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A young cookie opened his eyes. He saw the ceiling, and then the stars when he turned his head to the side. The window on the wall showed the bright night. He slowly stood up from his silver tray and curiously looked around. A large lady with a pointy hat was in front of him, and as soon as she saw that he was awake, she began to approach. The little cookie was confused and scared but all of that disappeared as warm and lovely hands picked him up and held him gently as she watched him with her pride in her eyes.
“Well you finally woke up, look at you, you’re so beautiful and so perfect.”
Though sudden, the compliments put a small smile on his face. The little Cookie, briefly turning his attention away from the tall lady, took notice that he was alone with her in the kitchen. His thoughts were shifted back to the lady when she began to speak once more.
“I finally did it… Like her…You’re my perfect cookie” She declared, raising her hands higher. Those words engraved themselves in his dough, he will be perfect for her, he WAS, why would she lie about that? “Now little one, I have to do something important, and until I come back, your sleep will remain eternal” and just like that, he closed his eyes and his slumber began.
[...]
From the depths of a burning bright oven, a new hero is born. The little Cookie opened his eyes and quickly stood up in horror as he noticed Cookies so similar to himself down on the tray beside him. Most of them were crumbled, the sweet scent was sickening as their jam started to burn in their bodies from the heat of the fires below.
“I need to get out of here…!” He mumbled to himself. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared, but he took a deep breath and decided that he had to escape this hell of an oven. The Brave cookie grabbed his candy cane and tried to hit the burning steel door with his shoulder to open it. He took a step back, wincing in pain, but dismissed the feeling and tried again and again, harder and harder with each attempt despite the suffocating heat making him dizzy. His arm was about to fall off, crumbs of his dough and speckles of jam falling to the ground. Fortunately enough, after one particularly strong hit, the door opened. His arm felt numb. Making sure that nobody was being left behind, he took one final look inside the oven, but couldn’t see anyone moving. The Cookie lingered for a moment, sad that he would be the only one making it out alive. He quickly shook the feeling off, that’s something he can worry about later. Setting his sights on a nearby table, he braces himself and jumps. It was a risky move, but the Cookie managed to stick the landing. Kind of. He landed on his good arm, and rolled for a few seconds before ending up flat on his back. It still stung from the burning tray, but the cold wood of the table helped to soothe it. Then, for the first time in his life, he felt a cool breeze flow by. It felt so nice that he almost stayed put, wanting to rest after that strenuous escape, however something else grabbed his attention; a big window in the middle of the wall. He was mesmerized by the night sky, the beautiful moon and stars that smiled at him. The peace didn’t last long, as a dark figure rushed quickly to the oven.
“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY OVEN!?” …He did that? Well, it didn’t matter. Shooting up onto his feet, he readied himself for a fight. His arm wasn’t working, but he still had the other one and two more legs! He was going to escape this place and nobody would stop him!! The lady didn’t seem to notice him, so the Cookie took that to his advantage. Right as he was about to attack, he suddenly felt a horrible pain on the back of his head, hot liquid running down from the source. He was trembling, trying to remain still. His vision was blurry and he felt like he was about to pass out. Looking behind himself, he saw a small, jagged rock on the table. It had some pink stuff on it. The last thing he heard was a gasp from up on a nearby bookshelf. The blurred lady turned to see him as he finally gave in. Was this his end...?
A black void is what the cookie saw in his unconsciousness. In this state, he could feel what felt like millions of small hands grabbing and pulling him to Witch knows where and the sound of distant mumbles. Warm light cut through the void as he started to wake up, his head was ringing and the numbness of his arm was still there. All he can see is the ceiling and hear with more clarity the voices he was hearing before. He sat up to see his new environment better, which looked to be a camp. There appears to be four other Cookies in this camp as well. The first one was reading a book with a fancy cover, he had a pointy hat and a long scarf, he looked serious. The second one was cooking something in the fire that was in the middle of the small camp. She had brown icing pulled into a small ponytail. The third one looked way younger than the others, had a nightcap and was resting peacefully next to him. The fourth one was playing with a pink machine very quietly. Glancing up from the machine, she noticed that the freshly-baked cookie had woken up and rushed to tell the others. The brunette and the one with the hat quickly approached him in worry, causing him to flinch back and reach for his cane on instinct. Unfortunately, the cane was on the side of his broken arm.
“Are you ok? How are you feeling?’” The taller of the two asked, sitting next to him and checking on his arm. “Mmm, it may take a bit but with Wizard Cookie’s magic it will heal in no time!” She didn’t give him time to respond.
“Gingerbright, he just woke up, give him a break.” The shorter one, apparently named Wizard Cookie, reprimanded, pulling her away from the new guest in their camp. “Excuse our friend please, she gets excited with new visitors. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Wizard Cookie. These two are my friends Gingerbright and Strawberry Cookie” The two wave to the new cookie, one with a lot of energy and the other very shyly, he returns the waves back. “Say, what’s your name?” That question actually surprised him, he didn’t have a name yet. He had to think quickly!
“Um… my name is Gingerbrea- BRAVE! My name is Gingerbrave.” Brave assured the others, now very confident about his name. It felt good, it felt like him. “Ow…What happened…?” He asked while touching the part of his head where he was hit.
“Oh, well…” Strawberry tried to explain but got interrupted by Gingerbright.
“Oh Strawberry threw a rock at your head!” She explained very calmly while Strawberry was panicking. Wizard pulled her to the side because apparently ‘the food was burning’.
“I-It wasn’t like that! You see, we saw you injured in the Witch’s kitchen and-and we didn’t know how to catch your attention without making noise so we tried throwing a rock but… it ended up hitting your head… sorry” She tried to explain to Gingerbrave nervously. He giggled a bit before trying to reassure her that he was fine.
“It’s ok! I just feel a little dizzy, nothing more!” That didn’t calm her at all but she sighed knowing he wasn’t angry.
“You’re lucky that the Witch got distracted with something else or we all would have crumbled.” Wizard added, checking on the younger Cookie next to him.
“Yeah…Who’s the little fella anyways?” Gingerbrave asked, pointing to the cookie Wizard was attending, who was somehow still sleeping through all the noise. Maybe he survived something similar to what happened to Gingerbrave? The thought made Gingerbrave frown, no cookie should go through the same.
“Oh him? We met him today, just like you.” Wizard responded concluding that, unlike Gingerbrave, the cookie was still healthy, just very sleepy. “He told us his name was Gingerdozer, he seemed very tired all the time so we allowed him to rest until we came back, he still hasn't woken up yet though…”.
“For a moment we thought he came from the same batch as you, we were surprised to see the Oven door closed until you opened it” Strawberry said, remembering finding the child alone, roaming the castle scared and confused, he was sobbing and trying to search for someone but to scared to make a noise, until he crossed paths with this new group of cookies.
“You two look sooo similar!” Added Bright as the youngest started to wake up, he didn't understand what was happening but he remained calm until he saw Gingerbrave. It was like if something inside switched, he seemed happy, excited even.
“It’s… It’s you!” He stood up and rushed to hug Gingerbrave, who was very confused by the sudden action of this new Cookie, and so were the others in the camp.
“Do we- …” Brave tried to question why Gingerdozer did that but remained silent as he was relieved to see him somehow, at the same time, a very familiar feeling filled him, like if he had lived this before, it felt nice. .
“Aww look at those two, they’re so inseparable” the brightest cookie jumped in her place, amused by the, in her own eyes, adorable scene.
“They barely know each other, the kid is probably confusing Gingerbrave for someone else…” Wizard assumed by the little conversation the ‘brothers’ had, this didn't matter to Bright as she ignored him on purpose.
All of them stayed in silence, a very comfortable one, they were enjoying their meals as Strawberry was serving them, except for Brave who was cradling the younger cookie on his good one arm while he was enjoying his own meal. He never did that, he doesn't even know what he's doing but it felt right, he kinda wished he was cradled, he wondered how that feels. He noticed GingerBright approaching with his food and left it next to him while admiring the scene in front of her. The whole thing felt so domestic and comforting for Brave, it felt nice to be around others, even if he barely knew them.
“...So, what do you do here?” He broke the silence, a spark of curiosity got onto him about his new ‘friends’.
“Um, we try to survive and-” Strawberry spoke, while serving her own bowl of food, then again, being interrupted by Bright.
“We're trying to get to Earthbread!” she said, shaking Brave but just a little as the younger cookie seemed to be enjoying the moment.
“Yeah…”
“What's Earthbread?” Asked the brave cookie, confused as he never heard that name before, not like if he knew anything about the world anyways.
“It's a paradise for cookies…A land where we could finally live at peace, nobody in the castle want to go there but us” Wizard explained, now Gingerbrave understood that they were just like him, yearning for freedom in a world where they didn't had to run every minute just to live, he was decided that he'll live in this ‘earthbread’.
“And why haven't you got there yet? I saw a window earlier, we could escape from there and get to earthbread!” he tried to encourage, it wasn't that far was it? Maybe they were stuck here because of the Witch, he could take her down if they act fast and hard enough, or that's what he thought at least.
“I won't go there if I was you, there's nothing outside this castle for cookies like us, Earthbread Is like…another world, but The Witch has the book we need to get there, do you understand?” disappointment and helplessness is what Gingerbrave felt after those words, but he remained silent, these cookies seemed to be determined to get there so he won't lose hope that easily.
“Oh! I do….” Gingerbrave answered quickly, he looked down at the cookie he was still cradling “He fell asleep again” he commented, seeing that, in fact, Dozer fell asleep again, he carefully put him in a more comfortable place with the help of Wizard. Now he could enjoy his meal.
“Aww isn't he cute?” whispered Gingerbright to Strawberry, she was truly amused by this cookie, she couldn't wait to get to know these new friends better.
“Yeah..!” Brave smiled and sighed in relief, everything was calm. “What are you doing?” He asked when he saw Strawberry and Wizard scheming some sort of plan, they were mumbling a lot and tracing some lines in what it seems to be a map.
“We're trying to find a new way to get that book, you see, the Witch isn't in the castle all the time, sometimes she travels and it takes her some days, which is a lot of time to us, however she never leaves the things in the same place so it's almost impossible to find what we need, as for now, we might have to take some time away from her and just get resources and wait until everything calms down because she saw us, she may suspect we're planning something ” Wizard explained as they finished scribbling on the map, it seemed that they marked one specific spot on it “And because uuh i might’ve do something to her” he squeezed his wand slightly, Gingerbrave was kind of confused but wasn’t going to push for more.
“I see…Can I help? Is the least I can do…” Gingerbrave asked again, he felt that he needed to help them, he didn't know if it was for guilt or not, after all the things they did for him in such a short time or because he needed to cease the guilt at the back of him after being the only survivor of his batch by helping others.
“Of course silly goose you’re part of the team now!” The joyous girl jumped happily, being stopped then again by Wizard who put a hand on her shoulder.
“Gingerbright you don’t know if he wants to be with us” He explained, getting a noticeable frown from the brown-icing girl, then she crossed her arms bothered.
“I mean, it’ll be nice to have an extra member around…Two if we count Gingerdozer, do you want to join us?” The pink party member added. Gingerbrave didn’t realize at the moment but when strawberry asked that question the 3 of them turned to Gingerbrave, expecting or better said, excited to see his answer, which was given within the seconds.
“Of-Of course! I would love to!” He answered enthusiastically, Strawberry and Wizard sighed in relief as Bright jumped excited, then clinging onto Wizard.
“That’s amazing! See Wizzy he was part of the team after all” She teased with name, Wizard didn’t seem that bothered tho, he just brushed her off calmly as she giggled.
“Yeah yeah, whatever you say Bright” He sighed, with a little smiled that was covered by his long scarf “Welcome to the team Gingerbrave” He tried to shook hands with Brave, then realized how dumb it was considering that he’s still holding Dozer and his other arm was still healing, his other two friends tried to hide their giggles when he just resigned to pat his new crewmate head, like a puppy, or more likely, a werehound.
“Bright can you help me pack everything?” Asked Strawberry after that scene, still trying not to laugh because of it, Bright nodded enthusiastically, helping her with the bags they were carrying, surprisingly it all fit. Wizard, on the other hand, was helping Brave carry Dozer on his back, as he seemed to not being able to wake up yet, they used a ripped fabric they found around the castle as a way to help the brave cookie carry the kid, wrapping it around his neck and torso in a way that was comfortable enough for both of them.
“We can’t lose a lot of time, as for now while your arm heals, can you take care of Gingerdozer?” Brave nodded, the kid wasn’t that heavy after all “Great!” Wizard left both cookies alone to check with the others.
“Everything is packed up! Let's go” Wizard announced excitedly.
All of the kids started to walk towards a specific part of the castle, Brave was amazed with all the new things they were passing by, he wished he could take note of everything surrounding him.
“We're going to the market, maybe we could trade something there” Now he was more curious to meet this so called ‘market’ and this is how the journey begins, going through the halls and secret entrances of the castle while he chats with his new friends, nothing can go wrong now.
[...]
From another part of the castle a young cookie with an egg for hair woke up from his long slumber, he took a look at his surroundings, still dizzy and confused, everything was so different and so…dirty, for a moment he felt scared, thinking he was alone or lost.
“Hello again my perfect cookie” A familiar voice came from the shadows of the room, he turned his head to the sound waiting for his creator, but instead of finding a tall figure with a sincere smile, he found a small figure with a grin, she looked exactly like her but it couldn’t be her? Could she? After all, she wasn’t a cookie.