Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

If you had told me, back when I first arrived at Arcanum Academy, that I'd spend a Saturday afternoon planning a romantic date for a princess, I would have laughed. Or maybe bitten you. Vampires, after all, are supposed to be masters of the night, creatures of seductive mystery not adolescent disasters with a soft spot for awkward royalty and snacks.

Yet here I was, in my dorm room, clutching a checklist that would make any villain proud and any party planner faint. I'd read somewhere possibly on the back of a chocolate frog card that romance was all about details. Or perhaps it was all about not letting your paramour's parents discover your plans until it was too late for magical intervention. Details. Danger. Delicious pastries. Surely, that was the trifecta.

I spread out my supplies on the desk: a string of enchanted fairy-lights (borrowed, possibly forever, from Mara's stash), a picnic blanket with self-cleaning runes, a selection of pastries smuggled from the kitchens, and, most importantly, a book of absolutely-not-cursed poetry. I eyed the latter with suspicion; the last time I'd attempted poetry, half the room had developed a sudden allergy to rhyming couplets.

No one had taught me how to woo a girl in the middle of a student uprising. There were no helpful chapters in "Advanced Vampiric Social Survival" on "How to Be Cute While Avoiding Arrest." I wondered if this sort of chaos ever happened to my ancestors. Probably not they'd just have kidnapped their sweethearts and called it tradition.

Still, if I was going to win Elyzara's heart or at least distract her from her many existential crises I'd have to be innovative.

Step one: location. I needed somewhere private, magical, and unlikely to attract the attention of either the Headmistress or a bored kraken. I considered the abandoned observatory (too drafty), the potion classroom after hours (too many smells), and finally settled on the greenhouse a riot of magical flora, half-tamed and wholly unpredictable.

With Mara's help (bribed by the promise of borrowing my cloak for her next midnight escapade), I gained access to the greenhouse and began my transformation.

The enchanted fairy-lights twisted through branches, casting gentle blue and gold shadows over the night-blooming flowers. I arranged the pastries and after a brief tussle with an ambitious vine managed to set up the blanket beneath a canopy of starleaf petals that glowed with every heartbeat.

I glanced at my reflection in a pond of dream-water, straightened my jacket, and practiced my smile. I aimed for "confident" but got something between "terrified squirrel" and "wily goblin." Close enough.

Step two: the invitation. There's a fine art to inviting a princess on a date, especially when said princess is technically under royal surveillance. I scribbled a note "Meet me in the greenhouse. Don't tell the cat." and bribed Riven to deliver it, knowing his stealth rating was "mediocre" but his enthusiasm was unmatched.

He returned, grinning, with only two new jam stains and a promise that "she'll be there, and so will I if there are leftovers." I rolled my eyes and told him if he so much as breathed on the pastries before we arrived, I'd personally enchant his shoes to perform interpretive dance in History class.

As I finished the last touches, the nerves began to creep in. What if Elyzara thought it was silly? What if she hated poetry? What if, as happened last time, the magical roses tried to propose to her before I did?

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was Velka Nightthorn descendant of blood-mages, shadow-walker, notorious for biting my way out of a locked cell. Surely I could survive a picnic with a girl.

Step three: distractions. As a precaution, I set two small wards near the greenhouse door. One would emit a loud screech if anyone approached (preferably after they tripped it), and the other would cause a faint but memorable itching sensation to all members of the royal family. Just a hint. Nothing malicious. I didn't want Verania crashing my date with a squadron of enchanted hedgehogs.

Mara stopped by once more, peering in with an expression equal parts nosy and approving. "If you mess this up," she whispered, "I'll be forced to write a ballad so embarrassing even the paintings will blush."

"Go away," I muttered, tossing her a leftover scone. "And keep Riven away from the pastries."

She vanished, presumably to take up surveillance somewhere nearby, her loyalty balanced perfectly with her thirst for drama.

Time ticked by. I checked the lanterns, the pastries, the defensive wards, my hair (hopeless), the poetry book (potential disaster), and finally sat, knees pulled up, under the glowing petals. Shadows shifted. My heart thudded, betraying just how human a vampire could feel.

Would Elyzara like it? Would she laugh at my efforts, or worse look at me with that gentle sadness she sometimes wore, as if she didn't quite belong to this world or any other?

My thoughts whirled until I heard soft footsteps on the stone path. I stood, dusted off my trousers, and tried to look mysterious rather than just flustered.

The door creaked open. Elyzara slipped inside, haloed by a fall of moonlight. Her eyes went wide as she took in the lights, the blanket, the pastries, the heart-shaped arrangement of roses (not my doing, but I wasn't about to admit that).

"Velka," she breathed, wonder mingled with laughter, "is this… for me?"

"Unless you think I routinely serenade the geraniums," I said, straight-faced. "Welcome. I thought you could use a break from saving the school. Or at least a decent snack."

She stepped forward, hesitant and delighted, and for a moment the revolution faded. There was only the hush of enchanted leaves, the golden glow, and the heady hope that maybe, just maybe, I was doing something right.

I offered her a pastry. She took it, her fingers brushing mine, and we sat together beneath the magic lights. We talked about nonsense favorite flavors, worst school moments, the time Mara nearly summoned a rain of frogs.

The longer I listened, the less nervous I felt. Elyzara had a way of making chaos seem manageable. She told me she was scared, that leadership felt like a heavy cloak, that sometimes she wished she could run away and live in the library.

I told her that sometimes I felt like a fraud a vampire who liked sunshine and pretty words, who wanted something more than just survival. She smiled and said, "That's why I like you. You're not just a legend, Velka. You're… real."

We read poetry aloud (the enchanted book behaving itself for once), and when she laughed, the world was softer for it. We toasted with stolen cider, watched fireflies spiral, and dared not mention the future.

The date was a mess of nerves and magic, jokes and shared glances, pastries and hopes neither of us could name. It was perfect, in the way imperfect things sometimes are.

When she leaned her head on my shoulder, I decided that, whatever came next uprising, exile, more enchanted hedgehogs I would remember this: the sweet, impossible hope of two girls in a greenhouse, dreaming in spite of everything.

The greenhouse felt suspended in time. Dew caught in the fairy-lights, making little rainbows. The air hummed with a dozen flower scents honeyed, sharp, wild while distant thunder reminded us there was a world outside, but not right now.

Elyzara plucked a starleaf from above, spinning it between her fingers, as if weaving a spell with every idle motion. "I never thought I'd get a date like this," she said, voice half-wonder, half-mischief. "Most people just offer tea in the library."

"I would've offered tea," I replied, "but the library banned me for poetic outbursts last semester. Apparently, sonnets are a fire hazard."

She giggled, soft and secret. "I like this better. It feels like we're in our own little pocket of the world. No teachers, no parents, no revolution."

"Just us and a suspiciously romantic number of roses." I glanced sideways. "You know, if one of these proposes again, I'm going to throw it in the compost."

Elyzara grinned, but her hand found mine. Her thumb traced gentle circles on my knuckles, steadying us both. "If you did propose," she murmured, almost shy, "I'd probably say yes. At least to a second date."

Something in my chest flipped panic, hope, something bright and new. I wanted to say a thousand clever things, but all that came out was: "Good. Because I was planning to ask you to the end-of-term masquerade. And maybe to help me study for 'Advanced Survival: Political Scandals.'"

"Deal." Her smile was brighter than the enchanted lanterns.

We stayed like that close, almost fearless until the pastries vanished and the fairy-lights began to dim. Even as reality crept back in, I felt changed, braver. For the first time, love felt like a kind of magic even a Nightthorn could wield.

And, for one golden evening, we were just two girls, safe and shining, before the world called us back.