The Lying King, C1
-The Rebirth
His cries echoed through the midnight streets of Blind Pride.
"The princess and her friend are conscious!" He'd called as his feet carried him from the center of their city to the farthest reaches of it. People began to stir gradually, a collective noise of the displeasure of fatigued beings rising from the crowd as they made their way to the city's true heart, Pride Rock, a pile of debris from an old building that had been named for a significant place in some forgotten movie.
Upon that rock stood three females of varying ages. At the frontmost was their leader, Ayano, ever-present scarf around her neck. Standing behind her were two adolescents that most had only heard of through legends. Tsubomi Kido and Marry Kozakura, both immune to the blinding sickness that plagued their world twenty years ago, (nicknamed Apocalypse Disease by the survivors) but caught under an automobile that was headed to a safe house as children and unable to survive by any human means. They had been taken to a lab before the Very End, both in deep comas, for research purposes and kept alive by limited medical technology. For ten years, they slept while Ayano's brother Seto searched worldwide for a way to wake them up. There seemed to be no way that they would, but as a last resort Seto had called in Marry's grandmother Azami, a reclusive New-Age Pagan who never seemed to age and was regarded with concern by most. She was left alone with the girls for a day and a half with only a small bag and a promise to fulfill that she would cure them or be exiled.
At the very last possible minute of the deadline that expired on midnight of that very night, she had emerged from their shack with the two girls, and dropped dead at the feet of Ayano herself. At the occurrence, she had sent Seto to alert the population, as they gathered at Pride Rock, she shared their news and held a celebration to rejoice the rebirth of her sister, Princess Kido, the one to become ruler after Ayano, and her best friend, Marry.
In the building where Ayano and Seto resided and Kido and Marry slept, an old town hall from before the disease struck, everyone crowded together in the main hall, as was custom of celebrations here.
A drowsy Kido stumbled up the stairs to what had been introduced to her as her bedroom, clinging to an even drowsier Marry.
"Wh-what did Aya tell you?" She asked, tripping over her words with a heavy tongue that hadn't been put to use for a decade. It was a miracle that they could think, her supposed sister had told them, let alone walk and talk.
"Told us miracles said." Marry replied, her words jumbled like her brain. Although she knew and understood proper sentence structure, she found it hard to form comprehensible phrases when her brain was processing everything faster than she thought possible. Kido nodded, only half hearing the broken speech. The sun was becoming visible then, and in the faint light they were able to locate the room Ayano had instructed, with the open door and the purple walls inside. The interior held a bed covered in handmade blankets, and upon it lay two dresses. Next to it were two individually marked piles of casual clothes that they were allowed to sort through after the celebration. Marry squealed in joy, tearing off the nightgown she had been given when she had first awoken and found herself completely naked and replacing it with the underclothes and long blue dress that had once belonged to Ayano, not even stopping to glance at how her body had changed.
Kido, on the other hand, waited for Marry to dress and asked her to exit the room so she could think.
When they woke up, she recalled, everything was a colorless screaming blur that took her senses a few minutes to adjust to. And when she did, the first thing she noticed was herself. Her chest felt heavy and she felt disgustingly hairy, her hair was long and greasy and her skin was rough and dry. Although they had been giving her nutrients through a tube for her entire resting period, she begged for food with an aching throat and broken language that came to her in bits. As the people gathered, the princess and her best friend were bathed in their new home, taking care to remove every inch of dirt, hair, oil, and dried skin. They asked Ayano what had happened as she bathed them and were told that they were both infertile due to the treatments. More questions were asked about general life than anything, though, as they still had as much knowledge as seven-year-olds did.
Kido felt herself growing up more than most people did in a lifetime in that half-hour, while Marry smiled and seemed like the same carefree kid that Kido remembered from her old life and her dreams during the coma.
Slipping the bra and underwear on, she wobbled over to a large mirror hanging on the wall and stared.
She had matured into a young woman, with long green hair that fell now to her back, and long legs. She was very, very slim and had little fat content anywhere on her. Her appendages were weak and she had a hard time unbuttoning and buttoning her purple dress.
A knock resounded at the door.
"Ayano say down or you okay doing need help?" Marry called.
"N-no, I'm coming." Kido forced herself to say, her unstable legs moving her to the door, which she opened to see a smiling Marry.
"Pretty! Kido looks pretty."
"You're getting better at talking," Kido whispered, and they walked down the stairs together.
When they entered the room, they were immediately consumed by Ayano, who smiled and led them around to meet people, none of which stuck in either of the girls' minds.
Finally, they were sat at a small table, with Ayano at the head and Marry and Kido on either side. Marry sat next to Seto and the seat besides Kido was empty. People took their seats at tables and began to talk, and Kido couldn't help but remember old princess movies that Marry and Kido watched together as children and daydreamed about living in. The main hall was huge and had been restored recently, with big white walls and tables around the edges of the room, leaving space in the middle for people to gather and socialize during celebrations. According to Ayano, their city wasn't a kingdom in most respects, and that she was more like a political ruler who wasn't exactly elected. She promised them tours around Blind Pride and told them about all the renovations in the city that made it almost resemble a city from before the blinding sickness but without as much technology and with more piles of debris everywhere. Outside of the city, she said, everything was desolate and there were no signs of any other society on this continent at all, just small groups of people traveling together and some mutated animals. Beyond the ocean, on other continents, there were rumors of society but the waters were so filled with biohazards and human waste products that it would mean death just by falling in for a second, and without any way of air travel it would be too dangerous to cross for their limited population.
Marry didn't seem to care at all, but Kido was very interested in finding others and getting out of this horrible place that was nothing like her old home.
"Do you think," she began, "that things are like they used to be in other places?"
Ayano shrugged. "Unfortunately, no, there are very few places in the world where there is even civilized life anymore. But it's not so bad here, is it?" Kido shook her head, thinking that it was a stupid question to ask someone who hadn't even been out of the building in ten years.
But Ayano said nothing more directly to her, and instead engaged in conversation with Seto, leaving Marry and Kido to talk.
"Do you like it here?" She asked Marry.
"Yeah! I get to be like a princess, I think." She laughed.
"But what about-" Her sentence was cut off by the door slamming open to reveal a tall person whose glare silenced everyone in the room. The expression this person wore quickly switched to a grin, and he exclaimed,
"What's up people? How're we all doing tonight?!" With a laugh, then strolled over to a scared Marry and a confused Kido.
Wrote this all in the Notes of my iPod, so it's probably shorter than I thought.
This is what happens when you watch too much anime and Disney movies, guys.
If you're confused let me know, this isn't revised very well, and anyways next chapter will probably be a prologue.