"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.
Penana
search
Loginarrow_drop_down
Registerarrow_drop_down
