The Journalist

The typewriter clicked, it almost sounded like music from a most unusual percussion instrument. Yet despite Shiori's fingers dancing quickly across the keys, the topic of her report was anything but joyful. Typing out her manuscript like that was old fashioned, but she liked it that way. Rumours and hearsay were drifting invisibly through the air around her. But she filtered the truth from the whispers, extracted the facts from subjective memories. She wrote them down, as objectively as posdible, and by forming a report out of everything, she made them into news that would reach far more than whispers could. She knew there were other self-proclaimed journalists who worked faster than her. But they were often sloppy, mistaking an assumption or a wish as a fact and publishing gossip as new information. Shiori had made it her career to only publish what she could be confident in to be as truthful and factual as possible. It had earned her an excellent reputation, too.

The music from the typewriter stopped. She paused, looking at her handwritten draft. She had put the next section in large brackets, and now she was still unsure if she should include it. She had witnessed the naked royals herself, but the entire encounter was so absurd, it was hardly believable to be true. On the other hand, tabloids were already exploiting the incident, so she could not forego this development. The hardest part was finding a tone that would not ridicule the corrupt royals further. As much as Shiori disliked them, they were also still dangerous. The war was still continuing. People were still suffering and dying. Pretending otherwise felt almost as if she'd abandoning everyone who was still fighting. But perhaps she could include the incident in a different way. From what she knew, the Necrosis sickness was often attributed with irrational behaviour. She would need to do some research first, of course. 

For now, it was best to mention it only briefly, and to write a seperate in-depth piece afterwards. 

The typewriter began to click again, filling the room with its unique music.