It’s a quiet night, and it’s a very late one, too. The light of a white fast food joint with a blue, slanted roof illuminates the dark block it sits within. A sign in front of the building shows the symbol of a cartoon chicken within a blue-slanted square as well as the name of the place: The Flying Chicken.
Inside, the building has nobody, except for two workers standing at the blue and white register. Aria, a blonde girl with a ponytail and amber eyes is staring off in the distance, toward the glass door on the other side of the building. The other worker, Fiamma, is resting her head on her arms at the pickup station with frustrated boredom. The only thing the two have to entertain themselves right now is staring at the bland whites, browns, and beiges of the building and the old blues and grays of the booths and tables. Occasionally, a car whizzes by to add to the ringing lights blaring throughout the joint.
Fiamma moves her cinnamon-colored eyes towards Aria. Fiamma’s reddish-brown bangs are swooped to her left, partially blocking her expression. Despite this, Aria can tell the dissatisfaction on Fiamma’s face. “Man, it’s been boring today,” Fiamma says.
“Aw, don’t fret too much, Fiamma! I’m sure we’ll get somebody!” Aria replies, “And besides, there’s a benefit to having no customers!”
Fiamma raises an eyebrow at Aria, looking doubtful about her optimism. “What benefit could there be standing in this dinky-ass place for several hours a day, Aria?”
“We get to get paid by doing nothing!” Aria answers with her arms cheerfully in the air.
Aria’s lighthearted joke, however, didn’t cheer up Fiamma. If anything, it’s making her more disappointed with her current situation. Fiamma hides her head in her arms, groaning. “I can’t believe I spent four years in culinary arts just to get stuck in a fast food joint!” Fiamma says with anger in her voice. She flips her head back up. “I don’t want to be flipping burgers for the rest of my life!”
“Don’t you mean ‘flippin’ chicken’?” Aria jokes to her coworker with a finger gun on top of it.
“Shut up!” Fiamma shouts, her irritation showing.
The two workers’ banter goes to a halt when the sound of a familiar bell rings throughout the fast-food restaurant. The sound alerts Fiamma, who bolts up like a rocket. “Oh shit, a customer!” Fiamma shouts before she rushes to the back.
A young guy with shaggy black hair, a cyan and white striped shirt, and brown pants walks up to the register. “Welcome to The Flying Chicken, what would you like to have today?” Aria greets the guy.
The man has an anxious and impatient expression as he is squeezing his thighs together. “Actually, I just need to use the restroom.” He responds. “Where is it?”
The two women stare at the guy for a long moment. Fiamma and Aria weren’t exactly expecting someone who just needed to pee. “It’s in the back to the right,” Fiamma responds, pointing to the man’s right.
The man yelps out a quick ‘Thanks!’ before zipping to the bathroom to the right of the kitchen. There is another moment of awkward silence, broken by Fiamma groaning, putting her face in her hands again. “I can’t even cook much in these night shifts!” Fiamma complains. Even though there was just cheap, frozen food at the Flying Chicken, Fiamma at least had something to do by cooking it.
Aria looks at the clock on the right of the kitchen’s wall. The hands slowly turn to 2:04 AM. “Hey now, at least we have two hours left on our shift!”
“That reminds me… Aria, it’s your lunch break.” Fiamma says.
Aria’s eyes widen. “Oh yeah! I think I left my lunch in my car!”
The blonde worker speeds away to the backdoor. “You better not forget it again!” Fiamma shouts at her coworker.
“I won’t! Trust me!”
Aria is now out behind the building, where a mostly vacant parking lot is located, except for the roundish, yellow car that is Aria’s. The fast food worker begins to dig for her lunch inside the car. However, after a couple of minutes of searching, all Aria can find in her car are just a few pieces of trash and a half-drank bottle of coffee. “Ugh, damn it…” Aria curses under her breath. “Where did I put my lunch?”
Aria pulls her upper body out of her car and looks at its gray, dirty insides for a few moments before giving up. “Ugh, I must have forgotten my lunch again!” Aria shouts as she faceplants herself out of frustration. “I’m such an idiot!”
Aria slams her door shut, beginning to tread back to the restaurant. “Welp, time to head-”
Suddenly, a shrill voice that sounds as if a woodpecker could speak rings throughout the air. “Hey, wait!”
The fast food worker stops in her tracks. “What was that?!”
Aria looks around for a few moments until she suddenly notices a small, plump yellow bird fluttering towards her. A strange, bracelet that’s the same color as the bird is being clasped by its right talon. Somehow, the bird speaks out again in that same voice Aria heard. “You! Come here, I have something to tell you!”
It takes only a second for Aria’s fear and surprise to kick in. How could a bird speak like a human? The blonde woman can’t help but scream at the strange creature in response.
Despite this, the bird continues to speak. “I have something very important to show-”
Before the bird can continue, Aria manages to smack the bird out of the air. The slap causes the bird to yelp as it loses control of its flight as well as its grip on the bracelet in its talon. Both the bird and its bracelet land on the pavement, the former knocked out.
Aria sighed in relief. “That was weird,” She said to herself.
Aria takes a short moment to look at the bird on the ground, but her attention is quickly diverted to the bracelet next to it. Seemingly forgetting about the talking bird, Aria picks up the bracelet out of interest. She takes a gander at the bracelet in her palm.
Despite its rubbery, almost plastic-like feeling, the yellow bracelet is sturdy and feels like it was made with quality. A white, cloud-shaped gem is attached to the bracelet. The gem’s faint glistening under the moonlight gives the bracelet a sense of mystique and allure. On each side of the gem, two words are etched into the bracelet: Royal Air.
Without much thought, Aria places the bracelet before walking back into The Flying Chicken. The smell of fresh air is swapped with the familiar, yet less flattering smell of grease. “I’m back, Fiamma!” Aria greets her coworker.
“Let me guess, you forgot lunch again?” Fiamma replies, noticing the lack of something like a lunch bag in Aria’s hands.
Aria gives out a sheepish chuckle. “Maybe?”
Fiamma lets out an irritated sigh. “Again? I’m not surprised,” Fiamma says, getting in front of the cash register. “Alright, how may I serve you tonight?”
“Chicken fingers and fries with cola and Flying Sauce!”
Fiamma types the order into the register. “That’ll be $7.99. You really like that flying sauce, by the way.”
Aria pulls out her wallet, plopping a small collection of dollar bills onto the counter. “What can I say? Our secret sauce is great!”
“I’m pretty sure it’s just glorified fry sauce with-” Fiamma stops when she looks at the ornate bracelet on Aria’s hand. That bracelet wasn’t on Aria before she left. “Say, when did you get that bracelet, Aria?”
“Oh, this?” Aria questioned, holding up her arm with the bracelet on it. “I just found it on the ground after I saw some talking bird. Isn’t it pretty?”
Fiamma blinks, hesitating for a moment after hearing what Aria had to say about the bracelet. A talking bird? “Grow up, Aria, birds don’t talk,” Fiamma tells her friend, not believing her story.
“Yeah, that’s why it was so weird. I was just trying to get some food when some bird flew up to me and talked like a human!”
Fiamma was heading up to the fridge as Aria spoke, half-listening to her story. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Aria sighs. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m telling the truth!”
“Let’s just continue our shifts. Or I guess lunch break in your case.”
Aria, disappointed that her friend doesn’t believe her, doesn’t bring up the bird anymore. A somewhat swift lunch break for Aria flies by alongside a grueling hour and a half of nothing but waiting for the occasional customer to visit The Flying Chicken. Once the clock struck 4 AM, Aria and Fiamma both clocked out of the Flying Chicken and went to their respective homes.
Once Aria makes it to her apartment home, she opens the door to take a look at the quiet place. The living room is lightly furnished, only having a brown couch and a black TV on top of a small entertainment center on top of the brown carpet. The white walls have nothing of note on them aside from a poster of a city with a blue, cloudy sky.
Aria checks her phone. The time is 4:38 AM. She is well due for a rest, so Aria goes across her similarly vacant kitchen to enter her bathroom for her night routine. As she opens up the brown door to her bathroom, Aria accidentally taps the bracelet on the door. This might have been trivial if Aria hadn’t noticed the feeling of the gem pressing down like a button the moment it hit the door.
Something even weirder is that the gem on the bracelet is suddenly glowing now. Aria looks at her bracelet as the glowing begins to grow. “What the-”
Aria doesn’t have much of a moment until the glowing engulfs her. A sudden sharp pain hits her wrist, almost like a flu shot was jabbed into that spot. A different type of pain, feeling more like surging lightning, flows through the rest of her body a split-second later. A scream echoes through Aria’s home as it feels like Aria is being electrocuted.
Just as quickly as it began, the pain and glowing stops after a few seconds. A feeling of daze and confusion washes over Aria. “What the hell was-”
Aria stops again to look at herself in the mirror. She still has the long, blonde ponytail and side bangs she usually makes her hair look. However, unlike her hairstyle, Aria wasn’t wearing her worker outfit anymore. The white and blue visor, blue button shirt, and black pants she has is replaced by new clothes.
In the mirror, Aria seeing that she has a brand-new dress on. The dress is light yellow and has the look and appearance of a cloud. It was like she had the appearance of a sheep. The dress notably has a brooch on the chest area, and a yellow circle with a cloud the same shape as the bracelet Aria has on.
Wait a moment, where is the bracelet? All Aria could see on her arms are long, white gloves that extend beyond her elbows. Below her dress are white pants tucked into two yellow boots, each one having a fluffy topline that resembles her dress. On the top of her head is an ornate, five-pointed golden crown with circular yellow gems below each point.
“What the fuuuuuuck?” Aria utters after several seconds of staring. A million thoughts are going through her head right now. Why do I look like this? How did this even happen? What’s even going on? Aria looks at the empty wrist where the yellow bracelet was, then back at herself.
“What the hell just happened?!” Aria audibly says. “Did that bracelet do something to me?!”
Aria looks at herself in the mirror again. She looks just like a princess. Her thought process went back to the bracelet, staring at her empty hand in the mirror. “Where did that bracelet go, anyway? It’s not even on my wrist right now!”
Aria’s confusion starts to tilt towards fear. Fueled by her scary thoughts, a horrifying realization dawns on her. “Oh god, am I gonna be stuck like this?!”
It was a strange assumption, but Aria wasn’t sure what to even think at this point. She tries to pull off the dress from her body, but it’s not getting off. She then tries to pull off the crown on her head. Just like her fluffy, yellow dress, the crown is superglued to the poor blonde woman. Panic begins to creep up on Aria, her breathing and heartbeat speeding up. “I can’t take this dress off! What am I gonna do?! How am I gonna go out like this?! I…”
Aria presses her hands against her temples, her thoughts racing through her like a highway. However, the fogginess in Aria’s brain suddenly comes to a stop when she comes up with an explanation for her new, weird outfit. “I… must be dreaming!” Aria says to herself. “Y-yeah! I’m just dreaming that I’ve turned into some sort of princess! Either that, or I was just drugged.”
With a somewhat good solution to what’s going on right now, Aria smiles, feeling less scared. "When I go to bed, I'll wake up and everything will be normal again!"
Aria decides to skip her nightly routine and go into her bedroom to her left. The bedroom is the most furnished place in her apartment. In the top right corner, there is a twin-sized bed with a pillow and yellow blanket, an end table to the left with a black, rectangular alarm clock on it, a dresser in the bottom left corner, and a table with a black office chair in the top left.
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Aria doesn't take an extra second to go into her bed. Sleeping with a crown isn't the most comfortable thing to do, but it's not like she can take it off. On the contrary, the dress Aria is wearing feels comfortable, like pajamas. "Nighty night, me!" Aria says to herself.
The night goes by somewhat quickly for Aria, at the very least faster than her usual rests. At 1:00 PM, the black alarm clock blares out a beeping sound that wakes her right up. Aria slaps the alarm to shut it up, but after several minutes, she manages to get out of her bed as her grogginess fades. "Goooood morning!" Aria greets herself.
The blonde woman slides out of bed and marches her way to her bathroom. "Alright, now that that weird dream I had is over, I won't look like a silly princ-"
The moment Aria opens the door to her bathroom, she gazes at her appearance. Much to her horror, she still has her fluffy, cream-colored dress, white gloves, and regal crown. Now realizing that this wasn't just some dream, Aria can only screech in response, The scream is so loud, that people outside Aria's home can hear it. "Oh god, I wasn't dreaming nor having a bad drug trip! I'm really stuck with this outfit!" Aria says to herself.
Aria's panicked thoughts resume from how they were last night. But, the knowledge of her new dress being permanent lets her calm down after a few moments. Aria gazes at her own reflection now with a sense of curiosity instead of fear.
Aria thinks about her appearance for a moment. She grins at herself, thinking of how she looks in the outfit. Aria does a small twirl before adjusting her ponytail and puttimg her hand on her hip. "Damn, I'm not looking half-bad in this dress!" Aria compliments herself.
Despite being terrified of her new looks a bit ago, Aria has a feeling of pride at this point. She thinks the new looks she has isn't that bad. At least she looks like royalty instead of a ragdoll. Aria's eyes tilt up to her crown, the bathroom light reflecting off its gems. Aria chuckles to herself. "I'm like a cool cloud princess, or something!"
After staring at herself a little while more, Aria makes her way out of her simple bathroom. "Maybe I can deal with this form until I figure out how to change back. Good thing I don't have to go to work today."
Aria goes into her kitchen to grab a quick meal of cereal. Since it's her day off, she decides to go outside after eating her breakfast as that's what she usually does on her break days. Even with the royal dress, Aria initially goes outside as if she's wearing casual clothes.
Aria looks at the large, blocky, yellow apartment buildings, green, dotted trees, and vibrant patches of grass that surround her home. Despite gazing at her surroundings, Aria isn't noticing the handful of people staring at her with confused expressions as she walks down the sidewalk. Maybe it was her fresh-feeling mind or the dress or something, but Aria's feeling of royalty caused her thoughts to be clouded with a level of egotism.
Aria decides to go to the nearby park that's close to her apartment building. It wasn't like she really had much else on the mind, anyway. Once she finds a nearby bench with a tree close to it, Aria sits down with a sign of relief. "I'm actually starting to kinda like this," Aria says to herself. "Hey, maybe I can even get used to it!"
Aria looks around the grassy park. As she does, thoughts start to tickle Aria's brain. Why did a random bracelet transform me into some kind of princess? Why did I get such a thing from encountering some random, talking bird? Did that bracelet do anything else to me? Can I even change back at all?
"Hey!" Aria's slurry of thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice. Aria looks up in the sky, where she heard the voice, and notices something flying to her. It's that same, mysterious yellow bird she encountered at the back of The Flying Chicken last night. "Come here! I need to explain to you what that bracelet is, Royal Air!"
Aria shouts again, not anticipating that she'd encounter the bird a second time. Instinctively, Aria holds out her hand out timidly. As Aria holds out her hand, she feels a surge of energy coming from her arm. The feeling of energy climbs up Aria's arm until it reaches the palm of her hand, where much to her amazement, a small cloud jets out at rapid speeds. The bird and the cloud collide with one another, a shockwave of energy radiating though the air as the bird is launched far, far away.
Aria's mouth hangs as she stares the bird while it disappears over the horizon. The blonde woman hesitates for a while, not sure what just happened. After a while, Aria looks at her own hand. "What the hell did I just do? Did I just... shoot a cloud from my hands?" Aria says to herself in disbelief.
Aria holds out her hand, trying to see if she could perform the action again. Much to Aria's amazement, the same sensation of energy goes through her hand, causing a small cloud to appear above it. Aria stares at the cloud as she whispers "Woah..."
The small wisp is mesmerizing to Aria; it felt like she just unlocked the door of reality. "Holy shit..." Aria utters slowly. "Can I seriously make clouds now?"
The woman decides to see if she could do anything else to manipulate the small cloud. With a flick of her wrist, the white blob launches upward. Aria then tries to shape the cloud into something else. She decides to make the cloud resemble the tree nearby. Finally, Aria shot the cloud into the sky similar to what she accidentally did with that bird.
"This. Is. AWESOME!" Aria shouts, jumping right out of the bench with child-like wonder. "I didn't think that bracelet would turn me into a magical sky princess!"
The realization that she became a magic user givers Aria a sense of giddiness. She starts to think about what else she could do. The tree takes up Aria's attention again. She holds her hand out towards the tree and focuses her energy. After a second, the tree begins to dance thanks to a current Aria is blasting from her palm. "Oooh, I can control wind!" Aria comments to herself.
Aria's mind goes back to her cloud creation. She wonders if she could make other types of clouds. She points her finger out to the sky, but a cloud doesn't pop out. Instead, a sharp, dancing bundle of electricity fires out, making Aria gasp in awe. "Oh my god, I can make electricity!"
Aria stops jetting out lightning, trying to focus her power to create a cloud. She manages to make a small, long wisp instead of a lightning bolt. The blonde moves her finger around, making a cloud that's the shape of an outline of a heart. After that, she makes the shape of a star. This was reminding Aria of designing art by moving her finger around a damp window.
Aria swirls her finger around the ground. The air around her hand twists and turns, until a miniature tornado appears below her finger. The blonde woman backs up in surprise. "I can even make tornadoes?!"
The small tornado dissipates after a couple of seconds. Aria smiles again. "Well, damn! I'm like a living cloud! I'm all puffy, I can make storms and clouds, I can even-"
Aria stops herself since she realized something. "Wait... am I able to fly?"
Aria leaps up into the air to test her theory. She senses the feeling of going up, but not going down. She looks down at the ground, where Aria's shadow is split off of her feet. Aria squeals. "Holy shit... I can fly!!!"
The lady floats up a bit higher into the sky. Aria wasn't believing what she was seeing was real a second time. She had to pinch herself just to double-check that she wasn't dreaming. Aria laughs. "I'm not dreaming..."
"I can flyyyyy!!!" Aria exclaims as she darts up high into the air. She begins to soar above the park, taking in the view. The trees only look like small pieces of broccoli from Aria's perspective. The wind felt nice across her face, even if its sound bellowed a bit loudly.
"Wooow, everything looks so small from here! I'm just like a bird!" Aria says to herself.
Mentioning birds reminds Aria of the talking bird she encountered twice before. That creepy bird called me 'Royal Air', didn't it? Why does that sound so familiar...
Aria realized that was the same text that was on the bracelet that caused her transformation to begin with. "Royal Air... is that my name in this form?"
Aria gives out a small giggle. She thinks that the name might imply she's some sort of superheroine for a moment, but she disregards the idea. "I guess that means I'm the princess of wind!"
After darting through the park for a while, Aria reaches downtown Ayers City. The city is made up of small, old buildings made of red and orange bricks and tall, new buildings made of glass and steel. Aria looks at the buildings, never seeing them at this straight of a perspective up close.
Unbeknownst to the blonde woman, several people are out on the street. A few of them notice Aria flying through the air. A woman in a pink shirt points at her. "Say, is that girl flying?"
The lady above the people flies over them. "Oh my god, she is!" A dark-skinned man with an orange shirt replies.
Aria manages to notice the people a bit later. "Heh, these people are so tiny." Aria says to herself. "They're like little ants!"
Aria continues to look at the people, not really paying attention to them. Is one of them, a blonde man seems to be running towards somewhere. Another one, a girl with black hair, seems to have some sort of rectangular object out. Aria looks to her right for a moment, noticing some people within the glass buildings looking at her. Everything seems to be fine, until...
BOOM!
"What was that?!" Aria said in surprise. She looks down and notices that someone has crashed their blue car into a tree. "Ah, I hope he's okay."
After several more minutes that feel like mere seconds of flying, Aria flies back to her home. She lands next to her yellow apartment's white door. "Man, that was fun!" Aria tells herself. "I guess it's a good time for a break!"
Aria renters her apartment. After having a quick lunch, she spends the rest of her day experimenting with her powers. She manages to get used to her powers of creating various clouds and lightning bolts. At the very least, she was able to create various designs with them, like a cat cloud or a star cloud. A part of Aria wonders if she could put these designs into the sky for people to see.
Either way, Aria eventually goes to bed. The next day, Aria wakes up, still in her royal dress, and sits down on her brown couch in her living room for the morning. "I wonder what's on the news today?" Aria asks herself.
Aria picks up her silver remote and turns on the TV. She shifts the channel to the news channel 'New News'. The logo, which is the text of 'New News' inside of a blue trapezoid appears as the announcer speaks in a masculine voice.
"This just in on New News!" The man begins. The screen changes to footage of the sky and Ayers City's buildings taken from a phone. "There are reports of a woman flying across Ayers City yesterday."
A woman flying across the City? Aria thought, before realizing what the announcer is talking about. She watches herself speed across the screen in the footage. Aria got herself on the news!
The announcer continues to speak. "People have managed to film the spectacular, yet enigmatic event as you can see. People say the person was wearing a cream-colored dress, had blonde hair, and resembled a princess. Here are some witness interviews regarding the-"
Aria shuts off the TV. A part of her realizes that she might have just broke the reality of hundreds who are watching the TV, maybe even more considering people who view the news on their phone. Another part of her wonders how much her flight caught on camera is going to spread since that recording is bound to be everywhere on the internet if the news is talking about it.
Aria realizes something else: people are going to question her. They're going to question how can she fly. They're going to question her why she looks the way she is. They're going to question what else she can do aside from flight. A lot of these questions are ones that Aria doesn't even fully understand the answers to.
What is Aria going to do if she were to encounter people who ask her such things? It's not like she can hide very well; to her knowledge, she's stuck as a princess at the moment. People are probably not going to take the answers of 'It's magic!' or 'I don't know.' very seriously.
All Aria can really do is slouch and lie down on her couch as her mind rushes through many thoughts. It feels like she'll need to address a dozen things at once thanks to what just happened to her. After several moments, Aria doesn't figure anything out. All she does is utter one thing.
"Oh my god, what did I just get myself get into?"
