Ardghal O'Devlin, 1898

And here's something I threw together just to test out this computer's drawing capability, which is more hindered by Gimp updating than anything else - the heroine of the steampunk story, Ardghal O'Devlin, or, as she's known on the streets, 'Hard Gal Devil'.

Immigrating to Liberia from Hibernia in 1890, she soon found herself poorer, homeless, and on the brink of despondency. Instead of crawling into a home to work as a servant or become a woman of the night, she pressed her curiosity, nimbleness, and slight of hand into becoming a pickpocket, a cheat, a thief, and a lockpicker. Running with a familiar but dwindling group of friends and drifting teens, she moved away from the bustling of downtown and the docks towards midtown, taking up residence in a subbasement of a decaying tenement out of the way in Hell's Bells neighborhood. The rich were moving more and more north inside the city, after all, hugging the new grand park with lavish apartments and bonafide mansions. Reachable, but not so close as to draw immediate attention, she would scout around during the day and breach at night, or come across a mark, or even try to gain employment for a while, often in the kitchens or as a cleaning maid - though the ones who hired the more come-and-go 'help' were never really her target, often up and coming or pretending to be high society, it gave her a uniform and a cover and connections to get closer. A summer here, a winter there....one year east side, another west....

She mused on her future. She was getting old, even though she could play at being younger or older when it suited her, it wouldn't last forever in the ever watchful, judging society. She had amassed some savings, ill-gotten, sure, but she had nowhere safe to put it. More than once she'd discovered a secreted hoard of hers had been discovered and enjoyed by someone else, and she dared not amass it all in one place, be it boarding house or cellar. Shuffling around had gotten harder as well, and she turned to wearing mens' clothes more often at dusk and dawn to move about, often a crime in on itself by the worrisome wits of a judge ('masquerade', they say). She needed an out. Go west, maybe? Join the bachelor girl's clubs? End up as an old laundress maid, or sell flowers until the end of her days?

All of that would change on one halloween job, while the ladies of a house socialized with bat wing costumes telling ghost stories and the men sang and ate tongue sandwiches, she came across something. Something much higher than her or her mark's paygrade, circles, or imagination....

Yes, I know Ardghal is a boy's name. I think she does, too - with no family left, I'm thinking she took on her brother's name or took it on to further cement a new identity for herself.

Made in GIMP. Bodoni font used, 50 and 30 pt. Image doubled in seize for visibility.