Jayani and Wathsala wended their way through the crooked streets toward the division office, a perfunctory one-story building with no more pretense to officialdom than the Protector's seal above its door.
A seal that had once been hers.
As on the last occasion, Jayani strode right in as though she owned it. The fact was, they all owned it, as the government was the ecopreserve, and they were the children of that ecopreserve. Without it, they would be extinct.
Upon seeing her, the clerk gaped and fled the room.
“Not the inviting welcome I'd have expected,” Wathsala said, a bemused look on her face.
“And certainly not consistent with the Amitabha Sutra,” Jayani added, her voice a whisper. The ancient text of disciplines was de rigueur for every Jaffnan citizen. She looked around the now
