Have you ever looked at a rose? Of course you have. No one is immune its beauty, not even me, lord over the somber empire humans call Facinaturu. You know the scenario; you're walking through a field just for the sake of keeping boredom at bay. The clouds are meandering through the spray painted sky dripping with a cotton-like lethargy we earthbound ones pine for from the day we are born to the day we die. The breeze is like a mischievous imp carefully deconstructing the layers of your finely groomed hair. Below your feet the grass roles like an emerald ocean over hills and through valleys as far as the eye can see.

Then, in the midst of this vernal melancholy you hear it, that quiet but unmistakable whisper. It calls to you with a voice that is somewhere between the earthly and ethereal. The way its come-hither petals fall away as if to bow to you. You walk towards it. The closer you get the more its perfume clouds your judgement. You are completely enchanted. A desire beyond words compels you to touch it.

Ah but there's the rub. In that single second the error of your ways becomes apparent. For it is in that tender gesture that the rose's true nature is revealed. Look at the way it clings to the morning dew so selfishly, adding to it a charm that the other flowers are envious of. Wait, you hadn't even realized they were any other here flowers to behold; indeed, to you there were no other flowers in all that is terrestrial or otherwise except this rose. All you wanted was to caress this rose the way it had caressed you but as we all know, your reward for your efforts to return the favor, is a cold and cruel sense of betrayal as the thorns pierce your skin.

One would think that after such an experience one would never be so idiotic as to enter this parasitic symbiosis again; and perhaps you will not, perhaps you will have learned your lesson and steer clear of this bewitching blossom from then on. There is one thing about which there is no doubt in my mind; you'll never forget the first time you beheld the allure of a rose.