And there aren't any." "Mmm," I said. "Awkward." "That's defeatist talk. I'll cobble something together. A scholar can never let mere wrongness get i… - China Miéville

She was an outsider. Had left her sisters. Forgotten hive and moiety.

My dad hates umbrellas," said Deeba, swinging her own. "When it rains he always says the same thing. 'I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.'

The water here reflects the stars through a stinking rainbow of impurities, effluents and chymical slop, making it sluggish and unsettling. (Oh, to rise above this to not smell this filth this dirt this dung to not enter the city through this latrine but I must stop, I must, I cannot go on, I must.)