..." Eliza chirped, in much better humour, and patted Delkan on the shoulder. Ah, so, anomaly indeed. Odd woman, was Eliza. "Though do make sure I don't see you with that inventor fellow until the hearing, hmm? You have a reputation as an honourable fellow we don't want that, er, spoiled now." she continued over her shoulder as she wandered off. With that she was gone, skirt skimming with finality as she rounded the doorway. A doorway that had seen many years, and even more knocks and scratches, and hadn't been of particular good quality to begin with. Delkan plonked himself down on an ancient war veteran of a chair - you had to be to survive long with Mrs. Redstoke - with more memories than he had and sighed before waving briefly at Michael in the corner.

Much as they all hated to admit it, Delkan wasn't likely to get a good marriage with his background and, on the shallower side, unremarkable looks... And certainly they weren't getting much of a choice even if they were lucky enough. This family direly needed some money... Their situation wasn't exactly brilliant and was steadily going down hill as it was. The church forbidding all sorts of things only made it worse... And then mother going and getting herself pregnant by folly with Michael again so she couldn't work for them, and men not earning much in the way of a wage to help things... He sighed heavily again. At least if the child was male he'd have a better chance at marriage than he... Bah... He wanted to go to see his friend but... Naturally, that was forbidden by Eliza until two days from now.

Chapter 2

Delkan Redstoke:

After a while I stood up and began pacing. Father watched me but said nothing; A quiet man, you see, kept to himself. I guess you could say that mutated into plain antisocial in my generation. Eventually he spoke up, warning that I was going to wear a rut in the floor, so I nodded to him in ackowledgement and off I went -Goddess knows where, I just wanted out. Well, really, I wanted to go talk to my friend, but not for two days, when he'd be telling those Royals about that new gadget. Damn... He always seemed to have new ideas; This had to be his best yet. If only. If only it were mine I could have helped my family. I really would do anything to help them - to help us, the three of us. But steal? Such a thing to steal, let alone from a friend. Could I even do it? To top it off, I knew that I shouldn't have been thinking that...

Two days later, Eliza had bullied her son into their most respectable vestments and was hustling him out the door. A little on the scruffy side, the suit was left over from their better days and hence would have to do. St. Gallsbane was the city that housed the palace; it was well within walking distance from this district of the capital. On his way out he shrugged on a thick, brown wool overcoat to defend against the cold despite his mother's protests. It completely swamped him and his passably neat beige suit. In fact all that poked out was his faded tan thigh boots. They disappeared under the hem of his jacket, the beast of a garment was just that long. Long, thick, warm, and not something you wore if you wanted to look decent, but there was no use in looking tidy if you were a suspiciously human shaped icicle in a back alley somewhere. He barely noticed that Eliza was still going on at him, absently clicking the door closed to silence her, at least to his ears. Then he strode off down the snow swathed street with his hands lodged in his cavernous pockets.

St. Gallsbane was right in the heart of the frigid lands of Veldijk. Almost perpetually covered in frost, going outside in less than three layers, people said, was a health hazard. The only time the sun seemed to bother shining was dead in the midst of Firebreath; so named because the season was like an exhalation of warmth over the land's icy skin. That, and the legend went that the Goddess had fought with a great fire breathing monster. She won of course, but she was so taken with the beast's efforts she let him devour the omnipresent clouds and lounge in the sun's glory once a year. Then came Bloodfall, for the bleeding to death of the annual falling leaves. After that, Inkheight, darkest and coldest of the seasons; when the Goddess mood was as black as the sky. Every year, priestesses prayed for her to lighten her spirits, and it all went back to that patch of warmth: Drakesbirth, for the rising of that dragon's heat. Nobody really knew if the dragon existed or if it was a story the Goddess planted. She worked in mysterious ways, after all, and any priestess claiming to be her voice was usually locked safely out of the way somewhere. Really, they weren't terribly imaginative peoples in their naming. Even the name for their continent simply meant 'world' in some obscure language, which was rather egotistical since there were myriad other island and continents. Godforsaken as they were, at least they weren't frozen wastelands. Whatever the reason, the crystalline North was watched by the Goddess through all its insane happenings.

In the middle housing section of the glacial capital, snow laded houses arched up on either side of Delkan Redstoke as he strode along. Every building had white nestling in its gutters like plump ptarmigans. Their style was dark wooded, squat of structure; most were bungalows. Frost gathered on latticed decorative wood, criss-crossing the fronts of the houses. Most of them had bricks painted black - at the very least dark brown. Delkan picked his way over slick doorsteps and around vagrants huddling for what little warmth there was to be had. He was too close to their situation to have in the way of pity. After a while he escaped out of the haphazard muddle that was the residential district and into the sprawling monster of the market. Merchants jogged on the balls of their feet, swathed in rich dyed wools or shabby furs according to prosperity. A wind was picking up and billowing the sides of the tents. This did not bode well. Seeing this, Delkan ducked his head and yanked his heavy hood up before tugging his hands out of his sleeves. He then huddled over inside this makeshift cloak as he made his way, ignoring the beckons and shouts of the desperate salesmen all around. No time to wait, to stall, to hesitate, he was going to be late as it was.

((Notes: Any comments on appropriate palces for indentation would be extremely helpful. I'm having a bit of a bother with that currently. :3 I hope you enjoy it, it picks up soon. There are trains with sails, too! You'll see.))