The land of Sanitatum is said to be filled with magic, but it is also plagued by a contagious curse that threatens humanity's survival. It is the purpose of the heir to the throne, Simba Adofo, to inherit his father's crown and find a way to vanquis...
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"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Simba growled, letting rage flood through him. How could she have known and said nothing?
"You wouldn't believe me even if I had told you," she replied calmly. "The only reason you believe me now if because you are desperate enough for the truth."
"Then you should have forced me to believe."
"You couldn't be forced to understand this the same way the birds couldn't be forced to feed from your hands, Sim. Even now, you don't truly see beyond the light."
Simba scoffed. "And how is that?"
She gave him a knowing glance.
"Have you ever heard of the allegory of the cave?" she asked redundantly. "It's an allegorical proposition, comparing the nature of belief and knowledge."
"So... another verbose parable?" Simba groused.
"Verbose parables? In a library?" Kurona sneered.
A vexed huff escaped him. "Funny."
Kurona smirked warmly as she continued.
"Say a set of prisoners are in a cave. They are chained to chairs in the dark, and their shackles force them to stare at a wall. On this wall, shadows are cast in a pattern, projected from a source behind the prisoners that they cannot see. They see these flat shadows on the wall before them as the truth of life because they have never known anything else. They make games guessing which shape will appear on the wall next, the winner boasting in guessing correctly. Who are they to question these shapes?
"But say a prisoner were to be freed from their chains by a fateful happenstance. The prisoner turns to see that a fire was projecting the shadows of three dimensional objects from a a revolving shelf, and that the 'truth' he knew his whole life was only flat and misleading projections.
"The prisoner then sees a tunnel leading out of the cave. He goes to leave the cave but is greeted by the blinding light of the sun, as all he has ever known was darkness. The light burns his eyes. He can't see what the world looks like beyond the cave. It is painful. It is scary. But the prisoner wants to know the truth of the world he was deprived of.
"Would the prisoner retreat back into the safety of the cave, or withstand the pain to see the unknown?"
Simba pondered.
"So you think I would have been blinded and gone back into the cave," Simba deduced frigidly.
"I think you were a kid promised great things," she corrected. "Not every cave is the same, and not everyone is shown the same shadows. You have to adjust to the light on your own terms."
Simba noticed regret emerge in her tone.
"I am not blameless in this War. I could not see that the Columbines acting in self preservation. I believed so strongly that their cure was true, and that I was propelling humanity forward into a new age of health- but it was all a lie.
