A traveling partner...how comforting. Castiel was more than happy to have someone to help him brave the frozen north, but the eyes that his companion, Torvald, drew were disconcerting. The area was still very backwards, the church may have died but it's paranoid ideals still lingered in the people's minds-- despite the intervening hundred years.
Hushed whispers followed the pair like a ghost as they made their way north.
After many arduous days of travel, the days grew colder and colder until their very breaths fell to their feet like snow.
Castiel stood in shock as he watched the air freeze before his eyes.
His hot blooded companion took note of his wonder and let out a mighty breath before speaking. "It is said, that snow is the breath of the God's and so every flake of ice is a soul. Thus, our breath freezes because we live and have the spark of our creators inside."
Castiel looked at the orc thoughtfully, huffing with the exertion of climbing the snowy hills.
"Does that mean that our breath also produces souls?" He asked, curiosity glimmering in his eyes.
"Not precisely, our breath gives life to those animals who pledge loyalty to us. Our brahmen, hunting wolves, and war hawks are our responsibility, so we give them life. Wild beasts are the domain of the God's."
His argument certainly sounded more reasonable than the alternative that the extinct church offered. A God bent on human suffering as a way to purification, wrath and punishment for those who were called heretics and priests who were above all other men.
A spark of creation in all things...how novel.
The journey became quite miserable for the prince as they plowed deeper into what looked like a frozen wasteland. He was unaccustomed to the ice hanging from his body, turning his sweat to brittle glaze upon his skin, stabbing his lungs at every breath.
Torvald was left to apologize constantly, despite castiel's repeated words of gratitude.
"If my people had not shunned yours, there might have been a train or at least a trade lane to Icetide." The prince wheezed at one fireside dinner.
A point to which the orc could only grudgingly agree.
"I still wish that there was the money in your royal vault for you to experience the trains my people have built."
After many weeks of blizzard like weather and ice filled shoes, the pair finally came to a seemingly bottomless canyon.
"What are we to do now?" The rather beleaguered looking prince shuddered as he looked out into the foggy distance.
His travel companion looked to the sky for a moment, wrote out a short note on a piece of lambskin then turned to look at his shivering friend.
"Tomorrow at noon a way forward will reveal itself." The rather friendly orc said, obviously enjoying the melodramatic turn of phrase.
The next day met Castiel with blinding sunlight, just like every other day,yet the air felt electric-- charged with what could only be explained as magic.
Torvald poked his white head into the small tent, a huge toothy grin plastered to his face.
"Come, come! Learn why my home is called ice tide!" He said sounding like an excited child with an all too deep voice.
In an instant, the prince was dressed in his heavy furs and wading through the snow excitedly.
"Look...." the snow white giant growled proudly.
The infinitely deep gash in the earth began to rumble, a deep, low roar rose from the crack. The thunder was followed by a gigantic plume of steam and brittle crashing. Huge sheets of ice seemed to grow from the walls and caused the maw to close with shocking quickness, the ice seemed to flow into the canyon like water.
Steam continued to bellow out of the rapidly shrinking channel till the ice sang from it's speed and pressure.
Castiel stood, slack jawed with awe. He had never seen such a thing in his life!
"A great geyser sits in the mountain many leagues from here, a series of caves houses a vast amount of melted water from the snowpack. Many many centuries ago our tribe carved a network of narrow tunnels from here to the geyser, made it so that only the ultra heated high pressure steam would be able to arrive in the Canyon and fill it with this ice." The towering orc beamed with overwhelming pride as he explained the marvel his people had made.
"The ultimate moat. No army has ever crossed it, we can control the speed the ice melts at by allowing more steam to pervade the base of the ice bridge. By tonight, it will be gone."
It took the pair barely an hour to cross the ice bridge where they were promptly greeted by a small group of orcs armed with huge wineskins full of heavily seasoned elk broth.
The eldest of them, bearing a long, coarse beard, began to speak.
"Welcome back Torvald! Your kin is waiting for you behind the gates."
Castiel looked around with a deeply confused look on his face.
Torval, meanwhile, took a long drink from the wineskin and pointed vaguely into the oppressive mist that surrounded them.
"The city walls are hidden by the fog, it takes a special compass to find the gates." The bearded orc rumbled with a friendly smile.
"Come with us, please." He continued, pointing in a direction and ushered them forward.
Their guides took them on a very short walk, the fog seemed to part like a veil to reveal soaring steel walls that seemed to stretch far into clouds, gleaming impossibly given the wall of mist.
An unseen gate opened wide, welcoming the group into it's heart.
"Please excuse me, good prince. It has been many moon's since I have seen my loved ones, I would like to catch up with them. We will meet the mechanic tomorrow. My friend, S'trou- the one with the beard- will take you to a good inn for the night." The metalsmith said respectfully, then departed quickly.
For the second time that day, Castiel's jaw was slack with awe as S'trou led him through the vertigo inducing city.
Huge spires full of people and their lives touched the sky, the streets bustled with life. The prince looked round and prayed that his home would be able to look like that some day. He knew he had to take the head of Ra'sel if his subjects had any chance at a decent existence.
The next day, Torvald practically burst into Castiel's room and hauled him into a small work shop a short distance away.
The claustrophobic shop was filled with circuit boards, all kinds of mechanical components, armor and strange glowing threads.
"You must be the prince.....sit in that chair over there." A grumpy old orc rumbled from behind a pile of armor sheets. His long white arm poked out and pointed to what looked like an archaic torture device.
Castiel gingerly reclined into the dingy looking saddle and waited patiently.
Many hours of harsh grinding, small fires and ripping metal later, the still very imposing mechanic emerged from his work shop.
"Brace yourself human."
The next weeks were filled with uncomfortable probing,scanning, measuring, and surgeries.
"You have the sparks of mana in you human, not the fire like an elf or an orc, but it is unusual none the less. I won't have to use muscular parsers because of it. Lucky you."
Castiel was visibly confused by the jargon that landed in his ears.
"Pardon me?"
The mechanic rolled his large yellow eyes comically.
"Mana is what magic runs on, but unlike the fictional majic of fairy tails, it is a scientific discipline as well. Mana is the energy that complements nervous impulses, only instead of controlling muscular contraction or other body functions, mana allows skilled users to manipulate energy. Humans used to have mana streams in them until your backwards priests decided that mana was the mark of the "devil".
Why does any of this matter? You may ask. My armors are controlled by mana flow impulses. Since humans don't have mana in them much any more, parsers were developed that measure muscle responses and predict how to make the suit move. The cost is long latency, hundreds of milliseconds sometimes."
Castiels eyes glazed over as he took the information in.
So that meant that one of his ancestors was a Mage...
"All I have to do is place some contacts to your spine and the mana will do the rest. I've already placed the contacts actually..."
He already...
There was nothing that could be done about it now, and it would have happened anyway.
"It would have been nice if you had asked..." he said, feeling for the contacts idly.
"And you would have said yes please Mister orc, so I saved us both the trouble and did it. The contacts are beneath your skin, they only amplify what's there, mana is not electrical in nature, it's radiant so direct contact is not required."
The old workman had a helpful smile on his face that castiel simply didn't want to stomp on so he simply smiled back and gave the towering orc a thankful hand shake.
"We aren't done yet prince, I still have to build the thing! Shouldn't take too long though, two weeks, I still have some human sized frames left so I'll just adjust 'em to your body. See you then. Torvald and I have a great deal of work to do."
The white giant hurried his client out with a good natured shove and slammed his door.
After two weeks of wonder struck sight seeing in the miraculous city, the armor was finally finished and ready for the final fitting.
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