"Bloom? Like a flower?" She asked quizzically, one eyebrow raised at the unorthodox word choice.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡecnFq2IIQ6
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAvDhXdN80t
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYQQ12NGzHk
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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWhurjZSRc
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLOCD3v4Pzi
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJNiE34fGG
In Empyrea, bloom now had a new, sinister undertone. Flowers blooming would normally evoke images of spring or rebirth. Not anymore.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcI7oNtxhq
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡltqsMqltOH
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa98fZjuZ5J
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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXSNRVOb5fF
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgU8XmVVcAe
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡESspJx3ADq
*The Era of Hope was the sixth age of Empyrea.*44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1b9Zepnih
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZMWgFwOgJ
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpTi4eVR2hN
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 examination44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGKsT94hUUg
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgUE0XeGHtG
to be a mix of heart failure - caused by a cardiac glycoside called Convallatoxin - and suffocation.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzGl5f2Qo41
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡorMoawWCEa
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVAAtqsBIzw
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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTnN0mTtrv5
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgEs9fj5Edl
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8MfL3UimqS
"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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnFNaFXbe7U
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl8i4mn5U3m
"To answer the only question that ever matters...why." He replied mysteriously.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGOQgmtIYzb
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFQJLRgZmkd
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5FJbhnDN6E
"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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTve0CIyAcI
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpXC4kxphSV
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtpJteoBL4o
"I meant why they did it like this...what do these flowers mean?"44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZuP0meerfX
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVX4ygzHn14
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7ZdIHczkt
Airko Petal had studied the art of floriography - communication with flowers - and was a leading expert in the symbolism behind them.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5UTyD27IN
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9EXDgWdx0F
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTmzL5WFjl
"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.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs2nYZIR7a2
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNTVMvB9NcT
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm6U33IdpOF
"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."44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi5X04EFgzA
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEsPKFXEhe
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZiaFHhVz9Q
"Aquiloria won't be forgetting Operations Bloom and Chancellor anytime soon," Petal assured him.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡscDY8a9K8c
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd0yXcpg6Ed
44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Wh3dmAtSZ
Although, she wasn't sure she believed it herself.
Penana
search
Loginarrow_drop_down
Registerarrow_drop_down
