The Maid and the Crocodile

No matter how many times she made mistakes, or said no, or demanded why . . . she would always deserve to be housed, and clothed, and fed, and taught to imagine a better world for herself and everyone in it.

A city belongs to its people

I gasped, turning to the Crocodile: “The cultists and the nobles know what they want”, I said. “They are all saying the same thing! Everyone else is messy, disorganized.” “Well observed.” “But a lot of those commoners do know what they want”, I pointed out. “A place to catch up with their neighbors that is not a back alley. A place to hear news and music and for their children to play without getting trampled by carts and palanquins. Structures that catch the wind, where they can hang their laundry - and awnings where they can rest without burning in the sun.” “Yes. But it is hard to say all those things at once. Do you know what is much easier to say?” “Order and beauty” (...)

The Nobles and the Cultists have few weapons, and the commoners outnumber them- so why is the smaller group dominating the space?

So, ‘order’ will mean "guards with spears, whom the nobles will bribe to harass unwanted commoners". ‘Beauty’ will mean "removing benches where people can sleep - and erecting statues in any open space, in which a large group could loiter, especially for the purpose of protests.

I stared high at the clouds, casting shadows across that untouched orchard. Without blinking, I told the Crocodile: “Whenever I try to shape my world, I end up destroying it.” He turned my chin, so I met his gaze - which had grown uncharacteristically soft - and said: “That is a lie told to subdue slaves, who outnumber their masters. It is the lie on which every empire is built.

It was not that such labor scared me—being a maid had always filled me with purpose. Cleaning was so necessary, whether you lived as a prince or a pauper, the work seemed to me almost sacred. It was only—I could no longer accept how I would be treated.