The Last Tale of the Flower Bride

by Roshani Chokshi

Perhaps this Otherworld had long ago been the devouring kind, like a witch’s cottage hidden in a deep, dark wood.

You see, nothing good can come from being loved by old gods. Their love of mortals turns them neglectful and petty.

I was nothing but shadow. I existed in the afterthought of resplendence. I was a moving spot of cold. I was a home for ghosts.

An ugly celebration of a space that might’ve held something other than a dark blot.

Revels existed to mark thresholds, to coax change. Revels were for endings or beginnings, and tonight I prayed for both.

Magic hoped we would carry its echo out into the world, for we were never meant to stay here.

Indigo stepped toward me. She was as vast as the sky, star-strewn and infinite, her black hair dissolving into the night. Indigo held out the ivory hilt of her father’s hunting knife. É’leos. Mercy.

I was left with everything and nothing. I was free and forever trapped. I was a multitude of blues. I was many things, but I was not Azure, and perhaps I never would be again.

Once, I had let someone I loved go into the dark without me. I did not know if I could survive that again.

I wonder now if I’ve been looking for gods in all the wrong places.

But maybe it is about finding someone whose heart is like a mirror, whose love can make you stand the sight of yourself.

I don’t know where it ends, but I know this is not the first time we will sit like this, with our hands intertwined, the space between us aching to be remade by every confession we have folded within the dark of ourselves.