Well, LTU, I'll say this for you: worldbuilding seems to be your strength. Your world is more unique than suggested by your prologue. I like the variety of races you have, and the racial dynamics in your city's politics.
Prose and dialog are the weakest parts of this story. It's hard to describe why I don't like the prose without a good line edit, but I'm afraid I'm not a good enough person to put that kind of time in. I may do a section of the piece when I'm not so tired.
In absence of a line edit, I notice that you tend to use words that sound like the word you needed, but are not. For example, in one place you used barrings (not actually a word) instead of bearings. During the entire Elidor section, you used roves instead of roofs. Perhaps most egregious and consistent, you always say "passed" when you should say "past". When you refer to something being beyond something else, use past. For example:
She whistled a short tune, slipping passed another unsuspecting man in a hurry.
You see, outside of the city, passed the desert out there, is freedom.
Those should both use past instead of passed.
As they passed, she slipped her hand along his belt.
As the whole of the mass passed, both sides of the street pressed together again, like two sides of a coat being brought together with a hook.
Those use passed correctly.
Moving on. I'm confused about what is desirable for citizenship. Parts of the chapter imply that one should be small, others tall. Parts imply one should be as inhuman as possible, and others imply that being mostly human is where it's at. That needs clarifying.
In the first scene, Tasia is described as wearing a skirt and a halter top. Then, she has on a sleeveless shirt. Then, she has on a jacket. This is confusing. Unless she's wearing Schroedinger's Clothes, of course.
I was also confused as to why she was worried about people finding out she had a fat purse when she gets smashed against the side of the street, since she wasn't exactly being secretive about it, what with all the rifling and counting right in the open.
As for the Elidor scene, I was wondering until the very end why you had chosen to put this entirely unrelated section in the middle of chapter 1. I suppose at the end it's clear that Elidor is going to go after Tasia (possibly mistakenly; I see no evidence that Tasia could be the woman he's after), but even still, I would have preferred if Elidor's section were not in the middle of Tasia's. I think it would flow better to move it to chapter 2.
If I think of anything else I'll let you know. This was a good start overall. And...I should write a better conclusion, but I really am quite tired. I go sleepy now.
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