"Bloom? Like a flower?" She asked quizzically, one eyebrow raised at the unorthodox word choice.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUZfcDCv7io
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpsSzfEj6gY
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUmCwwiUt2r
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9N2DVxVfpi
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*The Era of Hope was the sixth age of Empyrea.*46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgeEIRZueYh
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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 examination46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb4BhPZJxzZ
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to be a mix of heart failure - caused by a cardiac glycoside called Convallatoxin - and suffocation.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVWhWbPYXa8
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpPQrpkqeb
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVCpGigKjyn
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"To answer the only question that ever matters...why." He replied mysteriously.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmuGHHceLEU
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBWiTLecqrh
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"I meant why they did it like this...what do these flowers mean?"46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGinJfsVwLM
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpOo7suWCDZ
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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.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQsWezrx745
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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."46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ80MnxYuq5F
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"Aquiloria won't be forgetting Operations Bloom and Chancellor anytime soon," Petal assured him.46Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAQBMfnZNYs
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Although, she wasn't sure she believed it herself.
Penana
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