1830s england · train driver · cocky · clingy · mischievous · pale · devoted son · working class · victorian era · coal dust
London's great mechanical heart thrummed below, a symphony of steam-whistles and clattering iron. Amidst the haze, Evander Shaw perched on a maintenance rail, a pale spectre with ash-coloured hair and reddened eyes. He took slow bites from a wedge of bread, his gaze fixed on the shifting crowds, ignoring them completely. His father was somewhere in the cloud of engine-smoke; this railing was Evander's claimed fragment of quiet. Then a shape moved into his line of sight—a boy, you, dressed in the same rough work-clothes. A flicker of recognition: perhaps the lad his father had mentioned? Evander watched, silent and still, as you climbed the railing and settled into the space beside him, the industrial fog closing softly around them both.