Raising steam fic. Stoker Blake changes a little life.

Daphne Wagstaff – called Daffy by her older brother and Our Daff by her old mum – was one of the many Ankh-Morporkians to get infected with the railway fever. Her story was a brief and not very exciting one: She had been tired of her job as a waitress at Sham Harga's greasy little diner, and her brother had found work with the stokers on that new-fangled steam engine, and one day he had taken his little sister to Harry King's compound where the Iron Girder went round and round for all the folk to see, and had lifted her up in his arms to take a ride with him on the footplate. Daffy had been starstruck, like a little girl.

The railwaymen were looking for all kinds of employees, and so, when that nice Mister Lipwig introduced board restaurants, she had applied for and gotten a job as serving girl, pushing the little trolley of refreshments. Old Mrs. Falsette, the canteen lady, had said for her to keep away from the drivers and the stokers and the shunters and so forth, claiming they were "rowdy folk" that a respectable girl had better not be seen around. Daffy knew her brother John was "rowdy folk", and he had better be, as they lived in the near vicinity of the Shades, but he also loved his little sister something fierce. Any old guy who'd cast a strange look at her would soon find himself being messed about by John like nobody's business.

Daffy was glad to share a workplace with her brother, and to work on the trains at all, but she wouldn't stop at pushing the trolley around and smiling in her pretty uniform. That was a sissy job. No, she would work her way up in the hierarchy of the railway, she would one day be a stoker like her brother, despite being a Respectable Girl, or even, wonder of wonders, an engine driver. There were women drivers, and even a very few women stokers, although those were always so covered in soot and grime you could hardly tell the difference. Between shifts, Daff would visit her brother and the other stokers and bring the leftovers from the trolley and watch them fry them up on their red-hot shovels. She would eat with them and watch them spar with their shovels and when the men were sufficiently drunk, one of them would put a shovel into the pleasant girl's hand and teach her some simple moves, those that had nothing to do with shoveling coal.

Things turned kind of political when "Killer" John Wagstaff was sent to work on the new Überwald line. Daphne never bothered with political, seeing as it had little impact on her little life what the nobs did in their nobby castles, but the train to Überwald was here and now and in their faces and John, a railwayman through and through, needed to be part of the journey. Just like Simnel and his band of engineers, Iron Girder had found her way into John's heart, and he knew he had to accompany her everywhere. To Überwald. To the moon. It mattered not. Meanwhile Daffy was hell-bent on accompanying him. Deeming the moment ideal to switch her position, she swapped the pretty uniform for an overall, hid her long, dirt-blonde hair under a flat cap and became one of those people whom no one minds, walking around with an oil can all day and assisting with the proper runnings of the engine. It was hard work, and it contained a lot of grease. She hadn't thought she would be working with so many goblins, and she had to admit these little buggers unnerved her at first. But you got used to them, and they had these nice long names that sounded like little poems, right, and of course there was the smell, but, well, this was a train, an environment that made for all kinds of smell. After all, they thought that humans stank, right? And anyway, it takes all sorts.

The train always rattled, and since there was some kind of political hubbub, there were a lot of gentry on board. Daffy recognized Commander Vimes – she had seen his face in the Times now and again – and an awful lot of his Watch, and Mr. Simnel the engineer was there, and she thought she had seen the nice Mr. Lipwig, but it was hard to tell, since the man's facial features were oddly unrecognizable so you couldn't tell him from any other bloke unless he smiled his special smile…and it was said that the dwarf they guarded in the armored carriage was none other than the Low King himself…or herself? It was hard to tell with dwarfish folks… Anyway, this journey was something bigger than both Daphne and her brother, and as she began asking herself just what in the Gods' name she had gotten into, it was already too late. She just tried to hang in there and not feel too nervous. Or alone.

She missed her brother something fierce. Unfortunately, and to his great displeasure, John had been sent off to the Quirm line in a hasty last-minute arrangement. He was replaced on the footplate with a man who all and sundry knew as Blake. Just Blake. He was said to be deadly with a shovel, and nobody knew much about him or where he had come from. The stokers were hardly ever talkative, and many of them had…pasts. Stoker Blake fit right in.

Usually the stokers kept to themselves, talking only to the higher-ups. A person as low on the hierarchy of the footplate as Daffy would under normal circumstances find no place in their reclusive little society. But even with John Wagstaff absent, she was still known by the crew as John's wee sister, one of them. John's wee sister was allowed to hang out with the stokers between shifts. John's wee sister could drink with them and sometimes even spar with them, nothing serious, just little play fights.

Tonight was such a night. Everyone who didn't need to be on the footplate by tomorrow hung out around a little fire as the train had stopped for coal and water. The men talked about the engine, about the journey, or they exchanged little anecdotes. Pipes were puffed and fiery Brandy was passed around. Daffy had waved away the first cup, but it got harder to decline the second, and at the third she thought: why not? Nobody here would think of exploiting John's wee sister. She knew everyone…well, except for the man called Blake.

Stoker Blake sat a little way away from everyone else. As far as Daff could see, he was not drinking. Soon enough, other stokers were calling out for Blake to display some of his moves. "Well, if anybody wants to spar…" the man said in a quiet kind of voice.

"She wants to!" suddenly, someone pulled Daffy up and gave her a shovel.

"What? The girl?" Stoker Blake asked. Daffy looked up at him. He was tall and, from a face almost completely black with soot, icy blue eyes met hers. Daff had never seen glaciers in her life, but if she had, that's what she'd probably compare his eyes to.

"He just called you a little girl!" one of the men cheered her on. "We can't have that now, huh? What does this lass have to say for herself?"

"I'll show him what for!" Daffy shouted.

The words were just stupid bravado, but the men whooped and cheered. Stoker Blake raised an eyebrow, which was, despite the soot, a threatening sight to see. Seconds later, the shovels clashed.

It was obvious from the start that Daff could never think to excel against or even just touch that man. The other stokers said that he could be as swiftly efficient as death himself when he was threatened, but he didn't regard her as a threat at all. He didn't even move much. He stood there calmly and just parried all her makeshift attacks as if he saw them coming until Daff was so thoroughly frustrated that she gave up and surrendered. The outcome had been foretold, and there were no hard feelings all around.

Later, when everyone but Blake had had a little too much Brandy, Stoker Blake acted a real gentleman and carried Daff, who could but stumble, to her cabin, his arms around her firm and safe and strong, despite his little limp. Alone with him in there, she almost feared gods-know-what to happen, but he just set her down on the bed and disappeared without a sound or a look back. Which, to be honest, was a bit…disappointing.

The next time Daffy saw Stoker Blake, it was the middle of a battle. In retrospect, she didn't even remember why she had been there then. She just recalled seeing Stoker Blake on the footplate, getting rid of dwarfs with his shovel. Swift, efficient death really was a fitting description, now. But even swift, efficient death couldn't have his eyes everywhere, and Daffy watched as suddenly a dwarf fell into Blake's back (or rather, his kneecaps), tackling the man and bringing him down and then there were two of his dwarf companions with their battle axes.

Daffy was a flurry of movement as she grabbed a shovel, hoisted herself up on the footplate and brought her makeshift weapon down on the head of the dwarf that was holding Blake down. It clanged against his helmet to pretty much no effect, but he was distracted now. He turned around and Daff swung the shovel a second time. This time around, the blade went in through the slit of the helmet and she was rewarded with a screech of pain. The dwarf toppled over, apparently without any sort of hold or orientation for the moment. That's when she gave him a kick and he rolled off the edge, never to be seen again.

She turned around to Stoker Blake, who was already up again and had disposed of the remaining dwarfs. He wiped his brow, turned to her and, sounding less like a stoker and more like one of the nobby gents, said: "It appears you've helped me out quite a bit. Thank you, young lady, and well done."

The shock made her revert into her broadest Morporkian when she answered: "Mistah Blake, Ah'm not a lady, Ah'm Daffy."

"Daffy?" he repeated. "That would be Daphne Wagstaff, sister to my predecessor on the footplate, "Killer" John Wagstaff?"

"Yes, Mistah Blake, but how'd you know?"

Stoker Blake flashed her a quick-as-lightning smile, touched his forelock and disappeared, probably to be swift, efficient death elsewhere.

The other night in her tiny compartment Daphne dreamed. She dreamed that Stoker Blake came to her in the small hours of the night, and he loved her, not like a stoker, but like a nobby gent would make love to his nobby lady. When she woke up she was, of course, alone. Nobody had been in the room. She couldn't help but feel subtly disappointed again.

The Überwald journey was a great adventure, but there comes a day for all of us when the adventure is over and everyone returns home to their lives. Daff was absolutely happy when she stepped off the train and her brother was there and he picked her up and twirled her around and said in his gruff way that he was glad she was back, and unharmed. When he heard that his little sister had kicked a dwarf off the footplate, he laughed his gruff laugh and patted her on the back.

But it was a moment of fleeting happiness and it made way to the mundane ways of the world pretty quickly. She was told that in her absence, her old Mum had fallen ill, and it became apparent that she still, even with the railway job, had to work shifts at Harga's to get by.

Stoker Blake had disappeared from her life altogether. Her hesitant asking around among the other stokers amounted to nothing. Apparently nobody had seen the man ever since they had arrived back in Ankh-Morpork. This shouldn't have meant all that much for Daphne, him being just another man she had barely known. But sometimes she couldn't help…pining after him. She tried to describe to her Old Mum and to her friends the way he seemed to have fascinated her, like there had been something to him she couldn't get her head around, but she never really found the right words. She often thought about how he had called her a 'young lady'. Of course she knew that when the chips were down, there wasn't much of a lady to her, 'respectable girl' being the most flattering label she could hope for. But the 'young lady' had flattered her, it sure had and no mistake. It had sounded like more. Sometimes she dreamed of doing something to become worthy of that status. That people would one day call her a lady and mean it. But, well, as long as she had to work to pay for her mum's treatment, and before she got better, one way or another, there was no way for that just yet. But someday she would be free to become a lady, free from scrubbing greasy dishes at Sham Harga's. Someday she would rise, and prove herself worthy of the mysterious stoker Blake…

Daphne was interrupted in her day-dreaming when two men, whose uniform and behavior said palace guard, entered the diner. Everyone was staring at them in hopes that they'd provide some entertainment, Daphne, up to the elbows in soapy dishwater, being no exception. Anyway, her mouth fell open as one of them announced: "Der Patrician will see Daphne Wagstaff now."

"Th-that's me" she said in a tiny little voice.

"Der Patrician says to see you now."

More thoughts than she could count were trying to use Daffy's brain all at once. The most prominent among them was: Oh gods, I'm gonna be arrested now, right? What will our mum say? I will never be able to show my face on the street again! Closely followed by Why me? What does Vetinari want from me? I'm no one and They're taking me to the palace now and I'm not wearing the good dress and this apron is greasy and I'm covered in dishwater…oh gods oh gods where will I put my face…

All the way to the palace, Daffy thought about what wrong she could have done. She had never broken any law, right? Well, she had kicked a dwarf off the footplate, a thing that sometimes haunted her nightmares…but those dwarfs had been the enemy, right…? She should have kept her head out of the bloody political…

And then she was lead into the Oblong Office, and there was a man there in dark clothes, and she was staring at her clenched hands in her lap and wouldn't look him in the face and wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

"Ah, Miss Wagstaff" she heard the patrician say in a quiet kind of voice.

"Am I in trouble now, y'lordship?" she asked timidly.

"Trouble? I wouldn't say that" said the quiet voice. "No indeed, the city – and that's, in the last instance, me – is of the opinion that everyone who made the journey to Überwald with Iron Girder deserves some sort of gratification. A reward, that is, Miss Wagstaff. I was thinking of a medal – everyone seems to like medals. In sorortanium, maybe, with a picture of the train on it."

"Too kind, Mistah Lordship" Daffy stammered.

"Those medals are to be distributed in a public kind of ceremony which you and your colleagues are hereby formally invited to attend. The city feels the need to thank you, young lady… you and everyone else who served on that train, even the goblins, have helped me out quite a bit…and, in little ways, also helped world peace along. Well done."

Daffy, not quite believing what her ears said was actually true, looked up and into the glacier eyes of Lord Vetinari.

"Oh my Gods" she whispered and fainted.

She almost fainted again as she stood, wearing her good dress, in the palace with everyone else and was given a medal, in sorortanium, with a picture of the train on it, and some old stoker, one of these men who are not afraid of anything, took his medal from the patrician's hands, looked the supreme ruler in the face and said, quietly, "Thanks, Blakey."

And she could have sworn to have seen the patrician lay a finger over his lips and go "Shhh."