and death shall have no
DOMINION
“Though they go mad, they shall be sane.” The words echoed through the air with a familiar cadence, jolting through Dom like lightning striking straight through to her bones. Spoken in a stranger’s voice, the words were soft and warm, heavy with curious consideration as though they were conjured from the ether. Or from the collective memory of her dead people. Her words rang with truth, and Dom felt them sink into her, wrap around her like she’d wrapped around her children, holding them close and cradling them next to her warmth. She felt that madness, shivering up her spine and lingering in the back of her mind, a road she could throw herself down if she wanted. If she clung to the ghosts that traced phantom touches along her sides, bumped against her flanks, murmured words of love and longing in her ears. But the words were right. Madness was not her path. Not today.
“Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again.” She was drowning in the cold, bitter sea, the last of her people sinking beneath the waves rather than waiting to be slaughtered. Choosing defiance instead of surrendering to the hungry hounds closing in on a dying race. All of them, sinking through the sea. She had died that day, saying goodbye to the woman she had been and claiming a new name and a new life as she rose to the shore. The words are a caress, something deeper than that of a lover, reaching past her skin and into her soul, into her past, and capturing a truth only two others had seen.
Dom turned her head, her heart racing, her lips moving along with the next line as a stranger spoke words she’d thought lost forever. Words she’d almost forgotten. Words so goddamn appropriate it made her shake. “Though lovers be lost, love shall not.” Three lovers lost, and now three new lives stolen from her by a world too heartless to hold them. Ayita, the gentle dancer who had won her heart so long ago, soft and fragile in a world that only had room for the strong. Ben had coaxed her into giving their daughter the name of someone who had touched her soul, and the moment she was born Dom could see echoes of that dancer’s soul in her. Derian, fire and hope and passion untamed by heartache in their youth, hardened and twisted into defiant determination by the time they threw themselves into the sea. She’d lost them both long ago, and held onto those words each time, taking strength from the truth of seven short words uttered time and again by her people as they bid their loves goodbye and searched for their new stars in the sky.
She’d forgotten them with Ben. She’d forgotten so many painful lessons of her youth while he held her. He’d made her believe the world was safe and she had nothing to fear. She’d forgotten about lovers lost, about lives in constant danger, about hunger and thirst and sickness and death. And she’d forgotten those seven precious words. Her grief-stained green eyes met the incarnation of the raging, bitter sea, and she remembered.
The stranger’s voice was soft and compassionate as she spoke the last line, but Dom raised her head proudly, drawing strength from familiar words she had claimed as her own. Her voice was sharp with resolve, determination, as she spoke in time with the stranger who saw into her soul. “And death shall have no Dominion.” Her grief broke, shattering on those words and falling to the ground at her feet, and for the first time since she’d ended her daughter’s suffering she felt…free. The ghosts that haunted her started to fade, and though they would linger in her memory they were no longer shards of glass slicing into her with every breath, every step, every beat of her aching heart.
“Thank you,” she said to the raging sea made manifest, standing tall for the first time since the earthquake that had ended the lives of everyone she’d loved. “I needed the reminder.” The wounds to her body would heal in time. Her soul was slowly starting to, helped along by words from her childhood and a lifetime of surviving no matter who else did not. She would not forget again. "Seems you already know who I am, and I won't ask how." Probably only be baffled by the explanation anyhow. "I can't say the same about you. So. Who are you, then?"
She half expected to hear the name she'd once shared with the cold, bitter sea that had swallowed her and spit her back up again. A name she hadn't heard in a lifetime. Mara. Of course not. Of course not. But there was something haunting, something utterly supernatural about the strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere with words Dom hadn't heard since she'd crawled out of the sea to collapse on a strange shore over four years ago. A reminder just when she'd needed it most. And death shall have no Dominion.
“Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again.” She was drowning in the cold, bitter sea, the last of her people sinking beneath the waves rather than waiting to be slaughtered. Choosing defiance instead of surrendering to the hungry hounds closing in on a dying race. All of them, sinking through the sea. She had died that day, saying goodbye to the woman she had been and claiming a new name and a new life as she rose to the shore. The words are a caress, something deeper than that of a lover, reaching past her skin and into her soul, into her past, and capturing a truth only two others had seen.
Dom turned her head, her heart racing, her lips moving along with the next line as a stranger spoke words she’d thought lost forever. Words she’d almost forgotten. Words so goddamn appropriate it made her shake. “Though lovers be lost, love shall not.” Three lovers lost, and now three new lives stolen from her by a world too heartless to hold them. Ayita, the gentle dancer who had won her heart so long ago, soft and fragile in a world that only had room for the strong. Ben had coaxed her into giving their daughter the name of someone who had touched her soul, and the moment she was born Dom could see echoes of that dancer’s soul in her. Derian, fire and hope and passion untamed by heartache in their youth, hardened and twisted into defiant determination by the time they threw themselves into the sea. She’d lost them both long ago, and held onto those words each time, taking strength from the truth of seven short words uttered time and again by her people as they bid their loves goodbye and searched for their new stars in the sky.
She’d forgotten them with Ben. She’d forgotten so many painful lessons of her youth while he held her. He’d made her believe the world was safe and she had nothing to fear. She’d forgotten about lovers lost, about lives in constant danger, about hunger and thirst and sickness and death. And she’d forgotten those seven precious words. Her grief-stained green eyes met the incarnation of the raging, bitter sea, and she remembered.
The stranger’s voice was soft and compassionate as she spoke the last line, but Dom raised her head proudly, drawing strength from familiar words she had claimed as her own. Her voice was sharp with resolve, determination, as she spoke in time with the stranger who saw into her soul. “And death shall have no Dominion.” Her grief broke, shattering on those words and falling to the ground at her feet, and for the first time since she’d ended her daughter’s suffering she felt…free. The ghosts that haunted her started to fade, and though they would linger in her memory they were no longer shards of glass slicing into her with every breath, every step, every beat of her aching heart.
“Thank you,” she said to the raging sea made manifest, standing tall for the first time since the earthquake that had ended the lives of everyone she’d loved. “I needed the reminder.” The wounds to her body would heal in time. Her soul was slowly starting to, helped along by words from her childhood and a lifetime of surviving no matter who else did not. She would not forget again. "Seems you already know who I am, and I won't ask how." Probably only be baffled by the explanation anyhow. "I can't say the same about you. So. Who are you, then?"
She half expected to hear the name she'd once shared with the cold, bitter sea that had swallowed her and spit her back up again. A name she hadn't heard in a lifetime. Mara. Of course not. Of course not. But there was something haunting, something utterly supernatural about the strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere with words Dom hadn't heard since she'd crawled out of the sea to collapse on a strange shore over four years ago. A reminder just when she'd needed it most. And death shall have no Dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;