In the final hours before the frostline was crossed, the Big Evil Beast slept. She slept heavy in her moorings—four boilers silent, three massive ballast compartments sealed, two heavy rigs chained and squared—and every one of her crew, from foreman to foodboy, tucked in tight, wool-wrapped and snoring. The long corridors echoed with the low moans of settling pipework and the occasional hiss of resting pressure.

Only one figure moved. She was small and fleet, dwarven, and rosy-cheeked from exertion and late-night amusement. A girl of nineteen winters, with curls the color of honeyed brass and a smile that hadn’t quite left her face. She wore nothing but the night itself—modesty kept only by silhouette and the gentle mercy of low lamplight. Her bare feet pattered softly on the warm brass flooring as she ghosted her way down from the upper bunks.

The quarters behind her were those of the ranking crew. She passed their doors like a child tiptoeing through a museum of sleeping lions—Yuul, Drandul, Beanskur—each name etched in tidy dwarven script on brass plates mounted beside reinforced hinges and runic locks. Behind one of those doors was a legendary rifle. Behind another, blueprints and the shells of long-eaten pistachios. Behind all of them: snoring. Deep, dangerous, dwarven snoring. The last plate was blank. It had been polished clean.

No soot, no fingerprint. No name. Not yet. Tomorrow, the lads would wake to find Tarris placed among them. But tonight—tonight the girl moved alone. She crept through the rounded hall at the heart of the Big Evil Beast, passing the sealed maproom with reverent quiet. The great chamber was dark now, instruments at rest, charts rolled up, the big ring-table dormant. She did not scamper here.

She did not giggle. Her back straightened, and her breath slowed as if the pipes themselves might judge her. No one, not even a daring lass, dared to wake the Beast’s heart. She emerged into the upper gallery, lantern-lit and window-lined, and tiptoed up the stairs—not down—to the old corridor by the store vaults. She moved swiftly now, guided by memory and soft-spoken directions given earlier in the evening.

The quartermaster was still awake somewhere below, muttering through tallies and scribbling in his account-book. She did not see him. He did not hear her. Through a narrow hatch, she reached the Navigator’s wing. Cold metal tables. Blue-hued working lamps. A lingering scent of ink, sweat, and scorched thread. Here she hesitated.

The pipes groaned, as if warning her, but she pressed on. And at last, behind one last old steel door—she found warmth. Steam kissed her skin as she slipped giggling into the rig’s bathing chamber, where the night engineer was already waiting, beard ruddy and arms folded like the gates of a treasure vault. He offered no smile. Just a nod, and a place by the heat. It was their third meeting this night, and she would leave heavier in coin for it. She was, by all accounts, an enterprising soul. Somewhere far behind her, one of the men who had paid her way lay sound asleep, unaware of the night’s ongoing transactions.

But that was the way of things aboard the Big Evil Beast. It was a company of business. Of contracts. Of silence. Let the lads sleep. Let the engineers bargain in steam. Let her laughter echo once, then fade. Because come the morning, the brass plates would hum, the valves would open, and this old Beast would begin its long, cold crawl into unknown lands—into white skies and black frost, where the maps ran dry and only the brave kept the company inkwells full, evenblack, and at the ready…

Let them have their mischief. For soon, they’ll have none.