Most people do not know this, but....roses are related to strawberries.

It's true. They are in the same subfamily, Rosoideae, only in different genres - Rosa and Fragria. They are, in many ways, the same, but like cousins, they are married into different parts of the family. Something in the seperation made the strawberry succulent to the tongue, while the rose grew sharp thorns to prick the finger of a careless handler.

I am no careless handler of the rose. I have studied the only real rosebush we had on our planet for untold years, trying to harvest it to no avail. Our roses are limp and lifeless, nothing like the real roses, which can be beautiful if grown correctly.

I like to think that strawberries are superior to roses, though my experience with the strawberry is...somewhat limited.

For I have also tasted a real strawberry...only once in my life. They had been smuggled to my land, and they were on the verge of spoiling. I had been beckoned to try one, only one, and I did, taking the smallest one from the bunch. It was somewhat tart from the journey, but some of the sweetness was still encased, and as the juice drizzled down my chin....

I vowed to also harvest strawberries. Yet each and every attempt also failed to yield a good crop.

But I know of another place where they harvest strawberries and roses, Fragria and Rosa, and they are the best to behold. They live in a great palace of white, shielded by magic. Ruling there is a rose, his thorns sharp as knives, ready to cut anyone and anything that dares to come near it. He could be of any species of rose, for they all look the same after a time - dull and boring, no matter how romantic or alluring they are in the beginning.

Then, there is the strawberry. Curvy and salacious. Small and delicious. Fruit, cultivated from the best stalk on Earth.

She is surely as tart as the first one I tasted, yet above all things I desire her ripened taste. The strawberry that I wish to cultivate is all of her, from head to toe, curvaceous buds to juicy lips. She is a fruit all on her own in a family bursting with achenes and druplets of all kinds, seen all around the world. Nothing compares to her.

Soon, very soon, she shall be all mine to eat. Then, I can truly say, strawberries are truly better than roses.