Status Updates From The Maid and the Crocodile

sto sperando in un lieto fine .....

“I laughed… ‘And when exactly did I become a god?’…I will die, oga, just as the newest Small Sade will too someday.’ ‘But not…before she tells HER children the story of her birth. How her mother stumbled into a realm of gods and labored ina chamber of stars. How a kindly goddess with worlds on her skin watched over the birth, cleansing the room of ill spirits, so the baby was born to the sound of divine music.’”

“‘Time to barter. Rule 1: Never use your hands to point at what you want. Use your lips instead, like this.’… ‘Like this?’ He made a face that looked constipated. ‘No,’ I groaned… ‘The idea is to seem so uninterested in the product, you cannot even bother to move your arms.’ ‘This?’ He bit his bottom lip, eyes dancing wickedly. ‘Now you are not even trying’”😂

"'You never wanted Sade to be grateful.' My mother's voice dropped to a hiss. 'You wanted her to be SMALL. To know always that she is less. To skulk around town with her head bowed, forever indebted to your cold-blooded charity. But I won't raise her that way.'"

"'Your window is not barred.' She gestured toward Dele's room. 'If you truly wished to spend your life playing house in the slums, you could run off with your sweetheart, leaving me to shoulder the family name you find so burdensome. But you have not.' She smiled in cold, cruel triumph. '...For...all your praise of the noble working class, you love security more than you love her.'"
OOF!

“‘By buying property, they are taking on all the risk-‘ ‘Risk?’ Kanwal scoffed. ‘Of what?…Finn, the only people buying property have their basic needs met already. If an oga’s investment falls through, will he starve? Will he sleep on the street? Of course not. The worst thing that can happen to a rich man is that he has to get a job like the rest of us.’”
Finn’s grindset is weird in a fantasy. But preach, Kanwal!

“‘Common people,’ I said, ‘have to deal with gods all the time. Spirits often live in in-between places…We tie blessing knots in our sandal laces so water imps don’t drown us and steal the laundry. We must the kitchen coals with salt water so ina sprites don’t…burn the stew. When madam’s infant fusses…we…find a window facing the Bush, for nothing calms babes like the song of a haunted forest’”

“‘He’s going to eat me, you know,’ I said. She chortled…But when I explained about the body-bond, she stumbled, frowning. ‘You mean when Croc goes full lizard beast, he’s dragging you along with him?’… ‘It’s not his fault…’ ‘Of course it’s his fault!’ Ye Eun howled. ’This is what happens when you enchant yourself immortal instead of dealing with your trauma like a normal person.’”

“For those at peace with their places in the world, spirit silt is as light as the air they breathe. But those who reject the roles placed on them…They will feel the silver dust as cotton lining their throats…The world had called my mother a nobody. She refused to believe them…and died unhappy for it. I learned then, you see, to call myself a nobody before anyone else could.”