The first meal belongs to something small
Scheduled light feeds crops, algae, and escaped plants. Heat sustains fungi and insects. Organic waste supports bacteria, larvae, and scavengers; mineral runoff supports specialized growth while concentrating hazards. Jayjo's households and workshops are habitat whether their owners intend it or not.
Saltback beetles consume metal-rich debris and develop pale shell edges that can help reveal contamination. Seal moth larvae eat damp fiber and old binders, damaging the barrier that first attracted them. Forge crickets gather around warmth and quiet when fumes or vibration change. Rope mites leave dust that experienced hands notice before the line fails.
Water, roof, and seam
Warmfin school in heated gray-water channels. Drain eels take larvae, carrion, and soft blockage. Mussels filter water while concentrating what it carries. Fish at the surface can indicate low oxygen, feeding, breeding, chemical change, or fear; a useful reading combines signs rather than trusting one animal as an infallible alarm.
Pipe swallows nest near warm conduits. Birds, ordinary rats, lizards, and roof grazers use kitchens, gardens, cracks, and waste ledges. During a heat hold, insects, birds, Rimwise, scavengers, and people seeking shelter can all arrive on the same roof.
Rimwise eat small growth, insects, scraps, mineral films, and certain residues. They move spores, open narrow drainage, and remember local threats. They are also prey. Their routes belong to living animals, not to the person who leaves food beside the wall.
When a healthy web changes
A production change above can alter algae below, then fish behavior, then the safety of a Barge harvest. Poisoning a pest can poison its predator. Sealing a seam can trap a nest and leave rot behind. Careful coexistence is work: food placement, waste handling, safe exits, and knowing what a household cannot support.
Cosmic fauna occupy narrower impossible niches within this world. Their arrival may displace ordinary insects, redirect Rimwise, or change where plants grow. Not every infestation is a supernatural message. Most damage still begins with a leak, a blocked drain, a bad batch, or neglected maintenance.
