Chapter Text
He was chasing something he couldn’t catch, something he couldn’t control.
His dreams.
He had been questioned about it, multiple times.
From Black Raisin, from other cookies, from Shadow Milk. They all had noticed how unusually tired he had been, how he had been acting.
“Are you sure you are up to oversee this? We can reschedule.” Black Raisin had questioned him.
“With all due respect, I believe it would be better for you to sit this meeting out, you do not look all too well.” Clotted Cream respectfully ushered him out of the meeting room before it even began.
“—And another thing—…Hm, Nilly, are you even listening? Your old age seems to be catching up to you.” Shadow Milk had teased him before, not so gently, pushing him into a portal that plopped him straight into his bed.
Pure Vanilla couldn’t deny it, it was clearly fatigue on his part. He had been neglecting his usual sleep schedule to… experiment.
Sleeping at different times to see if doing so influenced him being able to get into the dream with Blueberry Milk cookie, or perhaps maybe even staying up the whole night. Both outcomes led to him being extremely tired in the morning and having not a single dream worth remembering.
Now, he was alone in his quarters, Shadow Milk having left to go and do whatever it is he busies himself with to escape boredom. Of course, not without him teasing how old he was and how he needs his beauty sleep.
A comical moment that brought a chuckle out of him thinking about it.
But he was right, he needed to sleep, properly this time.
Pure Vanilla looked out the window, frowning at how early in the day it was. It wasn’t ideal to sleep at this time, it would heavily mess up his sleep schedule even more; he’s likely to wake up at night if he were to sleep now.
Consequences of my actions I suppose.
He sighed, giving in to defeat.
Grabbing at his soul jam, he clicked the clasp at the back that held it up. Shrugging his outer robe off of him to fold it neatly at the table. Next came him tying up his hair into a long pony tail, making sure the strands aren’t already tangled.
Truthfully, he had already dressed to go out for the day before Shadow Milk had stopped him. Lifting him with his magic to float him back into the room to make sure he didn’t leave, after which he would then leave himself.
Of course; not without threatening him that if he saw Pure Vanilla outside doing anything but sleeping, he will personally show him why cookie’s fearfully refer to him as a ‘Beast.’
Pure Vanilla shivered as chills spread throughout him.
Witches. Whatever that means.
As he laid down he wasn’t expecting much to dream about. Maybe a dream here and there that he would forget once he woke up, perhaps a dream of his younger years.
What he was not expecting was to dream anything involving Shadow Milk.
And yet,
As soon as his body gave in, he was drawn into something cold and unnaturally still.
Silence. Thick and vast.
He opened his eyes—or perhaps, his soul did. Around him, there was only shadowlight and mist, the air pale and silver and still. The bark of the Tree was fractured and white, webbing out like broken bone across the endless void.
Darkness. Thick and bitter. Not quite a void, but close. Heavy with age.
The hollowed heart of the Divine Tree. It should have glowed with life. Instead, it was suffocating in its silence.
Chains hung from the canopy like weeping branches, wrapping around five thick tree-like bars that curved downward to form a circle. Each bar encased a Cookie, trapped, unmoving, bound not just by magic but by memory.
He recognized them, though he’d never seen them like this.
Chains.
Everywhere.
Glowing white and spectral, thick as roots, coiled around the limbs and necks of five ancient Cookies, sitting in a loose ring across a platform of pale stone and bark.
Each of them was bound. Each of them was quiet.
Their expressions were still. Their bodies unmoving.
The Beasts.
They sat, all of them, bound by thick glowing chains, around their arms, across their chests, looped at their necks. Even their soul jams were dim, smothered in low light that should have felt holy.
But here… it felt like punishment.
Shadow Milk Cookie sat closest to him. His limbs were slack, his coat-tails dulled and dusted with frost he undoubtedly produced himself. His eyes, half-lidded, stared forward with nothing inside them. Chains circled his shoulders and neck, pulsing in time with the silent throb of his soul jam on his ruffles.
To his left stood a towering form, Burning Spice Cookie, arms folded and gaze cast to the cracked sky. His rose-terracotta dough was duller here, marked with soot-black bands like scars. The long antennae up top his head flicked with anger. His chest rose and fell slowly, a constant ember, his Soul Jam pulsing behind his crossed arms. Chains coiled around his shoulders and waist, but he did not move.
“To change and burn… over and over again,” Burning Spice muttered lowly. “And for what? No one remembers what we were.”
The flame antennae on his head flickered weakly, barely alive. One massive hand clenched as if to crush the glowing chains that bound him.
He didn’t try. Not anymore.
“I told you,” he muttered, without looking at anyone. “This was always the end. The truth eats itself. The world folds back in on what it hates.”
To the right, legs curled under herself like she had been placed there gently, was Mystic Flour Cookie. Her pale robe gathered neatly around her, veil resting like mist over her arms. Her hands in her lap slightly fidgeting with the chains bound over her lips. Her white lashes lowered, her Soul Jam faint under the wheat-shaped ornament on her forehead. The chains around her bars as well as herself were thinner, finer, but no less binding.
“To speak truth,” she said softly, the words hanging in the dim air like dust motes, “and be cast away. That was always the way.”
Shadow Milk didn’t look at her, but his eye twitched.
“The witches knew,” she murmured. “They always did. But I followed them anyway. I thought if I could give them light, they would understand.” Her voice turned wistful. “They wanted me to lie. You—” her gaze moved to Shadow Milk—“you told the truth.”
He did not look up.
Floating gently nearby, her wings spread loosely behind her, was Eternal Sugar Cookie. Her halo barely glowed now, the faint light of her Soul Jam struggling to flicker in her silver circlet. Her eyes were downturned, not in sadness, but in quiet endurance.
“We buried it all,” she murmured. “They asked us not to feel. And we obeyed.” She shifted her large wings, slightly now curling around her. “Well, as much as we could.”
To the side, between them all, stood Silent Salt Cookie. Chained like the others, but still standing. His heavy violet armor blended into the gloom, cape unmoving in the thick air. His sword was lodged at his feet, hands resting on its hilt. Though his helm concealed most of his expression, his silence was piercing.
He said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
Pure Vanilla observed them all, surprised at the shock of seeing a memory of Shadow Milk after a long while.
He had thought he was never going to see another glimpse.
Burning Spice shifted, sighing loudly.
“I told you this would happen,” he muttered, voice like a smothered wildfire. “They were never going to understand. They saw power and begged for truth, for change—and then feared it when it came.”
The furrow in his brow deepened.
“You spoke too much,” he said toward Shadow Milk, blunt and cold. “You told them what they wanted to hear, and they hated you for it.”
Shadow Milk didn’t respond. His breathing was slow. Shallow. Eyes still distant.
Eternal Sugar laid on her side, her head resting in her palm. She shook her head.
“No one wanted to be wrong,” she said. “No one wants to know their gods are flawed.”
Her fingers twitched. The chains around her pulsed tighter. “I had only wanted to keep them safe.”
Eternal Sugar’s eyes roamed over all of them, her fingers drumming against the wooden bark that held them all captive.
“Time makes fools of us all,” She mumbled, voice faint. “And fools—fools make good friends, don’t you think?” Her eyes roamed to Shadow Milk, narrowed.
Shadow Milk though, he sat with his head bowed, the bright glow of the chain around his neck casting light over the angles of his face. His claws were limp in his lap, his eyes half-lidded and distant.
He wasn’t talking. Not like the others.
But his soul jam pulsed, uneven, strained.
Burning Spice’s voice cut the air again, harsher this time. “In the end, it’s on us for being the reason it all cracked, or so they claim. You—“ He stared at Shadow Milk. “—spoke what should’ve been left buried. You told them the truth. They didn’t want it.”
Shadow Milk finally looked up. His expression was impossible to read, but there was no fear, only tiredness. Ancient, bitter tiredness.
“I only told them what they asked to know,” he murmured.
“They never wanted to know. Not really,” Mystic Flour added, voice floating from the roots like a half-remembered song.
Eternal Sugar whispered something incomprehensible, Pure Vanilla could only just catch the end:
“We should’ve never let them name us monsters.”
And then silence.
The five sat, chained and bowed, alone, and yet together.
Shadow Milk shifted slightly in place. His eyes met Burning Spice’s for a second longer than usual. Then Mystic Flour. Then Eternal Sugar. There were no smiles. No words.
But they were there. All that remained.
Each other.
Shadow Milk exhaled slowly. His gaze never rose past the roots.
“I told them what was already true,” he said. “I only answered their questions. “They asked… and I answered. I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t have to,” Mystic Flour replied quietly. “Truth doesn’t need help hurting. “They didn’t want answers, they wanted comfort.”
Burning Spice scoffed, the flames in his antennae barely flickering.
“You gave them honesty, Fount. And they gave you a cage.”
Shadow Milk visibly flinched at the name, tensing greatly against the chains.
“Herald.” Eternal Sugar warned, glaring at him but with no real malice.
Burning Spice huffed, turning away. Though his tone had noticeably softened, if just a bit. “They gave us all a cage, chains.” He mumbled. “That is our truth.”
Their chains glowed in synchrony, each pulse dimmer than the last. Each jam subdued under the binding light. None of them smiled. None of them fought.
But they were there.
“You gave them too much, Fount. You told them things they weren’t strong enough to know.”
Eternal Sugar closed her eyes.
“And now they call you a monster. All of us.”
None of them moved.
None of them resisted.
Even in a dream, a glimpse, Pure Vanilla could feel the coldness of their imprisonment, the despair stitched deep in the silence between them.
But they were still there.
Side by side.
They had only ever had each other, and still, they remained.
“They called me a monster,” he muttered, voice cracking. “Not for what I did. But for what I knew.”
The others were quiet.
Eternal Sugar slowly tilted her head toward him, her voice soft and somber. Her long tail reached in between the bars of her branches out towards Shadow Milk to curl around his coat-tails. “You answered,” she said. “That was your crime.
Shadow Milk didn’t move, but his coat-tails curled back around her thin tail.
Pure Vanilla observed it, slightly surprised. He had thought the design was apart of the outfit but it had simply been disguised as such. They were real tails.
“They hated the answers,” Mystic Flour murmured. “Even the ones they asked for.”
Burning Spice grunted. “Weakness. That’s all it ever was. They always wanted a lie. A comforting one.”
Still, none of them moved.
Not even Silent Salt.
They had burned, each in their own way. And now they remained here, locked, preserved, hollow.
Bound to a tree that had once called them holy.
Pure Vanilla could feel the weight of it. Not just the silence, but the exhaustion of eternity. The collapse of legend.
But they were still together.
Still chained to one another.
And in the cold, beneath the pale light, they endured.
The last divine. The forgotten truth. The some that burned brightly, now dim and cooled.
Pure Vanilla stood in the center of them all, chained Beasts, silent and still. He didn’t speak, didn’t dare. But his eyes, sorrowful and tender, rested on the one who had always been closest.
Shadow Milk Cookie.
He approached quietly, the sound of his steps muffled by the heavy hush of the tree’s interior. The cold surrounding Shadow Milk bit at the bark and chains around him, but Pure Vanilla didn’t flinch. His hand reached out between the thick, twisted bars toward the figure within.
A sharp pulse of magic zapped at his fingers, harsh enough to startle, not enough to harm. It threw his hand back as if the bars themselves rejected his presence.
He stared in shock, lips parted in a soft breath. The rejection was not violent. Just… final.
Still, he hesitated, eyes narrowing with gentle determination as he reached again, this time toward the space between the bars.
But the world around him fractured.
The world shifted.
Like glass cracking under pressure, everything fractured in silence, then burst apart in light.
He gasped, blinking rapidly as his senses spun.
And then he was lying in grass.
Soft, warm, living grass.
Pure Vanilla sat up slowly, the memory of the chains and darkness fading as he looked around, and felt his breath catch in his throat.
It was… beautiful.
Not dull. Not grey. Not broken or forgotten.
The world around him shimmered in vivid color. The once-muted ruins now shone with rich reds and golds, vines of deep green wrapping through stone that glowed faintly like polished amber. Wildflowers bloomed freely between the cracks in the earth, painting the hillsides in blues and violets. The trees swayed gently in a wind that smelled faintly of sugar and stardust.
And above it all—high and bright—the moon.
Still full. Still watching.
But not dim or distant. It gleamed with a bold, pearly light, casting long, soft shadows across the dreamscape with a warmth that felt impossible.
This wasn’t the dream he remembered.
This wasn’t the same place.
But it was.
The same kingdom, once crumbled in his mind, now radiant. Familiar landmarks still stood, yet restored, made gentler, kinder, even in their silence. Like someone had stitched the ruins together with hope. Like the dream remembered him too.
“…Blueberry Milk…” Pure Vanilla murmured. Finally standing.
His voice trembled, not from fear, but awe. Something in his soul jam ached, but gently.
He hadn’t dreamed of him in a while
He stood slowly, running a hand through his hair as his gaze swept across the land.
Like the echo of sorrow had transformed into something luminous.
And yet… why now? Why this dream?
His heart beat faster with every step forward, searching instinctively for the presence that once guided him here.
This wasn’t just a dream.
This was a memory reborn. And someone had painted it bright.
“…It’s been a while.” His voice trembled.
“Yes, Pure Vanilla Cookie.”
Pure Vanilla turned around quickly, now standing face to face with the cookie he had tried to seek out in his dreams for so long.
“Blueberry Milk Cookie..” Pure Vanilla reached out, hesitantly. He felt as if he blinked too long, or even touched him; the cookie would disappear. He would be ripped from the dream once more, not being able to see him again.
His only connection to Shadow Milk’s past, at least directly.
Blueberry Milk reached back out to him, his soft hands gently holding onto Pure Vanilla’s and guiding him to walk with him.
Pure Vanilla took the opportunity to look around the landscape once more, how vibrant it looked. It was a stark contrast to the monochrome and desolate state he had grown used to seeing, the ruined buildings that looked to have been on the brink of collapse; now pristine and fixed.
The pathway under them having been fixed also, everything around them was brighter. Alive.
“This is… different.” Pure Vanilla mutters, now trailing behind Blueberry Milk instead of beside him.
Blueberry Milk didn’t respond for a moment, letting the question hover in the air. The silence didn’t bother Pure Vanilla, still taking in the brighter scenery around them. Despite still being night, it was clearer, appealing to the eye.
He looked up at the moon, it wasn’t his moon that he was familiar with, but the glow soothed him.
“My friend, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” Blueberry Milk paused his steps to smile softly at him, leading him down a hill towards a shallow and clear lake. “I hope you’ve taken in the scenery well.”
Pure Vanilla nodded, stopping beside him as they reached the lake “I have, it’s beautiful. I’ve never seen it so lively.”
Blueberry Milk walked forward into the lake without hesitation, the water only barely rippling underfoot. Pure Vanilla followed, until they stood together under the moon’s light.
“Fount of Knowledge,” Blueberry Milk finally said, looking down at his reflection. “That’s what they always called me, you know. But the name… Blueberry Milk? I gave it to myself.”
Pure Vanilla looked at him gently, wordless.
“It was just silly at first,” Blueberry Milk continued. “Something soft. Something harmless. But I liked it. It was mine. It felt real in a way nothing else did.” He paused, looking up, his gaze more solemn now. “It made me feel soft. Like I could still be gentle.”
“Even if I knew it couldn’t last.”
Pure Vanilla blinked. “I—” He faltered, tilting his head in concern. “What do you mean?”
“I was called the Fount of Knowledge. And I… I knew what I would become.” His eyes didn’t waver. “I knew, even back then.”
Pure Vanilla stiffened.
“I knew I was him.,” Blueberry Milk said softly. “But back then, I knew I’d turn into something unrecognizable. I watched it happen long before anyone else saw it. I tried to slow it, to stop it—but I couldn’t. I was too ridden in anger, in spite. I watched myself corrupt, fall.”
Pure Vanilla’s breath hitched, confusion spreading over his features. “You… knew?” He stared. “But I thought…” Pure Vanilla shook his head. “You never said anything.”
“I didn’t,” Blueberry Milk admitted. “Because I was afraid. And because you loved me. Him. And I didn’t want you to look at me with the eyes you look at him. That wouldn’t be fair.”
Pure Vanilla stepped back slightly, stunned.
He thought Blueberry Milk had never known. That Shadow Milk had buried it all. That this version of him—gentle, glowing—was the one who’d been spared from knowing what came after.
But he hadn’t. He always knew.
“I…” Pure Vanilla tried to speak, but the words dissolved in his mouth.
Blueberry Milk stepped forward, gently taking his hand again. “It’s okay. You don’t need to say anything.”
He looked toward the moon, its light soft, shimmering across the surface of the lake.
“I haven’t always known,” he admitted. You kept coming. And somewhere along the way… I began to realize.”
“I am him,” Blueberry Milk said. “I am the part he left behind. I am the part that didn’t want to die when the corruption took over. The part that remembered light. I used to think I was someone else entirely. But I’m not.”
He turned back to Pure Vanilla, and for the first time, his expression shifted. More weight, more age behind it. Like time had finally caught up to him in this strange place.
“This isn’t a dream, Pure Vanilla.”
Pure Vanilla blinked. “What?”
“This isn’t a dream,” Blueberry Milk said again, quieter now. “Not really. You’re inside his consciousness, Shadow Milk’s. I am that consciousness, the one sealed away.”
Blueberry Milk lowered a hand toward his soul jam, it was always dull in this dream, however now; now it was bright. Pulsing.
“Because of this, this is what allowed me to see you. The soul jam brought you to me, past what Shadow Milk would allow.” Blueberry Milk pulled his hand back, standing up straight.
Pure Vanilla slowly looked back up at him, his hand coming up to brush at his own soul jam. “Then that means—“
“Yes, I’m him,” Blueberry Milk said gently. “Or… I was. Or I still am. It’s complicated, isn’t it?”
“I'm here, because I wanted to forget. Because I rejected what I became,” Blueberry Milk whispered. “And he—Shadow Milk—he rejected what he was. Me.”
The two stood in silence under the moonlight, the once-beautiful dreamlike setting now feeling fragile, as if it were glass starting to splinter.
Blueberry Milk sighed. “I know who I am now. There won’t be two of us anymore, not really. No more Blueberry Milk and Shadow Milk pretending they’re separate. We’ve reached the end of that.”
“I thought I was cursed to remain like this,” Blueberry Milk continued. “Stuck here. A limbo. I assumed it was punishment. For hiding from what I became, for losing control of the knowledge I once tried to protect. But I understand now. I was just… waiting.”
Pure Vanilla’s throat felt dry. “Waiting for what?”
Blueberry Milk closed his eyes, the moonlight tracing the edges of his form with a shimmer. “For acceptance.”
The word hung in the air. Heavy. Final.
“I’ve been delaying it for so long, Pure Vanilla. He has, too. But it’s time. There’s no separating me from him anymore. No running. No pretending I didn’t become him, and no pretending he wasn’t once me.”
Pure Vanilla felt the ache build in his chest. “So what happens now?”
Blueberry Milk opened his eyes again. They were the same shape, the same color, but they no longer looked entirely like his. They shimmered with deeper blue, tinged with starlight and shadow. A merging already starting.
“There’s going to be a finality,” he said. “No more fragments. No more hiding from truth. When I disappear… he’ll stop pretending I didn’t exist. He’ll carry me with him—not as a mask, not as a lie. But as a truth he’s ready to bear. At least partially.”
“And what about you?” Pure Vanilla asked, his voice tight.
Blueberry Milk smiled faintly, no sadness in it.
“I won’t be gone. I’ll be him.”
He let go of Pure Vanilla’s hand, but not harshly. “You’re going to wake up soon. But before you do…”
He stepped lightly toward the lake, water rippling in his wake.
“I want to show you something.”
And the moonlight deepened, the world around them gently shifting, not breaking, not vanishing. Just… softening. As if the dream was ready to dissolve, but only after the final part was said.
Blueberry Milk looked back, still glowing with warmth and truth, even if his time was ending.
“Come walk with me, one last time.”
Blueberry walked into the shallow lake, the water rippling under their feet as Pure Vanilla slowly followed after him.
Blueberry Milk stepped farther into the lake. “You’ve already met the side of me that lives now. But this… this is the last time you’ll see me like this. The last sliver that remembers how to be soft.”
Pure Vanilla said nothing.
Blueberry Milk offered a faint, wistful smile, lowering his gaze.
“This will be the last time,” he said softly. “The last moment I can hold this shape. The last time I can remember what it’s like to be… this. Soon, this form will be lost, and the Fount will truly be a thing of the past. And only the past.”
“I won’t exist like this again,” Blueberry Milk continued. “Not apart from him. Not in a dream.”
“So, you’re fading away.” Pure Vanilla said shaken, his voice faint. “I won’t be able to see you, all of these glimpses—will be gone.”
“I’m him, Pure Vanilla. I am Shadow Milk. You will still see me, I’ll just look a little bit different.” Blueberry Milk smiled gently at him, as if he wasn’t saying goodbye personally.
“Well, maybe I’ll be acting a bit differently as well.” He chuckled, though Pure Vanilla could see the sadness from within.
Pure Vanilla felt the weight of that more than words could explain. “You’re not gone. You live in him.”
Blueberry Milk gave him a gentle smile, nodding. “He won’t admit it. Not yet. But maybe… someday.”
The moonlight around them began to dim, flickering like a candle ready to fade. “Then I’m honored I could see you like this one more time. The part of him that still remembered light.”
Blueberry Milk smiled faintly. “It’s not a goodbye, you know. You’ll still see me. Just… through him. Maybe you’ll catch glimpses.”
Pure Vanilla gave a small nod. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
There was a moment of stillness between them—two Cookies standing beneath a false sky, in a dream that was never really a dream.
Pure Vanilla’s voice broke softly. “What do I do? What am I meant to say to him now, after all of this?
Blueberry Milk didn’t respond, only stepping onto a large rock in the middle of the lake, gesturing for Pure Vanilla to step up as well.
They stood face to face once again, Blueberry Milk showing no signs of fear or concern, simply acceptance.
“What changed…” Pure Vanilla whispered to him. “Why is this happening now?”
Blueberry Milk looked up at the stars, they looked real now.
“I finally understood, and although Shadow Milk may not be ready to admit everything, knowing is simply enough.”
Pure Vanilla was quiet for a moment, frowning slightly. “Does he know? What I’ve seen?”
“No.”
Pure Vanilla’s eyes widened, looking at Blueberry Milk.
“Those memories you’ve seen, have all been from me showing you. Unintentionally or not.”
Pure Vanilla didn’t pry, Blueberry Milk didn’t press him for a response. He merely stood there, watching the stars glimmer over the quiet lake, knowing that Pure Vanilla needed a moment to process it.
The wind was calm here. Nothing like the wild, volatile cold of Shadow Milk’s will or the hollow silence of the tree. This place was stable, still. But it would not remain so for long.
Pure Vanilla finally found his voice again, though it came low. “Then this… it’s your space. Not his. Not a dream. Not a memory.”
“Yes,” Blueberry Milk said simply. “It is what remains of me. A space tucked away in the dark where I was waiting. Dormant. Forgotten even by myself.”
His expression softened as he turned slightly, facing out over the water. “But you wouldn’t stop coming back here. No matter how faded it became. You remembered.”
Pure Vanilla’s mouth parted, but he had no words for that. His throat was tight.
“And now,” Blueberry Milk went on, “there’s no point in pretending. No point in watching from behind the bars while he spirals.”
A pause. The lake was quiet again.
“Because I’m not separate from him. And he’s not separate from me. And we both know it now.”
Pure Vanilla stepped forward. “But if you’re both aware…” He hesitated. “Then what happens next?”
Blueberry Milk tilted his head. “We stop struggling against what we already are.”
Pure Vanilla studied him. “You mean…”
“I mean this is the last time,” Blueberry Milk said, his voice light. “The last time I’ll ever appear like this. Once I fade, he won’t see me anymore. And you won’t either.”
Pure Vanilla’s eyes dimmed, a slight shake to his voice. “But I’ve always known it was you.”
“Yes. But you didn’t come here because you were confused,” Blueberry Milk smiled faintly. “You came here because you cared. And I think… I think that’s what let me remember myself again.”
The wind shifted slightly, catching at Blueberry Milk’s robe. A few petals danced across the water like falling stars.
“I’m tired,” he admitted. “And I think he is too, even if he’d never say it aloud.”
Pure Vanilla looked down, eyes focused on the mirrored stars at their feet. “Then let me carry some of that with you. Even if just for now.”
Blueberry Milk turned back toward him fully, that familiar calm returning.
“Then… dance with me.”
The request was quiet, but it carried.
Pure Vanilla looked up, startled by the softness of it. “Dance?”
“One last time,” Blueberry Milk said, extending a hand. “For both of us.”
And the moon, impossibly large and bright, watched them in silence.
Blueberry Milk’s fingers interlaced with Pure Vanilla’s as they swayed under the false moonlight, feet gliding along the surface of the shallow lake as if it were solid crystal. There was no rhythm, no melody, only memory. A quiet farewell disguised as something gentle.
Pure Vanilla didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
Because deep down, he knew this moment wasn’t just an ending.
It was a joining.
Blueberry Milk Cookie’s smile never wavered, but his body began to fade, like starlight washing away in the morning sun. The lake beneath them stilled, rippling only once, and then—
A heavy silence fell.
From beyond the water, where the forest line should have been, a low growl echoed. Familiar. Dreadful.
A soft, mocking baa trailed behind it.
The wolf in sheep’s clothing emerged again, taller now, darker, its spiraled eyes glowing violently as it grinned from beneath its white pelt. The illusion was gone. There was no pretending anymore.
Pure Vanilla stood his ground.
The beast didn’t lunge. It didn’t mock.
It simply stared.
And for the second time, he stared back.
He had seen the creature before, back when he had first entered these dreams with Blueberry Milk. Here it was again.
He knew what it represented, what it was supposed to be all along.
“I know who you are,” Pure Vanilla whispered. “I know who you’ve always been.”
The creature’s expression did not change. But the lake, the sky, the world, broke apart like glass.
And Pure Vanilla woke.
It was night now. The room was dark, but not cold.
Pure Vanilla blinked against the ceiling, his chest rising slowly. The bed beside him shifted.
Shadow Milk was already sitting up, wide-eyed, breath shallow, his expression caught in something between confusion and fear, poorly masked.
“I… Something happened.” His voice was rough, almost hushed. “I don’t… know what, but—”
“It’s alright,” Pure Vanilla cut in softly, sitting up just enough to reach over. “You’re alright. We’re still here.”
Shadow Milk turned toward him. The intensity in his many eyes didn’t fade. “No.”
He was already beginning to back away, legs slipping over the edge of the bed, coat-tails brushing the floor as he hinted his retreat into the shadows of the room.
“No,” he repeated, quieter. “I… can’t sleep.”
Pure Vanilla’s voice broke with quiet urgency. “Please… just sleep. Just for tonight, stay. Don’t go.”
Shadow Milk didn’t answer right away. But he stopped. The frost that had started to curl at the window edges paused mid-creep.
Shadow Milk didn’t answer, but his head tilted just slightly, acknowledging the voice.
“It’s late,” Pure Vanilla added, almost a whisper. “We should rest.”
Shadow Milk shifted. His hands dragged lightly across the blankets before his form began to slide toward more of the edge of the bed, continuing to retreat slowly.
Pure Vanilla’s hand moved without thinking, not to grab, but to gently rest palm-up on the sheets. His voice was quiet. Pleading, but never forceful.
“Please don’t disappear again. Just—stay. Sleep, if you can.”
Shadow Milk stood partially in shadow now, the moonlight illuminating the furrow in his brow. Something was clearly bothering him. But he didn’t speak it aloud. Instead, he stared at the floor, his claws twitching once before curling in.
After a long pause, he mumbled, “…Fine.”
He sat back down heavily, but didn’t lie down. He didn’t look at Pure Vanilla either.
Pure Vanilla said nothing more. He only exhaled softly and watched Shadow Milk lean back against the headboard of the bed, hands resting loosely on his knees. He stayed still, present.
The air between them wasn’t exactly peaceful, but it was no longer strained. Something had shifted. Quiet. Fragile.
Shadow Milk eventually leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, head low.
And not gone.
That was enough for now.
He pulled Shadow Milk closer, holding him close as a way to comfort. His hand slowly rubbed against his back, trying to calm the heartbeat that was too fast paced to be normal.
Shadow Milk didn’t pull away, that was enough for now. He would let himself indulge in the proximity.
As for Pure Vanilla, he was wide awake.
When he was sure Shadow Milk had begun to drift—reluctantly, unsteadily—Pure Vanilla rose from the bed and stepped out to the balcony.
The night air hit him like a memory. He gripped the railing, knuckles white.
He thought of Blueberry Milk’s voice. His smile. The soft hands that had held his one last time before dissolving into a starlit nothing. He thought of his name, the history, the trust.
He let himself feel it fully for once.
The grief, buried.
And the truth.
Blueberry Milk wasn’t gone. He never had been.
He had always been Shadow Milk.
And Pure Vanilla would carry that name with him, now, and always.
He gritted his teeth, reaching behind him to softly close the balcony door; only satisfied when he heard the click of it shutting completely.
Finally, he let out a shaky breath he had been holding, turning back to look up at the moon. His moon. After all, he had woken up, he was back in the waking world.
There would be no more dreams. Not the ones he chased.
There would be no more glimpses into a past or memory that wasn’t his.
There would be no more Blueberry Milk Cookie.
Pure Vanilla leaned more against the railing, his hair falling into his face as he bowed his head. Truthfully, he still felt tired, he still was exhausted and wanted to sleep. But even after sleeping the whole day away, how could he sleep now?
He felt in ache in his soul jam.
No.
In himself.
He recognized this feeling, his longing. He had experienced it before on this very balcony.
His eyes, glassy. Yet no tears fell, not yet.
The wind flowed further through his hair, momentarily, his mind had wandered.
Pure Vanilla wondered what it would have been like had it been him, if he had been the one to come earlier then Shadow Milk. If he had been the one to fall, the one to corrupt; to be sealed away and called a monster.
The only thing he could think of is how unfair it sounded, how robbed he would have felt, how robbed Shadow Milk must have felt. How a cookie once so divine, could be sealed away so quickly after being pushed so far.
His knees buckled before he could stop them, and with a quiet thud he let himself slump down against the balcony’s edge, his arms still gripping onto the railing.
His body was heavy, exhausted in a way that went beyond sleep. Something ached in him. Not sharply, not with grief he could name, but something quieter, more worn.
He let his head lean forward against the bars of the railing, eyes turned up toward the stars that hadn’t moved. Still shining. Still watching.
His breath hitched just once.
Not from sadness exactly. Or fear.
Just… everything.
The dream. The silence. The revelation. The weight of everything left unsaid and everything he had to carry because no one else could. Or would.
The truth he now held, alone.
And Shadow Milk, who rested in the room behind him. Who didn’t know. Who couldn’t know. If he did, he would not say anything.
He wouldn’t know that Pure Vanilla knows.
Pure Vanilla exhaled slowly, letting the sound disappear into the wind. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself press further against the railing, his hands gripping onto the bars.
He would get back up. He always did.
Eventually, he would have to.
He jolted, feeling a pulse from his soul jam that still rested on his chest as always.
Shadow Milk was calling for him. Shadow Milk wanted him to return.
Pure Vanilla quickly stood to his feet, glancing at the balcony door behind him. From the angle of where he was standing as well as how the curtain was inside, he was not able to see Shadow Milk, and Shadow Milk could not see him.
Initially he had shut the balcony door so as to not further disturb Shadow Milk while he weeps.
But, he found himself further longing, further yearning for something that felt out of reach—but something that was very much there. Something that was only a few steps away.
He took a slow step to the balcony door. One hand still on the railing, one hand reaching toward the door.
In reality, he was faced with an internal decision.
If he stays to weep on the balcony, it would mean he would be weeping and longing for Blueberry Milk. A past that was no more, a past that was overtaken by time.
If he goes back inside, it would mean to fully finally accept Shadow Milk.
He flinched back slightly, his grip on the railing wavering.
Pure Vanilla sighed, closing his eyes before glancing up at the moon.
“Please forgive me for my hesitation.” He whispered, the light from the crescent moon shining upon him.
The balcony door opened with a click, he stepped through quickly.
Deep down he long made up his mind.
Pure Vanilla closed the balcony door behind him, taking a moment to stand at the door.
A final goodbye of sorts.
A slow breath passed his lips.
It wasn’t grief in the way it used to be. It wasn’t even sorrow.
But something had shifted inside him. Something that couldn’t be undone.
He felt like a different Cookie had crumbled tonight. Not one he could bury, not one he could properly mourn. Because they hadn’t truly left.
Blueberry Milk Cookie hadn’t disappeared at all.
He was still here.
He always had been.
Buried beneath rage and shadow, beneath the twisted limbs of corruption and silence and pain. Hidden away deep within Shadow Milk Cookie like a name half-remembered. A breath that never left.
Pure Vanilla’s heart ached with the realization, with the weight of it finally setting in. Blueberry Milk hadn’t vanished. He had simply changed. Shattered, reshaped. Worn down into something new, something hurt, something dangerous, and still, somewhere in there, something gentle.
Still that soul.
Still that same soul.
Pure Vanilla brought a hand up to his chest, curling his fingers slightly over where his own soul jam glowed faintly. There was no going back.
And yet…
And yet, he couldn’t let go.
He would carry both names. Both truths.
Because the Fount of Knowledge hadn’t truly been lost.
He had just become something else.
Pure Vanilla finally looked at the bed.
Shadow Milk Cookie.
Undoubtedly asleep, yet his soul jam was glowing, calling for its other half.
Pure Vanilla finally moved away from the balcony to the bed, his steps slow and heavy. He laid on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, expression unreadable.
Not because he felt nothing.
But because he felt far too much.
The ache of it ran through every inch of him, quiet and unrelenting. His body was exhausted, his soul even more so.
And yet…
He turned his head, gaze settling on the curled form beside him.
Shadow Milk lay with his back partly turned, his body tensed as if ready to flee at any moment. Even in sleep, his jaw was clenched, his brows drawn tight. His claws flexed slightly every now and then, restless and twitching. A furrow formed between his brows, faint but persistent.
Whatever dream haunted him, it lingered even now.
Pure Vanilla’s chest rose slowly with a quiet breath. And for the first time that night, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
It wasn’t joy.
But something close to a kind of understanding.
He reached out wordlessly, one hand brushing through his tendrils of hair. Then, more firmly, he pulled him close, slow and steady, until they were tucked into one another’s space.
Shadow Milk didn’t stir.
But the tension in his limbs eased. Slightly.
Pure Vanilla’s arm wrapped around him with practiced gentleness, the other resting at the center of Shadow Milk’s back. Warmth where there was once only cold. Presence where there had so often been absence.
He said nothing. No words were needed.
He simply stayed like that, grounding both of them in the silence.
Because even in the heaviness, even with the weight of everything they were and had been, They weren’t alone anymore.
“I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through.” He mumbled into Shadow Milk's hair.
Pure Vanilla moved slowly, fingers tracing the faint lines of fabric until they found the familiar clasp at Shadow Milk’s chest.
Careful not to disturb him, he unfastened it with a practiced touch, the quiet click of it giving way beneath his fingers. Shadow Milk stirred at the sudden absence of the gem, eyes fluttering, body tensing in brief alarm.
Pure Vanilla leaned in, his voice a low whisper against the side of his head.
“Sleep,” he murmured. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”
A faint, barely-audible exhale escaped Shadow Milk, and he stilled again, breath evening out just enough to slip back into slumber.
Trust. Absolute trust.
Pure Vanilla brought the Soul Jam to his palm, the pale weight of it glinting in the quiet dark. He hesitated for only a moment before reaching for his own. The clasp on him loosened easily, and as his own Soul Jam settled beside Shadow Milk’s in his hand, a quiet shiver traveled up his spine.
They pulsed faintly together, resonating in tandem, warm and cool currents curling where they touched.
Without a word, he leaned up and crossed to the nightstand, setting them gently atop one another with great care. The sound they made was soft, delicate. Like chimes echoing underwater.
Just for this night, they would not sleep as Beast and Hero. They would simply sleep as cookies, cookies who hold no title other than the ones they held for eachother.
He returned to the bed and settled next to Shadow Milk once more.
There was something so familiar in the line of his brow, the way his lashes settled against his cheeks, the way his features softened in sleep.
Pure Vanilla stared.
He saw the gentleness he had grown familiar with, the furrowed brow, the flicker of something quiet and kind in his sleeping expression.
Blueberry Milk.
He’d always known it. But now, looking at him like this… he saw it.
Shadow Milk was Blueberry Milk.
The Cookie who once walked through moonlit gardens, who hummed softly while sorting books, who would give him insight on things that would completely change his outlook. That Cookie was still here, buried deep beneath bitterness and hurt and corruption.
And yet… here.
Alive.
Pure Vanilla lowered his head, burying it into the familiar strands of Shadow Milk’s hair, tangling his fingers lightly into the locks.
The tears came soundlessly.
Not for Blueberry Milk—because he was still here.
But for Shadow Milk, and all he had endured.
All he had survived.
The life he never asked for. The cycle he had been dragged into. The loneliness. The silence. The chains.
Pure Vanilla wept quietly, for all the years that had stolen the light from him. For everything unfair.
And in his arms, Shadow Milk slept on.
Pure Vanilla however.
He would not sleep for most of the night.