Maribel Gearhart is a broad-shouldered human woman with weathered bronze skin, a square jaw, and a face marked by tiny burns from years of working around boilers. Her copper-red hair is braided into a thick coil threaded with black horsehair and small brass washers. She walks with a purposeful forward lean, as if every path were an incline and every second were already late. One lens of her copper goggles is smoked nearly black, while the other magnifies her hazel eye until it seems comically large. Her hands are scarred, oil-darkened, and surprisingly gentle when handling injured animals or delicate clockwork. She leaves behind the scent of rain, hot metal, and crushed mint. The unexpected contradiction is her immaculate, pearl-white fingernails, which she polishes every Sunday despite regularly plunging both hands into river muck.