Chapter Text
Ember's first ever playthrough of Cookie Run: Kingdom lasted a lot longer than it should have before she realized she was anything but content with the way she had been playing this game.
It took her an embarassing amount of time to realize that ignoring the "Kingdom" in the game's title and focusing solely on the gameplay part of the game was not something suited for her and that she should've had her priorities the complete opposite way from the get-go. Instead, she played through almost the entirety of both Crispia and Beast-Yeast, and read a good chunk of Cookie Odyssey (which was the one thing she didn't regret), before realizing how much more fitting the other side of the game was for her.
Needless to say, then, she really didn't have anything to miss or lose from her old save file - She can easily get most of the Cookies she has now back with how generous this game was to it's beginners. As for her kingdom... Well, it's current state is the exact reason she's leaving this playthrough behind. There was nothing remarkable about it: she only tossed down resource buildings when the game urged her to do so, and they were placed in such a careless manner that she doubted the Cookies who wandered around weren't planning on moving everything themselves once she was gone if they had any sort of sentience. Which they didn't, ofcourse, but it they did, she was still convinced they'd have the same opinion as her. It didn't represent her at all! She was always so organized, so eager to decorate any and all bland spots she can find in a room as soon as she has the chance. This lame excuse for a "kingdom" was something an EVIL version of herself would create.
After deleting her account, she didn't immediately go on to create another because she was interrupted by her growling stomach.
"...Did I forget to eat again today?" She questioned herself. 90% of her time outside of playing games had her zoning out and letting her body run on autopilot, so having even stuff like this go under her radar until it was too late wasn't exactly a rare occurence.
Nevertheless, she went to make herself something to eat, and once she was done, she... got side-tracked again. With drawing, this time. She felt like creating another OC, and went to do exactly that:
It wasn't anything special; she felt like making a cookie, like the ones from the game she's been hyperfixating on for the past few months, which briefly reminded her of what she was supposed to do after she finished eating. "Eh, whatever", she thought to herself. She might aswell finish this OC now that she started working on it. Admittedly, her creation looked like... anything but a cookie. But with how diverse and well-designed the cookies were anyway, she was sure she would fit right in. Surely.
Ember chose to name her creation "Ivy"; Her design was much simpler than what she usually did, but to be fair she usually spent much longer than 30 minutes on creating something, unlike in this case. She had pale, white dough, with a pink, striped, slightly oversized hoodie, which could be compared to a dress with how far down it reached, and long socks with the same white, striped pattern. There was a clear focus on flowers with this girl: she had a pink flower in her hair, which Ember decided for no reason whatsoever cannot be detached. Ember began writing down stuff like "abilities" as she usually did, and then proceeded to put no effort into making said abilities fit her theme at all. The flower woman could do just about anything if it has even the slighest correlation to LIGHT, of all things.
Ember seemed rather amused. There was little to nothing about this to take seriously, the simple design, the lazily put together powerscaling, the way Ivy's gaze turned to face her-
Pause.
Why is it staring at her. She could've sworn she drawn her pupils in a way that they gazed off to the side.
Ivy's eyes moved. And after a moment, her expression changed. And then she waved. Shyly, but the girl waved.
Ember rapidly stumbled away from her drawing pad, immediately drawing the conclusion that either her tablet was possessed, or she was dreaming. Probably the latter. After a short moment, she hears a soft, timid voice come from the tablet which causes her to approach again.
"Hello...?"
Ember wasn't sure what made her imagination give Ivy a voice like this, but it fit her. She waved back to the drawing, figuring she might aswell play along until she eventually woke up and realized she probably passed out after not actually going to eat.
"Hi, Ivy!" She casually responded. Ivy was quiet for a second; seems she was trying to analyze who or what she was talking to at the moment.
From her perspective, Ember was... this strange figure that could be seen through a giant hole in the sky, which somehow knew her name and looked like a completely different species with the only similarity being the way their limbs were arranged. It was pretty disorientating to have the first thing she sees after being born be an eldritch horror which she could guess knew the secrets of the universe if it knew what she was called.
Or maybe that's just who created her. She wasn't sure why, but she had a feeling living beings weren't normally born like... this. She wasn't sure how to describe it.
"They certainly aren't. And yes, I am your creator. Not sure why you know what that even means though."
Oh! She can hear her thoughts, too! She quickly turned to look back up at her with a mix of wonder, shock, and mild discomfort as the fact that she was at this girl's mercy sunk in properly. She looked around, and was greeted by the sight of the white, empty space surrounding her, which seemed to stretch on endlessly.
"Hmm..." The cookie turned her focus back to Ember, who seemed lost in thought. She tilted her head curiously, waiting to see what the human above was planning.
...Human? Where did she get that word from?
She fell to the ground as her vision suddenly blurred. Without any explanation or reason Ivy could find, her head decided that now would be the perfect time to knock her out of full consciousness and put intangible mufflers over her ears. And despite that, she could hear her thoughts perfectly. Thoughts, which were now repeating the same questions over and over again:
What was she? Where was she? For what reason was she given life? Why did she know she wasn't supposed to have it? How was all this knowledge randomly appearing in her head, telling her everything that a mere drawing should never, ever have to know?
A MERE DRAWING?
She had to get out, but she didn't know what exactly she was supposed to get out of. Maybe she needed these thoughts to get out of her head instead? How would she even do that? They appeared without her asking them to, so they certainly weren't going to go away if she made that desire known either.
Then, she felt something on her head. Something that made the attacks on her senses quiet down.
...There was a hand on her head. When she looked up, it was Ember, who reached through the crack in the sky and was now running her hand through Ivy's hair.
She looked up at the human - she would stop wondering about how she knew what she knew for now - and tilted her head, a gesture she wasn't aware indicated confusion. That bit of knowledge she would learn from Ember when she saw her reaction at the small gesture.
"...Are you okay?" There was an incredibly brief moment of silence before Ivy responded to the question, with a question of her own.
"What are you doing?
Ember wasn't entirely sure what to tell her, actually. She simply began running her finger over the screen, just where Ivy's head was, and she could guess this was akin to petting a real person. She supposed she could explain it as such.
Meanwhile, Ivy was seriously reconsidering how good of an idea it was to ask that question. Was it rude to ask such a thing? Did that make Ember think this was unpleasant? Cause admittedly, it felt pretty good. Was she even allowed to question her own creator's actions?
Well, she certainly didn't seem too bothered by it.
"I'm petting you. You, uh... looked like you needed it. You just randomly curled up into a ball and started hyperventilating."
"Hyperventilating", so that's what that storm of knowledge ambushing her was called.
"Nonono, hyperventilating is like..." Ivy would have to get used to having her thoughts heard, it seems like. Something told her that wasn't something people were supposed to do. Probably had something to do with the fact that Ember was in a completely different plane of existence. "...it's like when you start breathing really quickly and your vision starts fading out. It... doesn't normally come with forbidden knowledge entering your brain, though."
"Forbidden knowledge" is the best way she could describe all the truths that ingrained themselves into Ivy's consciousness, even if none of it was anything short of basic things that any living being should know about.
"I'm... yet to figure out what is happening with that. But anyway I was thinking a moment ago." She quickly tried to change topics. She had a feeling discussing the nature of Ivy's existence with her was a bad idea, if the panic attack she had a moment ago was anything to go by. She didn't know what was worse, the fact that she gave her OC an existential crisis in the first few minutes of interacting with it, or the fact that she didn't know how to answer the questions that ran through Ivy's head either.
What was she? A cookie? In species yes, but in every other way that mattered, she had no idea.
Where was she? Now that she thinks about it, what would the canvas even represent to the beings that are painted onto it? She figured she could compare it to the whitespace from OMORI, but she doesn't have much knowledge on how that actually works either. She only really knows that place exists and that it's similar in appearance to a canvas with some sketches on it, but nothing more.
How was all this knowledge coming to Ivy?
...
She'll just boil it down to dream logic and her brain being really weird.
When she snapped out of her thoughts, she realized she never got to finish her sentence. Which led to Ivy curiously gazing up at her in perfect stillness for the past few minutes that she was considering what she saw in the "cookie"'s head.
She was cute, staring up like that.
"Um, sorry, got sidetracked in my head for a bit-" She coughed. "A-Anyway, I was gonna say... I can probably bring you to a different world. Much less empty than where you are now.
She had to refrain from calling it a canvas. She saw that Ivy somehow recognized herself as a simple drawing earlier and how it nearly caused her panic attack to worsen to the point of fainting if Ember herself didn't intervene.
Ivy felt excitement, for the first time in her life (which wasn't even an exaggeration, considering how little time ago she was "born"). Her gaze urged Ember to continue, her gaze drifting elsewhere as she continued.
"Soo, I originally created you as a 'cookie', if you know what that is." She did. "You're made of dough,and strawberry jam, and a few other things that I myself honestly don't know much about. But that's not important. I can bring you to a world with other cookies, just like you."
There were more like her? Ivy wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"Not exactly..."
Oh.
"They're the same species as you, atleast, but you're still a bit of a... special case. All the cookies you will meet will originate from that world, they will have their own pre-written stories, strenghts, weaknesses, friendships and rivalries... You will be a bit of a special case, as your story will have its beginning play out from start to finish under my watch, and you'll also stand out as a huge exception to the rule of cookies being born out of ovens. But I'll try to make sure there aren't too many people asking odd stuff about you, okay?
Ivy pondered for a moment, grasping all the knowledge that was given to her. Somehow, this wasn't as painful to handle as the knowledge that her mind gave to itself not too long ago, which she was grateful for. So she learned cookies are normally born from "ovens", which she'll have to ask about later, and these cookies will have their own pre-written pasts and futures, unlike her...? She felt fortunate to not have her fate pre-written, but she also felt a bit of sympathy for the people she was soon to meet.
"So you do want to be sent there?"
Did her thoughts give that away, somehow? She didn't worry about it too much and instead simply nodded, looking up to the human in the sky.
A large smile spread across Ember's face. For as long as this dream lasted, she would be able to see her own creation actually interacting with the world of Cookie Run: Kingdom! This was ought to be fun.
"Okay, wait here for a second."