Chapter Text
It is cold.
The scent of burnt butter and dough fills the air, and you can vaguely taste the sweet flavor of strawberry jam. Ashes give away a soft crunch under your feet as you make your way to the edges of the Vanilla Kingdom with a hand around the wounds on your stomach and the other gripped tightly around your staff.
Light peaks in between twin mountains in the distance. It rises slowly from your battered feet to the tips of your scarred hands. Warmth, envelopes you and you step to turn and take one more look at the former glorious kingdom your friend built, now barren and eerily quiet, with dark clouds of smoke escaping the chassis of the castle through various monster-made openings in the building. A tower connected to the castle gives away and falls as the light reaches it. The streets once full of life and previously filled with fire and beasts now stand still. You hear nothing else but the sound of your heart beating and your chest breathing.
Your gaze drifts to crumbled dough scattered throughout the road, some crushed under the weight of a building, some have pieces bitten off by werehounds, and some are pitch black, burnt by the fire the war left in its wake. Not everyone made it to safety, you barely sense the oppressive magic Dark Enchantress Cookie’s soldiers had anymore yet you still feel its crushing weight in their absence. You wince, taking in a deep sigh as your chest starts to feel heavy. There isn’t enough time to mourn for every cookie the kingdom’s lost due to someone’s foolish ideals, do you even have the right to mourn? Knowing full well you could’ve been down here and ensured the lives of at least a few more cookies? She already had five fully capable ancients chasing after her anyway, couldn’t you have gone and stayed here instead?
There’s a melancholic chuckle that bubbles up in your chest, it doesn’t matter either way. The outcome of this war as a whole remains ambiguous, but you lost more than you won. The moment you woke up there was no indicator your friends were anywhere near and the castle was already in ruins, you were certain, however, that Dark Enchantress Cookie wasn’t dead yet. You recognize when a spell is lethal and when it’s simply made as a temporary fix. A stun.
You stagger closer to the edge of the hovering platform that held the kingdom up and slowly sit down, your feet dangling in the air. In the far distance, you spot a fleet of airships that you could’ve mistaken as birds if you hadn’t looked closely to fly towards the sun. The thought that at least some cookies made it out alive made you feel a little better. Exhausted, you give in and let your back fall backward to the biscuit-paved street with a thud.
No souljam… No friends… and no reason to stay. Where were you to go? You’ve already traveled all of Crispia, and you barely have any interest in studying the other continents. Your mind wafts into different options as you shut your eyes.
Crispia’s already off the table, Wholegrania’s basically where you came from, and Sugarberg and the Candystick Archipelago are already places you’ve been to...
You think you’ve considered it all. All until your consciousness drifts to the corner of the mental map you’ve envisioned.
Beast-Yeast.
Right, scholars did struggle to actually study it, the whole place is the paragon of a danger sign, after all. But Hollyberry’s been there, and she came back just fine. Even if she only came back with a story maybe you can change that and write an official report as you’ve done with a few other places.
There’s a tinge of hope that blooms in your chest. Yeah… maybe you still had something else you could do, something else you could be without your souljam. It’ll be like the old times, back in the Blueberry Yogurt Academy when you were a student and made studies of whatever your grubby little hands found interesting.
You’ll miss being a hero, that’s for sure. But without your souljam you saw no possibility of turning back into one, so why not give this thing a try?
The morning sun started to feel warmer, and as you opened your eyelids you saw that it was already halfway out of the two mountains and began its climb up in the sky. Guess you better start making your way out now if you want to make it to Beast-Yeast. The earlier you leave the faster you get there. You sat up, scratching the back of your head, and slowly started planning the closest route.
-
“Wh- again?? Come on!” You look back and drop your basket, spotting a group of spores scurrying off with your things in the distance. You try to make a run for it, but you don't get too far before they’re already long gone. You drag a hand down your face and groan. Bah! Damn, those spores!
The faerie cookie behind you chuckles lightly, “Are you sure you’re watching out for them? Because at this rate I’m gonna start thinking you’re just handing out your tools.” He teases.
One by one, you pick up the dead pancake mushrooms you dropped. “At least it’s just the tools this time, the worst they did was when I took a break and they ran off with a whole harvest’s worth of food! I had to hunt for a week, and even then they tried making a grab for my hunting materials…” You huff. There’s a real chance those spores just have something against you. You and Silverbell have been foraging for a while now and for some reason, it’s your tools that keep on getting lost, not Silverbells. He even had his bow down the whole time! and that didn’t get snatched.
You shake your head and click your tongue. That could wait, you’ll have your revenge on those nasty little creatures, and you bet on your right arm you will or you swear the witches could reuse your dough. Grumbling curses under your breath, you hold the basket on one arm and your staff on the other. You turn to Silverbell and tilt your head, Redirecting the conversation. “Anyways, I thought you were doing your rounds? What warrants today’s visit?”
The faerie knight gracefully stands up from where he sat and turns to you, he holds his basket delicately with both arms. “I’m on a break!” they beam, ripples of sunlight passing through the trees make their smile brighter. “I was close enough anyway, I thought I’d help with a chore or two.”
Aw. You’ll admit, that made your heart grow soft. You don’t get visitors much especially since you practically know nobody here so the thought of him giving up his free time for you was enough to make a smile grow on your face. “That’s real sweet and all, but you didn’t have to, you know. I don’t wanna use up your time after all.”
Silverbell shrugs and flutters his wings as he hovers, you find that faerie cookies prefer flying over anything else. The muted herbal taste of faerie dust lingers on your tongue, you lick your teeth, trying to scrape off the sensation. “I don’t really have much to do, so I don’t mind.”
“Well, have you eaten yet?” you offer, You think you can make something for two people, you're far from running out of stock anyway. Out of habit, you reach for the area around your ear, yet when it only grasps air you redirect your hand to your basket and pop one of the smaller mushrooms you harvested in your mouth to take off the earthy aftertaste, it coats your tongue with something sweet, like honey.
They slightly cringe. You probably ate one of the mushrooms that fell on the floor, but then again, all of them were before you harvested them. “I… haven't.” He hesitates.
You click your tongue and shake your head in disapproval, “Mm, that's no good. And you were planning to use up your free time doing nothing but legwork? I'm disappointed, Silverbell. I taught you better than that.” Slowly turning your back on him, you huff and walk ahead towards your house, “Come, join me for lunch.”
“Well, I don't wish to intrude-”
You scoff, waving your hand in the air as if you’re swatting his words off. “bah! You're never intruding, you know this. I don't wanna be the reason you faint in the middle of a fight anyway.”
For a moment he doesn't talk back, you listen as birds tweet and the local flora whisper sweet alluring nothings to beckon their usual prey, yet soon enough you hear a sigh behind your back, and with the chime of a bell, he catches up and flies beside you. A knowing grin grows on your lips.
He steers the topic somewhere else and looks down at your basket and then his, both filled to the brim with the same type of mushroom. “I didn’t know you were so passionate about pancake mushrooms.”
You click your tongue. “I just missed them. ‘Been having nothing but turnip rabbits for a while now but it’s breeding season so it’s not safe to hunt for them. I was just looking for alternatives.” you walk over a wide log on the way. “Guess that can’t be pancake mushrooms for a while seeing as my tools were unjustifiably snatched. I might set up some traps later and see if anything else gets caught.” You frown, annoyance evident in your tone.
The conversation ends there, Silverbell hums a small tune on the way. The whole trip home doesn’t really take long, you don’t particularly enjoy being away for prolonged periods of time unless it’s something important like your research or your chores. You’re a house cat when you actually have a home, and in this case, you’ve spent enough time in Beast-Yeast to own one. Besides, you're not too used to the magic out here, you've forgotten how many years have passed since you arrived but the miasma is still thick and unpleasant, so being out for too long can easily go from uncomfortable to unsafe to navigate in.
Eventually, you reach a wide blooming meadow. Which, to the naked eye, this is nothing more than a beautiful field for flowers to grow in, but for those who know better truly understand that nothing is ever this pleasant in Beast-Yeast.
With the staff on your other hand, you tap the top of it on the ground two times to check, and sure enough, the veil responds. A shimmering iridescent ring shines down on something that isn’t there at all, something in the shape of a huge dome that covers the entire field, and written all over it are a bunch of letters not everyone can decipher or see. You stretch out your staff to move part of it aside like moving a curtain open with a stick.
You nod your head towards the entrance, “you coming in?” Silverbell slightly jolts, like they fully expected you to enter first before they mutter an ‘ah, right.’ under their breath and ducks under your arm to enter.
As you make your way in, you let go of your staff, and the veil falls back into place behind you. There is no trace of your home's existence—just a beautiful picture of a peaceful meadow.
-
Skipping past all the pleasantries, chores, and other mundane events, Silverbell eventually had to leave and do his rounds so you waved him off with something to bring back home as you usually did. (And as always he tries to refuse, you insist it anyway.)
Your afternoons are pretty monotonous, routine is ingrained in your head like words marked on a rock and every move you make is like clockwork. The golden sun dips at the horizon, and it bathes your entire home in copper and coral, a striking contrast to all the cool colored tones on your side of Faeriewood. You herd your sheepberries back into their area, shut the gate to their fence, and recount. One of them is missing. It doesn’t take you much other than turning your head to the bleats of a lamb to know where the last one went off to, the little one had gotten stuck under the grid of one of the fences you were putting down shortly after Silverbell left. You huff and take a long walk uphill.
Clicking your tongue, you crouched as you held the lamb firmly in place. “Ahh, shouldn’t have strayed from mother like that, huh? I hope you learned your lesson.” It looks up at you with two black beady eyes, just around the size of the berries that grew on its mint green fleece. They tilt their head, their watchful gaze doesn’t leave you in fear. You probably look crazy, talking to an animal of all things but you like to think it helps you take care of them better, to think that they understand you to some degree and can properly communicate with you. Besides, you’re the only one home, no one can judge.
Soon enough, you manage to detangle its wool from the fence with little to none of the premature berries falling off its wool. It tries to scramble out of your hold, baa -ing in protest to being taken off the ground but you ensure that it is secure in your arms and quietly shush it while making your way to the fenced area with the rest of its kin. The flock is much farther away, yet its mother waits a little closer to the gates and observes as you place her child oh so delicately to the ground. The lamb calls out to her with a bleat and dashes towards her the second its feet meet the ground, stumbling on its hooves along the way.
You lean on the fence’s railing, head on your hand as you watch the two join the others as if nothing had happened. The sky has already turned into a mix of dark blue and pink, time passes by fast when you have lots to do. Turning away from the scene, you stretch and conclude that, that should be all that you needed to get done for the day. The rest of the chores you need to do should be in your cabin itself and the lot of it is mostly personal needs like journaling, cooking, eating, and sleeping. As you grab your staff beside you the wind blows off your straw hat and you had to catch it by smacking it towards your face. The trees shuffle, and all your cattle simultaneously look off to the far distance where the breeze came from as if gazing at storm clouds in the far distance.
You hold your hat down close to your chest, and the scent of popcorn and hot peanuts lingers around your nose as the hair on your skin stands like a warning for lightning. It hits you all at once. You choke at the sudden surge of power, the sickeningly sweet taste of caramelized apples and cotton candy pierces your tastebuds as the sound of children laughing and carousel music rang in your ears. You feel stuffy and sweaty, yet your heart for some reason feels elated and careless, as if you were at a carnival and had merely gotten lost in the moment. You want to do something reckless as if you are foolish and wish to put yourself mindlessly in harm’s way. The urge tempts you to play with fate and you attempt to cough up the flavor stuck in your mouth. Your eyes water and your flock bleats in hysteria. At the back of your mind, you see vague images of flashing lights and old tents in blue. None of these feelings are yours and you shake as you try to resist it.
A couple of your sheep ram their head on the fence, you jolt out of your pained reverie and turn your attention to their group as the others prattle along as if they are dancing in glee, all before doing the same as the others did and thrust the top of their heads onto any object they can. The lamb seems to be the least affected by this, It runs and calls after its mother who attempts to mimic its flock’s behavior, closing in on the fence you held onto for balance before you grab her by the horns and reign her to her side, this stuns her for a moment, she seems so mindless she doesn’t even register that she’s on the ground and her legs kept moving in a running motion.
You don’t remember jumping the fence, but you don’t exactly have the time to care. You had to act fast.
You wipe the bleariness off your eyes as you grab your staff and make your way towards the edges of the veil. You meet multiple of your livestock around the area and you almost trip over your legs at the sight, your cows run around in circles with each other, and your pigs use their forelimbs to boost themselves up as if trying to stand on their hindlegs and your chickens try and peck each other’s feathers off. This was madness, yet it was the only encouragement you needed to move faster, to keep your feet moving despite the oncoming sensory overload you know you’re about to experience. You grab a bucket of water on the way and your skin prickles as you get closer to the veil, you feel the strong gust of miasma oozing out a concentrated area and that tells you already that there’s a hole in your barrier. The taste of corndogs, churros, and fries passes by your tongue yet they are too overwhelming for you to appreciate. Briefly, you consider shoving dirt in your mouth to hopefully overtake the flavor but you decide against it in favor of focusing on the task at hand.
You make it eventually, the tear is wide and words spill out of it like a broken dam. It isn’t anything too big to fix but it is tedious. Your gaze drifts farther up and your eyes meet not only the night sky that had somehow gotten darker but wide blue eyes that took the place of countless stars. Something bitter and metallic leaves a tang in your mouth, and you swallow it away.
Licking your lips you look back at the ground, the spell you wrote was still present but weak. You splash water on the ground to soften it (You thank the witches the soil isn’t as compact as it usually is) and thrust your staff on the ground as hard as you can, dragging it around to embed words enforcing the veil’s main spell. The sweet and savory taste of circus food slowly bleeds into a much more sinister taste of acid and copper. Pressure builds up at the back of your mind and there are pinpricks of tears at the edges of your eyes, the words in the tear redirect to you, and whispers of euphoria and temptation circle your mind. Still, you resist, trying to keep in mind the lives inside of your home and the lamb that nudged its nose on its mother’s mindless, toppled figure.
The dirt on the farther left side was harder to trudge to, the soil was more compact, and thus, you had to pull and pierce it a couple more times to get it to soften. The sweet lulling of the foreign magic quiets slowly the more you progress, you force your staff to power through the tough terrain and write the last letter with a grunt. To finalize it, lift your staff and penetrate the ground as hard as possible. A waft of soft, shimmering, clouds poof out of the end of your staff with the speed of a shockwave, a blue string bolts upwards to the veil and stitches it back up as you vaguely taste blueberry and grape cotton candy on your tongue.
Your legs give in and you fall face first on the ground, your mouth muffled by the dirt. “Sweet guardian… What was that…” Your entire body is sweaty and sore and your head feels like it was stuffed with cotton. Splaying your limbs around, you feel for the soil beneath you and gather what you can around your head like it was sand, trying to bury yourself in it for comfort.
The mystical climate here in Beast-Yeast was very unpredictable much to your chagrin. Sometimes the continent’s magic was bearable and sometimes it was like you were suffocating but never, ever , had it been as strong as that. Your veil was built for much lighter occasions or seasonal waves, not tsunamis.
You don’t fail to remember how it actively tried to alter your mind like it did to your cattle. Perhaps it wasn’t the climate, but rather a cookie (or cookies. That was too strong to be only performed by one, after all) was using magic around the area, you’ll have to check it out soon after you get up. For now? Ground.
There is something wet that nudges your dying form. You take a glance and recognize one of your cream cows checking you up. “Heeeey Pafffyyyy.” You muffle, mustering up the strength to lift your hand and pat her lower jaw. “M’fine, jusht gimme a’ momenth.” The cow moo s, licking your face, and parts of your hair stand with the saliva. You’re gonna have to round up her herd soon. The thought alone is enough to exhaust your hand and it drops back on the ground.
-
You rub the area around your neck unconsciously, your throat is still sore from earlier. The mere reminder is enough to tempt you to puke.
Luckily, after earlier’s outburst, none of your cattle got seriously hurt and should be back in tip-top shape after a few days—or err— weeks . Unluckily you fell asleep on the ground first and foremost out of mental exhaustion and now it's nearing midnight. You don’t like the fact that you couldn’t take action earlier, but you’re grateful you fainted inside the fixed veil, or else the elements of Beast-Yeast would have had you whole for dinner.
The moment you woke up you went straight to business, your body was sore yet you still tended to your herd and put all of them back to their supposed locations. After that, you grabbed your robe, took a small notepad and pen, and tucked it in one of your pockets. This was simply a quick mission to check out what was going on outside yet it couldn’t hurt to be cautious.
Before you took a step out, you shut your eyes and braced yourself for any possible impact from the continent’s magic.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, what greeted you was something rather… pleasant. Gardenias, Jasmine, Chamomile... You take a whiff and exhale as the tension leaves your shoulders. It helped you take your mind off the pain in your body for a moment. You feel calm, whole, and most importantly… resolved. Flowers in white are scattered everywhere, you think you recognize them as moonflowers but you can’t guarantee it until you take a closer look. It was strange, to have flora this nice that doesn’t try to kill you for once, at Beast-Yeast of all places too. A part of you entertains the idea that this is just an illusion, thus you stay on guard.
You trudge and scout the area, other animals seem confused and faerie cookies that aren’t knights are mysteriously outside of their territory. Strange, they were always such a closed community. You pull the top of your hood over your head and ensure that you stay obscured in the dark, other faeries have already gathered themselves and started helping out the others, they fly back to the kingdom in groups. Some are left behind, either too far or too disoriented to meet up with any other fae so you offer some assistance.
“Where am I…” One of the faes sits against a tree, a hand on their head.
You quickly write down something on your notepad. “Faeriewood, you’re outside the kingdom walls.” You answer curtly. “Do you feel any pain? Can you stand? Fly?”
They tilt their head, “I don’t… Know? I was supposed to be tending to the children.” Their eyes widen and they straighten up, as if they just remembered something important before they lurch forward, hugging themselves in pain. Your hands hover around them, about to open your mouth when they speak before you do. “The children…” they whine, “Are they okay…?”
You hesitate, licking your lips and choosing your words properly. “We…can’t confirm yet” You decide you had to get them out of here first. “But you’ll know when you reach the kingdom. Let’s get you back first, yes?” raising your hand, you offer them a small smile. You hope the darkness covers your eyes at least.
The faerie nods, “I think I can walk, I just need some help.” they take your hand and you pull them up. They almost fall back down but you catch them by the waist quickly enough so that they don’t meet the ground. You take their arm and you put it over your shoulder.
The walk is slow, but you reach an area where some Silver Tree Knights and a few nurses are stationed taking care of those who are stranded too far from the kingdom. The fae recognizes them immediately and doesn’t notice you let go as you slink back hiding in the forest’s shadows.
They make it a few paces in the light of the moon before they stumble. A Silver Tree Knight catches them instantly, a hand on their arm so they can stabilize themselves before they lift their head to the knight.
“Are you alright?” The knight asks.
They exhale, relaxing upon properly being able to see one of their own in the light. “Oh, yes! And thank the guardian that I am.” Whatever they’ve been through must’ve been horrifying, they tear up, and a relieved chuckle leaves their lips before they go limp on the arms of another fae.
The knight notices something on them upon their collapse. A piece of paper with mysterious symbols is stuck right on the center of their back, It burns without hurting or affecting the cookie’s clothes.
In truth, you put two pieces of paper on that cookie. When you found them their legs were thoroughly scratched and wounded, you wrote the first one whilst kneeling next to them and that healed the minor wounds and numbed the pain, it burnt the moment it went active. The second was already saved in your notepad, it gave them a small bit of energy, just enough to walk towards the others. You sensed that they were recently under the same enchantment you experienced back at your barn with the faint tang of caramel apple that made itself known in your mouth and you didn’t want to overwhelm their body with more magic, so they needed to recover the worst injuries naturally instead.
You went off into the night going through the same motions, your notepad was nearly out of paper by the time you met your sixth faerie cookie but that didn’t change anything for you. You could always get more later.
Dawn was drawing near, a few of the pale flowers had started disappearing and you’re seeing them less and less as you pick up faerie after faerie. The soothing effects of whoever cast this spell started to fade away. Light began to shine upon Faeriewood once again, and you were pretty sure you couldn’t do this sudden rescue mission in incognito for long so instead you led as many cookies as you could closer to the recovery area and marked the spots where they were so that the Silver Tree Knights might see them sooner.
After a long night, Beat-Yeast’s naturally heavy atmosphere reigns once again, and you take that as your sign to leave.
You yawn, stretching your limbs as far as you can, and sigh as you relax. Smacking your lips you scratch your back, and your slumped figure takes its time to move through the foliage. You navigate only by how you remember everything was placed. The small watering hole that deers liked to gather in, The tree with the weird grooves that looked too much like a face, and that shrub that just had a distinct flower in it, you know if you tried to pluck said flower you would wake up with rashes. Eventually, you reach a faint path paved by your very own footprints, even the landscape has memorized where you like to stop before making your way back home.
There was just one thing. Something around here reeks, and you mean this in the only way you do. It was magic. You thought you’d already dealt with enough of this yet apparently the witches had other plans for you. Yaaaay, sound the fanfare.
You grab the lobe of your ear and rub it. The smell’s not entirely unfamiliar, you’re pretty sure it’s just one of your traps, you set a spell on them recently that it would stink if ever it caught anything, kind of like setting a really annoying tune as your alarm, it’s there just to make sure you get your lazy butt up and deal with the issue as soon as possible. The spores weren’t the only things here that kept stealing your things, predators often relished on the fact that you did all the hunting for them and liked to take off with whatever you caught.
Every second you waste is a moment a candyceps-infested animal was drawing near to your breakfast.
You groan, turn your heel and speed walk toward the direction of the smell, hoping to get it over with as quickly as possible.
You push through tons and tons of foilage, deciding that you don’t care about how you get there, you even managed to scratch your hand along the way but it saved you some time and you made it in the area faster than you would if you took your usual path. Stepping into the clearing, you scan the trees, the contraption should’ve had the animal hanging in the air by now yet for some reason you couldn’t find any.
Your eyes trail the rope and follow it down to the ground.
A cookie lies face-down on the floor, their ankle caught in a malfunctioned rope and it only lifts their leg a few inches off the floor. The harlequin bodysuit they donned was scratched and torn, their long, blue hair was mangled with twigs, leaves, and all kinds of gunk, and the ruff on their neck was the only thing that cushioned their face from the compact dirt.
All in all, this guy looked like they got in a fight with a bush, and it won! You wouldn’t be surprised if that was actually the case.
…Maybe you’re just trying to make excuses in advance for when you’re accused of killing a cookie again.
At that thought you take a hard swallow, you should get moving and make sure this guy wasn’t gone for real. You pulled your hood back up and snapped off a branch from the tree beside you. Slowly but surely you approached the cookie’s limp form and poked at him.
“Hello..?” You experiment, and they remain motionless. You do it a couple of times, and only when they don’t move at all do you finally turn him over carefully.
The first thing you notice is the fork-like mark on their left eye, followed by eye bags and scratches on their face. You pluck up a leaf stuck between their lips and feel the air leave from their nose, You exhale, they are still alive to your relief.
Your gaze lowers to the rest of their body, hoping to check the damage so you can write something up and send it away when something strikes your attention. The bishop sleeves they had were beyond repair, it was barely even around their arm anymore yet this wasn’t the cause for concern you were trying to get at, it was the symbols on their forearm.
Words written in dark mahogany writhe and wiggle on their skin, emitting a hushed hue of light green. The tattoo extends far up their arm and continues in their jumpsuit, you place your ear to their chest, and the mana speaks through their clothes in quiet mumblings with its voices soft, and airy, it’s so low you could barely hear it, almost as if it tried making itself as unnoticeable to you as possible.
You lift the stranger’s arm and inspect its smooth handwriting, curled and formal, written like music notes. As pretty as it looks, you recognize it for what it is: a curse.
Looks like you’re coming home with someone else today.