“Water beaded on his forehead. It cut clear trails through the mud on his face and chest. He was sweating. She’d never seen sweat before.”

Sweat is a minor everyday discomfort experienced in real life. The acknowledgment that Aria has never seen it before illustrates the ease of life Dwellers have and their lack of experience with any form of adversity, no matter how minor.

“Grief hung thick and heavy, out of place in the colorful room. It pressed in along the edges of his vision like a bleak gray fog. Perry also caught the smoke from the dying fire, the tang of Luster from the clay pitcher on the wooden table. A month had passed since his brother’s wife, Mila, had died. Her scent was faded, almost gone.”

Perry describes the grief and sadness following the recent death of Mila as a bleak gray fog. Up until this point, the only glimpses the narrative has had of Reverie are its bleak gray walls and the smothering smoke from the Ag 6 fire. The relation of these two implies the low quality of life of Dwellers despite what they believe of themselves.

“People said that the Marked had the Aether flowing through their blood. Heating them up and giving them their Sense. It was just a saying, but Perry knew it had to be true. Most of the time he didn’t think he was very different from the Aether at all.”

The Aether is described as being violent and unpredictable. Perry compares himself to the Aether, playing into what Aria believes about “Savages.” Soon, Perry will reveal that Outsiders are different than what Dwellers rumor them to be, but for now, the assumptions hold up.