Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

If the world is divided into seeing and not seeing, Marya thought, I shall always choose to see.

“That’s how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you’d have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”

ah, what a terrible science, riding and being ridden! Which is the servant: the one who bears his mistress, or the one who combs and brushes her mount?

“I am Marya Morevna, daughter of twelve mothers, and I will not be denied,”

Bathing in blood again, I’ll warrant. Virgins or capitalists this time?”

“Don’t leave me,” he said helplessly. “No rules but that rule. Don’t leave me.”

Oh, my volchitsa, don’t you see? I have always been in your power. I have always been helpless.”

but what human was whole?