Work Text:
Dear Pure Vanilla Cookie,
I hope you are doing well.
I am too.
The faeries here are kind, Vanilla, not like the students- they would bully you, do you remember? Or the ungrateful villagers who would criticize me for causing their crops to grow too wild until Golden Cheese would throw her coins around, and they were satisfied. Do you remember them, Vanilla? I do.
The faeries here hum when they water the trees, and their voices sound like the wind playing with glass. You would like them, I think. They’d like you more.
Perhaps you should come, Vanilla, wouldn't that be a sight? For them to do their paranoid ritual, dancing around the idea of calling you one of their own, until you save all of their lives. To you, even though you are so kind. Believe so much in good. Perhaps not yet good enough for them.
That was mean, I'm sorry.
----
Pure Vanilla Cookie,
I dreamed of the academy again. Your laughter echoed through the hallways- soft, like you were afraid it might break something. I think I miss that sound.
The sunsets here are beautiful. Not like at the academy, when we would slip out just after curfew, when the teachers had just begun to settle down, so we could laugh, and you would be like a star, drenched in the rising light of the moon, and I would stay in the shade, because I was so scared, and somehow you weren't. The teachers would catch you, night after night, but you'd talk your way out of it, and I'd stand in the corner like a coward while you kept all their eyes so I could wiggle in through the window. I'm still happy you did that, Vanilla, but if I had the chance to do it again, I’d take their lectures with you. Or maybe I’d stop hiding in the shadows altogether, and join you in the sea of moonlight- where even the teachers’ lanterns couldn’t find us.
I'm sorry.
I should have done that.
----
Pure Vanilla,
Have you read any good books lately?
I'd ask you that question so often back then. It was a flimsy question that held our relationship together- if it weren't for it, perhaps I wouldn't be sending you all these letters. Perhaps I wouldn't be scrawling them over and over again. You have no idea how many of these have been burned, their ashes crumbling and strewn across my desk, tiny little corpses of all these words I cannot say to you. Perhaps to you I'd be the girl who tore down the Blueberry Academy, and to me, you would be no one, because I'd only realize now, the light of day disappearing from the crooked window, that I wished to be able to hold onto someone.
Am I in the good future, Pure Vanilla? Have I found my footing? Have I grown past my mistakes? Have I redeemed myself by fleeing? Like a rotten coward? Witches, if Golden Cheese were the recipient of these letters, surely she'd chew me out, which is why I came to you.
You won't admonish me, will you, for my wrongdoings?
It's not that I hope to escape blame, Pure Vanilla.
But I want to do something right.
Do you remember the many books with the torn-out pages? I'd spend eons, while you did a poor job distracting the librarians, scavenging through dusty old bookshelves that used to house life and knowledge- that had been ripped away from us. Picking up scraps of pages and trying to piece them together like an ill-pranked puzzle, while you'd ask me what I was doing. And I didn't either, which is why I stubbornly refused you answers.
My memory of those days is still intact, yet I cannot remember the shape of your face when I try to describe it, nor the exact hue of Hollyberry's favorite berry juice, nor the baritone of Dark Cacao's voice, nor the way Golden Cheese liked to hold her spear.
Forgive me for that.
One of those books listed a date. Tomorrow.
If I return, it'll be with the best of news, hopefully. Perhaps I'd feast with the fairies during their luxurious banquets, or finally clean my room. Perhaps I'd spend hours tending to the gardens while Elder Faerie taught me about these lands, and I'd return to write you letter after letter, words flowing bountifully, not like they flow now.
I'm lost, Pure Vanilla, and I have no friends to guide me back. I have only the Faeries, who, kind as they are, do not have a handle on my plights. I yearn for knowledge, Pure Vanilla- surely you must- you must understand that about me?
If I don't return, then assume I've been lost forever. My future is uncertain, but I'd rather Lady Luck take my fate and roll a dice for it rather than live with foggy views. I am willing to die for the cause. I will die for the cause.
You already knew this about me, the day I took my scraps and learned Dark Moon Magic.
I won't ask for you not to miss me- I assume you don't remember the arch of my brow, the way I laugh, or the hue of my dress, for even I cannot remember those, most days.
All I want is one chance, Vanilla, for an opportunity to prove for once that the satisfaction that brought back the cat exists, somewhere out there. I will wrench it from Earthbread, even if it's from its cold, dead hands. If the moon intends to keep it farther away, I suppose I will just have to learn to fly.
To you, Pure Vanilla Cookie, who believes in good.
Who believes in blindness.
Ignorance.
None of those are bad traits. Choosing to close your eyes and not see the light so you can properly bathe in it is the most admirable of traits, in my opinion.
I would like to send this letter to you.
And if it finds itself at the bottom of the sea, that is fine, for then the currents shall carry my message.
Don't forget me, I beg you.
It's a selfish ask, but I'm beyond the realm of caring by now. All I've known are selfish asks, and how many cookies suffered and died because of it? And yet you keep forgiving me. Why would you do that? I asked myself that every so often. Perhaps you're simply kind. A rarity, if you ask me.
Forgive your foolish, selfish friend, surely you could spare that for me, at least?
I'm sorry that I've only ever burdened you with my desire, but please, if you would just trust me on this, if you could just trust me for once because- oh, I swear to the Witches, this is going to work- if you just could forgive me and relieve me of my injustices one last time, then I swear, I'm going to make something right or die trying.
Bury me alongside what I love, if it comes to that. Bury me in the sweetest scents, bury me surrounded by the memories of the ghosts created by my hand who have since moved on. Bury me with you, but don't you dare die for me. I am certain, even now, that you have it within you to do that, because you, for the strangest of reasons, tolerated me. And I've never quite tolerated myself. I'm a writhing parasite trapped in a poor cookie's body, and now I'm to relieve my host of her tragedies because I don't deserve to walk the same earth as the Faeries, who've saved me time and time again. When I walk the realms of the dead, it shall be with the greatest displeasure, for I know I will never give you the truth you need and deserve. But selfishly, I will still like it there, because that's the only thing I am good at. Loving what has destroyed what I love.
I want those days where I could tell you anything. I want them back more than I can say. For even though I've put far too many words into these letters, they still convey nothing at all.