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"Hey, look what I found!"
You normally get around to doing what Pixie asks at your own pace, because the majority of the time anything that she demands your attention for is...less than crucial. A Christmas ornament. A battered manga volume. A music box. These sorts of discoveries are typically followed by a barrage of questions that you try your best to answer as dispassionately as possible, if only because talking about the past hurts.
You survive by focusing on the present. And even then it's hard sometimes.
But, this instance is different. Pixie's only recently recovered from her bout of poisoning, and you're in a charitable mood because of it. Brushing your jacket off, you stop rummaging through the empty husk of a truck and approach her.
"What is it?"
Pixie pops up with a flip and proudly presents to you a little carton of Kitty Kandy. Like the rest of the world, it's seen better days; the once bright packaging is heavily dented and faded. It's the sort of thing you would've seen on the shelf of a convenience store back in the day. You stare at it as if Pixie just purposely dragged up a specter from your personal hell.
"...What's that look for? Geez, did this Kitty Kandy stuff bully you as a kid or something?"
You snort at that. Okay, maybe you're being a bit dramatic, even you have to admit it. You put your hand out and Pixie drops the carton lopsidedly into your palm.
"I used to eat these with my friends all the time," you say to her unbidden, and you see her little face light up with shock over the fact that you willingly offered her any information about yourself that didn't come from two hours of pestering.
"Really? Why? What do they taste like?" Pixie hovers excitedly right in your face.
Pushing her back with a finger to her forehead--she complains loudly--you reply, "Like chocolate cookies, basically. They were a popular snack back in the day."
You sound so old. It makes sense. You feel old.
"What are we waiting for then?! We should eat some! Faeries love sweets, you know!"
You doubt these things have kept all that well between the hellish inferno that engulfed the world and the sheer passage of time, but you oblige her, because you're still trying to blink that image of her pale face and shivering body from your mind. The package comes apart easily enough. There's twelve Kitty Kandy tubes inside, each one housing multiples of that iconic smiling cat face. Megakin was sponsored by them once, for one of his charity livestreams. You remember his over-the-top sketch he put on for it, which involved a "street magician" (really Xana in disguise) cursing everything he ate to become the cookies, something accomplished by copious amounts of editing.
You're smiling like an idiot at a limp package of chocolate cookies. Jeez. You can just imagine Shiori's cutting wit at this moment.
"If you're going to reminiscence like an old man, then hurry up and die since you're clearly planning on wasting your time anyway."
"Newbie?" Pixie inquires into the long pause you've entered. She rarely sees you look so openly fond about something.
Shaking your head, you open the candy and pointedly don't even bother looking at the expiration date. The cookies aren't in that terrible a state, all things considered, which seriously makes you question what sort of preservatives go into these things. They're undoubtedly going to be stale, but even food long past the best-by-date is prized in a world where luxuries come few and far, far between.
Pixie's wings flutter in delight as she takes the most intact cookie you can find. You thought she'd complain about the state of it but your companion only nibbles at it, doing a little twirl that sends fairy dust sparkling through the air.
"Chocolate! I haven't had chocolate in ages!"
You haven't either. You pop the cookie into your mouth. You're expecting it to taste terrible, bitter, like something that's survived longer than it should've.
It's sweeter than you remember.