Medusa

Though the more recent arrivals given up by the sea might at first call the phenomenon jellyfish, to the citizens of Parquet the verminous pests have always been medusa. It is in the Arks that great blooms of the tiniest larvae can be found. Maturing rapidly and of great variety. For the most part they do not trouble any true citizen of Parquet. Indeed, most luminous they offer a light to the Delves when that from the Looms fades. Even in some of the darkest lanes well sheltered from that captive light, the medusa might turn the pitch of the exaggerated shadows to a softly delicate half-light.

For the most part medusa, whilst often venomous, are at worst an annoyance and often a benefit. Feeding mostly on spiders and certain vollies (and in turn hunted by others), they keep such examples of either down to manageable levels.

William Lane suffers drifts of medusa, the Obscures boasts unique examples that rarely rise at all, and longer lived take occupation of the eaves and cornices often for several weeks. Parfumer have use for certain of the medusa, Charlotty Bowell uses her favourites in her labour as just one odd crow amongst many.

Different varieties enjoy certain cycles, appearing and vanishing over the year. Occasionally, and especially in the Arks, citizens might wake to discover some colossal blooming had occurred so that they remain trapped within their homes until, for reasons unknown, the pulsing clouds thin and dwindle.

Nearly every citizen of Parquet raised or possessed of a home in the Delves is able to fan the common medusa from their home with no more effort than taking a broom to most spiders, or in closing the lid of the cargo pail to trap the snails that have feasted that night upon the family’s effluence.

Medusa sting when stumbled into, most not lethally, and in the main the more toxic the medusa the brighter it illumes. Almost every case of injury is from a sot too drunk to notice them. Fencers of the French style love them as whilst a dropped vase is traditional, and a cut curtain a joke that never grows old, devising an opponent into medusa leads to aching laughter that can only compete with their enemy’s screams for volume.