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Mystic Flour Cookie was walking rather aimlessly around the Ivory Pagoda when she detected a scent all too familiar, yet entirely out of place. It was candied, ambrosial, and annoyingly inviting.
“Eternal Sugar Cookie,” she greeted her fellow Beast. “I was not expecting you. Have you finally reached true enlightenment?” Her voice had the familiar calming tone that always soothed worries, but it was devoid of the sweet compassion she used to have before, replaced only by apathy.
“My way of life has not changed, Mystic Flour.” the saccharine goddess replied, lowering from the clouds to the jasmine-colored floors of the temple. Her words were sticky with honey. “However…” she hesitated for a moment. “if we’re on the subject…”
Eternal Sugar nervously twirled the white ends of her ringlets. Her eyes darted from gate to bridge to introspection pond, but finally settled on Mystic Flour.
Her friend. Someone she can trust.
“Tell me…”
She took a deep, quiet breath.
“Do you truly think nothing lasts forever?”
This question, asked to Mystic Flour Cookie. Asked to the Master of the Ivory Pagoda. Asked to the One who Consumes Apathy.
Do you truly think nothing lasts forever?
Before she can even think “of course,” Eternal Sugar started again.
“If what you preach is true…then even Happiness…means nothing in the end!” She said it the same way a child would to their mother: half hoping for a reassuring answer, half begging for their suspicions to not be confirmed.
Mystic Flour knew the answer. It was her moral obligation to know the answer, and to share it with unenlightened cookies so that they too can embrace Apathy. No greed, no sick desires. Simple, pure, white bliss. That was Happiness, wasn’t it? Eternal Sugar Cookie’s purpose in life wasn’t completely meaningless, unlike Mystic Flour’s was before she learned the ways of Apathy.
Do you truly think nothing lasts forever?
“...I haven’t much to say.”
A cherry blossom petal from one of the trees in the Ivory Pagoda came off a branch with the sudden breeze. It flew around in the air and brushed Eternal Sugar’s face, and for just one moment, Mystic Flour could see that they were the same. The soft fade from pink to white. The sweet, fruity scent. The delicate nature of the thing.
But the petal, like everything else, was fleeting. It went higher in the air and soared towards the foggy distance, away from the Ivory Pagoda, where it would die and turn into dust. But Eternal Sugar Cookie didn’t move, and she never would.
No matter what happened on Earthbread, none of the Beasts would ever crumble, even if mortal cookies held as much sway over them as Eternal Sugar’s subjects did for her. Her beloved cookies would crumble time and time again until she went insane from the constant loss like that asinine Burning Spice Cookie or became numb like…Mystic Flour herself.
She almost didn’t like that.
The Beast of Sloth was still fixed on Mystic Flour, waiting for a substantial answer. An answer no one had. Her jaw tightened.
“Is it not the time for you to fall asleep in your Garden?” she finally replied, a pit forming in her stomach.
“Yes…” Eternal Sugar sighed with a mix of relief and resignation. That was always how she dealt with problems like this, wasn’t it? Flee back to the intoxicatingly sweet Garden of Delights and sleep until her troubles vanished. Only now, she was wondering just how effective that really is.
Her Garden was as perfect as can be, free of the horrors the outside world had to offer. But no matter how long she stayed, the horrors were still there, waiting to claim new victims. Conflict had raged on Earthbread for centuries now, deceit and destruction running through its veins, and it seemed hopelessly ceaseless.
Perhaps Mystic Flour had been right all along. If nothing truly mattered, then neither did the suffering plaguing their world. Then it wasn’t so scary anymore. Eternal Sugar’s efforts weren’t futile after all.
Do you truly think nothing lasts forever?
No.
If nothing mattered, accepting this wouldn’t hurt so much. If nothing mattered, the cookies in her Garden wouldn’t be so grateful. They would never come to her Garden in the first place. No Cookie would ever do anything.
She wouldn’t be talking to Mystic Flour Cookie right now.
Almost acting on their own accord, her wings enveloped Mystic Flour and pulled her close. Eternal Sugar’s arms wrapped around her, clinging like she’d fall apart if she let go. Her chin buried into the crook of her pale neck.
“You…mean something. To me.” she told the Beast of Apathy, sugar crystals falling from her eyes. Mystic Flour only stood in shock, her deep black eyes gaping open. How long had it been since someone held her as if she had any importance? Witches, she’d forgotten what warmth felt like.
Eternal Sugar soon pulled away from the embrace, and the cold mountain air hit Mystic Flour like a truck. Without saying a word, she took again to the skies and headed for the Garden of Delights. Mystic Flour Cookie only watched as her angelic wings led her farther and farther away.
Another cherry blossom petal pointlessly fleeing from the grasp of Apathy.