An eight year old was sitting with her baby brother on her lap.

A fifteen year old sat watching his brothers rehearse the skills of war.

"The last three years I sat in the stands," he said.

"If these people are found guilty, they'll have years to sit with their families," she said.

He noted first that the years sat lightly on her.

Today, the same faces are still there but those two extra years sit wearily on them.

"What other guy in this business could have sat there all those years with someone else getting all the credit?"

I've had eight goddamned years to sit here and think about it.

Next to the priest sat a man whose image had been familiar to most citizens of the Hegemony some years before.

Six years after the sale, the main building and its library sit idle.