by Tiffany Chu

Once, she was Chloris, who is now called Flora.

My time with the material was to be brief. I could not make my home among the dull and insipid. The very earth groaned with the ache of being, and I rode upon the wind of my own making, through leaves of emerald and golden orbs.

She came before my eyes as twilight fell, in those moments of stillness between the night and dawn, when all the world holds its breath and stands still. She waltzed before me on the eve of spring, a being of ethereal beauty. Her hair of woven amber glistened beneath the light of the moon.

I saw her. I loved her. I determined she should be mine.

For I was Zephyrus, and where the west wind blows, there my will cannot be denied.

In the ecstasy of existence, she danced beneath the eaves. I wrapped my arms of cold about her waist and released her from her lowly station. Worthy, I deemed her, worthy of eternity.

Once, she was Chloris.

A nymph was she, until I cast my gaze upon her form and bid her rise above the lot of earthly things. I lifted her from the mire to the heavens.

She wept often in those early days. She turned her face from me, and I could not understand her sorrow. I clothed her in wings of forever and bestowed upon her the gift of deification, yet still she shed tears of crystal that would not dry.

I saw her. I loved her. I took her and made her my goddess of spring.

Now called Flora.

Her first flower she made from Therapnean blood, Hyakinthos the hyacinth, etched her lament upon its petals. Her touch melted the snow into the season of new life, and sleeping buds remembered their purpose and burst into bloom. From death to life to death to life. And she, eternal, unchanging as I.

I saw her. I loved her. One day, she will see what I have done for her.

✿

Once, I was Chloris, who is now called Flora.

From beneath my own will, I came to walk in another’s.

He saw me. He took me. I, whose existence radiated beauty in its brevity, now linger in the land of the living in perpetuity.

Once, I embraced the wisdom of time. Now, he threads immortality into my veins.

And I paint ephemerality on the canvas of the seasons, willing him to look.

A lifeless nymph that lay hidden in a thick forest clearing, death amidst life, I know it well. And from her death, I brought forth the first roses, beauty imprisoned by thorns.

✿

She is Flora.

I saw her. I loved her. I took her.

She is mine.

❀✿❀

Tiffany Chu (she/her) is a Taiwanese American literary fantasy author of stories about evergreen themes of grief, belonging, and what it means to be human. Her work has been published by San Diego Writers, Inc., Chicago Story Press, and Renewal Missions. Tiffany is publishing her first book in September 2026, an anthology she wrote with her son, who died in 2021.