"Bloom? Like a flower?" She asked quizzically, one eyebrow raised at the unorthodox word choice.243Please respect copyright.PENANAmkoFg0boRm
243Please respect copyright.PENANAelb87ATwKF
243Please respect copyright.PENANA7ib8GfJ2f3
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.243Please respect copyright.PENANAgXMzQJjSsK
243Please respect copyright.PENANAULLqNCWxY3
243Please respect copyright.PENANAkXqqZFfc5b
In Empyrea, bloom now had a new, sinister undertone. Flowers blooming would normally evoke images of spring or rebirth. Not anymore.243Please respect copyright.PENANAIQd107iVSm
243Please respect copyright.PENANA5VUOwLAkBn
243Please respect copyright.PENANAEsVsMcume0
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.243Please respect copyright.PENANApey1roS9cu
243Please respect copyright.PENANAgK65pqC1Bo
243Please respect copyright.PENANApdk904gVdp
*The Era of Hope was the sixth age of Empyrea.*243Please respect copyright.PENANAaw6zIyxEUs
243Please respect copyright.PENANAH68WrrQTOD
243Please respect copyright.PENANA7RL9B4FX3J
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 examination243Please respect copyright.PENANAMHpbrMu2DU
243Please respect copyright.PENANArrc1u4IG2B
to be a mix of heart failure - caused by a cardiac glycoside called Convallatoxin - and suffocation.243Please respect copyright.PENANAgWa0GNM55y
243Please respect copyright.PENANAiFabD3BnTa
243Please respect copyright.PENANAapjtBi9qzT
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.243Please respect copyright.PENANA8xQCLIOWZW
243Please respect copyright.PENANA8HTv5CmTMe
243Please respect copyright.PENANAAscmoSikgP
"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.243Please respect copyright.PENANAvacN5aPjRb
243Please respect copyright.PENANAsfSLafjJZS
"To answer the only question that ever matters...why." He replied mysteriously.243Please respect copyright.PENANAZ78shbvP29
243Please respect copyright.PENANAAW1yq1Jeen
243Please respect copyright.PENANAzO68pkUijC
"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.243Please respect copyright.PENANAysNRbYnYmE
243Please respect copyright.PENANAh5mrhblH3K
243Please respect copyright.PENANAT3hNf95isD
"I meant why they did it like this...what do these flowers mean?"243Please respect copyright.PENANAoCNlCbCpvH
243Please respect copyright.PENANAXdNejwIOf0
243Please respect copyright.PENANAxnJTA04k7k
Airko Petal had studied the art of floriography - communication with flowers - and was a leading expert in the symbolism behind them.243Please respect copyright.PENANAV9z4HXHls3
243Please respect copyright.PENANAmZgjBhNPY8
243Please respect copyright.PENANANlkgy279zm
"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.243Please respect copyright.PENANAWyYVktAbSg
243Please respect copyright.PENANA1ZCVO5CYrS
243Please respect copyright.PENANAG1u9VDKmR8
"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."243Please respect copyright.PENANAsBOpsjDJNU
243Please respect copyright.PENANABpZ3TpdLIq
243Please respect copyright.PENANA3zGMDTbcQc
"Aquiloria won't be forgetting Operations Bloom and Chancellor anytime soon," Petal assured him.243Please respect copyright.PENANAH4SZlu8eGn
243Please respect copyright.PENANAsvyzcCHlMq
243Please respect copyright.PENANANvoU6GhU9i
Although, she wasn't sure she believed it herself.