Chapter Text
The Witches are not gods.
This is a detail far too often omitted from the myths and legends that surround them. From a single, stubborn error of terminology, their reputation has swollen into something grotesquely outsized, a prowess that far exceeds what is actually deserved. Reverence stacked atop exaggeration, exaggeration atop ignorance, until the whole thing teeters under itself like a masquerade of cards.
Gods. Please.
Those who know better—through knowledge earned or burden borne from the start—see through the charade of false divinity with ease. The illusion curdles under scrutiny. What was meant to inspire awe instead invites contempt, the high standing weighted down by cynicism at the lack of miracles, of true presence, and no shortage of derision at abysmal, sweetly dietary habits those witches hold.
Charlatans deserve nothing less for such lazy orchestration. Audacity can be admired, and the beauty of deception has its place.
But divinity?
That was a reach.
The pointed hatted pantheon could not be further from it. They are pitifully, unforgivably mortal—ripe with pettiness, oozing arrogance, breathing ego as though it were a finite resource, sweeter than oxygen. Their presence alone is cloyingly self-satisfied, reeking of overcompensation. Even a cookie, lungless, could choke on it.
No. Rather than immortal avatars of some unfathomable beyond, witches share their closest kinship with children. Both chase fleeting fancies with half-understood power, gorging themselves on novelty, dazzled by whatever is newest, loudest, or crispiest.
And when the novelty fades?
When the thrill of creation dulls. When all that remains is the severe, endless desire of wanting more, more, more. When the warm, living thing, shaped by their own hands, inspires boredom instead of wonder.
The dulling always comes. And with it, that insatiable urge to find new entertainment.
No god would be so irresponsible as to abandon their creations out of boredom—to drop them when fascination wanes, wander off in search of the next amusement, and leave them in the cruel hands of inevitability to finish the job.
Which is why, no.
Divinity is not to be found among those who created Cookiekind.
They are mortal, disgustingly so, undivine to their very core. And divinity, consequentially, is not something the undivine can manufacture; regardless of the enthusiasm of their efforts or the abundance of their failures.
Creation has limits. Simply put, it begins and ends with the nature of the creator. For all their hubris, all their attempts to bend the laws of magics itself to their fleeting whims, for all that frantic self-gratification, and all that earnest, ridiculous wand-waving, mortals cannot create anything greater than themselves.
This is not a belief.
Certainly, not a truth.
It is simply just a fact.
A fact that the forgotten star of the witches’ old show relishes in.
He crouches and waits, a wide-stretched grin carving his face to match the wicked joy coiling tight in his chest. Fangs gleam from the brush—caught now and then by moonlight, sharp and eager.
But mostly, they gleam with hunger.
You see, this kernel of knowledge matters. It means that for all the supposed glory, all the newly granted—mistakenly gifted—ascendency, his prey is not something greater-than. Not him. Not any pathetic cookie infesting this woven plane of thaumatic excess. Not a god. Not divine. And definitely not invincible.
He is only mortal. Just as mortal as the witches who baked him.
And that means Shadow Milk Cookie can make good on his promise.
And destroy him.
The doomed falsity kneeling at the rivers’ shoreline radiates an unbearable tranquility.
Staff laid to rest in the grass, the cookie sits in perfect stillness, disturbed only by the occasional breeze. It toys with flaxen locks as they spill freely over his shoulders—far longer than he needed to manage prior. The lengthy ends are already tangled, unruly, and—infuriatingly!—the minute neglect only seems to enhance him. As though even the art of disarray conspires to flatter his appearance of serenity.
The water laps softly. The air holds its breath. Not a bird, nor insect, nor stronger errant gust dares interrupt the languishing peace, as if to do so would be a crime, an inconvenience visited upon this being, this so-called greatness-
Ugh. How nauseating.
And yet, mismatched eyes remain ravenously fixed from the safety of the shrubbery. The false muse sits at its center, the living centerpiece in a tableau of calm before the stalking Beast, and Shadow Milk Cookie’s gaze rakes across him with seething precision, cataloging every offensive detail: the stillness, the calm, the effortless way reborn power thrums from him in clean, unblemished waves—
Without effort.
Without strain.
Without the decency to struggle beneath the weight of stolen power, his.
It is that which is most offensive. The ease in which Pure Vanilla Cookie can dare to exist. That, and the token which Ascendency has granted into the very crumb of his being, for the thievery itself.
A star sits, baked dark, stark against the golden bronze of his dough.
It rests above his brows, like a crown—or at least, the hollow promise of one. A symbol, they would say, of something blessed. As if, from the moment he was kneaded, this creation had been destined for brilliance, ordained by powers that thought themselves wise, marked for goodness incarnate—an audacious, most insulting lie, baked straight into the very dough. The only one that makes Deceit itself which to retch.
It’s as insulting as the witches, in all their false grandiose idolatry, and as insulting as the Awakened Hero’s smile.
And that smile—oh, that MADDENING smile—spreads across his lips politely as he turns toward the wolf, that slides from the bushes like liquid shadow, inevitable and furious. It is the smile of one who has always known the Beast was there, the smile of a host who has been playing his part with flawless patience, biding time as he awaited for fate to arrive.
Were it any other cookie, any other being in existence—yes, even those false gods themselves—Shadow Milk might have felt flattered.
“Friend.”
It’s spoken like a welcome, soft and genuine. As if he actually cared.
And oh… ain’t that just rich?
Prowling forward, Shadow Milk Cookie hisses the name with all the venom the saccharine-sweet traitor deserves, letting it slide over grinning canines braced, born to strike.
“Nilly.”
If the danger is sensed, there is no fear shown for it. Pure Vanilla Cookie’s expression, already softened by twilight, smooths further into that quiet, considering smile as his head tilts. He watches the approach of a Beast more wolf than cookie, carrying himself not only with unforgivable calm, but with the unmistakable air of a fool who truly believes he will survive this.
The limitless arrogance of this cookie—
“You look tired, Shadow Milk Cookie.”
“Oh no, nonono~… nope! I'm going to have to request that you, dearest traitor, ever so kindly shut up.” The Beast doesn’t plead, yet a repeat performance of this mockery is precisely the last thing it desires. They’ve performed this number enough times to make his jam curdle.
Alas. This cookie is nothing if not cursed with predictability when acting.
“You are injured, even after all this time…”
Pure Vanilla Cookie’s words are soft, measured, lacking triumph; simply stated as fact. His concern drapes over the syllables, subtle yet undeniable. A giggle slips from the Beast’s throat, low and whiny, carrying a tension that refuses to dissipate, laughter that refuses to end from the outrageous nature of it all...
“It’s because of me. I hurt you.”
The lack of satisfaction in his tone is staggering.
“Aww… and aren’t you just thrilled with yourself? Really, I’m positively honored to be such a shining highlight on your little résumé, a true feather in your cap—your crowning achievement, if you will! Not everyone can boast the TEMPORARY defeat of a Beast, you know. What a prize you must be in today’s market of heroes. You’re welcome, by the way!”
A purse of the hero's lips, and the wolf all but howls in his malicious glee, reveling in the discomfort he can still cause.
“Oh, c’mon~ Brighten up, Nils! Be proud! OWN IT! That sort of victory is meant to make you happy, you foolish, altruistic dolt—”
“No.” Pure Vanilla murmurs, soft and steady, and extends an arm. Fingers loose, open—a quiet, impossible invitation. How utterly awful, how incredibly stupid of him, to offer solace to the fangs of something so clearly mad. “I do wish you would… reconsider. Reach out, for me. For yourself. I can heal you. I can help you. Let me… please, let me try to save you.”
Save… him?
The cackling stops.
But the grin does not.
It instead stretches wider, and wider, until Shadow Milk’s face aches with the force of it, his smiling eyes narrowed into slits he can barely see through. That faint, impossible glow of Pure Vanilla—just a smear within the squint of his vision—is good.
Oh, it feels so, so good. Raw, sharp. Real.
It is pain, and it feels far, far realer, more TRUTHFUL, than the sheer lunacy that just slipped from the Ancient’s lips.
“Oh… you little liar!” he murmurs, half in adoration, half in something even more dangerous. It is… impressive, truly, watching goodness itself speak such filthy lies with such reckless sincerity. What an actor he makes, between all the maddening repeats of a hero-complexed script, or Spire-destroying deviations instead!
One step. Then another, a third. Closer and closer, does the wolf prowl, a predator savoring the inevitability of the kill, and Pure Vanilla Cookie does not flinch, does not possess the decency to even blink at the approach of a Beast poised for blood.
So confident. So infuriatingly certain in his survival. In stolen power. In himself.
It is so pathetically mortal that Shadow Milk could laugh himself into tears, if molten, volcanic rage did not already sear through his jam, setting every crumb ablaze at the sight—the sight of the shadow of his pathetically mortal creators, mirrored this so-called god they’ve crafted.
The Beast coils, body taut, and longingly, braces to pounce. To devastate.
“Nilly, you can’t even save YOURSELF. And, even better for me… You won’t even try.”
Time came, then, to prove the hypothesis correct.
Darkness tears through the air as he lunges, oxygen itself twisted into something with flesh and bone, something that can be shredded beneath furious claws. Night is dragged screaming in his wake, the world wrenched violently toward a howling void as reality buckles around them. Space collapses with the closing distance, existence narrowing, narrowing, until it is reduced to one brutal point of focus.
A vacuum. An implosion of opposites.
And it is fitting—because in the eyes of the Beast, the world might as well be barren. There is nothing beyond himself and his Other. No witnesses. No witches. No fake gods.
No absolution.
Only one thing remains.
The sole truth Deceit ever swore to this falsity, the only words more honest than any other he has spoken in a millennium:
I will destroy you.
And yet—
His meal remains unmoved, where he waits at the riverside. Patient, serene, just as he had been before the Beast revealed himself. Not unafraid, not unshaking—just impossibly steady in a way that makes the Beast ache with disbelief.
Pure Vanilla sits there, maddeningly aware, not by mortal hubris or arrogance, but by the simplicity of knowing, the familiarity of this pattern.
The jester knows this game, and he knows how it ends—just as well as the other cookie does, just as well as he knows the other knows.
A wreath of understanding binds them, a circle that coils them tightly together, and repeats endlessly. It is this bond, this invisible, infuriating looping thread, that drags the Beast back again and again, despite himself. It is what makes that foolish, foolish cookie extend a hand even to that which bites.
This connection, dooming as it is, cannot be severed—not by teeth, not by claws, not by magic, not even by themselves. It is a drive, a calling, the inevitable rhythm of this perilous, relentless game they play, night after night after miserable, immortal night...
Unending, inevitable—a cruel fate only the pettiest of witches could conjure, for an apparently failed Virtue such as he.
And YET-
The Beast lunges anyway.
He must, for it is demanded of him, in every fragment of his being, to do so.
To reach, to strike, to rend in pursuit of both destruction and retribution. It is a calling that screams in every thought, pulses in every pound of jam, rattles in every breath. And from the hollow deep within—still aching, still raw, still cursed since that doomed, accursed Spire—it shrieks louder than anything else.
It's the only move he has left on the board, and so, he must.
And then, in the instant before his strike, he sees it. Pure Vanilla Cookie, smiling, softer now.
Sadder.
It's...
Unbelievable…
Unthinkable…
UNFORGIVABLE!!!
On this night, sin blackened claws do not even graze the edge of those impossibly white, too pure robes.
The strike that should have brought the end of it—the culmination of avenged grievance, the delicious satisfaction of vengeance—never comes to fruition. Instead, as with all the nights before, and all the nights to come, the scene dissolves into a bed half-mangled in the throes of a wretched sleep, and the heaving gasps of the devastated, and denied.
Half a heartbeat later, and the deceitful eyes of a witch’s creation fly open.
His pupils are wide, dilated, caught in that awful, all-too-familiar panic that has become the rhythm of his nights. The waffle-textured ceiling above is dimly lit by half-open curtains, night’s breeze swaying them in a whispering cadence that does absolutely nothing to calm his ragged panting.
Panting from the run, from the lunge that never reached its mark and a chase that never existed in reality, it takes a moment for comprehension to return: first of his own awakening, his own dough, and then of the faint light that bleeds into his room.
His stiff neck cranes, unblinking eyes tracking along the glow to its source— beyond the window, the moon sits elegant and patient, nearly in the same place it had been the last time he was awake. Only slightly risen, as if it had mildly stretched across the sky in its short wait for a Beasts’ failure, and subsequent awakening from yet another unconscious, unwanted reunion of opposites.
Meaning, at most…
Maybe one, or perhaps two hours of sleep were achieved tonight.
A long, silent beat passes.
The blue cookie sucks in enough air to feel he might burst. Promptly, he buries his face in the nearest pillow—
And shrieks.