Dominion

I do not find it difficult to be in new surroundings, much as I love the city of my birth. Of course, it is easy to rationalize my comfort-level with the particular place I've chosen to settle for the moment. On the western coast of the continent, Thassa seems to stretch endlessly to the World's End. I know that is not the case. Teletus is less than 1,000 pasangs due west. Less than 500 pasangs north are the marshes of the Vosk Delta. Still, these are distances beyond the limits of my eyes, which lengthens the limits of my imagination.
I am not a complete stranger to the rough chop and rude tumble of life asea. Many lunches have been evicted from my throat into the splashing maw. I once was tempted by the lure (or was it the allure?) of Thassa's endless, cerulean promise. The seeker in me, the romantic, the lover, the wanderer, the fool, all embraced her once. Elusive, unbending. My guess, and it is only a guess, based on nothing but supposition, is that more men willingly sail to their demise on the song of sirens than seek the barren, bitter path into the Sardar. When men have had enough of life, there are many choices for enlightenment, should we wish such a thing.
I removed the collar from Noemi's throat several days ago. I do not need it to know she is mine. The way I raped her when her throat was bare and vulnerable as the rest of her left no doubt that her body -and the rest of her- was still mine. The breeders may not have been thinking of Szol of Ar when they made her, but it does not matter. Does she understand this? She does. The collar is a symbol. My world, at the moment, is considerably smaller in scope. A cottage. A stretch of sand. A village with a small population of itinerants and peddlers. A vicious sleen. And her. Perhaps I will replace it on her neck when I decide to move onto more populous, metropolitan surroundings. Or not. Societal conventions aside, I draw the boundaries within which she will live and serve. She is not subject to eminent domain.