A woman. Older, She was silver-haired...the kind of silver that came from being well past a hundred years. Wearing faction insignia Eve didn't immediately recognize. She'd risen from her seat slowly, deliberately, like her body was making a decision her mind hadn't fully authorized yet.
She stood there.
Then she went to her knees.
Not dramatically. Not like she was performing for anyone. Just descended. Both knees on the stone floor of the tiered seating, hands in her lap, her face doing something complicated and completely unguarded.
Everywhere became silent.
Then the man beside her stood. Slower, even older than she was. And knelt.
Then someone in the second row.
Not everyone. Not some wave of movement, not choreographed. Just individuals, one at a time, in their own time, making a decision that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with what they were feeling in their bodies right then.
Seven people. Eight. Nine.
