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Remembering her time as Dark Enchantress hurts.
The knowledge, the memories, it’s all there, but unless White Lily makes an effort to look for something, Dark Enchantress remains tucked into her subconsciousness. And it’s better that way. Because, like she said, it hurts. It hurts to remember the faces of cookies she crumbled. It hurts to feel even a fraction of the hatred and anger that Dark Enchantress keeps swirling inside her constantly.
White Lily has more important things to worry about. Stopping the beasts, planning a defense against Dark Enchantress, running a kingdom. She can’t afford to get lost inside her own mind.
“White Lily! White Lily!” Silverbell Cookie’s voice rings through the air, echoing in the high-ceilinged room. White Lily is buried in the Faerie library, surrounded by books, but she tears her eyes away to see her friend, glowing with a pale light, zipping through the air towards her.
His bow is drawn, held at his side. He lands beside her, graceful as ever despite being out of breath.
“Yes, Silverbell?”
“The Silver Knights captured an intruder near the outskirts of the kingdom.”
White Lily stands up, picking up her staff and dusting off her skirt with one hand. “An intruder? Are you certain this cookie means harm?”
“Well…” Silverbell looks around nervously. “She’s a bit nonsensical, but she said something about being sent by… Dark Enchantress Cookie.”
White Lily stills. Dark Enchantress hasn’t attempted an attack against the Faerie Kingdom since unleashing the Beasts. And… simply sending a lone cookie? That doesn’t seem like her style, nor a very good plan from anyone’s perspective.
What are you playing at, my detestable other self?
“Take me to see this Cookie.”
“Yes, my Queen.” Silverbell takes off, flying slower this time to allow White Lily to follow him.
The other Silver Knights are gathered in a patch of grass not far from the library. They’re all surrounding who White Lily assumes to be the intruder, so she can’t get a look at the captured cookie. When Mercurial Knight notices her, he commands the others to step aside.
They do, and White Lily lays her eyes on a hunched, green figure, clutching a gnarled wooden staff closely to her chest and snarling at the surrounding crowd. Muddy green eyes turn to stare at her, widening.
White Lily lurches forward, clutching her head, which is suddenly throbbing.
She distantly hears Silverbell ask if she is alright.
A surge of emotion rushes into her mind. Disappointment. Scorn. Guilt.
The image of a small, fragile, fresh-baked cookie in her arms, wriggling and crying. The memory of her handing off the cookie to some servant of hers she doesn’t remember.
A crying little girl reaching for her. A young woman scowling at her bitterly. Dark green eyes like moss with deep bags hanging beneath them. A crackly, grating, familiar laugh.
Sharp pains seize her heart. Remembering hurts.
Someone is grasping her shoulder, both gently and urgently.
“My Queen!” Mercurial Knight’s voice.
White Lily realizes she’d fallen to her knees. With the help of her staff, she stands up.
“I am fine. Leave me be.”
Silverbell lands beside her. “But, the intruder-”
“I can handle her. Go.”
“White Lily-” he starts again.
“You heard her orders, Silverbell Cookie,” Mercurial Knight cuts in firmly. He turns to the Silver Knights. “Clear this area, now!”
The Silver Knights are quick in their retreat, leaving only the green-eyed cookie crouching in the middle of the field, shaking.
White Lily approaches her. The glare she receives is cutting, both spiteful and afraid. She knows this cookie. She has known this cookie for a long time. She did not forget, but pushed the knowledge out of her mind until it was forced back in.
“Matcha?” she asks gently.
“You… you’re her. Her other… half…”
Her voice is high pitched and crackly, with strange inflections and pauses. Memories upon memories rush back to White Lily upon hearing it.
Matcha runs up to her and wraps her arms around her legs. She pushes her away.
Matcha speaks and Dark Enchantress thinks of how grating that voice is.
What an annoyance. A disappointment. A failure. A child unworthy of her attention.
Tears spring to White Lily’s eyes. Without fully thinking, she extends a hand to brush against Matcha’s cheek. Matcha flinches away violently, falling backwards onto the grass. White Lily draws back her hand.
“Stay away, you… you… you thief, you…”
White Lily Cookie kneels, stares at her daughter. Her daughter . How could White Lily have not thought about her sooner? “Matcha. It’s… okay. I remember you. I won’t hurt you.”
Matcha is still scowling, clutching her staff. “Gah… memory… if you remember… you, Dark Enchantress… oh, I failed . She’d be… angry.”
“The Dark Enchantress you know is not here. I wish to help you. Why have you come to the Faerie Kingdom, my dear?”
Matcha’s eye twitches as though the term of endearment stings. “A mission… Easy, she said… pah! Liar… I thought I would impress her… she lied, she was just… trying to get rid of me…” she looks down at the ground, bringing up a hand to grasp at her messy hair in frustration. “Should’ve known…”
So she is here on a mission from Dark Enchantress. It seems it was a mission beyond the scope of her abilities. White Lily does not need to question further. Dark Enchantress is a cruel master. Matcha cannot go back there having failed. They both know it.
“You look tired, Matcha.” White Lily stands up slowly. “You must have been wandering in the wilds of Beast Yeast for some time to come across the Faerie Kingdom. Would you like to rest?
Matcha glares at her for a few moments, before firmly planting her staff in the ground and standing up suddenly. She brings the sleeve of her giant, oversized robe up to her face and cackles behind it. White Lily does not blink at her sudden shift in demeanor, and that fact saddens her, how well she knows this cookie that she barely remembered a few moments ago.
“Hehe… inviting the enemy to stay… what a fool! Darkness… I could wreck darkness upon this kingdom…!” she mutters that last part under her breath, definitely loud enough for White Lily to hear, but she does not seem to notice.
White Lily tries to smile at her kindly, which is difficult due to the heaviness in her chest. “You are probably hungry, too. I will have the Faerie cooks prepare you a meal.”
Matcha narrows her eyes, still hiding her mouth behind that loose sleeve. White Lily beckons her, beginning to walk towards her home. Her daughter hesitates, then follows.
Matcha is a fool. An utter fool.
What sweet promises Dark Enchantress offered her! A mission of utmost importance, too important for anyone else! Oh, curse Matcha Cookie’s dreadful hubris! A mission of such importance would go to a more dependable minion, one that Dark Enchantress actually liked . Not her half-baked, useless, annoyance of a daughter! Fool, fool, fool .
Emboldened by her grand success of destroying the laboratory while in the process of making the beasts, Matcha made more silly little schemes, so certain in her ability to finally grab the interest of Dark Enchantress. Or drive a wedge in the stupid world domination plans that demanded all her mother’s attention. SUCH a fool. How dare she think herself important enough to not simply be disposed of as soon as she was too much of a nuisance. How dare she!
Seek out Dark Enchantress Cookie’s other self. Take some of her dough back to the lab to be analyzed. Matcha hadn’t been informed that the location she was given was the Faerie Kingdom, nor was she told about the powerful knights that guarded White Lily. They captured her in an instant. Fool.
Dark Enchantress does not make such obviously stupid plans. No, she wanted to get rid of Matcha for good, finally, and was too lazy to do it herself. That must have been the case. Matcha boils with anger at Dark Enchantress for thinking her so worthless. She boils with anger at herself for being so worthless.
…At least the food is good. White Lily brought her to a pretty silver building. She’s never seen so much silver in one place. The whole house- castle, more like- is made almost entirely of metal, though many of the places where doors and windows should be are just open, letting the cool night air drift in. Many plants and even some trees grow within the building, through the seams where the floors meet the wall and beneath the windowsills where dirt has collected and seemingly not been swept away.
There is an overabundance of lilies. The smell is both comforting and nauseating. Mostly nauseating.
White Lily sat Matcha down at a table (silver, of course), cleared some papers off of it, and sought a faerie to ask for some food. Matcha considers running off in the few moments she’s left alone, but where would she go? Crawling back to Dark Enchantress? Never! She has too much pride for that, even after being utterly duped. And she’s afraid, but that’s neither here nor there. Besides, she’s tired, and her stomach is growling.
White Lily returns soon with a faerie, both of them holding plates which are promptly set before Matcha. The faerie glances at Matcha curiously, but leaves quickly after receiving a harsh glare. White Lily gets one too, but she does not retreat, instead sitting across from Matcha. Her expression is infuriatingly kind.
“Please, eat. I can see you’re in need of it.”
Matcha picks up the fork laid beside her plate and stabs at her food uncomfortably. She doubts it’s poisoned, or anything. She would be able to sniff that out. She just… doesn’t understand the way White Lily’s looking at her. She’s also not used to having company while she eats.
Still, the food smells enticing enough to have a taste. Witches above, it’s good. Nothing Matcha has ever made has tasted this good, and Matcha’s had a lifetime of experience cooking for herself. She inhales more of the food, forgetting about White Lily’s presence for a moment.
Halfway through her plate, she remembers where she is, and looks up at her mother’s other self.
White Lily’s eyes, a familiar shade of deep, jam-red, are unbearably sad.
“Meheh… pitying me, huh…”
“I am.”
“Don’t need it… I’m not … a fragile little cookie.”
“I did not say you were.”
Matcha narrows her eyes. “What do you want? ”
“I wish to apologize, but I am unsure of where to begin. My time as Dark Enchantress is hazy, and I am still recollecting my memories of you.”
“Don’t bother… didn’t do anything important…nothing you saw, anyway.”
White Lily droops her head forward, shutting her eyes tightly. “‘... Oh, I wish I hadn’t taught you to think like that, Matcha. You don’t need to have done some great feat for you to be worth remembering. You’re my
daughter.
”
Matcha lets out a hiss as though wounded. Dark Enchantress cookie never called Matcha her daughter, just as Matcha never called her
mother
out loud. It was an unspoken rule between them, now shattered by this cookie made up of her creator’s castaway goodness.
“Are you alright?”
She has never heard concern aimed towards her, much less from Dark Enchantress.
“You are not… my mother…” the word is foreign in her mouth.
“I am Dark Enchantress. Buried as they are, her memories are mine. I was not a passenger watching from behind her eyes as she committed horrible atrocities. That was me, making those decisions, though I now regret them. I remember creating you, Matcha. I remember my refusal to care for you. Even if I am a side of your mother that you unfortunately never saw, it was still I who neglected you. Which is why I must apologize.”
Matcha pokes at her food with her fork. What White Lily is saying, it makes sense. Her mind spins regardless. The kind words of this cookie… Dark Enchantress would never say them. Could never say them. She resigned herself to this fact so, so long ago, that her mother would never apologize for everything she did.
White Lily keeps talking. “I’m sorry. I knew that neglecting and berating you made you hurt, but as Dark Enchantress, I didn’t care. And I am so, so terribly sorry for that. Even if you can’t forgive me, I want you to know that I regret that, and that I won’t toss you aside again. You may stay in the Faerie Kingdom if you wish, and I will protect you, no matter what.”
A dream come true. An impossible dream come true. A mother who apologizes to her, promises to care about her. A place where she’s safe. Impossible.
But this is real. The food she’s eating is deliciously existent, the silver seat she sits upon tangibly cold, and White Lily’s tear-brimmed eyes reflect the light in a very real way.
Matcha picks at her hand nervously, cracking the dried dough around there. “...Hm.”
White Lily means it. Matcha is almost certain of that. After all, she’s everything Dark Enchantress is not, the culmination of the kindness her mother lacks.
“Fine.”
The other cookie smiles kindly. “I am glad. I will do my best to make you feel at home here.”
Matcha, suddenly, feels like crying. Which is dumb. She’s had years to perfect the art of holding back her humiliating, needy tears, tears that only ever made everyone annoyed at her, but now she feels one streak down her cheek.
Almost automatically, White Lily picks up a napkin off the table and dabs the tear off Matcha’s face. The gesture is so gentle, she can’t stop more tears from bursting forward.
White Lily stands up and walks around the table to be next to Matcha. She doesn’t flinch this time. The opposite, in fact. She, quite embarrassingly, throws herself into her mother’s arms, wailing.
“Oh, Matcha, I’m so sorry,” she hears White Lily whisper.
Witches, it’s so nice to have your mother stroke your hair when you cry, reassuring you. Is this what Matcha’s been missing every night she spent sobbing herself to sleep in her dark, lonely room? She feels horrifyingly like a little kid again, clutching at Dark Enchantress’ clothes, begging for her mother to hold her.
This time, White Lily does.