Chapter Text
White Lily refused to let her eyes wander from Pure Vanilla. She had a mix of reasons, none of which were terribly healthy. The first was an irrational fear that if she stopped watching him for even a few minutes, he would somehow--physically or mentally--slip away from her again.
Second were her continually failing attempts to look at a face she'd always associated with Shadow Milk and redefine it as the face of her closest friend. Once the mental rush of getting him out of the Spire and protecting him from Candy Apple Cookie had faded, some part of her subconscious expected him to change forms. No logic to it, just irrational anticipation.
This was possibly the worst effect of them being apart for as long as they had. She'd solidified in her mind that Shadow Milk had taken on Pure Vanilla's appearance and was masquerading as him. But somehow she'd also convinced herself that the real Pure Vanilla was still himself...just lost somewhere.
Looking at him now gave her all too sharp a reminder that it wasn't true.
Pure Vanilla was fidgeting with his hair...or possibly interacting with it? He first tried to brush some bits of purplish glitter out of it. When that failed, he ran a finger above one of the creepy blue eyes, roughly where an eyebrow would be if it had one. The eye closed, looking quite blissful.
Then, not for the first time, he noticed White Lily watching him and put his hand down. The eye's lid drooped in disappointment.
"How are you feeling?" White Lily asked him.
"Much better now that I'm out of there," he said as he massaged his temples. "Still a bit of a headache, but...my mind feels clearer. I'm hoping it'll improve the farther we get." He nodded at the darkening skyline.
White Lily looked out over the wilds of Beast-Yeast below. The cloud had been slowly lowering its altitude the closer they got to the Faerie Kingdom. Flora had begun to look more and more familiar. She could even see the gleaming branches of the now-empty Silver Tree far in the distance.
"I hope so too," she said, and truly, she meant to leave it at that. She also meant to stop staring at him so much. Perhaps move back and give him more space. But emotions overrode intentions, and she threw her arms around him instead. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be so clingy, but...you have no idea how much I missed you, Pure Vanilla."
He flinched at the name. It was subtle, and he even returned the embrace as he did so. But it wasn't subtle enough for her to second-guess what she felt. "I missed you, too."
"A-hem!" Wizard Cookie cleared his throat and moved over to sit beside them. White Lily broke the embrace and quickly rested her hands on her lap.
"I hope I'm overanalyzing things," Wizard Cookie said. "But from what I've seen since Pure Vanilla Cookie got back..." He eyed Pure Vanilla for a reaction. White Lily, with her gaze locked on Wizard Cookie, didn't see what it was. "...he's been ill at ease around his own name."
Pure Vanilla nodded. "That's not inaccurate. White Lily had to call me 'Shadow Milk Cookie' to get my attention when we spoke."
Strawberry Cookie gasped at this news, and GingerBrave shuddered. While not as close as Wizard Cookie, they still stood plenty near enough to overhear.
White Lily stiffened, her hands balling into fists as she rested them on her knees. Why did Pure Vanilla have to go and tell everyone that? Why did he have to go and remind her of that? Maybe it was selfish, but for just a moment longer, she wanted to pretend none of it had happened.
But it was too late. "I'm sorry," she told everyone. "I knew he was struggling, and I should have said something much earlier. I was so scared that if Shadow Milk learned how bad things were..." She inhaled sharply. "...but it didn't matter. After the mind-reading spell, all I did was give him ammunition against me."
Her gaze wandered back to the distant remains of the tree. From below Beast-Yeast's canopy of still-living flora came the telltale call of a silver deer--a species that rarely wandered far from the Faeries' domain. It might have sounded pleasant to a casual listener--a melodic, almost chirping variation of the deer's typical bleat. But White Lily had lived here long enough to know the sound for what it was. The deer had gone too far from its herd and been infected with the Candyceps fungus. Its mind and voice were no longer its own.
Pure Vanilla shifted uneasily at the sound, though whether he could identify it or not was unclear. "Perhaps I should practice with mind-reading again," he suggested. "The facts haven't changed. It could still be useful against--ah." He pressed his lips together. "...against my other half," he finally finished.
"More mind magic?" Strawberry Cookie asked. "Is that safe?"
"I should think so..." Pure Vanilla began.
Then White Lily frowned at him.
"...but I also understand White Lily's concern. It was during our first attempt at mind-reading that I started responding to the incorrect name."
The deer bleated again, fainter this time, but higher pitched and deliriously giddy.
White Lily braced herself and asked the one question she'd been too frightened to bring up until now. "Just how bad did it get for you in that Spire?"
"It wasn't..." Pure Vanilla said, then hung his head. "I'm sorry. It got...quite bad, I'm afraid. By the time you showed up, I felt like I'd lost myself completely."
Did he almost lie to me about that? White Lily's chest tightened. She reached down and clutched at the cloud's floor, expecting to pull up something like globs of cotton candy, only for her fingers to glide through the mist. Desperate for something to keep her hands busy, she stroked the crook of her staff instead. The large lily flower had retreated and re-closed as her magic rested, but the staff still felt full of life. At least something in this awful place does.
"I-I obviously haven't forgotten!" Pure Vanilla said when he noticed her go quiet. "I just...need more time to recover and remember who I really am."
"H-hold on!" GingerBrave spluttered, jumping to his feet and yelling far louder than needed for how close they all were. "This isn't just a name problem? You actually forgot who you are!?"
Pure Vanilla shook his head. "I didn't...forget, exactly. My memories are all intact. Of traveling with you and the others and all our adventures. My trials on the Sugar-Free road. Even back to my childhood when I was tending the sheep. They do feel more distant, but they are there." A small smile formed on his face with each recollection, the sweet fondness that came with revisiting life's most treasured moments.
Until Strawberry Cookie added on a nervous, "...but?"
Then Pure Vanilla's smile was gone. "But his memories are there, too. And they seem so vivid sometimes. I'm not just looking at them when I remember. I'm in them." He hesitated, giving White Lily a cautious glance before he continued, "I don't feel like I'm 'Shadow Milk.' But right now, the name 'Pure Vanilla' still brings up images of an adversary in my head, even though I'm aware that it's also 'me.' I'm not sure if that's making much sense."
"K-kind of?" Strawberry Cookie replied. There was still an obvious unease to her posture--shoulders high and arms straight as she held her lollipop. She'd been gripping it nonstop since White Lily returned with Pure Vanilla in her arms.
White Lily had the sudden realization that perhaps she was more at ease with Pure Vanilla's current visage than anyone else here.
Except there was GingerBrave, the cookie who never once seemed like he cared or noticed. "Well, can we call you something that isn't either of those names? Maybe that would help."
"Like what?" Strawberry Cookie asked. White Lily's thoughts exactly. How did one come up with a new name after centuries of existence? It was a daunting task for anybody.
Then again, this was GingerBrave. He tapped his candy cane lightly against his knee, made a few stretched-out hums, and then snapped his fingers. "Oo! What about 'Blue Vanilla Cookie'?"
White Lily cringed.
"B-Blue Vanilla Cookie?" Wizard Cookie spluttered.
Pure Vanilla stared blankly at GingerBrave for a moment before he broke into a chuckle. At least his laugh sounded nothing like Shadow Milk's--still warm and pleasant. "That's...one of the most GingerBrave-like suggestions I've heard you make. I like it very much."
White Lily didn't like it one bit. Just tossing a color into the mix and calling that a name? And yes, she was ignoring the fact that her own name had a color in it, thank you very much. Lilies were supposed to be white. Vanilla was...well, it was not blue.
Once again, Pure Vanilla picked up on her discomfort immediately and did his best to cheer her up. "The name does still have 'Vanilla' in it."
"But not 'Pure,'" she reminded him, even as her real reason for disliking it became painfully clear. I don't want him to feel like this body is normal for him.
He considered this. "I suppose it's accurate to say my Soul Jam hasn't been as pure these days..." Eyeing her reaction, he immediately backed off that line of thought and added, "But it's not forever, of course!"
Not forever. Like the infected deer had believed that it was only stepping away from its herd for a moment? That kind of "not forever"?
Pure Vanilla had no additional reassurances for her. He simply turned away and fidgeted with the bracelet still tucked under his cuff.
"What's that?" Strawberry Cookie asked before they could take the conversation in any more uncomfortable directions. Pure Vanilla looked confused at first, until she pointed to the now-visible bracelet around his wrist.
"Ah," he said as he fingered the hollow, gold marble he'd laced onto it. "I guess...it's a little failed experiment from my other half."
"Shadow Milk, you mean? Right, Blue Vanilla?" GingerBrave said. Pure Vanilla looked up a split second too early, which really shouldn't have surprised White Lily by this point. But GingerBrave grinned at him all the same. "Hey, the key to making a new name stick is to say it as often as possible," he declared. "So, Blue Vanilla, you got this thingy here that belongs to Blue Vanilla--which is you. And now you're gonna tell us what it does. Right, Blue Vanilla?"
Strawberry Cookie gave an awkward giggle. "I, um, think that might be a bit much."
"It's fine. Really," Pure Vanilla assured her before turning to reply to their overeager friend. "To answer your question, GingerBrave, it's a bit of a last resort sort of spell. The one I'm hoping to use is this one." He brought out the scroll he'd retrieved from the Spire--the sealing spell. White Lily didn't notice until he held it aloft how much his hand shook while he gripped it. He quickly reached over and dropped the scroll into White Lily's lap. "Actually, maybe it's best if you hold onto this. It's...making me a bit uneasy, to be honest."
Of course it would. From your memories, it's a spell to re-imprison you. She fumbled around a bit in the mist behind her. A big disadvantage of travel by cloud--any object thinner than a hand-width became quite easy to lose track of. But soon enough, White Lily pulled a leafy satchel from the mist and tucked the scroll inside. Then, to ensure it didn't get lost all over again, she pulled the strap over her head, hiding the satchel beneath her cloak.
"Right then," GingerBrave said, as if there was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about this exchange. "So, Blue Vanilla Cookie. Why don't you tell us some stories?"
He tilted his head. "Stories?"
"You know," said GingerBrave. "About your travels with the Ancients. And the Tiles of the Sugary Road."
"He said the Trials of the Sugar-Free road," Wizard Cookie sighed.
"Yeah, those. You said you remembered them. We haven't heard about them. So you can tell us. Right, Blue Vanilla Cookie?"
"Oh, um...of course," Pure Vanilla said awkwardly. The group of them already sat close to the cloud's blurry edge, but Pure Vanilla stood and walked over to its opposite end, with GingerBrave and Strawberry Cookie following behind him.
White Lily stayed where she sat. As did Wizard Cookie, though she had no idea why. She was trying to meditate and clear her head. Encourage herself. Preferably alone.
"White Lily?" Wizard Cookie asked. She only half heard him. Yes, it was rude to ignore a friend, but she had to get herself into a better head space now. Otherwise her worries would spiral out of control worse than the magical storm they'd seen growing around the Spire.
"He won't be like this forever." She said the words aloud rather than simply repeating them in her mind. She had to hear them. Had to believe them. "We just need to switch them back, and everything will be fine."
She expected Wizard Cookie to simply wait beside her until she acknowledged him. For all his scheming behind her back, didn't he owe her at least a few self-affirmative mutterings?
But not only did Wizard Cookie interrupt, he undid all her hard work with the worst suggestion possible: "Should that really be our top priority now?"
His question sparked a chill in her, though he at least had the decency to keep his volume low. With Pure Vanilla telling tales on the opposite end of the cloud, he and the others remained oblivious to Wizard Cookie's words.
She only wished she could do the same for herself. "Excuse me?" she asked coldly.
He leaned in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. "The way I see it, we have two problems. 'Blue' Vanilla looks like Shadow Milk, but more importantly, he's thinking like Shadow Milk. I frankly care much more about solving the second issue than the fir--"
"They're intertwined," White Lily cut in.
Which clearly annoyed Wizard Cookie, though he inhaled and exhaled slowly so as to keep the frustration out of his tone. "That's what we're assuming. But if it's true, our only plan involves convincing Shadow Milk to undo a spell he clearly thinks benefits him. Surely you see how pointless that would be."
"That's not our only option," she replied, even as the fearful chill spidered through her dough. "Pure Vanilla said there was a mirror." She then imagined the complexities of not only locating this mirror again--which would involve either returning to the Spire with Pure Vanilla or navigating the place herself. Never mind the difficulty of trying to reverse engineer a spell from a school of forbidden magic she had only a passing familiarity with.
"A mirror it sounds like he broke his way out of," Wizard Cookie pointed out. "If that held the spell, we've already failed."
White Lily's breathing picked up speed. No, there has to be another way. Shadow Milk wouldn't cast a spell of this magnitude if a piece of breakable furniture was his only way out. We'll just force him to explain the real reversal method. "I'm not entertaining this," she said to Wizard Cookie in a tone she hoped would shut him down.
It did not. "Come on. You're brilliant at magic. You have to know time is of the essence. If his physical form can't be changed back right now, then we should put that off and switch tactics. Stop this clash of Shadow Milk's memories with his and find a way to ground his mind in--"
Something in White Lily snapped. She forgot about being quiet. She forgot that losing her temper with a friend who clearly meant to help was an unkind thing to do. She pushed herself up, away from Wizard Cookie, and shouted at full volume, "I said I'm NOT entertaining this!"
Everyone heard her, because of course they did. She'd made herself downright impossible to ignore. Strawberry Cookie yelped and turned around. GingerBrave looked confused. Pure Vanilla's eyes narrowed in concern.
Wizard Cookie waited only a moment before he mumbled, "Then you're lying to yourself as much as Candy Apple Cookie was." He sighed and shook his head, making White Lily feel like a disobedient student back at Blueberry Yogurt Academy. "Don't you think I want him back to how he was, too? I know I haven't been friends with him as long as you have, but..." He sniffled a bit. She never noticed before what an easy crier he was. Not that she could complain about something like that without being a terrible hypocrite.
Well, at least they had something besides just magic in common.
"I'm sorry I yelled," she mumbled. Not her most sincere apology, but if nothing else, they couldn't afford to have any strife between them. Not when a battle with Shadow Milk Cookie loomed ahead of them.
"Given everything that's happened between us, it was probably deserved," Wizard Cookie said. "The other Ancients are all waiting with Shadow Milk at the library. You're going to have to convince them fast if you don't want them attacking us."
She gave a confident nod. "I know. I can do it."
"For all our sakes, I certainly hope so." Then after a long pause, he added, "Please don't mistake what I said as a suggestion that we give up. I only want to help our friend be himself again...whatever that looks like."
"I want the same," White Lily said, her anger finally subsiding. She looked back across the cloud, where 'Blue' Vanilla had resumed his story. GingerBrave and Strawberry Cookie sat crossed-legged, the cloud's mist hiding their feet, their eyes eagerly fixed on his words. It sounded like a tale of chasing off dragons from what would eventually become the Hollyberry Kingdom. And every few moments, GingerBrave would burst out in delight and utter some iteration of, "That's amazing, Blue Vanilla Cookie!"
White Lily walked over and sat down to listen, but she held off echoing GingerBrave. His enthusiasm was, of course, appreciated. She still thought the new name was ridiculous.
#
Shadow Milk spent the remainder of his trip into Beast-Yeast resting in his little room aboard the dirigible. It was more mentally exhausting than he expected to connect with the Dark Side of the Moon for so long. And that scent of lilies right before he left...he'd been doing so well, he'd actually hoped to drive his other half off the mental deep end in one swoop. But it seemed the task would take two swings after all. No matter. He'd planned for this. Now it was all about setting the stage.
He was quite pleased to see the other three Ancients had already arrived at the Faerie Library by the time he got there. He was even more pleased to find standing in the place didn't bother him at all. Despite all the intricate silver design work etched into dozens upon dozens of high bookshelves...he felt no burn of hatred for the group of cookies that had kept him imprisoned. Nor did he feel the sting of loss he might otherwise associate with a library of any sort. It was simply...a place. Even an admirable place.
Shadow Milk made small talk with the trio of Ancients who waited for him in the library's main foyer. He inquired about Hollyberry's progress in both dealing with her own Beast and the awful rumors spreading throughout her kingdom. To his surprise, she had apparently taken one foray into the wilds of Beast-Yeast to confront Eternal Sugar Cookie already. From the way she told it, she was lucky to escape with her life. Some terrible monsters had attacked as they left the garden. (He did his best to act surprised.) One came within a grain's breath of crunching down on her beloved bodyguard's arm. If that had happened, they would have all been forced to return to the garden for healing, and who knows if they would've ever gotten out afterwards? Gasps of shock, sighs of relief...Shadow Milk delivered all good-listener accents in the proper places.
Kinda shocked Eternal Sugar let you go at all, he thought. Of course, that was always the Beast of Sloth's way. Never demand. Always allow her "visitors" to exit when they pleased. Then awaken the monsters that would send them fleeing back into her arms. She must have been beside herself that Hollyberry was the first cookie to actually escape when offered the chance to do so. He hoped the former queen would return to the garden soon. He loathed the idea of dealing with Eternal Sugar otherwise.
When Hollyberry had finished her story, Shadow Milk politely excused himself to step outside the library for some fresh air. He was supposed to be worried for White Lily's safety, so he wouldn't be terribly chatty, after all. Golden Cheese and Dark Cacao naturally understood and told him to take all the time he needed.
The air in Beast-Yeast always smelled pungent and wild, every last creature competing with its neighbor for dominance, even when it came to scents. The uncomfortable part was, he didn't exactly lie to the Ancients when he stepped out. Because he did feel some legitimate worry about White Lily. The sensation was quite a nuisance--like catching a whiff of mold in one of his otherwise pristine yogurt pools. His plan, if successful, would naturally put her in danger. The idea shouldn't have bothered him in the least, considering her responsibility in keeping him caged for so long. And yet against all reason and logic, it did.
Not to mention what he planned to put Pure Vanilla through. Were there perhaps things that he shouldn't wish on his worst enemy? An interesting philosophical question he did not have the luxury of time to debate. This had to end soon. No cookie's mind, not even one as brilliant as his, was meant to hold two sets of memories--or rather, two sets of feelings about those memories--in it at once. For Pure Vanilla's influence to be eliminated, the cookie himself needed to be eliminated. Both Soul Jams had to come under Shadow Milk's control.
To be whole again... to be loved and admired again... with no witches' directives burdening him...
For this prize, everything would be worth it.
He heard a rustle nearby and caught a glimpse of Candy Apple grinning from between a pair of blue-leaved bushes. So she'd heard his call, then. He'd been worried the spell would be too weak. But her presense confirmed the stage was set--everything in its proper place, just waiting for the director's signal to begin.
Pure Vanilla had walked through some of Shadow Milk's worst memories already. But not all of them. The once great Cookie of Truth had seen the flood.
Now it was time for him to see the fire.