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“White Lily, please… don’t leave me.” Pure Vanilla nestled one hand behind White Lily’s neck, already feeling her crumbs fall from her body and scatter beside his knees where he sat. Fear slowly but surely coursed through his body as he realised he was too late.
No. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
This wasn’t supposed to have ever happened.
White Lily deserved a happy ending. Not an end like this- crumbling to pieces in his arms, her remains scattered to the wind, and her soul laid to rest in a battlefield. No one deserved a fate like that- and especially not her.
A strangely peaceful smile took over her face as her eyes focused on him. “Thank you. My one and only… precious…” Her voice slowly faded as her body did, no longer able to speak as her neck crumbled.
He pulled her crumbling body closer to his chest, like he hoped if he proved to her that he loved her enough, he might change her fate, even if it was set in stone. “No… no! Please, no-!”
But nothing.
Her crumbs scattered in a small pile around him, leaving nothing behind but the flower she wore in her hair. Enchanted- a gift he’d given her all those years ago- to never wilt. He brought the small flower to his lips, not caring that he was sat in her crumbs. He didn’t want to move away from her. He didn’t want to ever move if he didn’t have to. Maybe he wouldn’t.
The Sugar Swan slowly approached, her face shifting from gentle kindness to sympathy, quickly realising who the cookie crumbs around him must’ve been. She placed a careful hand on his sunken shoulders, feeling how he shuddered from trying not to cry any more than he already was- and he was doing a terrible job at not crying.
“Not all hope is lost,” she said, almost a whisper in his ear. “Do not give in to doubt.”
He ran a mournful finger over the petals of the lily flower in his hands, taking a long moment to reply- he was listening, but his entire mind was busy scrambling to figure out how he would cope without her. Knowing there was no way he could hope she might one day return. He’d waited all that time after the Dark Flour War, waiting for the day they’d meet again- and he’d lost her again, so soon after they’d been reunited. He’d let her slip from his grasp before he’d even gotten the chance to tell her the truth. There was no ‘second chance’ for her this time.
“I know,” he said, letting a morose sign escape his lips. “The others still exist. But it’s not the same. I’ve never met someone I’ve loved quite as much as her. I don’t think I ever will.”
Sugar Swan made a strange expression- she looked… amused? Like he’d said something she’d found strangely funny- but that couldn’t be right, they were still in a battlefield in the remains of a crumbled cookie.
“That is true- but not what I meant.”
“What.? Then… what do you mean?”
His eyes finally left the flower, and he glanced up at her in confusion, confused on what she was referring to- like she was making some sort of inside joke he wasn’t in on.
Sugar Swan put one hand on the lily flower he was holding, silently asking him to give it to her, but he didn’t, and if anything began to hold it tighter, bowing his head deeper as he did, trying and failing not to let tears fall.
“I’m sorry- this- this is all I have left of her. You can’t- you can’t have it.” His voice kept breaking as he apologised, but her strange smile didn’t leave her face. He was still trying to figure out whether she was making fun of him or not.
“It’ll only be a moment. You may have it back.”
His eyes searched her face for any semblance of an explanation on why she wanted her flower- but came up empty. He supposed he’d have to let go eventually- and Sugar Swan would hardly steal it. She had no reason to.
Sugar Swan crouched down next to him, carefully pushing the crumbs of White Lily’s body into a pile. He watched her do this, trying to decide what to do first- either ask her what on Earthbread she was doing, messing around with a cookie’s corpse, or try to stop her.
“What… are you doing?” he eventually asked, glancing at the unreadable expression on her face with worry for what she was alluding to.
She sat down on her knees beside him. “You saw when I breathed life into those cookies…”
He didn’t hear what she said next, because upon hearing that, it clicked to him what she was doing- and tears quickly flooded back faster than he could even process what she’d just implied she was about to do.
“You’re- you- you’re bringing her back.?” He tried not to get his hopes up- it might not even work, she might be too far gone, she might not even be planning on reviving her, he told himself. But nothing stopped him from desperately yet silently pleading that he’d guessed correctly.
She nodded gently. “Unless you don’t want me to.?”
He didn’t need to answer her question- she already knew there was no way in anyone’s lifetime he’d ever say no to having her back. Even for a moment. Just one more moment longer to hold her in his arms, kiss her tenderly on the neck, and whisper into her ear how much he loved her.
A gentle pinkish glow surrounds the crumbs, but then suddenly stopped as Sugar Swan hesitated, turning to Pure Vanilla. He felt tears prick in his eyes again- why had she stopped? Had she decided it was a bad idea? Had she realised she couldn’t revive her? Had she ever even planned on doing so, and was just playing a cruel trick on him-?
“Would you help me?” she asked, looking slightly concerned at how he’d started crying again, not understanding the mental rollercoaster she’d inadvertently sent him on.
“Oh- right, yes of course.” He nodded quickly, hoping she hadn’t gotten the impression that there was any chance he had even the slightest doubts about doing this. Well, to be completely truthful, he did have some doubts- but he only doubted if this was even possible, not if he should or shouldn’t try. He couldn’t silence the voice in the back of his mind that insisted this would never work, that she was truly lost to him forever, and that he was just deluding himself after she had died into thinking he might get her back.
He pushed the voice to the furthest corner of his mind. He was getting her back. Nothing else mattered.
The pink glow returned, then lightened, gaining a slight yellowish tinge from Pure Vanilla’s own magic adding to the Sugar Swan’s and glowing brighter. The glow enveloped the crumbs, and the pile along with the lily slowly began to shift- the pieces seemed to float around like orange leaves in an autumn breeze. They swirled faster and faster around the two cookies, coming closer and closer together, glowing brighter and brighter and brighter until-!
The crumbs came together to form a cookie. A cookie with a white braid, a green dress, and an undying white lily flower in her hair.
The cookie slowly drifted down in front of them, the glow slowly retreating from their body. It was, unmistakeably, White Lily.
Pure Vanilla didn’t even dare touch her to wake her up for a moment, worried she might be so fragile that if he even brushed a gentle finger along her body, she’d break down back into crumbs again, and she’d be once again lost to him.
Sugar Swan lifted her slightly, and muttered something under her breath, too quietly for him to hear, and a strange red light shifted from on Sugar Swan’s hands to where in dug itself deep into White Lily’s heart.
“What-? What did you do to her?” Pure Vanilla asked breathlessly- he didn’t want the cost of White Lily's revival to be some painful curse having to be placed onto her like the dough cookies, but Sugar Swan didn’t answer, and only laid White Lily’s head on his lap.
“Once Dark Enchantress was defeated, I collected but a small fragment of her soul. I have embedded it within White Lily, and that allows her to exist, as both halves should’ve been. Within one cookie body. She no longer needs Dark Enchantress herself to exist to survive. Only that tiny fragment of her must exist in her heart. But do not worry. She will be fine,” Sugar Swan said, answering his question at the end before he even got the chance to ask it- his expression of concern must’ve given him away.
He felt his shoulders sink for the second time- though now, it was from relief, instead of mourning and the feeling of his heavy heart that had taken over the moment he’d felt that last particle of life energy fade from her body. “You mean… she’ll just be alive? There’s no ‘only for a few hours’ or ‘only if you constantly heal her forever’ to this, is there?”
Sugar Swan shook her head, which made him sigh audibly from further relief. “No. She won’t need you healing her constantly. Though I advise you do heal her now, just to be safe, as I was unable to retrieve all of her crumbs, and she may still be injured.”
Sugar Swan stood up, leaving him alone with White Lily. She must’ve realised he probably wanted to speak to her alone- to finish the confession he never got to confess even after all these years.
“White Lily, I- I love you. I’m sorry I never- never got the chance to tell you.” He pulled White Lily close to him, breathing in her familiar scent- he’d always loved it more than she’d ever believed he had, more than anyone else. She always tried to prove he didn’t actually like it, convinced it was too much. He’d never once thought that. Not once in the thousands of years since they’d met. He’d filled gardens with lilies in the hope to replicate it, but none ever came close to her. Maybe that was because he liked her more than he liked the scent of her, but he supposed that was all irrelevant now- he had her back.
“I love you too, Pure Vanilla,” She whispered, her voice barely audible. “I’m glad you told me.”
He pulled her closer, tighter, not wanting to ever have to let her go. “I love you more than you’ll ever know- more than I could ever tell you that I do.”
She shifted in his grip- he’d almost started squishing her- and slowly placed her lips on his, putting one hand behind his head to keep him still. Not that he’d ever try to move away from letting her kiss him. He’d waited for this moment ever since they’d left the academy- and before that, back when they’d hold hands over books and read to each other in the dead of night in the parts of the library no students were meant to venture to. When they’d skip their classes together to research topics their teachers didn’t dare to mention, shoulder to shoulder. When they’d adventured together, even before they’d met the others in that forest.
None of it felt real. He waited for the moment he’d wake up. When he’d stop deluding himself. But he didn’t. Because this was real.
“You came back to me, after all these years. I thought I’d lost you again,” Pure Vanilla said in a gentle tone, letting White Lily sit on her own, resting her head on one shoulder. He placed one hand around her waist, pulling her closer.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have another option. But.. I do now. And I know I’ll choose you this time.”