Chapter Text
Silent Salt Cookie immediately felt light overwhelming him. For a few minutes, he couldn't open his eyes. Ideally, his helmet should have been blocking some of the light-
Oh. Oh no. Where was his helmet?
Still worried about his eyesight, he felt around blindly. All he felt was grass, and after a few moments, he resorted to covering his face with his cape. The edges that were once tattered felt smooth, and it gave him a reminder of where he probably was.
What would he face? Some sort of judgement? Eternal suffering, the same thing he would have been sentenced to had he not made his choice? More importantly, what had he become? Was he a fallen being forced into the likeness of the Salt, the Emissary he once was?
He heard someone approaching him, the soul calling his name. He covered his face, even from underneath the cape, and felt the scars across his dough. He needed that helmet. He would not continue to scare and terrorize Cookies in this land beyond life.
"Silent Salt Cookie...?" White Lily Cookie asked, kneeling next to him.
"I'm alright," Silent Salt Cookie replied. He winced hearing his own voice, the higher pitch almost sounding like a different Cookie entirely.
When he was first placed on Earthbread, he was far different than the Salt of Solidarity that others would come to know. He had long, flowing hair (almost like that of the Sugar) and his voice was no deeper than that of Salt Cellar Cookie. He hated it, and eventually, he cried towards the skies that he wished he'd been like the Herald and the Fount. It would always be obvious in his name as an Emissary, though; they had purposes, he had an ingredient like the Flour and the Sugar.
The gods did not respond. They had left a long time before then. He took matters into his own hands. He grabbed his sword by the blade and shortened his icing, and to hide to features of his dough, he swore to never take his helmet off again.
He waited for the generation of Cookies remaining to crumble. Cookies tended to do that, after all. Then the Salt of Solidarity was Lord Commander instead of Lady Commander. It seemed simple. They would take his word, for they respected him in a way he often felt he was undeserving of. However, Cookies ask questions.
The first Cookie (who, despite everything, still insisted on him being referred to as a Cookie by companions) who had treated him with respect was Elder Faerie Cookie. He had never kept him waiting, and he had never asked any questions. It was no wonder the Salt ended up...
Well, in any case, Elder Faerie Cookie had tasked the finest blacksmiths with creating a new helmet for the Salt, one which would make his voice match the rest of him. And that helmet meant everything to the Salt, and even now, to Silent Salt Cookie. To have lost it would be horrifying.
"I need..." Silent Salt Cookie began, taking a shaky breath as he spoke. Even his breath sounded... wrong. It was too high up, too smooth. "I need my helmet. Do you... see it anywhere...?"
"I'll look, don't worry," White Lily Cookie replied. "I... I'm sorry this is happening. I know I probably wasn't supposed to know about this, at least not in this way..."
"It's alright, I dealt with it for centuries," Silent Salt Cookie said. "It's more the dough underneath I'm worried about. And the fact that Elder Faerie Cookie had it made for me."
"Ah! There you are," White Lily Cookie commented to herself. "I thought that was a rock."
Silent Salt Cookie heard the Dawnbringer pick something up. He sighed to himself, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of relief. He held out his hands, and the minute she placed the helmet there, he pulled it under the cape and put it on.
"Thank you," Silent Salt Cookie muttered. It was truly his voice. He repeated himself more clearly. "Thank you so much, White Lily Cookie. It seems I am in your debt."
"Please, I was just helping you out," White Lily Cookie replied. "Now, where exactly are we...?"
Silent Salt Cookie finally opened his eyes. It was a cross between the Faerie Kingdom and the Garden of Delights, but truly, every part of Earthbread could be seen somewhere. Further down a sugar road, Cookies were playing music and shopping at a market.
"You look different," he remarked. White Lily Cookie giggled, looking back at Silent Salt Cookie.
"You look WAY different," she said. "It's less you and more Salt of Solidarity, but there's a lot of purple. Come look over here, there's a pond I was looking into."
Silent Salt Cookie followed her, and when she gestured toward a small body of water, he looked down. His helmet had the shape of his corruption, but it was clean as if it were the Salt's. His cloak wasn't worn, his armor was polished, yet he still bore many traits of who he was now. The combination of teal and purple proved to work quite well.
In the center of it all, however, was what resembled a Soul Jam. It was translucent; was it really there, or was it representing what the essence of both his and White Lily Cookie's power had mixed into? It was, however, facing upwards as if it were the Light of Solidarity. It didn't make him feel happy; unlike the other Beasts, he knew he had lost his power for a good reason. He wasn't terribly upset, though. He had the same Soul Jam as White Lily Cookie now. They were equals.
However, it seemed some Cookies had noticed them. The whispers grew as the crowd did, and Silent Salt Cookie stood back. Most of them were gasping over White Lily Cookie; she had been a hero, after all. But some older, wiser souls were looking at Silent Salt Cookie.
"I knew the Salt was real," one of them whispered to a friend. "Who's crazy now, huh?"
One of the Cookies between the two crowds seemed preoccupied, though. Silent Salt Cookie looked at them, and they seemed to remember what they were going to say.
"Has someone told his Majesty?" the Cookie asked.
"He probably already knows," another replied. "He's been watching through the veil closely as of late. He cannot rest until he's sure that-"
"Cookies of the Faerie Kingdom!" a Cookie in armor yelled above the crowd. It wasn't Elder Faerie, but it was likely one of his most treasured warriors. "The Dark Enchantress is no more!"
There was no cheers at first. Just a stunned silence. The Cookies stared at White Lily Cookie, then back at the Cookie who had announced the news.
"Cookies? What is this commotion by the Field of Souls?" a voice asked. Silent Salt Cookie and White Lily Cookie looked at each other for a moment. White Lily Cookie mouthed 'you first.' "There could be souls from the Battlefield in Beast-Yeast arriving in large groups any minute now."
The crowd began to part, a path forming towards Silent Salt Cookie from Elder Faerie Cookie. Elder Faerie's eyes widened, taken aback. Silent Salt Cookie took a step toward him, looking back up to see if he backed away. He didn't. The Commander took another step. Elder Faerie Cookie relaxed. Before Silent Salt Cookie could step again, the King crashed into him in a way that had to have been painful.
"My dear Salt," Elder Faerie Cookie whispered, hugging Silent Salt Cookie. "Oh, how I have missed this... your hushed visits, the flowers you would pick from the garden yet I would take as if you grew them from your bare hands..."
Elder Faerie Cookie smiled. Silent Salt Cookie had seen him smile dozens of times, yet even White Lily Cookie seemed taken aback.
"Yet... White Lily Cookie planned for you to be alongside the Ancient Heroes..." the Faerie King said, his smile fading away.
"Shadow Milk Cookie almost harnessed my power for himself," he replied. "It was better I crumbled than allowed for him to become unfathomably powerful by wielding the five Soul Jams."
"Last I had seen, you had a pretty good upper hand against him," Elder Faerie Cookie said.
"We will talk about myself later," Silent Salt Cookie finished. "I cannot monopolize your attention."
Elder Faerie Cookie stepped back. 'Later,' he mouthed, though his expression shifted when he saw White Lily Cookie. He ran towards her and she ran back. They had only been away from each other for a year or two, yet White Lily Cookie had been unconscious for so long, and before that she had been at the banquet.
Most of the words were hushed, but Silent Salt Cookie could make out a few things. There was the word 'love,' because of course Cookies couldn't spend more than a few moments without thinking of it. He heard his own name a few times, Dark Enchantress somewhere in there, Pure Vanilla Cookie and Shadow Milk Cookie... all while they embraced each other as the Salt of Solidarity and Elder Faerie Cookie had done all the same eons ago.