The Moon's Forgotten Bride
"I don't love you because the goddess chose you for me, Elira. I love you because somewhere in eighteen years of watching you refuse to disappear, no matter how hard this world tried to make you, I fell in love with exactly who you decided to become anyway."
The moon hung full and bright above them, and for the first time in two weeks, Elira let herself believe — fully, without the old instinct to brace for disappointment — that she was allowed to want this. All of it. Without apology.
"I love you too," she whispered, the words simpler and truer than anything she'd said in eighteen years of careful self-erasure. "I think I have for longer than I ever let myself admit."