Archive of Our Own ^beta

A rustling of bushes just outside the clearing he’s sitting in curled against himself is, annoyingly, all it takes to shake him from his ruminating.

“Hello?” a voice calls, a cookie, probably one of those despicable faerie cookies wanting to try and force his presence from the borders of their kingdom or, witches-forbid, sway him back to Truth. 

Witches-forbid indeed, he thinks miserably, as everything about him seems to be. But he’s got naught the mental energy to even attempt to hide his presence from the intruder, instead erecting a wall of shadows to block his view of the other and burying his face in his knees.

A noise of surprise comes from the cookie as soon as the wall is up, but is curiously replaced just as fast by a demanding tone. “You know, it’s awfully rude to do that to someone who’s talking to you,” the cookie says. “Who on Earthbread do you think you are?”

What a question that is, he bites his cheek to keep the immediate explosion of anger down. “You first,” he calls out once his temper is quelled.

There’s an audible hesitation from the other. “…Sweet Sapphire Faerie Cookie,” the cookie offers after a second. Ah, he’d been right. 

The wall of shadows is weakened for just a moment, and he allows a hole to form long enough for him look through to see his companion. A silver chain hangs from the pocket of Sapphire Faerie’s lavender suit jacket, tucked into similarly-colored paints. The cookie wears white fingerless gloves that meet the cinches of lantern sleeves at his wrists, the underside of his wing-shaped coattails the same silvery-white color. His dark purple-dusted hair hangs over his face, fluffy and barely disheveled.

He shoves the wall back up with a forcefulness that definitely isn’t necessary, but not before Sweet Sapphire Faerie Cookie’s eyes widen as they meet his blue and now-teal own for just a split second. 

“You’re the Fou-“ 

“Shut it,” he growls with a ferocity that quiets the other immediately. “If you’re a Faerie cookie, you surely know by now that I am far from anything the Fount stands for. Try again.”

Sweet Sapphire clears his throat before hesitantly speaking again. “…You’re the Beast of Deceit,” he declares, projecting the words with a confidence betrayed by the wavering clear in his tone. 

That’s more like it. Beast, a name he came up with in a split second to have somewhat of a descriptor for his corrupted friends. The title spread quicker than he could’ve imagined—a half-baked simplification of what had happened to their Souljams, and one with a heavy weight of implication. Burning Spice himself had come alone to confront him about that one—that must be all we are to you, oh Virtuous Fount, simple beasts under your undying grace, the words spit with a venom—and he had feared he would need to face the other in battle right then and there.

Distantly, he finds it almost amusing how the new Virtue of Destruction of all cookies was the one to come to him with such a grievance.

“A title,” he scoffs, “sure, that will do. Now leave.”

Sweet Sapphire does not leave—in fact, he steps closer to the wall of shadows.

It’s a shame to have to crumble a cookie in such a boring manner, but this one really is getting on his nerves. He wants to be left alone, is that really so hard to get? 

But just as he’s about to raise his arm to cast a spell—

“Blueberry Milk Cookie, that’s your name,” he says with a force, “I didn’t know a cookie with such power would spend all his time wallowing in misery like this.”

Such an absurd statement gives him pause, pause enough to lose focus on his wall of shadows. Sweet Sapphire steps through and sits down a few feet to his side with a hint of smugness in his demeanor—smugness, he’s almost impressed by the tenacity. This cookie is… something, that’s for sure. He is certainly not what one would expect from a Faerie cookie, and is intriguing enough to not crumble just yet.

“Blueberry Milk.” He mutters the name with a venom and the cookie beside him flinches. “A name that belonged to the Virtue of Knowledge. I am certainly not that.” The last sentence is delivered with a bitter half-laugh, and a twinge of sympathy makes its way onto Sweet Sapphire’s face. He can’t find it in himself to tell the other off for it, or really to care at all, so he keeps talking. “I don’t know who I am. Beast of Deceit, sure. It’s nothing but a title, though, one that goes against everything I was put into this world for. It only tells me what I am not.” The next part goes unsaid—it does not tell me what I am. 

“Well then,” grins the cookie next to him, “let me reintroduce myself.” 

He stands up, offering a hand out which is hesitantly taken to pull himself up from the ground. “I am Black Sapphire Cookie, disciple of untruth and humble servant to the Beast of Deceit—if such a thing would be well received, of course.” The cookie gives a low bow, meeting his eyes as he rises with a guileful grin. “Pleased to meet you.”

A flicker of a flame, one thought to have been long-since doused, starts to burn again in the Beast of Deceit’s soul. A flicker of conviction, purpose, and he decides here and now that purpose is not something he will allow to be given to him by the whims of his wicked creators, but something he will make solely of his own volition.

This cookie—Black Sapphire—has a tenacity and guile that he can respect, and he’s definitely intriguing… He might as well see where this goes.

“…Shadow Milk Cookie,” the Beast offers. A fitting name, he thinks.

— 

Black Sapphire Cookie, Shadow Milk learns, had been nothing short of a fanboy before meeting the Beast in person.

He finds this fact both slightly endearing and incredibly hilarious. The faerie cookie had learned of the corruption of the Fount and taken it upon himself to sow seeds of deceit and mistrust in the Faerie kingdom, starting rumors and sneaking into high-class events to weaken alliances, all in the name of the Beast of Deceit. 

That’s not to say he didn’t have an affinity for deceit before, no, from what Shadow Milk has been able to glean from the other he had been spreading lies for far longer than the time he’d been corrupted for—his affinity for rumors in particular, and his skill for weaving them so seamlessly, are impressive to even Shadow Milk. But his corruption, from what little he’s gotten from Black Sapphire, fanned that spark of deceit into a flame the likes of which could not be put out. And, hey, he’s proud of that!

“I used to hate you, you know,” Black Sapphire says one day. Those words would typically spark an immediate anger coming from any other cookie, but Black Sapphire has a tendency to start his though processes in strange ways and he’s yet to be on the receiving end of any genuine malice from the other. It’s been at least a decade since the two had met, but such things like time are entirely irrelevant for two cookies who thrive off of untruth. And as far as rules of the universe go, aging is one that Black Sapphire will only play by should he choose thanks to Shadow Milk—let it never be said he doesn’t take care of his minions.

The faerie cookie’s words pique Shadow Milk’s interest, though, and he looks up from his book to the plush chair across the room where the other is working on… something. He’s fiddling with a radio-looking device fixed upon a staff, imbued with a mess of at least four types of magic tangled together in a way that pains his inner professor and causes him to visibly cringe. 

He doesn’t comment on it. Black Sapphire’s spellwork is impressive in its own right, and despite the highly unconventional way he enchants his items, they usually seem to do what he wants. And it’s not as though he’s one to talk, his magic is one of the few things he actually keeps organized in a way legible to those other than himself—he looks back to his desk, currently a mess of quills and papers and books with every drawer stuffed to the brim with a quite frankly astonishing variety of items.

Black Sapphire keeps talking after a moment. “Not you, but who you were before. The Fount of Knowledge.” A look passes over Shadow Milk and at the very least, Black Sapphire is wise enough to choose his next words carefully. “Everyone looked up to him. The virtue of knowledge, the last remaining Great.” A bitter look creases Black Sapphire’s brows. “Hypocrites, the lot of them. Preaching about how important it is to learn while ridiculing the first thing they don’t recognize, and I hated you for… I don’t know, causing that?” 

All the same vague snippets of backstory that Shadow Milk has gotten before. Black Sapphire is not one to talk about his past. He won’t say he hasn’t tried to pry, no—but all his efforts have been met with absolute refusal. He’s got no idea what’s brought the other’s current monologue about, but it’s enough to keep him uncharacteristically quiet in the hopes that his companion keeps talking.

“I don’t know,” Black Sapphire sighs, “I’m sure you dealt with much of the same—cookies saying they value the truth, and turning their back on that truth the moment it doesn’t fit into their desired reality.” 

Hm, he actually doesn’t quite like where this conversation is going, he decides. Hits a bit too close to home and all. “Well, no more!” he shouts suddenly, jumping up from his desk and floating over to Black Sapphire. “The Fount is gone, and the world is our oyster!” He flips over in the air with a flourish and Black Sapphire rolls his eyes—an act of insolence that would not be tolerated in the slightest from any other cookie, but Black Sapphire has proven his loyalty time and time again. “Cookies can try to cling to their ideals all they want, but it’s all meaningless in the end. The only truths that cookies value are the lies they tell themselves, and in the end, that will be their downfall.” A wide grin splits Shadow Milk’s face, all teeth. “And oh, how fun it is to watch!”

—

“And you’re absolutely certain this will work?” asks Black Sapphire Cookie again, looking dubiously into the circle Shadow Milk is on the other side of.

A cackle comes from the Beast. “But of course!” he sings. “It’s a conjuring spell, modified to fit my needs! Simple, easy.”

Black Sapphire thinks back to just a week ago, when his master had first had this horrible, horrible idea. He had come to Black Sapphire, eyes shining with a glee he knew to only lead to disaster, disorganized notes in hand and a manic fervor in his voice. A loyal servant, he’d said, one that will obey my every command. Black Sapphire held his tongue at the implication the he himself was not a loyal servant—he understood, of course, that with individuality runs the risk of betrayal, and his master would not so much as think about stripping him of his free will. So of course, the obvious solution: create a loyal servant whose sole purpose is to serve Shadow Milk Cookie.

The Beast had spent another hour going over his plans, what he needed to conjure, the types of magic he needed to use and in what specific order (the necessity of which Black Sapphire cannot even begin to understand, he’s always been a “mix it in all at the same time” caster and that’s worked mostly perfectly fine his whole life), and the materials needed that could not be conjured or otherwise magically sourced.

The responsibility of gathering those materials fell to Black Sapphire—and as much as he thought this was a horrid idea that was destined to blow up in his master’s face, he would, at the very least, make sure that his part would not be the one that caused the plan to fail.

Shadow Milk would create the dough through magical means; this worked for both convenience's sake and in the spell’s favor, as anything he created would be absolutely overflowing with dark magic, and a large amount of such needed to be imbued into both the dough and the spell itself. Black Sapphire was in charge of collecting—he looked at the list again—a jar of sugar sap, a handful of blue starbird dust, and some purity crystals (specifically “more than you think I’ll need” which pointedly is not a unit of measurement). The starbird dust was, as expected, the most difficult, though the whole list only took him a few days. The next couple days were spent begrudgingly helping with other preparations, aiding Shadow Milk in charging the magic circle, and hoping that they would have time to get away before the spell exploded the moment it was cast.

But as much as it pains Black Sapphire to say, this idea is being carried out with much more thought than most of his master’s grand whims carried solely by a fervor that bordered obsession. And he can see how, logically, the desired result of this plan could be a useful asset. 

The risk it involves, though—far be it from him to question any magical knowledge the once-Fount possesses, but the starbird dust he’d needed to collect doesn’t exactly suggest safety. 

“If you’re sure,” he sighs again, as he has so many times over the last week. 

Shadow Milk holds his cane out to him, that same scheming smile on his face. “Care to do the honors?”

“…I’d rather not.” 

“Suit yourself.” Black Sapphire takes a long step backwards, and just as fast, Shadow Milk lifts his cane and slams its base into the center of the circle to activate the spell.

Shadows swarm and envelop the room almost immediately. The writing drawn in the circle glows a deep blue hue, humming with energy and almost pulsating with shadows. Runes float through the air, peeling off the ground in glowing formations, swirling and floating around the two cookies. Black Sapphire looks uncertainly to Shadow Milk, barely able to see him through the darkness. The beast seems to be unsurprised by this, and is actively redirecting the magic towards its target.

Black Sapphire… is in awe. This is unlike any conjuring spell he’s ever seen, and the intricate beauty of the humming circle is even more apparent when it’s glowing with magic. The crushed purity crystals, sprinkled around the circle, are being drawn in by… something, and all the while, the runes floating in the air are being directed into the circle to imbue the subject.

The whole process takes a few minutes; not a long time by any means, but long enough for Black Sapphire to start to feel like the shadows in the air are suffocating him. Only a phantom sensation, he knows he’s still perfectly able to breathe, but the feeling still causes a not-so-dull panic. The humming rhythm of the magic is getting louder too, the pulsating seemingly drilling into his mind. The shadows seem to be agitated now, swirling around the walls restlessly. He looks to Shadow Milk again, whose expression now holds hints of uncertainly, maybe even panic. 

He doesn’t know if he should do something, try to help direct a magic he hasn’t had experience handling in ages, or if he should trust that his master has it under control. The shadows rise again suddenly, eyes appearing in their crevices in a way that’s all but unsettling, their gazes flickering between himself, Shadow Milk, and the circle in the center of the room–

Before, all at once, the shadows fall again.

He can breathe freely again, and though the circle is still humming with magic it’s not that penetrating buzzing it was before. Shadow Milk looks utterly drained—not so ‘simple’ then, he briefly muses. The Beast props himself up against a shelf to keep from collapsing and Black Sapphire rushes over to help him. “I’m fine,” he mutters, but he does not pull away from Black Sapphire when he guides him to the desk chair. 

His eyes stay locked on the circle, and the faerie cookie follows his gaze back to it. Shadows are still culminating around and inside it, though the whole thing seems to be self-contained at this point. However, they are blocking his view of what’s happening inside the circle. Black Sapphire wonders if the spell worked; aside from the humming, the room is silent.

That is, until an ear-shattering shriek of a cry of all things starts to radiate from within the shadows still encompassing the circle.

He meets his lord’s eyes, both cookies filled with a bafflement that would be funny in any other scenario. Wordlessly he helps the other up and they peek into the circle, where the shadows are dissolved enough to give them the barest hints of what is currently inside it. What before was a lump of misshapen dough imbued with dark magic is now shifting around and expelling a shrieking, piercing scream that he is finding deeply unpleasant, and it’s clear that Shadow Milk is feeling much of the same.

The two stare at the circle for some time in a myriad of emotions—astonishment, surprise, mild horror.

Black Sapphire Cookie is the first to speak, his eyes still wide. “That is,” he says in a quiet voice, filled with nothing short of utter shock, “not a servant.”

—

“Sto-op!” comes a shriek from outside Shadow Milk’s room, the noise reverberating in his brain as his eyes snap open. More shouting follows, and two pairs of footsteps running directly past his chambers cause the door to shake. What an absolutely lovely precedent to start the day on.

The noise is something he had needed to become accustomed to quite quickly, much to his eardrums’ detriment. Those shrieking cries had turned into plain old shrieks, and the matter is certainly not helped by his oldest companion’s constant pestering.

Speaking of—it’s now Black Sapphire’s voice that echoes through the halls, a muffled shout that’s not quite intelligible to Shadow Milk’s sleep-addled mind, and he grumbles before reluctantly throwing himself out of bed. Perhaps he can avoid getting caught in the crossfire today.

Over the first decade or so since Candy Apple’s creation, Shadow Milk had learned several things about his failed conjuring spell. One: though Candy Apple Cookie originated as a typical baby, she had grown unnaturally fast—within a year, she resembled a cookie in their late teens. Two: when she had reached her late teens, she stopped aging entirely. This one had been a bit of a shock to Shadow Milk, but he supposes it comes with the territory of creating new spells. It works in his favor as well, he supposes, because now he has another servant untouched by time without having to stick his hands into the mess that is time magic. She’d lasted throughout the slumber both she and Black Sapphire had fallen into during the time he’d been sealed, and both had come out on the other side perfectly fine. 

Ah, right. Three: the spell hadn’t entirely failed.

Candy Apple Cookie, though she’s not what he envisioned in his initial idea, holds more loyalty to him than an entire battalion to their commander combined, and it’s mostly to the detriment of Shadow Milk. She’s the clingiest cookie he has ever met, she throws a tantrum if he so much as looks at another with an ounce of approval, constantly gets into trouble to defend his name and ideals, the list goes on. 

Well, these are mostly complaints he’s gotten from Black Sapphire—he doesn’t see a thing wrong with what he’s done. The chaos his creation sows is almost unparalleled, she’s tricky, conniving; practically a mirror image of Shadow Milk himself, he’s almost proud.

Besides, he knows Black Sapphire cares for her deeply. He makes time to spend with her, keeps her entertained when Shadow Milk is busy—he’d been the one to raise her in large part, as much as a cookie of her nature could have been raised. He knows that despite Black Sapphire’s complaints, he is incredibly fond of Candy Apple, and Shadow Milk does not see a single thing wrong with how that spell turned out.

Shadow Milk drifts across the room, picks up the comb from his vanity-

“Master Shadow Milk Cookie!” The door slams open, bringing a very angry Black Sapphire Cookie fuming in front of his face.

Black Sapphire’s complaints, of which there are many.

Well, his precedent for today is already set, and it’s not as though he has anything better to do.

But just as he’s about to take a breath to respond, Candy Apple run into the room and promptly crashes into Black Sapphire, toppling the pair of them over and narrowly missing Shadow Milk.

“Hey-”

“HE STARTED IT!” she shrieks, picking herself up in the blink of an eye and grabbing onto Shadow Milk’s torso with a strength that knocks the air out of his lungs. So much for not getting caught in the crossfire.

Black Sapphire’s anger rages in his eyes. “I did not! You ran into MY room, took MY cards-“

It’s almost amusing seeing Black Sapphire lose his temper like this. He’s always been of the calmer sort—so rare is the occasion that he wears his anger on his sleeve, but it’s gotten all the more common since the dramatic entrance of the new permanent fixture in their lives.

“Bu-ut you said-“ she’s sobbing now, crocodile tears that Shadow Milk knows better than anyone- “tha-that I could borrow the-he-m!” There’s a glimmer of deviousness in her eyes, though—and in a flash, she unlocks her arms from Shadow Milk and runs out the door, shoving past Black Sapphire in a way that it takes Shadow Milk a few seconds to realize the offending cards are no longer in Black Sapphire’s pocket. A devious cackle can be heard from out in the hallway.

His eyes meet the other’s stunned own, and it’s all he can do to keep from laughing out loud. Black Sapphire sputters for a few seconds before running out the door just as fast with an exclamation of “you little-” before the door slams shut behind him.

Not every day is like this, but it’s an addition to his routine that he’s more than willing to accept. The quiet nights spent reading or discussing with Black Sapphire were nice, sure, if not a little repetitive—but the lack of uniformity, the not knowing what’s going to happen next is incredibly refreshing, and Candy Apple’s chaos is fitting for the Spire, he thinks. 

Later that afternoon—or perhaps evening, he’s spent a large part of the day in the library—he comes across his two favorite sources of noise on the grand stairwell. 

The sight is… interesting, to say the least. And what a sight it is to behold: Candy Apple is splayed across the stairs surrounded by piles of ribbons and craft supplies, hands tangled in Black Sapphire’s hair. Said hair is currently being adorned with little purple bows of varying sizes, even a few glittery beads strung in for good measure—He looks at Shadow Milk with a tired faux-smile, something promptly met with a devious grin, all teeth. Candy Apple is lost in her work, braiding and tying with unparalleled delight. Upon closer inspection, it seems like that work it might be staying in Black Sapphire’s hair for a while with how many knots there are—not that he’s going to point that out.

“Paying penance for your crimes?” Shadow Milk cackles, and Black Sapphire glares at him with a dead expression.

“It was the only way I could get them back.” He waves the deck of cards before shoving them back in his pocket, and winces when Candy Apple pulls at another chunk of hair. “Gentle, Candy Apple, I thought you were a cookie, not a cake monster!”

“It’s not my fault your hair’s so hard to braid!” she pouts, crossing her arms for a second before continuing.

“It’s—“ Black Sapphire cuts himself off with a sigh, rubbing his hands down his face. Candy Apple throws him a dirty look as her grip on the braid is lost again. “What on Earthbread are you doing back there? It feels matted.” Well, he’s not far off.

“It looks pretty,” she stresses. She looks up to Shadow Milk with gleaming eyes. “Right, Master Shadow Milk? It looks pretty, right?”

“Oh, the prettiest.” Black Sapphire throws him another dirty look. “Wha-at?” he grins. “Are you saying you don’t wanna be pretty?” Candy Apple cackles, matching Shadow Milk’s grin and nodding with a fervor. 

The look on Black Sapphire’s face is absolutely hilarious, but before he can respond Shadow Milk speaks again. “Well, I’m off! Have fun, Candy Apple, show me when you’re done!” 

He melts into shadows with a bow, barely hearing Black Sapphire’s protests. When he forms again in the library he can still hear Candy Apple’s delighted giggles echoing through the walls, and it brings a smile to his face. Black Sapphire puts on a show of his annoyance, but the fact that he still goes along with Candy Apple’s whims speaks volumes. 

Candy Apple Cookie is up among his proudest creations. For all the mishaps both her initial creation and existence in his life have caused, both she and Black Sapphire Cookie fit wonderfully into the Spire, exceptional disciples of Deceit and—though he’d never say it aloud—companions he is deeply fond of. No, Shadow Milk does not see a single thing wrong with what he’s done.