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It was over.
Everything. All of it.
“My dear friends… Everyone…”
No more spells to cast, no more staff to wield.
“Those countless lights of different hues shining in your hearts…”
No more fighting, no more aching. The day had come — her day. It was over.
“I hope… I hope the light I’ve kindled will remain in this world…”
She could stop. No more searching for answers that led cookies to their deaths, no more prolonging a life that only seemed to bring destruction.
“May our world we share… shine forevermore…”
No more failure, no more guilt, no more regrets.
She thought she’d be happier than this.
It isn’t her dough, or anything real. She can feel her body falling apart, and it is as excruciating as she had imagined. It is worse than any pain she has felt before. Something is squeezing her head, scratching at her eyes from the inside. She can see her dough coming off in flakes, stolen by the whirling winds like measly petals.
It hurts. It hurts. It really hurts.
But the pain is not in her dough.
“No…! White Lily Cookie, please, no…!”
She smiles for what might be the last time. Swallowing tastes of sand, breathing feels like a downpour. But she smiles. She smiles; she smiles, she wants to smile forever, she wants to die smiling, she wants to die, she wants to smile so hard that the rest of her body falls into pieces right at this moment, she wants—no—she needs—
“Pure Vanilla Cookie…”
“It was you who taught me to see the beauty of our world, to see the love… even when I kept away from everyone… simply by… being here…”
She wants, she aches, she has to say it—
“Thank you… for bringing me back to the sun.”
She can no longer smell her own jam.
“For the courage to seek forgiveness…”
“Those precious moments… were my guiding light… Even on the darkest nights, they helped me find the way…”
She has wanted to say this for so long, for so, so long – but she was a coward. Shy, feeble, horrible little White Lily Cookie. Destroying all that she touched. Preaching freedom and yet never truly freeing herself of these words. Freeing her dearest friend of this ambiguity, this endlessness between them. Refusing to admit that she ached to hold him closer, refusing to touch him, besmirch him, taint him.
Someone is laughing at her from above, surely. All these secrets that were to be taken to the very end, all these words that were meant to hang eternally in the fog, never reaching the ground. All of her conviction is gone. It was over—it is over.
And so she smiles, and she keeps smiling, even as her body burns and her jam writhes and her mind pleads for the end. She can no longer see anything at all. But he’s there, and she knows he’s there, and somehow, that’s all it takes for her heart to settle. To accept that her vision is gone.
White Lily Cookie smiles, because she loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, and she’s sorry, and for the first time in her disdainful life, her mind is too weak to reel it in. She feels the wind gnawing on her jaw, climbing up to her lips, clashing against her chest.
“What a relief… to finally tell you this…”
She loves him, she loves him—
“My… one and… one and only…”
She’s sorry, she’s so sorry, and she loves him, but her mouth is almost gone, and only the ghost of her love remains.
“My precious…” My dearest, my most beloved—
Pure Vanilla Cookie.
…
Sound was first. The raucous laughter of water crashing against stone, the cheery whistle of colorful meadows home to only the kindest critters. The gentle song of waves brushing against a sandy shore. The low murmur of trees dancing in the wind.
There was talking as well. Voices that felt like spoonfuls of sunlight, voices she did not recognize, that had her realizing that there was something to recognize in the first place. Words that she somehow knew were too solemn, too heavy. Giggles and chuckles that felt too tearful, too burdened.
The more these voices spoke, the more bereaved they sounded, and the more she started to question why there was sound at all. Who was there? Who was she?
But perhaps because it was so soon after the end, perhaps because it was her processing these sounds – her frail mind, her weak conscience, her tattered memory… Perhaps out of her own fragility, or the whims of some other force, it was not enough.
Three days after White Lily Cookie’s death, the wind won, and for another year, it was over.
…
Smell came next. Not a feast’s worth, not a market, not even a tiny home. It was one singular scent, so overbearing and thick that it often clogged her ears. There were no hands to cover, and no face either, for that matter. There was no escaping it. Worst of all, even with her limited mental faculties, she was still too aware of it.
The smell was acrid. Rusty, metallic, dirt-soaked, and unfortunately incredibly rich. Practically affluent with how it seemed to suppress any other essence, not allowing even the tiniest one to exist alongside it. So horrible was the smell that she started to think again. It was worse than the heaps of dead cookies, worse than the puddles of spilled jam.
It wasn’t even anything the smell of all those crumbs that had been shed, the ones that had mixed with the soil, the ones that had bound themselves to Crispia’s air. How could a smell this terrible exist?
Without beautiful melodies to soothe her mind, the unravelling was quick. What started as memories of the battle morphed into memories of the war, of her complicity, of her fight, of her friends that she failed and the ally she never truly thanked. Of the lives that were lost to her, of all the cookies that warned her, that she didn’t listen to. Memories of dough burning, dough crumbling—that horrible, horrible smell—
“I-I miss you.”
...
…How cruel.
“I miss you so much, I… I…”
My precious, my dearest, my most beloved—
“I love you...”
There’s the sound of a hitched breath, someone choking on tears, and a sudden burst of acidity and opulence that finally clicks everything into place. And suddenly, she knows too much. She’s back here, not all but too-knowing, too feeble, too weak to face the weight of what she’s become. It’s too much, she can’t, she’s sorry—
“How do I live without you?”
A year and two weeks following White Lily Cookie’s death, rotting vanilla fumes won, and for the rest of the year, it was over.
…
Then came the body.
It was a strange thing, going from drifting crumb to standing on two feet again. It didn’t hurt. But it felt like it should have. It felt too easy, and she said as much the second her mind fit into place again. Everything felt too new, too healed. Too light.
This wasn’t her body, nor was it a body made for someone like her. A foolish, foolish cookie with zero sense, zero idea of what she was doing.
If not for this innate feeling of wrongness, perhaps she would have tried to search for the source of the birdsong echoing in her ears and noticed that her eyes were of no use. But she was busy.
Because White Lily Cookie didn’t deserve this. This… how can they give her this? What if she loses it again? What if she hurts her friends, gets even more jam on her hands. She isn’t supposed to be here. She crumbled.
She made a sacrifice, she…. Why was she here? She doesn’t want to be here. This doesn’t belong to someone like her. She chose this, she wanted this, she wanted to fade away, free the world of all the trouble she brings.
Two years, two weeks, and ten minutes after her death, White Lily Cookie claws at her dough until she crumbles, and for another three years, it is over.
…
She wanted to write them letters at least, but she could never find the right words. And so she made up her mind, told herself she would be brave and tell them in person, apologize and repent like someone mature, someone worthy. She dreamed of it so many times. She could taste the dream every time she held her staff or fixed her hair, felt it tickling the hem of her dress in the quiet of night.
But then the plan was made. It was a shock, but it wasn’t difficult. She was already familiar with death, maybe too familiar. Even outside of actual experience, she was not a stranger to her mind, no matter how often it seemed to quarrel with her heart.
She knew very well the sort of thoughts that brought her comfort, and those weren’t thoughts of life.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She had ended the war, ended herself. There was no need for her existence. There was no need for her to come back. It wouldn't fix whatever was wrong with her. She was pathetic, dangerous—a danger to all her friends, to everyone in Earthbread, to the skies themselves as well as the sea.
White Lily Cookie was meant to die. She has accepted it. Agreed, even.
So why can’t she stay dead?
…
What purpose is there in living? Hasn’t she lived enough? Look where that got her. Look at what she did.
Why can’t she die? Why can’t she…
…
She comes back again and again. Whatever power is responsible for this seems to have a fondness for this glade, or clearing, or whatever else. Again and again, she hears the same chirping, smells the same nectar, and has a gust of wind or two kiss her skin before her mind becomes an all-consuming void that she needs to escape.
She has learned nothing, tried nothing – if she were in the mood, she would maybe say that the complete darkness that comprises her vision was the reason for her lack of curiosity. But any patience she might have been known for has worn thin, because White Lily Cookie wants to die.
…
She shouldn’t have said it. Hearing him cry like that—hearing them speak like that to one another. So tense, so… so unlike anything they ever were, even after all that she did. She should have kept it in. She hurt all of them. She should have just held on for longer, long enough to convince them she’s just running away again, typical White Lily Cookie antics and all.
But time has proven her a fool. They would have figured it out eventually.
And in the end, nothing could have been better than dying to honesty. Dying to truths she should have said so much earlier. They deserved to hear it, and she owed it to them to be honest. It was a good death. Not blissful, not painful. But as good as death could be.
…
… Maybe it might have been nice though.
Living.
…
Today is another day of death. The chirping, the nectar, the wind, all those and more surrounding her and filling out the glade.
But today, she thinks before she claws. She isn’t sure why, and she doesn’t care to know.
She thinks of them. The beautiful gowns and suits of the cookies who served who had danced and cheered for their rule. The impeccable, almost radiant architecture that filled every street. Wandering was fun. She was there to witness Dark Cacao weep over his newly-baked son, had the pleasure of watching him stumble over his words after the child kept trying to pull out her hair.
Her and Hollyberry met by accident one season, almost coming to blows. But they recognized each other soon enough and the solitary journey for an ancient tome hidden in an ancient ravine she had planned was reshaped into a months-long vacation in the nearby villages.
She came to the Golden Cheese Kingdom only a few times, because the air was very harsh on her skin. But when she was there, it was as a guest of honor. She hates to compare, because all of them are lovely, but there was no festival like a festival in the land of Abundance. The warmth, the laughter – it was unlike anything else in Crispia.
She wasn’t always so distant – back in those times, she was more reasonable about her pursuit of knowledge. Why she couldn’t stay like that, she doesn’t know.
Pure Vanilla sent her an invitation weeks in advance. Mere weeks ahead of the ceremony, likely being pushed and pulled in every direction, he still managed to get the letter to her. It was neatly written but not at all formal. Like with everything about him, there was a light to it. So powerful was the effect that she smiled, even when reading the part about hundreds of guests attending.
Oh, she loved him. She truly loved him, even in those moments where she felt confused. Even on those days that she pushed him away, she wanted him, because she was selfish.
Even in her last moments, all she did was make him cry.
Something in her mind cries out in time with her heart. It takes seconds, nowadays, to lose all of her jam.
…
Five years, four months, one week and two days after the war, a faerie follows a butterfly into a moss-filled clearing. He hears birdsong, smells nectar, and feels the wind push him forward. It has been like this for far too long, the locals say. There is too much air, they say, and we cannot breathe.
The knight thinks them mad. Yet he allows the wind to guide him all the same. And in the center of the clearing, he watches ghastly clumps of dough pile on the grass, piling and piling until the hands plucking them are gone too, and Mercurial Knight can almost pretend he hasn’t seen anything at all.
…
He tells no one.
The cookies here are still grieving – it would be cruel to even let such rumors begin to stir when he himself has no idea what he saw. If only their King was still here… but perhaps it is for the better that he never learned the fate of this realm.
He thinks a lot about it over many days, getting no sleep at all. But even after the war, the Faerie Kingdom was private. There is more trade, even exchanges of knowledge or shared council every once in a while. Some cookies, like Sugarfly, are allowed in as refuges from the war. But for the most part, the faeries are alone. He cannot leave his station to go seek someone out.
As his mind degrades from the insomnia, Mercurial Knight starts to think more and more about talking. Cookies look at him strangely when he stands at his post, and colleagues' eyes linger too long on his face when he’s forced to speak with them.
He doesn’t know if it was her. And if it was her, then it was some kind of remnant of her soul, not her actual self. And if it was a part left behind in the tragedy of her death, then it must have some sort of rules to it. Rules that he has not even the slightest clue about. He’s not even sure if there will be anything else, if he isn’t just getting his hopes up.
Yes, the wind hasn’t faded. Yes, the wind is getting closer to the palace. Yes, the wind is getting strong enough to disrupt the flight of faeries. But was that enough to be worth risking the aching hearts of so many? Including his own?
This was White Lily Cookie – hopelessly awkward, stumbling over her words, holding her staff tightly as their late King answered her questions. The cookie that apologized profusely to a bush she fell into like it was a living being, the cookie that had helped fix contaminated reservoirs and drought-afflicted lands. Who experimented with spells in her free time until she found one that could clean his armor more quickly.
A parting gift, she had said, referring to the hastily scribbled instructions. Not to herself, though everyone else wished she would.
“Take care, Mercurial Knight Cookie.”
The memory of that voice is a haunting in and of itself, one that had started to fade. One that was now back and stronger than ever.
He worries about all this and more until Silverbell stomps up to him as he’s attempting to retire for the night, appearing out of nowhere with the most gentle expression Mercurial Knight has ever seen. His weapon feels featherlight in his palms.
“What’s wrong with you, Mercurial Knight Cookie? You’ve been ignoring me all week! Aren’t you my best friend?”
He means it as a joke. Obviously. Clearly. Silverbell isn’t mad at him.
Mercurial Knight takes a deep breath… and promptly bursts into tears.
…
Her precious, her dearest, her beloved—
…
“You saw her…? You really saw…?”
Mercurial Knight nods, because he doesn’t trust himself to speak. He’s still crying, still shivering. Everything that should settle his dough only makes it ache more fiercely.
Silverbell should never look this old, but he does. His wings have stopped fluttering, and any trace of that earlier joy is gone. He feels the need to apologize, or find a spell to turn back time to before he embarrassed himself.
“... Thank you for trusting me,” Silverbell says instead. There is a haunted sort of determination filling out his eyes, “I’ll help you. O-Or I’ll try, at least.”
Pride be damned, and may caution forever be tossed to the wind.
Mercurial Knight lunges, trapping his friend in an inescapable embrace. Silverbell nearly topples over, but he doesn’t fall in the end. Laughter fills his senses, and for the first time in a long time, he feels like the colors of the world might regain their strength after all.
…
“Are you not tired…?”
The question is gentle, or maybe simply weak. Regardless, her hand tightens around the crumb she just tore from her thigh, and something catches in her throat.
“Over and over again… you have faded away. Is it not a sign that you keep coming back?”
How can she die again and again at her own hand, yet find herself close to tears at the sound of a foreign voice? If the moment she discovered the fate of cookies wasn’t always fresh on her mind, she would think herself mad. She would tell herself that these are hallucinations, delusions, maybe just a natural part of some purgatory she had stumbled into.
But she could never forget that day.
“You feared death, yet you fought…”
…This is not the voice of madness.
“And now, you fear living…”
“... yet you won’t fight?"
There is a chasm. A resonating silence only disturbed by the occasional swish of wind cutting into her cheek.
She hears leaves rustling far above her head, hears the tiny snap when they break away from branches. Feels the air shift when they move past her face as though they could possibly be strong enough to bend the world to their will. They’re feeble, frail, horribly weak.
…But would it really be better if there were no leaves at all?
…
Five years, four months, and almost four weeks after the war, Silverbell follows Mercurial Knight into the woods, even though it was over, because what did “over” mean anyways?
…
She lies on her back. The dew of the glade makes her dough all soggy. But she has to stay like this. She hasn’t tried to stand this time, because her mind felt too heavy. Now, every thought feels almost featherlight. If she moves, the itch will return.
And she…
She wants to die a little later, this time.
Because Crispia, or Beast-Yeast — wherever she might be, it applies all the same – is beautiful. It stirs something in her chest just to think of it, makes her eyes ache with want she has never let herself feel since she first died in the glade.
The cookies, the forests, the deserts, and the seas. Everything, all of it, was irreplaceable. She never cherished it enough when she had the time. She was too busy with her books because she was a fool.
…Or maybe “fool” is harsh. It is not foolish to crave something greater. It is not foolish to be entranced by magic, or discovery, or the wisdom of the past. But she could have offered more praise. Let the aroma of blooming candy flowers sink into her just a little longer, taking more careful sips of tea to truly savor the taste. Held her friends’ doughs in her hands a little longer…
Looked at him more, so much that even in colorless afterlife, she could still see his face. Smiling at their friends, at his subjects, smiling at the coronation.
Smiling at her.
An old mantra rears its head, because she wants, oh, she wants so desperately just to—
Suddenly, blindness is unbearable. Suddenly, she hates it. She’s tired of clawing for what felt like eternity, and already tired of lying down.
She itches more than she ever has before, hands twitching at her sides, mind spasming with the urge to end it all. She’s tired of crying out of eyes that cannot see. So, so tired…
But she will live.
She died brave, and was reborn countless times as a coward. She was a shell of an already feeble cookie, the echo of a whisper that was long lost to the wind. She was a permanent stain on the story of Earthbread – weak, pathetic, curious, brilliant, sweet little—
“Wh… White Lily Cookie…!”
The gasp, like the voice itself, is all too familiar. A sun-hot panic seizes her entire being, burning away any traces of an itch, replacing it with her oldest friend — all-consuming yearning.
When did she decide that life meant nothing if it belonged to someone like her? When did she start to believe herself worthy of death? What made her think that the best escape from decades of tears was a sword to the chest, when all she ever wanted was a hug?
When did she decide that she despised herself more than she loved?
“...Silver… bell…?”
She wonders at which point she regained the ability to talk. Her voice sounds just as she remembers, even though her tongue curls so awkwardly around the words.
The moment she hears it, it’s too much. But before she can rise and sink her hands into her dough, something crashes into her with no decorum.
Wings flutter rapidly, sending chills up her exposed limbs. The charred frosting of her hair gets blown in every direction, and for the first time since she was but a crumb carried by the wind, White Lily Cookie feels incredibly self-aware.
What does she look like? How much of the dough has chipped away? Have her eyes changed? Has the dough she ripped off so mercilessly shifted. Does she look like her?
Her ears hurt from the strength of the sobs. Her body feels numb from all the extra weight. Every forgotten problem is coming back to her. New problems are already flooding her mind. It’s the worst she’s ever felt, probably.
“.... How have…. you been?”
The arms around her hold her even tighter, and a separate weight settles close to her side, reaching for her hand. Every weakness of her body and mind has doubled. Every strength of hers has faded. But what does it matter? It doesn’t matter.
She will live.
…
Five years, five months, and another minute or so after her death, White Lily Cookie finally stands.
She doesn’t have as much luck with walking, but it’s fine. Silverbell tries to help, but his arms are too numb, and his wings are equally tired. Mercurial Knight sat for hours on his knees, and cannot carry them both.
Every other step, one of them stumbles and sends the rest of them flying. They apologize to her again and again, but she doesn’t mind. It’s the most fun she’s ever had. She laughs like she’s never laughed before, again and again until finally, they are laughing with her. Until her laughter sounds like it belongs to her again.
They laugh together like bumbling fools all the way to the Faerie Kingdom. She is aware of how, deep down, her soul is hammering against her chest, and her jam is burning with an entirely new kind of fear. But when she trips right in front of the gates, stepping on a missing stone, it feels almost like being bathed in the light of the sun.
Her dough gains another set of bruises, and love — for Earthbread, for cookies, for him, for breathing — fills her chest. She wants, she aches. And she will have, Or at least she will try. There is so much to do, so much she needs to say. So many apologies she owes, so many embraces yet to be received. It’s nerve-wracking, it’s unbearable.
It’s the happiest she’s ever been.