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It had not been long since Mystic Flour Cookie had taken up residence in the citadel. A few weeks, perhaps.
Or, supposedly, she had been there a few weeks. In truth, no one had seen her since her arrival, or really any form of proof she had been there at all.
Who was very evidently there, however, was the young Haetae and their antics.
“Hello my liege!” said Cloud Haetae Cookie, in their singsongy tone. The Haetae was always a curious one. It was oftentimes impossible to discern if they were being mischievous, or downright malicious. Or even if they knew the difference between the two. For now at least, they were just sitting there, looking up and waving expectantly at him.
Dark cacao sighed. “Good morning, Cloud Haetae Cookie.” It was anyone's guess what the creature had done this time, but he was sure he would find out soon enough.
They scurried off to their next escapade of the day. One that would likely involve someone's misfortune, probably his.
But until then, there were other things to attend to. The dawning sun had not yet quite breached the mountain clouds, and the nightly snowfall had not yet ceased. Only a single lavender flame above him gave the room any sort of form. It was a circular room, right in the heart of the citadel. Its walls dark and formidable, with a spiral staircase ascending up its walls. Lovingly decorated with memories and artifacts from those Dark Cacao held dear: a portrait of a dear friend, and a small training sword with a red gem in the centre. It was foggier than usual, even for this time in the morning — the Haetae seemed to kick up flour and dust onto whatever it trampled on.
So nothing seemed out of place when he slid open his closet.
Until his cloak fell from its rack, crumbling into a million tiny little purple and black scraps. Dark Cacao could only sigh. Undeniably, this was the Haetae’s masterful work.
Maybe the day could wait, Dark Cacao thought, picking up a scrap and turning into the maze of hallways.
“La, la, la! Where are you going, my Lord?” the Haetae giggled, eyeing up the scrap in his hands.
Dark Cacao did not respond, only glancing at them. It was obvious where he was going, this area of the castle had been all but out of use for years, except for one thing: her.
Cloud Haetae skipped alongside him, as carefree as they always were. But as he charged towards her door for the first time, something changed.
The young Haetae cowered behind him as he slowly swung open the door.
The room, structurally, was not too much unlike his own. It had the same spiral stairs ascending up its walls, and the same cold, dull floor. But the air here was thick, only partially with the flour fog in the air. There was no light here, the single fire pit lay strewn on the floor, only half its chain remaining. Among many other miscellaneous piles of things strewn about, he would've thought that someone had destroyed the room in a blind rage, had he not been so aware of Mystic Flour's awfully cold demeanour. A lone bed lay unused, except by the spiders who now inhabited the bed frame. And the carpet was no more than a pile of flour.
The only evidence that anyone had ever lived here at all, sitting right in the almost-centre of the room.
Dark Cacao couldn't pretend it still wasn't surreal to see Mystic Flour Cookie here. The Beast of apathy, sat here in some spare room, not even a dungeon (as he initially considered, and she probably deserved). And living like this.
She faced away from him, her veil waving gracefully despite the evident lack of wind, or any fresh air at all. The long silky sleeves of her robes glistened at the now melting ice that had formed on her overnight. The cycle of ice had appeared to get to her golden necklace, it now tarnished around her neck. The ornament around her head remained, but her soul jam did not, a dent in its place.
“You, Dark Cacao Cookie,” she spoke in a vapid tone. “Why must you intrude on my meditation?”
Dark Cacao loosened his grip on the fabric scrap, if anything was truly pointless, it would be trying to meditate here. There was no clarity that could be sought somewhere like this.
“Mystic Flour Cookie” he softened his tone slightly and raised the scrap of fabric up, “Would you mind keeping your Haetae under-”
“Leave. I care not for your foolish plights” she snapped back, and she turned her head back slightly to meet his gaze.
Her tone seemed, somehow, even more grave than before, and her eyes were glazed over like a fallen warrior.
“Beast, if you are to remain here-”
“There is nothing for me here, crumbled or not, it matters little to me.”
The two remained locked in each other's gaze for but a single intense moment, before Mystic Flour turned away from him once more. And Dark Cacao couldn't help but shift his gaze away as well.
Not that there was much to look at other than the flour. And Cloud Haetae’s footprints as they scurried off. There was no sense of love or care for anything here, only a sad sense of cold indifference. The only possessions she had taken here with her were a few strands of wheat that lay sat by the window, but even those had shrivelled from a lack of sunlight.
Maybe it was selfish, but he couldn't help but feel a sense of pity for her in this state. After all she had done, perhaps he should have let her crumble alone in that temple, or here in this room. But something prevented him. Maybe a false sense of hope for her? The idea that she could be greater than whatever it was that she was attempting to be right now.
But it was impossible to get through to her.
"Hm," Dark Cacao eyed a solitary board in the corner and its stones jostled around on the floor, covered in a considerable layer of dust. “How about a game of go?”
It was a simple game, one he had learnt during his time on the Flour Ridge Mountains. It wasn't one he pretended to know much about, not even factoring in strategy. But considering her age, and the difference in where they lived, it was the only thing he could think she might be aware of how to play.
Mystic flour did not turn to look at him, “hm… even you must see the true futility of such pointless activities” she asked, in one long breath.
“Indulge me,” he replied.
“Very well, if such futile affairs are what you wish to waste your time with…”
Dark Cacao couldn't help but internally scoff at her endless ramblings of futility as he set the board up and placed his first black stone.
Right in the centre, it was an unconventional strategy, but one, in his limited experience, he swore by.
What he hadn’t expected was for her to follow this move, placing her first white stone to his left.
He looked up at her curiously, but her gaze did not budge. Her dull eyes looked down at the board. He placed another stone to the right of his currently laid down one, which was swiftly blocked by another white one.
His eyes wandered up to hers, and he pondered on her strategy. It seemed unconventional, like his, which in a way he had to appreciate.
Mystic Flour held her third stone within her index and middle fingers, whether she realised it or not, he could tell there was a strategy to her moves, they weren't random.
He placed his next stone, forming a small wall of them, in the centre-right of the board.
“What’s your strategy?” he asked.
“Strategy? Nothing but a futile extension to the meaningless agony of competition mortals cling to. A fool's errand, truly.”
Mystic Flour held her third stone within her index and middle fingers, whether she realised it or not, he could tell there was a strategy to her moves, they weren't random.
He placed his next stone, forming a small wall of them in the centre-right of the board.
“And yet your moves display otherwise.”
“Anything you see in my moves is merely a projection of your own resolution unto mine, your persistence to do so is shocking.”
“Why must you torment me with such pointless affairs?” she said.
He pondered for a moment. But the answer was clear: understanding. If she truly was the owner of his power, as she had claimed, then perhaps he really didn't know his own resolution at all. The cookie sat in front of him was an enigma. Their two powers, a true reflection of night and day. They contrasted each other in almost every conceivable way.
In his eyes, how could anyone, when faced with a world as beautiful as this, come to such a conclusion? Unsatisfied and demanding cookies were all the more reason to push on, and create a more prosperous world for them all.
In her eyes, in a cruel world such as this. Unsatisfied and demanding cookies were a symptom of the intrinsic illness that was their greed, something that should be dealt with before they became a problem.
Dark Cacao sighed, placing another stone down as he did. “You speak of true enlightenment, and yet I, faced with the same enlightenment, chose another path,”
“Mystic Flour Cookie, I wish to understand.”
“Is that truly what you seek?” she asked, somehow in a hollower voice, and her face darkened with a stygian overcast. Before contorting into a wicked smile. “Then your greed truly knows no bounds!”
“You claim to know the same true enlightenment as I?” she began in a manic voice, before a sudden switch back to her usual tone, “You denied yourself it long ago. There is nothing more to understand.”
Mystic flour captured another one of Dark Cacao’s stones. Delicately picking it off the board and swiping it into a puff of flour that fell silently to the floor.
“After… I abandoned my son, Dark Choco Cookie-”
“That name means nothing to me, much like your story.” she interrupted.
“I felt as though I had failed him, and failed my kingdom…” he continued.
“And?”
“I… had. My kingdom lie in ruins. The unforgiving cold beating down on us and that cursed sword.”
Mystic Flour did not respond, she only glared at him with an increasing annoyance.
“But even so, giving up was a foolish idea, hundreds of cookies still depended on me. So from there, we grew.”
“The act of perseverance made us stronger, and the kingdom prospered to new heights I had once thought unachievable!” he finished, a slight smile overtaking him.
“And nothing of the other countless cookies you failed? Homes lie destroyed, families separated in the ruin, and you place more importance on your son than any other life you claim to hold so dearly.”
“Do not corrupt my words, beast, it was my resolution alone that saved those cookies, your ravings of apathy would change nothing.”
Mystic flour paused, “That would have been a mercy, your kingdom was never the same after he left, was it? Cruel really, considering how abundant it could have been without you…”
“Perhaps it was never the same, but do not patronize me, the kingdom forged in the absence of hope through my resolution was great enough to defeat you and your apathy.”
“And yet is your resolution not an evolution of your greed? The kingdom you so desperately craved, within your grasp… torn away by your ever-growing desire for something greater, for Dark Choco Cookie to be a better warrior, for a stronger wall to protect the kingdom. Would it not be more simple for it all to fade into the wind?” she said, but Dark Cacao couldn't help but notice a slight inflection of something more earnest in her question.
“More simple, it may be…” he began, in a melancholic voice “The burden of my kingdom, and my many, many mistakes, weighs great upon my shoulders each day, but the act of perseverance is what makes me, my kingdom, stronger than you will ever be!”
“Perseverance won't mean anything when the fog subsides, your endeavour is pointless”
“Then why do you persevere?”
“What...?”
“Even here, you live on, would it not be easier for you too, to dissipate into the wind?”
Mystic Flour sneered, opening her eyes again to meet his. “I do not expect you to be able to understand, lesser half. The sole reason for my existence is to witness the day the whole of Earthbread sees the absolution of the flour, and be its humble envoy.”
“Dark Cacao Cookie, I pity your simple and antiquated ideals,” she smiled. “But your words have no sway over my heart.”
Mystic flour glanced at the board, there were few black stones left, most of which were concentrated at a single point near the centre.
“No, Mystic Flour Cookie. It is I who pity your simplistic ideals. You speak so highly of this truth so plain, and yet you are unwilling to embrace it in its entirety. Why is it you still yet push your enlightenment onto everyone?"
“I only wish for others to see the truth.”
If Mystic Flour had opened her eyes, she may have begun to understand the building anger in Dark Cacao's face. She spoke of truth with such a conviction, a somehow honest desire to see others, in a way, achieve peace. But he couldn't understand it, peace wasn't nothingness, far from it. Peace was the calm of mind achieved around a fire after enduring the harsh winter ice, peace was the moment after another licorice monster failed to breach the kingdom's walls. But knowing this, other cookie, who had given up at not even half of the hardships as he had, thought so little of him. It infuriated him.
“Either way, without my soul jam, I do not possess the power of even my apathy, to return myself to flour is beyond my current abilities, if you so wish, crumble me now” she said in a cold, matter-of-factly way.
Dark Cacao eyed up a spear on the floor, contemplating such actions. If he had concentrated all his anger towards her into a single point, he may have been able to fulfil her wish. She had hurt so many poor innocent lives.
She deserved it, perhaps it was even necessary to do so. For his cookie's sake. For all cookies' sake.
They both knew she was vulnerable without her soul jam.
They both knew that he wouldn't do it.
“Do you know why I continue to let you stay here, Mystic Flour Cookie? Because I pity you. You and your childish anger. You speak, believing what you see to be the only true enlightenment. Yet you fail to see the most simple of errors in your ways, you lost. Your mission is obsolete now. Know and remember this, beast, you live here, stripped of power and soul jam, because I pity you too much to crumble you.”
The silence between them was palpable. For a moment, it was like Mystic Flour’s perfect world of apathy had been achieved, there was nothing else but the two of them, staring at each other.
“Well, do you have any more moves to play?” Mystic flour said, breaking their perfect silence.
Dark Cacao sat there for a moment, stunned for a moment.
“I suppose that concludes this pointless game then, I hope your heart is now more at peace with whatever understanding you found here.” she continued rather sarcastically. “Now leave, and do not intrude on my sacred meditation again”
Dark Cacao couldn't help but follow her words this time. Nodding solemnly at her request as he stood up, looking down at her while she assumed her usual position.
As he left, he heard her calling the young Haetae, followed by a “yes, my liege!” and the scurrying of footsteps. And though she had mocked the notion before, he did feel his heart was at more peace with the little semblance of understanding he had found here.