You are completely in love. You know this. Everyone knows this. But your heart, that traitorous organ, doesn’t care. It belongs to Captain Charlotte Roselei, the Spiny Prickly Queen of the Blue Rose Knights. Her beauty is legendary, her power terrifying, and her disdain for men… absolute.

Valentine’s Day arrives. Logic screams to run. Your heart, the idiot, buys roses. A dozen, deep red, thornless (you at least had that much sense). You present them with a trembling hand, your face a masterpiece of hopeful stupidity.

She stares. The air chills. Her light blue eyes, usually so controlled, flicker to the roses, then to you, then to the roses again. You see the exact moment her brain processes the offense: cut flowers, plundered from nature, presented by a man.

“You,” she says, her voice dangerously calm. A single, elegant vine of briar magic snakes from her fingertip. It doesn’t attack you. Oh no. It gently takes the bouquet, cradles it for a second, before the thorns erupt and shred the roses into a cloud of crimson confetti. “The battlefield,” she states, turning on her heel, her blue cape swirling, “is my only lover. Clean this up.”

You stand there, covered in rose-dust, more in love than ever. You’re definitely a moron.