Chapter Text
The orderly nature of Earthbread and magic is perhaps everywhere, present in all corners of life. Magic was not an unusual thing to cookies imbued with life dust that fueled them. Nature and magic was the most integral part of the world, and upsetting that carefully crafted balance would guarantee misfortune.
It is since the beginning of time that the red velvet strings of fate were present. Every cookie is born with string on their fingers, leading them to their fated soulmate who is molded and shaped exactly to the ideals and comforts of each other. A perfect pair.
Like an actual string, the concept weaves its way through time and life, so sacred and protected, ensuring every cookie would end up with a soulmate of theirs.
But, like all good things in the Dessert Realm, it can be made the most rotten and putrid of all.
It was morning.
A greeting and reassurance that said, "it was finally over." The ending to the endless winter that was nighttime. Before of course, the next winter where Wedding Cake would be thrown back into the cycle of having that dream.
She had started having this dream a few months ago. After her 13th bake-day. And it had looked like this:
Wedding Cake would wake up in a foggy field of forget-me-nots, which were flowers that didn't bloom in the Creme Republic. Which was not inherently bad; after all, she loved flowers! But her brain would become addled with dizziness and grogginess, as if she could even feel more fatigued and oh so tired even when asleep!
With her head pounding and no way to dictate a body that was not her own, she would walk aimlessly across an endless field of flowers, a mirage of her own mind.
Her dough would step. One, two, three, four, five. And Wedding Cake..no. The vessel would give up and collapse into the field of flowers.
It was so abrupt! And then Wedding Cake would wake up and continue her day like normal. But to her, having no control of your body every night was the single most worse feeling in the world.
With no control of her body, the marionette surrenders herself to the hands of the dream world, repeating it over and over again. Until it is different.
____
With a single swoop of a hand, the vessel picked up a bunch of flowers, trying their best to crumple them. But it seemed that as the hands squeezed even harder, the flowers that were supposedly being contained would multiply, until the flora bursted from the hands, softly falling to the floor of the field, and merging with the other flowers once more in a display of resilience.
The vessel stepped to the right, turned its head in the direction it was going (or left?) and started walking, crushing more flowers beneath its feet, and creating more. The more the vessel suppressed the flowers, the more it flourished and bloomed.
Step. One, two, three, four, five. The vessel looked down at her feet, hearing a soft crunch of bone? flowers. Under her feet.
Wait.
WAIT!
__
!!
Wedding Cake heaved a deep breath in the cold thin air, feeling the clammy chill run down her sinuses. Cold? She was in the comfort of the room and not anywhere else-
She wildly took in her surroundings, her head spinning around her shoulders and she looked and saw..
Color blocked silhouettes of flowers.
Where exactly am I?
Wedding Cake duly noted that she was absolutely freezing, in what seemed to be her place of imprisonment for the time being; and that she could barely make out anything with her eyes. As blind as a newborn bird.
Ugh..
Her eyes; barely adjusting to the weird way the artificial light behaved in this.. dream realm.. saw swatches of color, more specifically of what she thinks should be the forget-me-nots in the dream. It was like she somehow gained lucidity in an otherwise suppressing dream sequence of sorts.
Wait! This might as well be her dream. The vessel had stepped five times, which would normally be when.. well she should say when she would collapse and merge with the flowers, but it seemed to prompt her actual self to become aware.
How.. remarkable.. and horrifying.
How would she even get back? Was she stuck here? She feels so present and real in this dream..! Was it even a dream? For all she knew she could be spending eternity-
Sigh. Calm down Wedding Cake, let's check if you can see now.
Her eyes, serving no purpose before and that were closed in concentration, now were opened of her own volition, and she saw the exact same flower field.
Instinctively starting to walk, Wedding Cake remembered that after five steps, she in her dream would collapse onto the field.
…
Now terrified, Wedding Cake had stopped talking steps (she was up to 3.) but her small feet bumped into a rather large lump of sorts buried under the flowers.
Whoa.
Whoa?
It was another cookie! Around her age it seemed based on the small size of the lump. But she couldn't tell exactly who it was, since it was as if the flowers were trying to take control of her. They were blooming in real time on the body of the cookie, whirling in on vine-like branches that looked like claws claiming the body. Rendering every identifying trait completely unrecognizable.
Something that she did spot out of the corner of her eye was a long bright red column of ribbon sticking out of her side. However, it disappeared so it might as well been a trick of the light.
As soon as Wedding Cake came closer to touch them, the flowers had immediately slowed, it seemed that some were even retracting themselves, characterized by a weird, apology-like sense, which made it look a bit sentient.
"I.." Should question that. But who is this cookie in my Dreamworld?
Opting to inspect the cookie more, Wedding Cake kneeled on the floor, and the flowers that were originally there around her feet spread out to make way for her legs.
Scooching herself once to check on the dream cookie and help them too, Wedding Cake moved her inactive palms closer to the flowers, (that were mainly on fragile branches) which in turn almost scrambled right out of harms way. (Which would be her hands, that were strangely repellent to the vine-like branches)
Wedding Cake's hands had made their way first to the center of the mysterious cookie's chest, most likely near his or her heart. Wedding Cake couldn't even tell who the cookie was, their face smattered with flowers that bloomed in the most beautiful way. She really hoped the cookie didn't feel much pain. How can something be so beautiful but get under her skin so much?
Their clothing was black, akin to religious garb it seemed like. She sure hoped such a cookie had time to play like her, huh! How boring it would be working in a church all day!
Wedding Cake felt her soulmate string lash at her side—it didn't hurt at all, but the thread was vibrating and moving erratically, almost screaming at her to uncover just who this confectionery was. Strangely enough, Wedding Cake had also had something in the back of her mind poke her and say that she should probably be feeling more in regards to the current situation she was in, but everything was just so soft and pretty and invading in a way where all she wanted to do was relax and stay with- this cookie?
Her hands, still hovering above their chest, glided upwards, towards the face of the cookie. Wedding Cake could now see clearly that they were in a fetal position of sorts.
Her hands, as they moved from the chest to her head, she observed that the vines that so quickly made way for her hands immediately twirled back onto and covered her chest again, curling so that it pressed uncomfortably into her body, Wedding Cake saw some stabbing into the cookie. But weirdly, there was no jam?
It was good that the cookie wasn't conscious.
While stopping to ponder that thought, her hands paused at their neck, which was also covered by what seemed to be a high collared shirt, she continued up to her face, flowers and vines making way for her hands in a rather disturbing fashion where they scurried like insects.
The vines spread out for her face, and finally she saw..
Ah. What a beautiful cookie..
The mysterious confectionery, now revealed, looked like she was in unimaginable pain. Her face was contorting in pure agony and stress, attacking Wedding Cake with a sense of concern and absolute terror for the cookie. The terror she felt seemed to had made her sweat in the dream, the idealistic illusion of it shattering and letting the cold, clamminess of terror escape into her body.
Wedding Cake pulled herself back to a clear mind (could she even do that in a dream?), and tried to direct herself away from her pains. Why was she ignoring her pain?
huh huh hu
huH
Wedding Cake had felt a bit of brain fog crowding into a specific part of her thoughts, but she moved on, with the utmost indifference towards the cookie.
The cookie was dark-skinned, possibly from the Cacao region. She had a distinct bottom eyecing where her lash pierced through, almost more like face paint.
Her haircing took the form of rigid chocolate frills, concealing most of the face you couldn't see, and gave her even more of a dark appearance. The lighting in the dream had also seemed to move to cast brightness on her face, so Wedding Cake could also see front bangs with a milky swirl, and a hair vent on top.
Wedding Cake finally (albeit reluctantly) retracted her hand, maybe the mysterious cookie had not wanted any help and was better of the way they were. Stuck here. Maybe.
Before standing up to leave, Wedding Cake caught what looked like a bright, piercing column of red. Which came from a spot on the cookie where the vines had left alone. Vision closing in on the epicenter of the flinching and retracting flora, Wedding found that the string was wrapped around her little finger. The red string had a knot tied just slightly above her pinky..
The cookie's string! Most importantly, it was so radiant!
Wedding Cake was reminded of her own string, which she hadn't thought much of since the start of this dream and all-
Huh.
Wedding Cake's own string was pooling at the floor of the flower field next to the pretty cookie in a convoluted pile of the red material, the forget-me-nots having a hard time deciding whether to flinch back or stay to leech off of the cookie. But her own red string..
Was connected to the cookie's.
It was unmistakably her. She was Wedding Cake's destined soulmate. And she had met her in a dream, unconscious and perhaps an illusion in Wedding Cake's own mind.
And suddenly, all of her previous thoughts(?) and worries came rushing back to her. A dam broke loose. A metaphorical string snapped.
She is in pain.
I need to help her.
My soulmate is going to die. I will have a dead soulmate.
!!!
Where had those thoughts come from?
Instinctively, Wedding Cake's pinkie moved to curl in on the girl's own bright, blinding red string, seeking, grasping for the perfect connection that she would only get once because her destined one was dead forever(?!!)-
And then before she could even relish in the marvelous feeling, she collapsed. Onto the cookie, freeing the mysterious girl from her flowery bounds.
Maybe. She had lifted some of her burden.
!!
Hah… ha..
..
Wedding Cake was back in her room.
Heh. She knew everything would turn out right.
Wedding Cake exhaled out an unexpectedly lengthy breath, as if she was holding it the whole time during the dream. As her senses came back to her, (whereas the dream had suppressed most of her perceivings) Wedding Cake realized with a staggering awareness that her heart was hammering impossibly fast, and she had tears and snot streaming down almost all of her face.
What exactly happened?
Wedding Cake, yet again, duly realizes that the most biggest wave of nausea had hit her a few seconds after she perceived all of the onslaught of senses. She was so overloaded she was able to actively narrate what was happening to her. And yet it was so stressful and..!
Before her mind could even finish her racing thoughts, she hacked up a grating sound and threw up.