"Bloom? Like a flower?" She asked quizzically, one eyebrow raised at the unorthodox word choice.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSBlzx0diX7
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Bloom can be used as an intransitive verb meaning to bear a flower or flowers and alternatively as meaning to appear or come into being suddenly.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5FpKa4NW2i
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In Empyrea, bloom now had a new, sinister undertone. Flowers blooming would normally evoke images of spring or rebirth. Not anymore.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwZz2QR5mqr
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It had changed when the Spring of the eighty-seventh year of Hope*, Aiko Petal - Master Adept of Floriculture, Floriography, and Botany - had been urgently summoned by Meritocrat Mylo of Artè after an abhorrent discovery: The BCU had kindly left the Aquilorians a...gift.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZTcYBNsSuz
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*The Era of Hope was the sixth age of Empyrea.*81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2X41bIxrbz
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The Meritocrats of Æno, Academi, Adepto, Adhoma, Alerie, Azuri, Divitiae, Merita, Mezaik, Vorde, and Wyrai (every city in the Southeast of Empyrea apart from Artè large enough to be represented on the Meritocratic Council) had all been found dead with flowers growing in their lungs. The cause of death had been determined by a postmortem examination81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ8o8xE82mw
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to be a mix of heart failure - caused by a cardiac glycoside called Convallatoxin - and suffocation.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WAlwjoq3I
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The culprit was a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring that were native to Umbracrest and some parts of Northern Cerulea. Lily of the Valley or Convallaria majalis.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYBJLZH8MEA
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"Why have I been called here, Meritocrat Mylo?" The Master Adept asked innocently. It was a reasonable question, Floriography students weren't taken particularly seriously even by the Academy of the Adept. The Adeptus Floricultural had supposedly been mentally feeble, something that was most likely not true.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpIf3lCZ6n4
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"To answer the only question that ever matters...why." He replied mysteriously.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQw3t0XxWp
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"Do you mean why they did this? That's easy: the BCU wanted to paralyse the Aquilorian regional government." She responded quietly, staring with wide eyes at the agonised corpses of the Meritocrats in shock.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfl4GhuhrFk
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"I meant why they did it like this...what do these flowers mean?"81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCIbeNCbTlk
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Airko Petal had studied the art of floriography - communication with flowers - and was a leading expert in the symbolism behind them.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ59G3qqpP4l
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"What it might have meant from anyone else," She mused, " Is sweetness, humility, purity; returning happiness." She paused. When she spoke again her face had darkened, "What this means is that we are being mocked; there is nothing sweet about the immense pain Chairman Hessen has caused just to send Aquiloria a snide message. Our best and brightest, all dead from flowers..." She lamented, overwhelmed by the senseless slaughter.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFyWc5dydP0
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"First Chancellor Nazarene was found dead and now this," Mylo whimpered quietly, suppressed rage seeping into his words and making them wobble, "It can't go unpunished."81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVwp6xCLPQT
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"Aquiloria won't be forgetting Operations Bloom and Chancellor anytime soon," Petal assured him.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgrauNd13Rd
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Although, she wasn't sure she believed it herself.
Penana
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