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A soft breeze passed over the Silver Kingdom, swaying the leaves of its many trees. Some of them were loosened by its force, and subsequently swayed down from their branches. Some landed gently on the grass below, while others fell above some of the kingdom's many inhabitants as they went about their day.
White Lily Cookie didn't mind it, already used to the feeling from her many travels across Earthbread. It was peaceful, familiar, and normally brought a sense of calm to her.
Unfortunately, this was not one of those cases.
"Is there something on your mind?"
The white haired cookie snapped back to reality and turned to face the owner of the voice who stood beside her; Pure Vanilla Cookie, the former ruler of the Vanilla Kingdom… and her husband.
Even after all these years , the fact that there would come a time where they both could be called partners was surreal to her. She sometimes wondered if Pure Vanilla sometimes felt the same, even if he'd been the one who'd confessed first. And yet she didn't mind it. Not at all.
The other cookie held a look of concern on his face, the eye on his seeing staff narrowed in a similar expression.
"I- Yes, there's something that's bothering me," she confessed. "Have you seen Vanilla Lily anywhere today?"
Pure Vanilla's eyes opened, then he shook his head. "No, I have not. And you?"
White Lily shook her head.
Normally by this time of the day, their daughter would be out and about in the kingdom, either taking care of her little garden or studying the many books saved on the Faerie Library. However, no sign of her presence had been found in either spots, and when questioned none of the faeries citizens had claimed to catch even a glimpse of her white, braided hair.
"I sent some guards to her room to see if she's inside," she went on. "I doubt she's gone out outside the Kingdom without telling us first, but… It's strange that none of us have seen her thus far, don't you think so?"
Pure Vanilla placed a hand on her shoulder. "I do," he offered a little smile. " but let's wait for the guards to come back before assuming the worst, alright?"
The red eyed cookie nodded; his words didn’t quite soothe her nerves, but she still felt glad for his comfort. Just then, the familiar flapping of faerie wings was heard, and two Faerie Knights gracefully landed in front of them. The pair checked their expressions; there was a mixture of relief and concern in their faces.
White Lily stepped forward. "Did you find her?"
"Yes, White Lily Cookie," one of the guards nodded. "She's still inside her room, just as you suggested."
The cookie's dough relaxed with relief. So she just hasn't come out yet. Though that brought up another concern.
"And how is she?" her husband asked.
"We tried to ask, but she just said that she was alright and told us to tell you as such," the other faerie and their daughter's former babysitter, Silverbell, answered, "We wanted to go inside and see if she was telling the truth, but she insisted that we didn't open the door and look at her."
The older pair exchanged a glance.
Remaining inside her room, not wanting to be seen by other cookies …
Understanding dawned on both of them, comforting and distressing at once. "Very well. Tell everyone we'll be checking up on her." White Lily said.
Silverbell and the guard nodded, and as soon as they were gone, the two Ancients made their way towards their daughter's room. It appeared that it was one of "those" days
Vanilla Lily was a chipper cookie, carrying herself with a happiness and optimism similar to the one of her dad's. Even the fact that she was incapable of using magic like most cookies didn't discourage her. That didn't mean she was infallible, however. Like any other cookie - like themselves, despite what any superficial assessment of them would say - she had her own insecurities. Sometimes, despite her best attempts, those were enough to overcome her usual cheerfulness and confidence like a cake monster ripping its claws into a cream sheep.
The biggest of her insecurities was about her dough. Not even about the fact that she couldn't use magic due to how little life powder she had, but more so about how she looked. Even in her younger days, back when she couldn't even find a name to what was affecting her, it was very apparent that she had a disdain for looking at herself and wearing any clothing that exposed too much of her dough for her and everyone else to see.
Most days it didn't impede her , and she was able to go around her day with everyone none the wiser to anything that might be wrong with her. A compliment to her appearance may bring the slightest of grimaces, but nothing more.
On the days that it got too much to handle, on the other hand….
"How bad do you think it is?" White Lily wondered as they both treaded down a silver staircase.
"If she hasn't even gone out in all these hours, then it must be the direst case so far," Pure Vanilla said, the expression on both his face and his seeing staff tinged with a direness that she herself shared.
Usually in those occasions, their daughter could still bring herself to go out and about to pick a snack or two up, as long as she didn't actually have to go outside the silver walls and they and Silent Salt were the only cookies present to see her. But to think it was bad enough that she couldn't do so… the implications were clear, and fueled their desire to reach her as soon as possible.
Finally, after getting down and turning a few corners, they reached the door leading to Vanilla Lily's room. They slowed their steps and paused, listening. They could faintly hear the sound of their daughter's voice, but the sound was too muffled by the wood for them to make out her words.
White Lily stepped forwards and knocked on the door. There was a yelp followed by a stuttering. "Wh-who is it?"
"It's alright, Vanilla Lily. It's just us," she reassured her daughter.
"We just wanted to see where you'd been," continued Pure Vanilla.
A beat passed. "O-oh. Right, right," Vanilla Lily's voice murmured. "Mister Silverbell asked something similar too…"
The pair of Ancient cookies exchanged another glance. Their daughter didn't sound sick, but they could tell she wasn't completely fine either. Her voice sounded tired, stressed…
"Do you mind if we come in?" her husband asked.
"What- I- Wait! Wait! One second!"
There came the sounds of frantic footsteps and items being shuffled around, which only exacerbated White Lily's concern. Did she also neglect cleaning her own room?
After a moment, the noise ceased. "Okay! Y-you can come in now!"
The white haired cookie turned the door handle, and both she and Pure Vanilla stepped inside, closing the door behind them. And what they saw… it was just as they feared.
Their daughter's room, usually organized despite all the scrolls and books she tended to scatter about, was a mess. Whatever attempt at organizing the cookie had been done was not enough to hide the scattered papers and potion bottles littering the floor, the open cabinets and shelves with hastily placed clothes and fabrics within.
Sat up on an equally messy bed was Vanilly Lily, and not even the fact that all but her face was hidden in a thick blanket hid how disheveled she was. Her braided hair was a tangled mess from the root to its violet faded tips, her yellow and magenta eyes, usually full of life, were dull and had eyebags under them. Her normally tan dough was pale and dirty.
And on the blanket, dried by the air, lay red stains of-
"Vanilla Lily!" Both of her parents gasped in horror , rushing to their daughter's side.
"Wha- Ah, that." the cookie muttered as the two checked the jamstain and then her.
Her flat, almost unconcerned tone in spite of it all didn't help matters.
"What happened?" Pure Vanilla asked.
"Did you get hurt?" White Lily followed.
Vanilla Lily clutched her blanket tighter and lowered her head, but not before her mother caught her cringing with a wince.
"S-sort of," she eventually admitted, voice barely above a whisper. "I.. I was trying something out and got cut. B-But it's fine though!" she reassured. "It wasn't that deep, and I managed to bandage myself so-"
"With what?" her mother asked. There were no signs of bandages in her room, and unless Vanilla Lily had gotten out at some point, there was also no way to get them unless she asked someone to do so.
The cookie didn't answer, turning her eyes away from them.
Pure Vanilla took a deep breath and asked. "Where exactly did you get cut?"
His hands automatically reached for the blankets, but their daughter tensed and reeled back, clutching the fabric tighter against her body and shaking her head.
The pair looked at one another. Right.
"Vanilla Lily," her dad started, tone firm and gentle at the same time. "We know you don't want anyone to look at you right now, but please let us check on your wound. At the very least, show us the place where you got injured and nothing else."
Their daughter lifted her gaze slightly, still hesitant.
Thinking of something, White Lily sat beside her and lay a hand on her back. "Here; Try and focus on me while your dad checks your wound ," she suggested. "That way, you don't have to look at your dough while he examines you. How does that sound?"
Vanilla Lily looked at them both, considering. Finally, after a beat of hesitation, the cookie sighed and, swallowing down a wince, pulled out one of her arms from under the blanket.
"Thank you," she murmured. Her daughter didn't respond, just leaned against her. She gave her a smile, then shifted her attention to her arm.
Just like they'd expected, what she had curled around her dough were not any bandages, but instead a handful of fabric. Pure Vanilla's fingers caressed it with practiced carefulness, then slowly peeled away the makeshift bandages. When he was done and laid the fabric to the side, White Lily did her best to suppress a grimace. Sure enough, there were several cuts across her arm. More distressing was the fact that these were no random cuts; White Lily could see from the way they were shaped, how close they were, that they were not caused by a mere accident. Pure Vanilla, with his years of tending to all sorts of patients and ailments, could recognize that as well.
Her husband's lips curled into a frown, his thumb gracing over the marks. "Vanilla Lily, sweetie, just what exactly were you trying to do?"
"I…" their daughter tensed and lowered her head, not wanting to meet their gaze.
The two gave her a moment to gather the confidence to answer them, and focused instead on tending to her. The soft glow of healing magic came from Pure Vanilla's hand as he got to work, while White Lily's fingers treaded through one of her daughter's braids in an attempt to fix it up.
Finally, just as the wounds in her arm glowed and started to close themselves, Vanilla Lily spoke. "I was trying to test the resistance of my dough."
Their heads snapped up. "What?"
" I already knew I was frail, we… all cookies are, really,” she confessed. White Lily couldn’t help but notice how she excluded herself when saying that last part, but her daughter kept talking before she could think to comment on it. "Still, I wanted to test how frail my dough really was, if it was somehow more durable than I thought," If it was as durable as I truly wanted it to be, was left unspoken. "I just didn't expect to hurt that much, nor that it would make so much of a mess, heh…"
Again, the slightly nervous , yet almost nonchalant way that she described what was essentially self harm, sent a shiver down their doughs.
White Lily opened her mouth, intending to protest about how she was treating herself and what she had done. But then she remembered her younger days, back when she was beginning her goal to try and find a way to help cookiekind. How many experiments she had done, how many of them - successful or not - she had done on herself regardless of the consequences or what other cookies might have thought.
She really did take after me, she thought with a pang of guilt, closing her mouth. Did she really have the right to judge her when she'd certainly done the same so many times herself? The bandages on her own hands were proof of that.
Sensing what she was likely thinking, Pure Vanilla took hold of one of her hands and spoke for them both. "Vanilla Lily… while I can somewhat understand why you wanted to do that… that's no way to treat oneself, even if you are not comfortable with your body."
"And you should have come to us to heal your wounds when you were done," White Lily managed to add. "Or at least had called for one of the faerie doctors to do so."
"I know," their daughter said "I just… didn't want to worry you…" And yet the damage was already done.
"I get it," Pure Vanilla went on, "However, there's no need to hide such damage just because of what our reactions would be. And as you are very aware, there's a risk of wounds like this can get worse if left unattended. We were already worried about you, and such a scenario would have worried us even more."
Their daughter didn't say anything , but there was no need for words. White Lily could sense the shame she was feeling at being found out like this, for her own issues to cause such worry from her loved ones.
Eventually they would have to have a talk about this and how she should allow herself to be more open with what precisely was bothering her, what exactly was causing her to experience so much discomfort in her own dough to the point that she was willing to do this to herself. Considering her current mood however, having such a conversation right now was far from appropriate.
It wasn't long before her husband's healing magic sealed their daughter's cuts and her dough returned to her usual color, with no scars left as proof of her actions.
"There. Feel any better?" Pure Vanilla asked.
"A little," Vanilla Lily said, briefly glancing at her arm before just as quickly tearing her eyes away from it. Her dad smiled.
"Now, have you eaten anything since you woke up?" her mother asked, praying that it was the case and that Vanilla Lily hadn't completely also neglected herself like that-
Much to their collective relief , Vanilly gave a nod. "Some jellies in the morning, but aside from what, nothing more."
White Lily hummed in thought. "I see," she then stood up from the bed, Pure Vanilla soon following the motion. "We'll look for something for you to eat then. Please wait he-"
"Wait!" Suddenly, almost urgently, their daughter grabbed a part of her dress. Her mother looked at her and, seemingly realizing what she had just done, the younger cookie looked away in embarrassment. "Could you, uh, stay here? Please?"
Oh.
"Of course," she reassured. She turned to her husband. "Go on without me," her eyes gazed back at the jamstain in the bed sheet. "And please bring in some new blankets, too,"
Pure Vanilla nodded, and with that he stepped out of the room, but not before closing the door so that no passing cookie could glimpse inside the room.
That left the two of them alone.
With a sigh, White Lily stepped into the restroom and came back with some tissues. She sat in front of her daughter, took one of them, and began cleaning the dough under her eyes, feeling a little amused as the cookie made a face at the rough motions.
"Now dearie, once your dad comes back and you get a proper meal, you need to take a proper bath, alright?" she told her daughter, caressing her cheek. "It doesn't have to be long or anything. Just something that may help quell your anxieties for the moment and also clean any remaining jam in your dough."
"Okay, mom," Vanilla Lily said, her lips finally curling upwards, if only slightly.
The sight made White Lily relax a little, though just like the day's breeze, it wasn't enough to completely dissipate her own worry. They still didn't know what exactly made their daughter so insecure in her own dough, and though she provided answers that gave a hint as to why that was, they still weren't able to pinpoint the cause of it.
So until the day Vanilla Lily finally gathered the courage to elaborate to them about it, and they could find a way to properly help her , they would continue to support her on days like this.
It was the least the two of them could do.