Chapter Text
II.
Meeting Shadow Milk was the worst experience Pure Vanilla Cookie could've ever had. The cookie was insane- horribly lost beyond belief and the worst part of it all was that he was a strong enemy. It was impossible, Pure Vanilla had thought, that he'd encounter White Lily Cookie again, let alone a part of her that was not twisted into Dark Enchantress Cookie.
He had always had faith in his friend of course, but nevertheless the truth(?) was that her soul was the main thing responsible for not only the Dark Flour war, but the oncoming strife involving the beasts. He was in the end, overjoyed to be reunited with her. The distraction was short lived though and especially no longer focused on when he caught wind of the voice of truth whispering to him.
It had always guided him. And the reveal that it was... Shadow Milk Cookie... had it really been a reveal? Or had he always been aware. Deep down, had he always been aware that such a dangerous beast was the one guiding his hand?
No.
If you feel like you cannot trust the voice within you...
... Listen to my voice instead.
Can you do that for me?
He had promised to follow White Lily's guidance if he could not trust his own judgement. Was that wrong? Perhaps it was, or perhaps it wasn't. Pure Vanilla Cookie wasn't sure what to think anymore. What had been true before didn't feel that way anymore. What really made something true? Facts and actions, or feelings and thoughts?
As he laid in the tent Gingerbrave and his friends set up he tossed and turned to his sides. He couldn't sleep, not when all of these questions tormented him. Everything was so simple, until it wasn't. And this was not even Shadow Milk's own doing directly (at least he doesn't think so...) these were all his own questions. His own ponderings as the night droned on and on.
He needed a walk.
The former king rises from his cot, taking care to step around Silverbell and Mercurial Knight who had insisted in sleeping in the same tent as him and White Lily Cookie. They wished to protect their now new queen and her closest friend. Something clawed at his chest when remembering the faerie's faces as they insisted. Broken but determined. There was no doubt in his mind, after seeing how Elder Faerie had sacrificed himself. Shadow Milk truly was the beast of deceit, cruel and full of anger. The cherry on the cake, of course, was that he was bound to Pure Vanilla Cookie. How fate must be laughing at him now.
Carefully grabbing his staff, he parts the flaps of the tent and steps outside. In order to guarantee their safety, they had set up camp on the edge of the mystical forest surrounding the faerie village. Since Shadow Milk had corrupted the entire Faerie Kingdom it seemed, setting up camp there while journeying forward towards the Silver Tree was impossible. It had been Silverbell who suggested utilizing the magic forest around them to their advantage. The mist would hide them from any explorer's with bad intentions as well as the enemies created by the beast himself.
Pure Vanilla Cookie sighs as his dough touches the grass. In order to connect the most with his magic and intentions after all, he found that physically feeling his surroundings had always worked best. Feeling Earthbread breathe underneath his dough. The texture of his staff against his hands and the wind against his body. He loved how his robes allowed him to try and understand everything around him the best.
Hm.... understanding.
His thoughts again wander to the beast.
Did he still wish to understand him?
Pure Vanilla decides, as he steps through the thick grass and bushes that line each tree that the answer to that question- though now through some conflict- was still yes. It has always been his true belief that any conflict can be resolved through words. The issue that was now presented to him is that will his morals and thoughts be enough... are they the truth? Is that truly what he wants, especially when this cookie has not only hurt his friends, but potentially hundreds of cookies before?
How can he possible pursue his goal without hurting his friends feelings? Without dismissing their experience as if he was simply waving it away? It was cruel to do such a thing, that he knows.
He sighs and takes a glance upwards, to observe the tree canopy looming above him. It was impossible to see the sky without a clearing unfortunately. The night sky had always calmed him. From his kingdom too, floated high above Earthbread, the views were always spectacular from his balcony. Pure Vanilla wouldn't've taken himself to be a particularly homesick cookie. With everything he's been through, such trivial attachments to places should've ceased no?
Contrary to what both he and other cookies expect, Vanilla still finds himself looking for the small commodities and familiarities when he is stressed. The shape of his desk against his palm as he runs his hands along it. The calming noise of his record player on sleepless nights just like this one. He misses these things whether he likes it or not. And now... in an unfamiliar land like Beast-Yeast. There is nothing he knows for certain. Not the grass underneath his dough, not the foreign wind against his nightgown, he cannot even be sure if the voice of truth belongs to him anymore.
And there is with certainty, no music exists here that can calm him-
Pure Vanilla stops his pacing about the forest and strains his hearing. Without his true vision about, the ancient has trained his other senses to sharpen so that he may defend himself against foes that could do him harm. And now... he thought he could be wrong but no.
The unmistakable sound of a piano.
It was baffling, how could something like this exist so far away from not only their camp but also the faerie kingdom? This should not be the product of any cookie. The mystical forest surrounding him is proof of that: the mist's purpose is to misguide cookies with harmful intent from the faerie residence after all. Unless the forest could identify himself as a threat- which was impossible too- there was... no other explanation?
He tries to look for anything that could tell him where the sound was coming from. Perhaps the sleek black corner of a piano could be spotted somewhere around here-? Surely it'd stand out against the green of the trees- the white of their trunks-?
The more he tries to look around and follow the noise the further away it seems to get. He tries to take two steps towards the high melody and it fades further. Backtracking only makes it worse and Pure Vanilla concludes with resolution that if this music was meant to soothe him right now it was doing a pretty bad job at doing so.
For a minute, he almost attributes the music as being a product of Shadow Milk's trickery. But there was no way the jester's influence could 1) reach so far into the forest and 2) sad to say, but if it was the other cookie's doing he would've already spoken to him. It seemed clear from the eagerness in his voice when he first revealed himself to Vanilla after escaping the Silver Tree that the beast has absolutely zero patience. Escaping the Silver Tree meant freedom. it meant not hiding anymore. Now that he was free, Shadow Milk did not have to wait for anything or anyone in order to get his way. He would especially not wait for the cookie of truth. So, ergo, this could not possibly be a trick on Pure Vanilla Cookie.
There's a huff of air that escapes him as he holds out a hand to push a tree branch out of the way only for it to swing back and smack him in the face.
The visual input he was receiving from his staff was throwing him off.
It's about time to take a different approach to solving this mini mystery it seems. He takes a deep breath to center himself against the frustration building inside of himself and gently closes the eye of his staff. He should follow this sound with his ears and touch alone. Not only can he thus isolate the amount of stimuli but this should also calm the flame of annoyance in him just a bit. He's indeed a saint, but every cookie can grow overstimulated over time. Especially with the amount of stress he's been under lately.
He promptly takes three steps towards where he hears the faint keys press and trips over a vine.
Ouch.
Despite the anxious thoughts plaguing him and the rather negative outlook on his whole journey right now.... he lets himself laugh, breathless from the fall. What did he think was going to happen? He's a blind old man wandering through a forest covered with shrubs.
He picks himself up and this time attempts to follow the music again. More carefully, feeling the area in front of him with his staff like a walking stick instead. This was much more efficient he deems. Not only does the piano indeed start to grow louder (finally) but also he can feel the leaves and greenery around him change(?) if that was possible. Pure Vanilla was highly aware of plantation and its changes around environments. He's a gardener after all.
And he knows for a fact that Faerie flora and fauna were much smoother than what he feels now. As he walks, the saint runs his hand along the shrubs around him. Their surfaces, the leaves themselves were so much more coarser than what he remembers. Surely this cannot even be the same forest anymore? There's a brush of something on his head and he almost opens his eyecings again. He refrains though, choosing to obstruct himself until he concludes that he's reached the relative location of the source of the music. Might as well make it a surprise hm?
Not only does the texture of the leaves around him turn rougher. As if the plants themselves have little teeth knawing on his dough with every step he takes- but the flowers themselves undergo the opposite change. Once pristine white lilies and silverbells turn impossibly smoother. More rounded. What was this new flower-? They seemed to grow in clumps now instead of straight lines like the traditional faerie flora and while Pure Vanilla cannot comment on their color he can simply sense that something is different here.
As he ponders, the piano gets louder and louder- though the true melody itself never crescendos. It intrigues him. A song that can get louder but never climax? How utterly perplexing.
It is only when he walks smack dab into the trunk of a tree that he jolts and opens his eyes to see around it. Only to be greeted with the most baffling scene he's ever graced his eyes upon.
He was correct on his conclusion regarding the nature surrounding him. In place of the pristine pale white that had always curled around faeries and their kingdom there was now a brilliant mix of pale blue and purples. He squints and leans down, crouching so his knees fall to the forest floor. What he can only describe as... hm no he's read about these before. Milk crowns. They surround him as if he was drowning in a lake of pure white. Thousands of small milk crowns swaying, little pebbles dropped here and there creating puddles and splashes of pure milk.
The milk crowns barely stay in focus when he leans back. As he picks up his gaze and observes the rest of his surroundings he can tell with a startling realization that he must've wandered very very far away if the forest has changed this much. From his barley clear vision he cannot make out a single familiar color. All he can see are smears of white at the edge of his robes, the faint yellow of his staff which he leans on heavily to stand once again, and the dark purple? Of the tree leaves above him. The eye of his staff flutters open as his own fall closed.
What had brushed his head earlier had been the leaves of a purple drooping weeping willow. With... flowers of masks on it.
This was absolutely the influence of the jester. It had to be. But that should've be possible right?
It was late. He should return back to their camp.
Vanilla takes a hesitant step and then another but in the end he halts. Out of the corner of his staff's eye he catches a flash of blue. Shadow Milk Cookie type of blue. He doesn't breathe. Doesn't move. But he does turn his staff to get a better look. The poor sunflower orchid peers out from behind the tree the saint had crashed into, pupil quivering slightly.
He didn't know what he expected. Maybe he thought the beast of deceit would instinctually know where he was. Snap his head towards the other and lunge. Tear out his throat- er.
No. He's emphasized that wasn't his style didn't he?
Nevertheless none of Pure Vanilla's worries happened. Instead what he saw as he turned his staff to get a better view was the jester... floating around, and counting. In time with the music no less. He was...
Well he was very much dancing.
The saint can't bring himself to walk away. He can't bring himself to even tear his eyes away from the chaotic being in the center of the clearing. The moonlight seemed to shine onto the other, highlighting him and only him. And of course, ever the showman, as Shadow Milk twirled and slid his way through the clearing, back and forth, up and down and curving and swerving- the light isn’t just following him- it’s being guided by his movements.
He had to get a better look. But how? The ancient's gaze darts around until it lands on a inconspicuous bush. That'll do, he supposes. As he makes his way towards it, just a little bit to the right from his original position, a thought worms into his mind. He did seem like a creep for just watching the scene in front of him.
For just a second, Pure Vanilla shakes his head to try and calm the subtle heat that rose to his face. This was a deadly enemy. A cookie that could tear apart entire worlds at a flick of his wrist. He was watching not only for his safety but his friends as well. This was for his own as much as theirs. And it wasn't like he was doing anything incriminating either. He was simply gauging what the beast could possibly be doing after all.
Now settled behind the bush, the cookie of truth observes and can come to the conclusion that the Shadow Milk is in fact not following... any sort of plan. He is simply letting himself flow to the music. Whatever the pianist choses to play next, whatever strings may come and go the center of the stage- the main actor will reflect that in whatever way he sees fit.
And Pure Vanilla is captivated.
While the ancient's way of dance is more controlled, thought out and well put, he is absolutely in awe at the difference between his expression with music manifests itself compared to Shadow Milk's. The other practically builds his own path as he makes his way through the song. From Vanilla's perspective there was no thought out plan as where to go to next. Where the jester's hands would go, how his legs would arc through the air, it was all in the moment , and it was beautiful. While he has never personally felt the beauty others felt in chaos, this time- for once- it did not feel like he was missing something.
Contrasting the comfort the felt at actually understanding the sentiment behind what was happening in front of him, it was jarring to see the jester so relaxed. Despite his movements switching from frantic to slow to sweet and gentle to rough and snappy the beast truly looked as if he was in his element.
There was a glimmer of confusion in the orchid's pupil as Pure Vanilla watched with a bated gaze. The other was terrifying. The holder of lies, spinner of deceit so sweet it can crumble. But he was also a cookie of arts. While he himself would not know this yet, Shadow Milk Cookie was once the wielder of all knowledge after all. And with it can come not only true enlightenment and madness, but a true understanding of one's passions. He was once just a cookie like everyone else. With hobbies, hopes, and dreams. Sort of. Being a cookie blessed by the witches made the Fount of Knowledge's habits a bit strange.
Whatever his past had consisted of however, Vanilla's experience with the beast was full of treacherous lies. None of the actions that the beast has done thus far showed the saint that he was something that a cookie could feel safe around. To see something so deadly and otherworldly indulge in something so normal was conflicting.
As he dances, the moonlit clearing he chose as his stage practically cradles him. The wind was just enough to guide the jester's hair around his form, the purple willows swayed in tune to the music, and the sea of milk crowns almost all straighten- straining just to reach the beast's floating form. Pure Vanilla felt, for a moment, not only the true beauty of chaos incarnate, not only the power of improvisation and deceit but also the way the environment itself seemed to curve around its inhabitants.
Beast-Yeast was made to be the permanent home to the beasts. Just as the cookie of truth prefers his robes and dough to really feel the life of Earthbread, to make him strong and to guide his resolve he can only imagine that the other would feel the same about his interactions with the land of Beast-Yeast. While foreign and strange to cookies from Crispia, this was Shadow Milk's birthright home and his connection to it would accommodate him accordingly.
He peers closer and notices that Shadow Milk's eyecings are indeed closed. He is so focused on counting, so focused on letting his body interpret the music as what he wants to show not him but Earthbread. Perhaps this was truly the moment that Pure Vanilla for the first time realizes that there is maybe a semblance of hope. The beasts are still cookies. And if they are still cookies at their cores than maybe he can help them understand that tearing apart the entirety of Earthbread is wrong. That endangering the lives of others is wrong.
While maybe they were baked by the witches to be something extraordinary, they still experience emotions, still have their home in touch with their very jam, there was still something inside these 'monsters' as the faeries had dubbed them that had promise no? He blinks and just for the briefest of moments lets himself sway to the music. There was something he could cling to here. Something to convince him that perhaps they did not even need to fight if he could only... understand.
"No no no- it's WRONG. Something is missing." The hiss of the Shadow Milk's words shocks him to reality. This was not safe. He was not safe. While these beasts are still cookies they've been wronged by the world. They may look and act like the cookies of Earthbread but they are broken and they have fallen so far down that their morals have been twisted beyond something that could be reasoned with safely.
The realization that this is what Pure Vanilla must face alone scared him. The truth he doesn't and will never admit.
His arms shake.
The wind that blew around the clearing seemed to sharpen. It was colder now, more critical. Whatever moment Pure Vanilla had witnessed, whatever faint trace of cookiekind that he had seen in the beast was gone and with it came the increasing dread that hung around the faerie kingdom ever since the phantom of the beast had sprouted from the tree.
There's another frustrated sound as a incessant clicking had started up. Shadow Milk clicking his tongue presumably.
"What is it- I counted the tempo and everything is fine- this isn’t FAIR!" Shadow Milk seethes. The pure anger digs though Pure Vanilla's jam, rushing through the other's body like lava poured down his spine. Suddenly his vision is grass and nothingness. He had dropped his staff and in a moment's notice had shoved his back up against the bush, praying that Shadow Milk cannot see him.
As the jester floats around and around, there is only the build up of the most annoyed of frustrations that the saint can feel in his very dough. Or perhaps its his soul jam. There was something missing from the other's masterfully crafted piece. And since he could not figure out what it was, he was of course- having a tantrum about it. The connection between the two souls had to be what was at fault for such strong feelings to be shared between the two cookies. However, at least as far as Pure Vanilla Cookie is aware, the connection between him and the holder of the Soul Jam of Deceit does not stretch that deep or (haha) true.
There is a crack from next to him. He cannot tell what has caused it but he clamps his mouth shut, tries to still his breath and resolves to recite another prayer to the witches in his head.
He does not have to worry about being found because in a gust of wind, the music is cut short as a yell of anger rings through the clearing. And just as the build up had been there- a dread creeping into his mind. About being found, about being harmed- it was all gone.
Swept away in the blink of an eye, his surroundings had changed and Pure Vanilla knew that Shadow Milk had left in a hurry. That was very sudden.
The lingering question of 'why' rattled around in the dazed ancient's head as he uncurls himself from his position behind the bush.
Gently picking up his staff and opening his eye confirms his suspicions of the other having left and apparently taking all of his flora with him. With a rather heavy breath he exhales. That was as terrifying as it was intriguing. He almost wishes he didn't leave as quickly for the curiosity in his heart grew. Why had he left so suddenly? Why was he dancing there in the first place? And what had been missing? Something so clear and so important that it caused the beast to leave in such a hurry. From what he had seen, the other was deep in thought as he improvised his dance, but nothing was necessarily gone from his routine.
Maybe... there was something that the other lacked, something Pure Vanilla could not see. But what could it be?
The last question plagued him as he stumbled back through the woods. Bare feet against the now milk crown-less floor. It ran through his thoughts like a mantra as he laid down once again, and pulled his covers over himself.
What was he missing? What had Shadow Milk not had?
The answer was clear: his soul jam. He was missing his part of the soul jam. And as Vanilla tries to sleep, he curls up attempting to steel his thoughts. He will follow White Lily's guidance. He will not falter. And he will not let Shadow Milk have his soul jam, for it will surely spell out demise for not only him but all of Earthbread.
-
The truth that Pure Vanilla was indeed scared of, as well as his counterpart in all the irony the witches could've baked into them, was simple.
Shadow Milk was missing a dancing partner.