9: Floral
It became common practice in the late 16th century of our great Empire to send a bouquet of swords as a symbol of enmity, romantic attraction, or both. The trend was started by the Empress Satine, who hired a blacksmith to melt down the swords of a group of assassins sent by our neighbors to the north into a beautiful steel bouquet, which she then had delivered (along with the heads of the assassins). The resulting war, as we all know, lasted twenty years and resulted in an estimated 400,000 casualties, but it also started the tradition of the sword bouquet as a sort of side-effect.
The first use of a sword bouquet as a sign of romantic attraction was, of course, the star-crossed lovers Delilah and Eduard, who not only brought that same war to a close, but carried off the assassination of the Empress Satine with an impressive amount of aplomb. Delilah sent Eduard a bouquet of swords which (the story goes) he interpreted as a sign of enmity – which made sense, as the two were on opposite sides of the conflict. It was not until several days after the bouquet’s delivery that the misunderstanding was corrected, and shortly after that the war was over and the Empress was dead, replaced by her son who was a little more even-keeled and less likely to start twenty year long wars.