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"I refuse," Shadow Milk hissed, all his eyes narrowing.
"I refuse!" he—it, they, the Ultimate Cookie and every soul within it joined the chorus in an inharmonic overlap. It writhed against the glowing restraints that held it.
"I will not be put back in that oven!" every voice screamed, the sole dissenter ending it with— "tree!"
Pure Vanilla gazed upon him, knowing it was pity Shadow Milk—and perhaps the others, too, in those multitudes of blinking eyes—misread in the crease between his eyebrows, the downward turn of his mouth. He knelt beside him regardless. He offered his hand above where the others' would have been, and received a snarl in turn.
"Please," he said. Simple and soft, but the body beside him jerked away all the same. "You know this is tearing you apart. Let us—"
"Oh, let us!" It came out a mocking shrill against his ears. "As if you would let me say no. Such a pretty liar, Nilly, only a pity that you can't hide the truth from me."
Pure Vanilla inclined his head; if not in agreement with the words, then it was in an acknowledgement of what had shaded between them. The chest of the body beside him rose and fell harshly as its torso twisted, straining for an escape that could not be granted.
"It is true that we must stop you—stop this, and that I will not let worlds be destroyed. But I wish you would accept that this is something you cannot continue to endure, nor is it something you can fix on your own."
Shadow Milk laughed. Raucous, bright, and undeniably echoed. Eyes watched them, a fact Pure Vanilla was intimately aware of. Not just those of the vessel, but the cookies surrounding them, waiting to begin their spells and only holding off at Pure Vanilla's request.
"Please," he repeated when the laughter had died. "You are in pain."
As he said the final word, the tendrils he hovered beside lurched out, and its light hold made him glance down before a contraction crushed his palm. Pure Vanilla gasped, flinching back before he could register that the grip wouldn't let him go. The eyes glimmered at him.
"I think," Shadow Milk said, "that's you! So close, so close. But, sorry to break to you—still wrong!"
His tone lilted, up and down a battle against the chorus' direction. A lie, completely and utterly. Pure Vanilla did not move again. Instead, carefully, he twisted to clasp the tendrils as similarly as he could to holding another's hand. They pulsed, squirming against his palm, but refused to release.
And so, too, did he—despite it all. Witches, despite it all he could not bring himself to forget the cookie Shadow Milk hid inside, just as dearly a part of him as his cruelty.
"I am," he said. "But that is not antithetical to my point. Put aside your hatred of me, if only for today. If only for your own sake, Shadow Milk—"
"Do you not get it? We have told you—" and here, a single, unnaturally vivid cyan eye widened, "I have told you—"
The vessel's head twisted away, all the eyes he could see shutting tightly. Pure Vanilla said nothing. Harsh pants filled the air between them and fell away as a heaving chest slowed to a deceptively controlled rhythm. When Pure Vanilla moved to pull away, the hold twitched and let go, tendrils rigid.
"I'll be here," Pure Vanilla said. A promise, one that got no response but for a sharp inhale.
Someone laid a hand on his shoulder and led him to the side. He did not attempt to decipher who it was as the previously waiting cookies began to swarm, footsteps rushing about as they said their spells and drew out magic circles, preparing for what had to be done.
"Are you all right, my friend?" a strong voice asked. At his pause, she continued, "It is quite understandable if you are not. These Beasts..."
Pure Vanilla yanked his attention from the casting before them, turning in time to catch a pink-haired head shake once.
"Well. It matters not, now." Hollyberry looked to him, smile tangled by a grief Dark Cacao and Golden Cheese had admitted early on to not understanding. Pure Vanilla could grasp it, felt it weigh him heavier every hour, but his own other half still lived on.
"No," he said, "you speak little of your pains. You always have."
"As have you! Do not think I forgot my question," she said, good-natured chuckles ringing out as she elbowed him gently in the ribs. Pure Vanilla smiled.
"It is nothing, I swear. We have gone through far worse, lately—too much to truly talk. But if you wish to speak about Eternal Sugar, your family, anything, know that I would not turn you away."
"Perhaps," Hollyberry said, a note of finality in her voice. Pure Vanilla would not press the subject—she knew the door was open. "But let us hope Timekeeper is able to do as she promised, so that this trial may first end."
Pure Vanilla nodded, invariably drawn back to the scene before them. Still a cacophony of voices, the footsteps had settled as cookies found their positions. Timekeeper's could be heard above them all, coordinating the cookies and adjusting their magic to work as one.
This was their only chance.
Pure Vanilla reached for Hollyberry's hand, and she lightly squeezed his in comfort.
"Now!" he heard Timekeeper shout, and as the web of spellwork began to glow, Pure Vanilla and Hollyberry raised staff and shield, a dome of protection around the work that no foe could pass—if they, somehow, made it past Golden Cheese and Burning Cacao.
The Ultimate Cookie screamed, and it was only if Pure Vanilla focused that he could hear Shadow Milk in the cry.
Shadow Milk woke up hollow, to an off-white ceiling he did not recognize. He blinked blearily at it, then again when his eyes refused to focus, the details blurring into each other where they should have laid in the sharp relief of countless other perspectives.
He gave up trying, and no one said a word. Instead, delicately, without looking down, he lifted his arm up—or tried to. Something clung and caught his movement. It should have slid off. It felt like a simple, loose band, nothing like the ties from before. Tendrils thinned to a point. A hand, however...
Shadow Milk glanced down, and recoiled as far as he could. There was no escaping his body—wretched, pathetic, weakened thing—but Pure Vanilla's head tilted down from where it had laid half its weight on his legs. He bared his teeth at the sleeping hero, fingers—light blue skin and black claw-like nails, so familiar, so foreign—clenched together. A growl rose from somewhere deep inside him, and, without having to put in a conscious thought, his leg swung out to knock Pure Vanilla off the bed.
Still, no voices came to him—criticizing, applauding, demanding control, welcoming him home—but for the breathy groan of a cookie violently roused from sleep. Shadow Milk managed a grin, sharp as it had ever been.
Pure Vanilla rose, groping at the side of the bed with one hand and rubbing where Shadow Milk had kicked him with the other. He was frowning, but when he turned his gaze to Shadow Milk, the lines disappeared.
"You're awake," he said, as if it wasn't obvious.
"And I want you to leave."
The frown returned, focused now. "Shadow Milk—"
"Get out." His lungs tangled in his chest. Pure Vanilla did not move. "Now!"
He left, and Shadow Milk was alone.
It seemed he was only cared for while asleep. After an unknown (and often unremembered) number of bouts of consciousness, followed quickly by darkness, he would find his weakened body freshly bandaged and the taste of potions sharp on his tongue. No one came. No one spoke.
Shadow Milk did not either.
In the waking moments he could recall, he would examine his state as long as he could stand—the plain healing gown, the white-to-slightly-stained bandages, the skin of his arms, the lack of his soul jam—
Inevitably, he would look away. To off-white walls, an off-white ceiling (he still couldn't make out the details, but at least the shadows had regained their definition), and only a single potted plant to break up the monotony. Sleep began to beckon soon after, and Shadow Milk would welcome it as a relief.
No one came. No one spoke.
Sometimes, Shadow Milk would catch a flicker of shadow under the crack of the door. A presence, hovering nearby but never revealing themself so obviously.
It was not a surprise, then, when they finally entered. A knock drifted his gaze from counting the tiles on the ceiling—72 square, 45 rounded detail, 19 filigree, and the subtypes of shade and dimension of those categories could be, and had been, continued ad nauseam.
Another polite knock. "Shadow Milk?"
He knocked his head against the wall, a movement that strained his binding as far as it would go. Apparently, that had become a way cookies said "come in" while he was in the tree, because the door opened soon after.
"I told you to get out," he said, still leaning his head against the wall. If he didn't look at him, he might just get the point.
Pure Vanilla approached regardless, the tapping of his staff a familiar rhythm.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said.
"Not sorry enough, I see."
Pure Vanilla sighed. A flicker of a smile crossed Shadow Milk's face, the first he could remember since that grin, but it faded to a scowl soon after making its appearance.
"Out with it, Nilly. What d'ya want?" When Pure Vanilla didn't respond, Shadow Milk rolled his eyes and tilted his head back down. He snapped his fingers. "C'mon, the suspense is just killing me—ooh! Killing me! Is that what you're here to break the news for? I'm a very busy cookie, so if I do have an execution coming up, I really would like five to seven business days to—"
Pure Vanilla sat on the edge of the bed. Not close enough to touch—even if Shadow Milk hadn't pressed himself to the wall in pulling his feet away from any dreadful contact—but close enough that he could feel the warmth of his radiating glow. Shadow Milk wished he had a long enough cord to show Pure Vanilla how it felt to have even breath stolen away.
"That conversation...it can wait," Pure Vanilla said. "I merely wished to see you. How you were doing."
Shadow Milk's laugh was mirthless. "You've seen me. I'm fine. Oh, only, I'd be just peachy if you would give me my soul jam—"
"It's still corrupted."
"What?"
Pure Vanilla's eyes opened. For a moment, Shadow Milk was pinned, the beating of a singular heart all he could feel. Then those eyes closed once more, Pure Vanilla's grip on his staff tightening.
"It is not my desire to keep it from you. But Ultimate's entanglement with..." He shook his head. "There have been complications."
"Pity," Shadow Milk said sarcastically, turning away. "Then you've gotten all you came here for."
Pure Vanilla took the statement for the dismissal it was. At the door, his eyes squinted opened briefly against the sunlight to scan the room—in all its grandeur of four blank walls and a just fascinating ceiling. His lips pursed, but he left without another word.
Shadow Milk fell back in and out of unconsciousness. More often, though, he dozed, hearing snippets of voices out of context—an argument whispered in anger at one point, a steadying reminder an indeterminate amount of time later. Nothing he could make out, but that only made it more comfortable to sink into. There was nothing to worry about. Everything would be fine, now. Now that they could all become one—
Waking up in the night became an uncomfortable recurrence. His limbs ached and weighed him down into the bed, far too present for soft sheets to be a comfort. His eyes would strain, and fail, and strain further against the dark that could not be penetrated by him alone. Worst of all, silence wrapped itself ever more closely around him.
Waking in the day presented its own annoyances. Too-bright sunlight, for one. The new book that appeared daily, without fail, a taunting gift on his nightstand. All innocuous. All sickening. All attempts to draw Shadow Milk into compliance.
Shamefully, Shadow Milk read them anyway.
Despite the daily appearance of the books, he didn't see Pure Vanilla again for some time. In the stretches between waking and sleep, he sometimes heard his voice—soft, curious, occasionally even disapproving, but always whispered and unable to be parsed through for meaning.
Unfortunately, and predictably, Pure Vanilla refused to leave well enough alone. Shadow Milk woke one day to him reading calmly in a chair beside the bed, fingers running over a page before flipping it over.
Shadow Milk noisily adjusted his position, sending a cacophony of squeaks through the air. It worked as he intended, bringing Pure Vanilla's attention to him. A bookmark was placed and the book was shut, set to the side, beside where Shadow Milk's book of the day sat.
"Are you well?"
Of course that was the first thing he said. Shadow Milk's eyebrow twitched.
"Just wonderful. Now why, exactly, are you here when I have made it clear that I do not want to see you?" He saw Pure Vanilla open his mouth to answer, and interjected before he could. "And don't give me any fluff about 'caring for my well-being' or 'wanting to see me' this time."
Pure Vanilla sighed—good—and relaxed with a smile—awful. Shadow Milk wanted to claw it off of him.
"I am glad to see your spirit returning," he said, "but it is perhaps true that I should cut to the chase."
He fell silent. Shadow Milk was going to kill him. Painfully.
"Well? You've got yourself a captive audience, Nilly, don't keep me waiting!" Shadow Milk tugged the binds on his wrists for emphasis, and took pleasure in the faltering of Pure Vanilla's gentle smile.
"I did not wish to—" A placating lie. Shadow Milk scowled.
"Get on with it or get out."
Pure Vanilla gripped his staff tighter. "...Very well. I—We have some questions that must be answered before you are, ah, wholly recovered."
Scowl deepening, he felt his muscles tense—tight, unfamiliar, and unnecessary if he and Ultimate were still—
"Oh! This tired routine, I see!" His voice was too tight—strained even to the most untrained ear. "Questions to determine if it's the axe or the tree, I suppose? Or is the choice between an axe and a blunter axe?"
Pure Vanilla swallowed. "You will not be killed."
"How comforting! Did you propose that, call it a mercy?" he asked. "What a kind gesture—no real stakes, though; I thought I taught you better."
He tsked and it was almost playful, shaking his head at the same time Pure Vanilla did. If not, precisely, in the same manner.
"You ask me to be direct, and then you interject to derail us," Pure Vanilla muttered. Quite rudely, Shadow Milk might add, but he didn't have the time to voice that thought before Pure Vanilla continued, louder. "I can promise you will not be killed, but I cannot look those who have been hurt in the eye and deny them justice. The exact meaning of justice, though—that is what we seek to uncover."
Shadow Milk's hair lashed behind him. It was only natural Pure Vanilla would side with them. The ancient hero of truth, goodness and light incarnate—the very thought made him sick.
"Go on, then. Ask away." He looked away, waving his hand imperiously. It didn't matter.
"You...merged with Ultimate Cookie, correct?"
"Yes."
He didn't need to look to acknowledge the warmth of Pure Vanilla drawing closer. A hopeful smile was likely painted across his face—fragile and fruitless. An irrational response to an answer only honest because denial would mean nothing.
"Okay. There have been traces of the other Beasts' soul jams found in yours—all except for Silence. We think there's a chance, because of this, that they might be able to be brought back with time. Were you aware of this?"
Shadow Milk kept his gaze steadily on the wall. If he had to fight in this miserable body, he would, and he would not let himself lose, but if artifice could be crafted instead—well. Some cages were easier to escape than others. "Yes," he said, just the same as before.
"If so, then you helped them all, except for Silent Salt. Why not him, Shadow Milk?"
He scoffed, and turned back to Pure Vanilla—haloed by the golden sun, concern etched into every corner of his open face. A grin slid on easily.
"Why, he didn't want my help! Said he'd rather die, then did his own self in. Stabbed himself right in the soul jam, too, gave me second-hand pain from the empathy. Or maybe that was the residual of an unhealed wound, but, oh! Who could be sure." He rested his grin on his wrist, leaning on the rail of the bed. "A pity. I was so looking forward to seeing him again."
Pure Vanilla hesitated before nodding, something resolving between his eyes. "I see. May I ask one more question, just for today? It is more...wrought, and I know you are still recovering."
Shadow Milk's nose wrinkled.
"Ugh. If it makes you leave faster, I don't care."
His resulting chuckle made Shadow Milk want to both preen and tear out his vocal cords. Then, a bit more hesitantly, Pure Vanilla asked:
"Did you...want to? Do all that you did, I mean."
Everything in Shadow Milk's body, for a single moment, tightened.
"Come again?" he asked. "I don't think I heard you quite right, Nilly."
Pure Vanilla repeated the question, unchanged, undeterred by the way Shadow Milk had drawn taut and sharp against the implication baked into every word of it. It buzzed against his ears, the accusation—the gall—
"Oh, you would just love for me to tell you that I was controlled, wouldn't you?" he spat out. "The infamous, wicked Shadow Milk, succumbing to a great evil that wanted to destroy all, only able to watch as his own body committed atrocity after atrocity. Just a lost little lamb to be brought back into the fold by an extended hand—HAH!" Shadow Milk's laugh made Pure Vanilla shrink back. He carried on, pushing himself up, making his useless body loom as large as it could in an infirmary bed. "I know what I want. I do what I want. I am not some frightened thing for you to coddle, Nilly, nor am I a hurting soul longing for redemption. If you ever truly wanted to understand me, you would have known that long ago."
He stopped for breath, hands clenched so tight they trembled at his sides. Pure Vanilla mistook the pause for an opportunity.
"Shadow Milk—" He reached up—fool, fool—and placed his hand against Shadow Milk's neck. Their pulses raced out of sync, a familiarity broken only by the barrier of skin. "I know your will. I know it is strong; I know you are stubborn. But could there not have been...influences?"
(A thousand voices screaming and beating away with their endless conflicting emotions. Begging him to stop, to keep going, to return, to leave everything behind. Make a choice. Make a choice. Make a choice make a choice make a choice for all of us. Wrong. Right. Do less, do more, do nothing and die like every last one of them should have in the oven—)
"Why don't you go see for yourself, if you're so curious?" he said. "I bet you'd just love it."
Pure Vanilla withdrew, frowning, and Shadow Milk fell back. His skin burned where it had been touched—cradled, like something fragile.
"...Would you do it again?"
Shadow Milk stared at the bed. White sheets against plain blue skin, bandages covering marks he didn't even want to consider yet. Even that want was hollow. Somewhere along the line, he'd been carved out. Emptied of everything but vanilla-tinged echoes of the anger that had carried him since his fall, and Ultimate had filled the space double.
Pure Vanilla's robes sighed in their movement as the tapping of his staff grew further. Both paused, and Shadow Milk refused to look up.
"I don't know," he said to the sheets, but just loudly enough for someone at the door to hear if they tried.
And if the bed dipped beside him—if Shadow Milk found the rustle of paper filling the silence a comfort—he did not acknowledge the indignity with anything more than a huff as he reached for his own book.