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Sometimes he wished he had never reawakened his memories.
The halls of sugar felt cold and stale as he walked down them. What once were beautiful crystalline stained glass windows stood coated with dust that only dulled their beauty. The castle, once filled with wait staff and cookies of all ages, now stood hollow.
It only stood as a bleak reminder of everything he had lost.
Some days it was easy. His new kingdom now stood tall and proud. It was smaller for sure, filled with the faces he had grown to love from the village below, yet their spirit was as strong as the kingdom that once stood. They showered him with love and adoration, as the others once had. But never the same.
He would sometimes see them in the corner of his eye. The school children he visited. They would beg him to read them stories, or to teach them some magic, or to award him with flower crowns shoddily made by the hands of a child. He would walk through the auditoriums and think of the graduates, of scholars. He would think of the bakers and farmers, of streets filled with crowds visiting for a festival. His own followers, the practitioners at his sanatorium. Everyone who cried his name with hallelujahs as he waved to them from his castle tower. Even the smallest lamb he once helped wean back to health stayed permanently burned into his mind.
All gone in the blink of an eye.
His hands would shake. He prayed each night, prayed for forgiveness for destroying what they once had, but it was only empty words meant to soothe his restless nights. Perhaps he would be granted a nightmare, instead of erratic insomnia bleeding with guilt. Even tonight he would only roam these empty halls. These were the times he felt more ghost than cookie.
Grief was… lonely. He had lived long enough to see kingdoms fall, others to rise in their ashes. He had lost friends to the cruel hand of time over and over again. It was not new to him. But this was something different. Something beyond grief, lodged somewhere deep in his ribcage right next to his heart. It squeezed anytime he passed those stale stained glass windows. Each time he thought of the school children.
There’s something to be said about an expected end. In some ways, Pure Vanilla always expected mortals to falter. They would all return to dust, ground down by the stone of time, or slain in the heat of battle, or taken by illness. The grief was always different, always raw, but ultimately expected. Perhaps over time that had caused his heart to grow stale in the face of it.
This was different. They hadn’t merely succumbed to a fate all living creatures return to. He had destroyed them all by his own hand. Unexpected. Unnatural. Blasphemous.
“All hail the king! Long live the king! Long live Pure Vanilla! Praise be to him!”
He was at the church again. It had been the first building destroyed in the attack. It seemed fitting, at least, that first their faith in their gods had fallen before succumbing to their own ruler’s cruel hand. He remembered standing on that very podium. The oath he took echoed through the sanctuary.
“With this crown, I swear to care for all cookies. As long as I shall live, none shall go hungry, or suffer beneath the veil of war or sickness. This shall be a prosperous kingdom till the end of days!”
The lie weighed heavily on his tongue even now.
He carefully considered the podium before him. Rotten and eaten by wild animals, it had yet to be retouched by the builders. Perhaps they intended to simply leave it. It was nothing more than an empty temple for a false God that betrayed them. What reason would they have to rebuild it?
Lost in thought, he didn’t even notice his hand had reached forward until it brushed against the crumbling podium. He flinched as though he had been burned, but let it rest on the weak structure, humming notes of hymns he had sung in these halls. It was an odd feeling to be both mourning yet nostalgic of times once past.
“Pure Vanilla?” He was startled out of his momentary musings by someone calling his name. It was Black Raisin, no doubt on her evening patrol. He mustered a small smile and turned toward the other cookie.
“Ah, Black Raisin Cookie. Any issues to be found in the kingdom,” the half hearted attempt at amusement in his voice hopefully covered the subtle shake of his voice. Black Raisin gave a half hearted sigh.
“Nothing to report,” she said gruffly. “Other than a king hiding from his duties.”
“You know I stepped down as king,” Pure Vanilla turned his face to the stained glass. He had laid his beholder on the ground at some point, so all he could see were vague shapes illuminated by the moonlight. “Can an old cookie not reminisce?”
Black Raisin hesitated for a moment.
“Reminiscing is fine. I just… wanted to make sure you were okay,” she admitted. Since making his return as Pure Vanilla, there seemed to be just a little bit of distance between the two of them. As though Black Raisin wasn’t quite sure how to treat her friend anymore, and, to be truthful, Pure Vanilla wasn’t sure if he could still be the friend she expected him to be. “The things you’ve gone through… I could never even imagine the pain you must be feeling right now.”
A small lump formed in his throat. It was silly now. Tears wouldn’t do anything to bring back his kingdom, and, really, was it his right to even shed tears for them? For the cookies he crumbled in his final effort to rid the world of a great evil?
The weight of another’s pity stood heavy on his shoulders. Yet even more than that was the overwhelming guilt twisting his heart.
Black Raisin was his friend. He loved her dearly, held precious in his heart their closeness during his time as Healer. Yet in this moment, he desperately wished she was someone else entirely.
He covered his face as a quiet sob forced itself out of his throat. He hadn’t thought of her at all till now, even refusing to do so, as the grief that tore through him when he had a vision of her would surely leave him bedridden for days.
But, witches, what he wouldn’t do to see White Lily here again. The harder he tried to fight the memories flooding in, the faster tears raced down his face, until he was brought to the floor with a strangled sob. A gentle hand pressed to his back. He was sure Black Raisin was trying to soothe him, muttering comforting phrases that were drowned out by the roaring in his ears, yet all he could do was scramble to get his mind calm again.
He remembered when she was there for his coronation. Of nights spent in their greenhouse. She had been so flustered when he showed her the room of lilies he thought she might run off out of shock. Then it was his turn to blush as she tackled him in a hug, her laughter ringing gently in his ears as they fell to the ground.
He thought of when he asked her to consider the kingdom her home. He had assured her that he would never stop her free spirit in her research and travels, but at the same time a home base perhaps would be wise. She accepted with a quiet smile, something tinged with sadness. Still, the people of the Kingdom would come to love her.
He remembered braiding her hair. He was clumsy at first, but with her guidance it became second nature. They spoke of progress, of machines and magic. Something that would mean no cookie would have to go to war, or work in servitude to another. The waffle-bots were more her efforts than his, but he would never forget those days she would drag him to the hangar to ask his opinion on an issue they were having. She would rattle off something not even he understood yet he would listen with rapt attention.
(He often saw that same look in Strawberry Crepe Cookie’s eyes when they spoke of the waffle-bots.)
He wasn’t sure how much time passed when the tears finally stopped, but he found himself utterly exhausted by the end of it all. He let himself slump into Black Raisin’s arms. Perhaps another time, he would apologize for this childish behavior, but for now he was too tired to even try.
“...do you think you can walk?” Black Raisin asked, startling him more fully awake. She sounded a bit sheepish. “I’m not sure I can carry you.”
A selfish part of him wanted to just sit here and wallow in his misery, but that was the one thing he wouldn’t allow himself to do. He nodded and sat up, rubbing his eyes a bit before reaching for his beholder. He pointedly turned it away from Black Raisin. No doubt she had a pitying look on her face. Just the thought of it grew another knot in his chest, and he didn’t trust himself to not devolve into tears again looking at her.
The walk was… distracting, thankfully. Black Raisin talked about some of the things the villagers were planning this week (they were going to rebuild the school and some of them were going to visit Parfaedia for the first time to get books) and her voice lulled him into something more comforting. He was falling asleep on his feet by the time they made it to his room.
Black Raisin hesitated at the doorway. Back in the village they had all shared tents without issue. Though she didn’t sleep often, when she did, it was often in the healer’s tent.
(Usually because she had worked herself to complete exhaustion.)
Sensing her uncertainty now, he grabbed her hand.
“Can you… stay for a bit? Until I fall asleep?” He hadn’t spoken a word until now, and his throat felt sore from crying. She relaxed and nodded.
“Of course, Pure Vanilla.”
He barely bothered to discard his cloak before he fell into bed. His beholder was placed next to his bed right at his fingertips, and he rolled over so Black Raisin had a little bit of space to sit.
The extra presence in the room was… comforting. The bed bucked slightly as she sat at the edge of it and began to run her hand through his hair. It reminded him of back at the village, where she would put little plaits into his hair while they talked about various things. Usually her crows would join in on the preening, but the one perched on her shoulder seemed to have dozed off.
Exhaustion slowly pulled him into unconsciousness. His breathing evened out and though he sensed Black Raisin take her leave, he drifted into dreamless sleep. For the first time since returning to his kingdom, he slept peacefully.