Cut flowers

"Don't pick them. They look so pretty, growing out in the desert like that. Karasu-!"

But the desert was too far away from his house, wasn't it? He wouldn't be able to look at them every day, study the symmetry of twelve petals, neatly arranged around a soft centre. In the desert, they didn't belong to Karasu. They were too wild and changeable, and Karasu hated change.

So carefully, gently, Karasu snipped through the bases of a few stems and gathered up the flowers, watching some drops of sap splash onto the earth and evaporate swiftly.

In his house he placed them in a jug of water and watched them intently for a while, marvelling at their beauty. He had often wondered what it was like for plants; being cut away from the roots that fed them and dumped in water to delay their eventual wilting. If they had voices, Karasu knew they would be screaming at their slow deaths. Sometimes he wished he could hear them. It would've made it all the more glorious.

But what he did was a kindness to them too. Who knows what would've become of those flowers, left out in that harsh climate? They would have been dirtied, their petals ripped by a careless apparition. Even if they survived, the flowers would have metamorphosed into something tangled and grotesque. This was the demon world after all.

Yes, this was definitely better. Karasu had saved them from that fate, preserved them, made sure they would retain their perfection for longer. Of course he must throw them away as soon as the first petal fell. No one enjoys seeing flowers fade.