Chapter Text
Baptized with a Perfect Name
There was something…very, very wrong with this situation. Pacing back and forth, tail lashing restlessly, Blueberry Milk grabbed the offending appendage, claws digging into the soft fur. It hurt, but it was better than accidentally drawing jam, again. It wasn’t…it wasn’t him. He was a cookie. A cookie! Not some sort of wretched…beast.
Pain pulsed behind his eye, and he had to restrain from clawing at his bandages. The cracks in his dough continued to widen, and neither healing spell nor regenerative incantation nor restorative array – including ones he’d invented on the spot for that express purpose – seemed to stop or even slow the damage. Only illusions felt safe, provided the façade of normality.
A low, irritated growl rumbled in his chest, up his throat, and his claws scrabbled at his neck, as if he could rip out the offending sounds. The illusion slid over him, thick and cloying and viscous, and he shuddered in relief as the cookie reflected back in the scrying bowl’s surface was finally normal, even as the familiar ache of self-loathing curled in his chest. Was even he preferring the lie, now?
Forcing those thoughts aside with practiced ease, he returned to the task before him. Hand hovering over the scrying bowl, he again tried to locate those…’three lost children.’ The ingredients were easy enough to surmise, and he’d even obtained some ginger and strawberries to assist (popping candy was…harder to guess at, and so he’d foregone that one) but those three were proving…hard to locate. Even when he’d opened his mind, applied the full weight of Knowledge to the task, he’d only gotten the insight of home before he’d pulled away, damaged eye throbbing.
Claws clicking on the bowl, he pondered quietly. It was…intriguing. That cookie hadn’t felt like he was lying, either. But to be interested in another was…dangerous. Especially when he was–
Sinking onto the cool marblecake flooring Blueberry Milk clawed at his scalp, tugging strands of hair roughly. He flinched when he looked thoughtlessly at the tangled mess in his hands only to find his hair looking back at him. Shuddering, he incinerated the offending strands with a snap of flame, fangs digging into his own dough to muffle whatever wounded animal sounds that wanted to escape it.
Alright, that’s enough, Blue! You’re fine. You’re fine! You have this all under control! You have that cookie’s answer – his children are at home – they’re fine – and he’ll accept that, and then he’ll be on his way. And you’ll be alone again.
Head tipping backwards to rest against the cool wall, staring blindly at the ceiling arched high above, he couldn’t suppress the soft, exhausted sigh. I don’t…have to tell him immediately, do I? And who’s to say he’d even believe me. Why does no one believe me? Is it better if he stays? Should he go? …he should probably go. Because, regardless, it can’t mean anything good. That he has my Soul Jam.
Summoning his staff to his side was as simple as thought. Looking at anything too long without his monocle always worsened the headache that never seemed to dull these days…but sometimes the clarity of proper vision was even more painful. Instead, he traced over the contours of his Soul Jam gently. Like this, he could pretend that the eye in the center wasn’t slowly opening, that the brilliant, starlight blue wasn’t becoming tarnished and dull.
That he wasn’t rotting from the inside out.
“I don’t…think it’s my Soul Jam. He wouldn’t have…collapsed under the weight of Knowledge, then. Lesser, but… not incomplete? A fragment? But how…” Another secret I dare not touch?
Curling up even tighter, Blueberry Milk buried his face against his knees, not even registering the way the lie fractured and his tail coiled around his legs.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand! What does this all mean? I’m scared of what this could mean.
***
It was the scent of vanilla that woke him.
For one wonderful, ephemeral moment, Pure Vanilla thought himself home. Heard the ghosts of cookies moving about beyond the doorway, the sounds of blueberry birds at his window. Felt the warmth and light of the Vanilla Kingdom. Of home. But then his eyes opened to darkness, and not the enchanted gaze of his vanilla orchid staff. There was only silence. The room, cold.
And yet, the scent of vanilla remained.
Dragging himself out of bed, Pure Vanilla made his way towards the kitchens. Still where he remembered them, although somehow easier to access.
Shadow Milk didn’t greet him, but there was a scrape of wood on marblecake and Pure Vanilla sat in the proffered chair. He might have offered to help, but the reality of Shadow Milk Cookie cooking breakfast for him was too surreal to process.
Glassware pressed into the back of his hand, followed by the near silent scrape of a soft sole against stone flooring then the clatter of a plate before him. His hand shifted for a utensil, before a fork encased in blue magic nudged his fingertips of its own accord.
It was kind. Had Shadow Milk ever been this kind to him? (He had. In his own way, the Beast of Deceit had kept to his own rules. Had kept him prisoner, but never imprisoned him. Even the lies had come less frequently, when the truth often hurt more.)
Vanilla burst on his tongue. The faint hint of sugar, the tang of strawberry, the richness of ginger and nutmeg. The afterimage of lemon. Pure Vanilla thought of Gingerbrave, of Strawberry and of Wizard and tasted home. (A smile. Tiny and faint and real curled across Pure Vanilla’s lips.)
“…you…you like it?” Shadow Milk’s voice was soft in a way that Pure Vanilla had heard only once before. (‘…Friend?’)
“It’s wonderful,” Pure Vanilla confessed honestly. “You are a surprisingly good cook.”
“It’s just reading a recipe,” Shadow Milk demurred, but there was something in his voice that had Pure Vanilla smiling. He could almost imagine the way the other cookie’s chest might puff out in pride. The Beast had seemed to lap up accolades, to the point where he’d even sing his own praises.
There was the discordant scrape of another chair being pulled out, and Pure Vanilla tilted his head when he realized he didn’t hear another set of cutlery. “You’re not eating?”
Shadow Milk’s voice dragged with weight unspoken, as he said, slowly, “I’m …not hungry.”
With a soft hum, and a moment of inward bemusement at the fact that he was attempting to convince someone else to eat, Pure Vanilla savored another bite of pancake, before replying. “It’s lonely, eating alone.”
A sharp intake of breath, then a strangely wet chuckle. “Bold little thing, aren’t you?”
Pure Vanilla didn't deign to respond to that, and was soon rewarded with the clatter of another set of cutlery across from him. “It’s good, isn’t it?” He said with a wry smile.
“Y-yeah.”
“How did you know,” Pure Vanilla asked, as he finished scraping his plate clean of the last dregs of syrup.
“Hmm?”
“Vanilla, I mean.”
There was a sudden clang of metal falling onto porcelain, accompanied by a soft choke and a series of coughs.
“I- uh- I could just…tell?” A soft, exhausted sigh, and Shadow Milk muttered, “I just Knew.”
Pure Vanilla tilted his head, curious. Knew?
The other cookie’s voice carried a strained smile as he added hurriedly, “I only mean, it wasn’t that difficult to infer. The scent of vanilla clings to you – you fell on me, if you recall – and I’ve met other cookies who’s primary or secondary ingredient is vanilla-“
Waving his hands, Pure Vanilla cut across Shadow Milk with a pointed, “Blueberry Milk Cookie! It’s okay! I believe you.”
The silence was deafening.
“You…you do?”
Brow furrowing with a troubled smile, Pure Vanilla responded in confusion. “Of course I do. I understand better than most, identifying cookies by smell, or sound, or touch.”
“Oh. O-of course.”
“Blueberry Mi-“
“So!” Shadow Milk interjected with a sharp clap. “Those little cookies of yours! I found them for you – of course I did – I can do anything –“
Pure Vanilla rose hastily at the others words. Shadow Milk’s voice had ticked upwards in pitch – not quite manic, but, “They’re ‘home’ apparently! Wherever that might be? So, there’s your answer. And you should really be going, now, or they’ll be worried, I’m sure-“
Somehow, his instinct never led him astray, when it came to this particular cookie. Pure Vanilla was up and around the table, heedless of the clatter of wood on stone, and his hands fumbled for Shadow Milk’s own, catching ill-fitting gloves, before squeezing gently, eyes opening. This close, he could make out blurry splotches of color and shadow, the cream of bandages wrapped around half of Shadow Milk’s face. Something thick lodged in his throat and concern roiled in his gut. Had he ever seen Shadow Milk this…undone? Unraveling at the seams? (…Yes. But only once. When the greatest worst lie had shattered what little of Shadow Milk’s composure remained).
“Blueberry Milk Cookie, please, it’s okay! What’s wrong? Help me understand?”
Hands moving to chafe at Shadow Milk’s own in a calming gesture, Pure Vanilla let out an irritated huff, thoughtlessly peeling off the ill-fitting gloves – Why is he wearing these?! – before leading the other cookie to a tiny hidden sitting room he remembered from before. The sofa was easy to find – exactly where he remembered it. The low table, the soft crackle of fire, it was all familiar. It had been the perfect hideaway, back when Truthless Recluse was drowning in his despair. The only difference was he wasn’t the one in need of sanctuary, now.
It was easier, somehow, to think less about the caricature of that Beast that had tormented him, when he could feel each minute tremor coursing through the cookie in front of him. …Shadow Milk hadn’t seemed quite so small. Pure Vanilla’s fingers traced purposefully over the curve of each digit, learning the sharp edges of each claw, the strange textural differences between the near and distal portions of Blueberry Milk’s hand. Had Shadow Milk’s claws been like this? Each claw felt hard and strangely brittle, like the charred remains of something that strayed too close to open flame.
“How…how can you touch me like this?” There was a strange, fragile rasp to Blueberry Milk’s voice. “…is it not monstrous?”
“…we are monstrous in the choices we make, not the image thrust upon us.” Pure Vanilla responded quietly.
A soft, wheezing laugh. “Truth. …or what you perceive to be truth, at any rate.” The claw wrapped gingerly around his own hand.
“What troubles you?” Pure Vanilla asked gently.
A pause. Then, “You believe me? That your children are ‘home?’”
“I…I do.”
“But…why? It- it makes no sense – I Know it to be true, and yet even I don’t understand the how of it myself.” Blueberry Milk’s hands were shaking.
A trembling smile curved across Pure Vanilla’s lips, as he said, “I just do. I can tell.” His hand did not move towards his Soul Jam…but he could feel both their attention on it, all the same.
“I…see.” Blueberry Milk’s voice was thick meaning. “Then, will you not…return to them?”
“I would like to,” Pure Vanilla started, before looking down at his own hands and the hand still in his. He took a deep, fortifying breath. “I would like to. But I’m afraid I don’t quite know how.”
Blueberry Milk’s grip tightened minutely around his own. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“…it means I don’t know how I got here …and I fear I’m not supposed to be here.”