Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The spire was no more.

Truthfully, he could restore it if he wanted to. The magic he had left it him—being depleted from overuse in his fight with Pure Vanilla—was more than enough to restore at least most of the spire again.

But, he found himself not wanting to.

Shadow Milk stopped in his tracks, one of his hands clutching his side in a dull ache that blossomed with each step. It was pathetic, it was unsightly of him. To be seen as weak even with a title as ‘Beast’.

As he took a right into the bushes unexpectedly, carrying on wherever his legs took him; he couldn’t find it in himself to care at the current moment. He let his legs buckle onto the dull grass, the motion only served to send a faint wave of pain through certain parts of his body.

He was weak, because he allowed himself to be.

A reason unknown to even him.

He took a deep breath in and out, his soul jam pulsing lightly against his chest. His exhaustion was clearly evident: from the way the eyes in his hair flickered opened and closed, to the way his breaths silently heaved in and out.

Shadow Milk could’ve—should’ve—retreated into a portal far from here, far away where nobody would ever hope to reach or find him. To ever see him like this. It’s a fate he had granted to his minions, although those two cookies that had lived to serve him having accepted the deal happily, he found himself not being able to go through with it himself.

So, Beast-Yeast he stayed.

“Agh..” Shadow Milk groaned, leaning back on the base of a tree.

Shadow Milk may be easy to wound, but he is not easy to stay broken. His soul jam still glowing on his chest; fought against his own attempts at fighting the natural healing that came from it.

The soul jam was not only meant to give strength, but also to preserve. His “injuries” would have long healed had he not been holding the powers back himself.

Why he was holding the powers back form beginning to recover him, he also could not answer.

The injuries are much less physical, more stemming from his magic overuse. Still, it affected him.

His spire…

“How foolish..” He whispered to himself, letting himself fall forward and onto his back into the grass to let it cradle him. The blades of grass soft against him while he looked up at the sky, the sky that seemed to always be darkened at some point.

Pure Vanilla.

That stupid foolish gnat.

He didn’t need him anyway. He needed no one.

They were all far away anyway, he was in no mood to follow. Here was where he would stay.

Redemption? Him? Laughable. He was not a cookie meant for a chance, meant to feel warmth when he had ice around his very core. Ice that he had not been baked with but ice that had formed.

He’s not a cookie meant for good deeds, meant for more then what he is now, meant for—

Purpose?

..

Not anymore at least.

Shadow Milk’s mind wandered to one of his dear friends, Mystic Flour. How she would wrap herself in cocoons tight and shut off from the world.

It seemed to useless to him back then, but now he understood it.

He turned on his side, slightly curling in on himself as he finally allowed his soul jam to sputter to life through his mental blockage. A partially translucent silver barrier formed around him, a second passing by before a second thinner barrier made its way over.

He was not unaware to the dangers of Beast-Yeast, he knew such lowly creatures would not try and try anything with him, but being in such a state meant he had to be cautious anyway.

His lie was he was solely putting up barriers for simple protection.

Shadow Milk curled more into himself, his claws raking into the soil beneath him. 

Did it feel pathetic to lie in the grass? Yes. Did he continue? Also yes.

He closed his eyes slowly, he was deep within the dark bushes and trees of beast yeast; far from the path. He was not worried about any adventurous cookies, they would know better than to wander in such forests.

What he needed,

Familiarity, an anchor.

Outside the barrier, very transparent chains wrapped around it. Effectively aiding the barrier in holding together as well as what its original purpose was for.

Shadow Milk did not look at the chains, it would get his mind running too much.

His lie was it was necessary for the barrier. 

His truth was he felt like he deserved this.

Fallen from glory, a god now bent at the knee, cradled in the grass.

Fallen from glory.

He could still remember the way they looked at him.

Back then, before corruption had painted him darker shades of black and blue, he stood tall, radiant. His robes were gold and black, lined with intricate constellations. Regal, almost divine. His hair shimmered like a sky full of stars, long and celestial. His words, just as luminous. The Fount of Knowledge.

They said his name like a blessing, like a prayer.

The one who held all truths.

The Cookie who could make sense of the chaos.

He remembered stepping out before them, answering question after question. Curiosity, at first, soft and wide-eyed. A young Cookie asking why the sky was blue. A scholar inquiring about ancient runes. A kingdom requesting counsel on war and peace alike.

They all wanted something.

And he gave it.

Every. Single. Time.

He had no reason not to. It was his purpose, wasn’t it? To give knowledge freely, infinitely. To be the unending fountain.

But then came the disappointment. The disdain. When the truth didn’t suit their hopes. When the knowledge didn’t change things for the better. When the answers revealed bitter realities they weren’t prepared to swallow.

And soon, they weren’t asking.

They were demanding.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“Why must this be the truth?!”

“Why are you holding back?! You must know more—tell us!”

He remembered the shouting. The frantic eyes. The way he had been tugged, pulled from court to court, kingdom to kingdom, seen not as a Cookie but as a tool. Not a mind, but a mirror.

And mirrors crack, don’t they?

His fingers loosened from the soil beneath him, the earth leaving impressions in his dough. The scent of moss, grounding. The grass, soft, stubbornly soft, reminded him of nothing, and that was the comfort of it.

He exhaled shakily.

He wasn’t the Fount anymore. Not that version. That Cookie had been shattered long ago, scattered among truths no one wanted to hear.

He had become the reflection they feared.

Not because he had lied—

But because the truth was never kind.

His jaw clenched, and with a small grunt he rolled onto his back again, facing the sky. Still dark. No stars. Not like the ones he once wore in his hair.

That was fine. He didn’t need them anymore.

He told himself that lie again, whispering it under his breath.

“I don’t need them.”

The chains around the barrier pulsed faintly. He didn’t look at them.

He would not look at them.

He would rest.

He would not remember.

He would stay here, in the hush between past and future.

In the comfortable fiction that this place, this stillness, was enough.

That he was enough.

For now.

He was hurt because he allowed himself to be, he was here because he let himself be weak.

Shadow Milk very well had much capabilities to get up, to stand prideful once again. Coat all he could find in his ideas of deceit and lies, just like he used to.

But, he couldn’t.

Not because he didn’t want to—or maybe he did.

The longer he lay there, the more the quiet stretched.

He didn’t mind silence. He used to crave it. In the old days, before voices begged for answers and kingdoms pressed scrolls into his hands, silence had been peace. Now, it only gave space for his thoughts to echo too loudly.

He blinked once—slow, heavy—and the world didn’t move with him.

That’s when it began again.

Not anger. Not fury. Not even regret.

Just… something hollow.

You were supposed to be magnificent.

That voice in his head. His own, yet distant, as if echoing from behind the silver tree’s roots.

You were everything, and they ruined you. Or maybe you let them. Maybe you liked being needed too much.

He didn’t wince. He’d grown past flinching at himself. But he felt it, faintly, as though a crack had formed just behind his ribs.

His fingers found his chest again, the glowing soul jam pulsing slow and soft. His magic, his body, still wanted to heal.

But he didn’t.

Not yet.

Not fully.

He exhaled, breath trembling just slightly as the chill of the soil seeped into his back. The grass shifted faintly under his weight, but the air stayed still. As if waiting for him to confess something.

But he didn’t have anything left to say.

What could he say that hadn’t been already twisted into prophecy or heresy?

He had been so many things.

An icon. A warning. A scholar. A sinner.

Now he was barely anything at all.

And the worst part?

He didn’t feel anger at himself. Not rage. Not despair.

He was tired.

Utterly, profoundly tired.

He didn’t want to get up.

He didn’t want to see the stars. Didn’t want someone to come save him. Didn’t want to be seen like this, curled up in the dirt like some forgotten relic or injured beast.

But part of him…

Part of him did.

That small, small thread of want that hadn’t yet curled in on itself and burned.

It scared him. Just a little.

Because he knew what it meant. If he followed that feeling—

He might start hoping again.

And hope was one of the cruelest lies of all.

He clenched a fist slowly in the dirt. Soil clung to his claws like the remnants of a forgotten truth.

And Shadow Milk—once the Fount of Knowledge—shut his eyes, sinking further into the grass, swallowed in his own stillness.

He didn’t move for a long time.

And the sky above remained dark.

He thought back to another of his friends, Eternal Sugar. Her methods of sleep were unhealthy, only meant to serve as a way to shut everything out. Tethering dangerously on the edges of innocent sleep and a more tame way of inducing yourself into a coma. For them, otherwise, a death. As close as they would get with the soul jam.

Shadow Milk saw it as a waste of time, a sleep they didn’t even need.

But now… 

Shadow Milk moved only once, turning from his back onto his side with a slow, crumbling sort of grace. Like something ancient shifting under layers of ruin. His breath fogged faintly against the translucent dome of the barrier he had cast, more out of habit than instinct.

The chains laced around the barrier clicked softly as if to remind him: You are still here.

Still breathing.

Still conscious.

Still alive.

He didn’t want to be.

But that wasn’t allowed.

His soul jam burned softly beneath his chest, a quiet ember that refused to extinguish. Preserving him. Healing him. Keeping him whole against his own will.

He could stall it. Delay it. But not stop it.

Immortality had never been a gift. Not to him. It was a leash.

He understood another of his friends now as well. Burning Spice.

A long, slow curse dressed in the robes of divinity.

So he surrendered, not in some grand, noble gesture, but in the softest, most devastating way a being could: by doing nothing at all.

He lay there.

Curled up loosely in the grass like an abandoned doll. His claws sunk into the earth. His eyes half-lidded and dull.

No fight. No defiance. No rise of magic.

Only breath.

Only time.

If any curious cookie stumbled upon him, should they even dare enter these woods, he wouldn’t stop them. Wouldn’t threaten. Wouldn’t move. He would lie there, and they would see him for what he was.

Not a monster. Not a god.

Hollow.

A once-brilliant star collapsed into silence.

Somewhere beyond the canopy, a wind stirred. He could hear leaves moving like whispers above him. But it didn’t touch him. Nothing did.

He imagined, faintly, what it might feel like to be held. Not just touched—but held. Like he mattered. Like something inside him was still warm.

But the thought passed quickly. He didn’t deserve that.

Not anymore.

He had given the world all of himself once. He had poured and poured and poured, until even truth became poison in his throat.

And when the truth hurt them, they blamed him.

So let them forget him.

Let them rot in their own convenient fictions.

Let the forest swallow him, and time erase the shape of who he’d once been.

Still—he could not die. Crumble.

And that, above all else, was the cruelest thing of all.

He breathed in the dampness of the soil, the rot of roots and the faint taste of magic in the air.

And he waited.

For what, he didn’t know.

But it wouldn’t be salvation.

He had long stopped believing in that.

Shadow Milk looked up at the moon, finding the strength to only move his eyes and not his head. Her light from the moon shone down on him, lighting up his silver barrier similar to that of the moon.

He didn’t stare at her long.

He could not face the moon in the sky, for the first time he felt shame in it, a regret. He could not face her directly, not like before. 

She would be disappointed to see what he had become.

The air from outside gently touches his barriers, he could feel it distantly. 

Or maybe, she would offer him comfort, be his savior in his own pain. Or maybe, even send some cookie of her own to him.

His truth said it was too late for that.

His lie said should it come true, he might stay a bit longer.

The natural part of him was saddened at not being able to go out in such a better way. To be succumbed into silence and stillness instead of a bright battle or fight. 

A star.

Shadow Milk lay still.

The chains outside his barrier rattled occasionally, disturbed by a restless wind or the shudder of the land, but inside, all was quiet. Still. Weightless in the worst kind of way.

He stared blankly into the curvature of the dome he’d formed, reflections of himself scattered in warped angles, ghosts of who he was, or who he pretended to be.

His thoughts wandered. Back. Far back. To them.

The others.

The Beasts.

He didn’t think of them often, not with clarity, but now, in the stillness, he found them.

Their laughter came first. That strange, disjointed mirth echoing from shared memory. Their odd routines. Their strange unity in dissonance.

Back when their care for eachother was soft, genuine. Present day, they still care for each other as such, but time sealed away changes things; even love.

Back when they weren’t shackled, weren’t fallen, weren’t feared. Just strange beings learning to live beside each other.

Learning to feel.

He saw Eternal Sugar again, vivid, with her unblinking smile and certainty.

“Paradise,” she once said. “Cookies just need the right story, the right truth, and they will find happiness.”

Shadow Milk hadn’t believed her then.

Now…

He wasn’t sure.

Perhaps she had been right. There was comfort in falsehood. In curated illusion. Happiness could be built. Engineered. Enforced.

Even if it required… hurting them.

Even if they screamed and denied it, they would come to understand, wouldn’t they?

They’d come to accept it, like warm syrup poured over a rotting truth.

Shadow Milk’s claws dug deeper into the grass, trembling, just slightly.

He curled tighter.

Maybe he could have built something like that, too.

Not to save anyone. Not to protect.

But for stillness.

A sanctuary of lies. No demands. No questions. No need for answers.

He could dream again, perhaps. Let others get lost in his illusions, and maybe, just maybe, they’d leave him alone.

No one would ask anything of him anymore. No more Why. No more Tell us more. No more endless, gnawing hunger for knowledge they didn’t deserve.

It was peace.

Even if it was false.

He could rest, then. In a world of his own making.

His fingers loosened, splayed against the dirt.

Or… he could go quieter than that.

No illusions. No kingdom. No play at power.

Nothing.

He could push deep enough into his soul jam’s cycle—into its endless preservation of his form—and force himself still.

Not crumbled. He could not die. The jam would never allow that. But he could sleep.

Shut the world out.

Shut himself out.

For a day. A year. A century. What did it matter?

If he wasn’t conscious to know the passing of time, then it didn’t pass at all.

He felt the familiar ache in his chest, like something was caving in, like he was made of fragile glass under pressure.

He could slip beneath it, quietly, and—

He didn’t move.

Didn’t cry.

Didn’t scream.

Just lay in silence, as something inside him pulled tighter and tighter until it numbed.

He hated the Soul Jam for what it wouldn’t let him do.

And maybe, quietly, he hated himself more—for almost wanting to live.

But he said nothing.

Just let the hollow hold him.

And listened to the ache of a world that would not let him leave.

In his last waking moment, the only thing he found himself thinking about was them.

Mystic Flour. Burning Spice. Eternal Sugar. Even the quieter one, Silent Salt.

Shadow Milk let out a weak laugh, somehow finding the strength.

“When did I get so sentimental..” His voice was weak, strange even to his own ears. His body already having an effect from being manually cut off partially from his soul jam, all of which his doing.

His fingers twitched against the soil again. He couldn’t feel them properly anymore. Not fully. The edges of his limbs tingled, dulled by the slow starvation of the magic he’d turned inward, cutting himself from the wellspring that should have been preserving him.

All his doing.

A passive severance, deliberate in how it let the light dim.

He hadn’t shut the soul jam off completely. That would be impossible, it was embedded too deeply in him, a core that would never let him die. But he had dulled it. Pressed it into stillness, let its glow fade from his chest to the faintest pulse.

The moment he had done it, his body began to weaken, slowly, but surely. And it was a weakness he did not resist.

He had built kingdoms from dust. Had held galaxies in his eyes once. Now, he could barely hold himself together.

His breath hitched as he turned once more onto his side, facing the tangle of earth and roots beside him, fingers dragging as if searching for something that wasn’t there.

His magic had once commanded the constellations to speak. Now, it barely kept the cold out.

“When did I start… missing them?” he muttered, even quieter.

He didn’t mean Pure Vanilla—not directly. He didn’t mean the other Beasts. Not even the Fount he used to be.

He meant them all, and no one. He meant the feeling.

The time before.

Before truth became a burden. Before every gaze turned expectant. Before power tasted like ash. When knowledge was a joy to share, not a weapon hurled back at him.

He missed being looked at with wonder. Not fear. Not accusation.

He missed being a Cookie with a place in the world. Not… whatever this was.

The ache in his limbs was beginning to spread into his chest. A phantom pain. Something he couldn’t name but knew too well.

His claws clutched the ground once more, but this time they didn’t dig in, they only trembled.

Was he just lonely?

The thought made him want to laugh.

But the sound never came.

Only silence, again.

Only the faint glow of his soul jam, still refusing to let go of him, no matter how far he tried to drift.

And so Shadow Milk remained there, incased in a barrier of his own making, inside the barrier of a truth he could no longer accept, and a body that would never let him disappear.

How cruel.

To think in the end, this was a fate for all of the other beasts as well. One day they will come to a realization and surrender in their own ways.

He huffed, to think he had been the first.

The first to “crumble”. The first to feel enough to curl into the dirt like this, magic barely alive, soul jam a dim beacon pulsing somewhere just beneath him.

He was supposed to be the strong one. The clever one. The keeper of knowledge, of secrets. The one who saw through the illusions, who named everything false and cracked it open to the bone.

But here he was. At the roots of a gnarled tree. Not dead, not dying—immortality saw to that—but suspended. Like a punished child in the corner of the world.

And for what?

His once truth? Lies?

His love?

His defiance?

He didn’t know anymore.

He let out a quiet exhale, rolling his head to the side, cheek against the grass. There was no elegance in this. No mystique. No veil of power.

It was simply exhaustion.

Just the faint remnants of his golden-black robes, frayed and stained by the weight of too many truths.

“I wonder…” he rasped, eyes barely open now, “how long they’ll last… before they come to lie in the dirt, too.”

“..Maybe they’ll come find me, be in this very spot beside me as they too cool down like a bright raging star into something small and exhausted.”

And maybe when they do, they’ll think of him. The first to fall.

Not in battle.

But into silence.

Then… the tiredness finally began to creep in.

It was slow. Heavy. Not like sleep, not like any natural rest, but something deeper. Something that curled from the inside out, winding around the magic in his dough, dragging him gently toward stillness.

His limbs slackened, breath slowing to near nothing. A soft exhale escaped him as his body gave in at last, melting into the soil, into the earth’s quiet hum. The barrier still shimmered faintly around him, a glassy sheen laced with chains, half-forgotten.

Shadow Milk didn’t close his eyes fully. Not yet. His vision blurred, dimmed, shadows curling at the edges like burnt parchment. It was taking too long. Of course it was.

He was a cookie built of power, stitched from divinity, from knowledge, from light that had since twisted into something colder. Made not to fall. Made not to falter.

So he forced it.

He’d been forcing it from the start.

This surrender wasn’t natural. It wasn’t allowed. But he would take it.

If he was to be cursed with immortality, then let him rot in stillness. Let his consciousness drip away, drop by drop, until none remained.

Whenever he finally slipped into the abyss completely—he knew—he would not wake.

Not in this life.

Not in any.

And in that thought, a laugh nearly formed on his tongue. Quiet, dry, broken.

Eternal Sugar.

Holder of sloth.

Dreamer of “paradise.”

Seeker of happiness, whatever she believed it was.

Would she have smiled at this?

Would she have crowned him with flowers, called this his rest?

Would she have said, “Well done, old friend. You’ve finally stopped running.”

He imagined her voice—soft as it always is he supposes, Her strange little hums. The way she used to sway when they talked about peace like it was a fairytale worth believing in.

…Then he thought of Mystic Flour.

Gentle, strange Mystic Flour, whose hands once glowed with quiet healing. Her laughter was always quiet but sturdy, her presence calm like a spell woven over the aches of battle. Even before her corruption, she was always the one to patch them back together—delicately layering her power into their splintered forms like a mother would a child’s scraped knees.

Would she come now, if she knew? Would she step into this forest—into this cocoon of chains and rot and silence—and try to rouse him back?

Or… would she simply smile? Finally, maybe.

Would she see this empty surrender as peace at last?

Would she kneel beside him in the grass, lay her hand over his chest, and murmur something like “You’ve done enough. You may rest now, and return to what you once were.”

The thought made his stomach turn and his heart stutter. He didn’t want to know.

Then came Burning Spice.

Arrogant, crude Burning Spice, forged in pain and sharpened in fire.

He would have spat at this. Called it weakness. Cowardice.

But then again… he might have looked twice.

He might’ve seen the droop in Shadow Milk’s shoulders. The way the soul jam flickered, not just from exhaustion but from resignation. And perhaps, perhaps, he would’ve said nothing cruel at all.

Perhaps his silence would’ve been pity, distorted and brittle and sharp-edged, but real. A memory tugged faintly: an old gesture, a hand once offered out, not in friendship, not in softness, but in solidarity. A comfort the warrior had long forgotten how to give.

You were strong once, that hand might’ve said.

And maybe even still.

The ache came in Shadow Milk’s chest again, not from the overuse of magic but from the ghosts of a time when they had not all fallen so far.

Then…

Pure Vanilla.

The name was like a thorn. It caught in his mind and refused to be ignored.

He felt the presence before the thought even fully formed—light, stubborn, unbearably gentle.

He shoved it away.

No.

No.

Not now. Not him.

He did not want that radiance here. Not in this hollow place.

Not in this surrender.

Not when he was barely holding together.

So he curled tighter, forcing his body into the soil like roots, like something trying to disappear into the earth and forget it was ever anything more than dust.

The silence was thick now. Only the hum of the barriers. The chill in his limbs. His soul jam, pulsing faintly.

A final thought came to him.

Eventually…

He would slip into his permanent drift.

Not sleep. Not death. Something slower. Quieter.

A dream that never ends.

In it, perhaps, he could build the world he never had. A world untouched by betrayal, unburdened by power. Maybe he’d return to the days before his fall—when he stood tall in golden and black robes, reciting truths to an eager world, and the weight of knowledge hadn’t yet cracked his form.

Or maybe… he’d dream of what came after. The moments soaked in darkness, where he no longer had to be good or wise or anything at all. Where he was free to wander through illusion, cradle it close, and call it peace.

Perhaps he’d see them again there, Eternal Sugar, Mystic Flour, Burning Spice, Silent Salt—shadows of themselves, softer, kinder.

Perhaps even, that truthful cookie.

But maybe not.

It didn’t matter.

The dream would be his.

And in that quiet, imagined realm, he would finally rest, forever drifting between what was, what could’ve been, and what he chose to forget.

So, Shadow Milk lay there, sunken and silent, the edges of his soul jam dimming under the thick haze of self-induced stillness. He had nearly done it, he had nearly slipped into that perfect nothingness, his final retreat from the noise and the weight. One more breath, and he would’ve let go.

Then came the pressure, barely a tap against the second, thinner layer of his barrier. Not from the forest, not from Beast-Yeast. Something… gentle. Familiar.

He didn’t look.

He didn’t want to look.

Then, a voice.

Muffled, but unmistakably steady. Not loud, but tinged with panic that tightened in its attempt to remain calm.

“Shadow Milk… please.”

He didn’t stir. His body refused to acknowledge it. He was warm, surrounded in false peace. He needed nothing more, certainly not from him.

But the voice pressed in again, closer this time, its tremble smoothed over by something unbearably kind.

“You don’t have to stay here. Let me help you. I can heal you.”

The words filtered through his heavy thoughts, threading softly into the cracks of his barely-conscious mind like mist through stone. The gentleness was irritating.

He cracked open one eye, lifting his head ever so slightly. His muscles trembled with the strain. When he turned, slow, reluctant, he met a pair of wide, worried eyes through the barrier. Pure Vanilla.

Shadow Milk’s gaze was bleary, his hair drifting around his face like a haze of ink. The ache in his body, in his soul, burned all the more beneath the calm of that gaze.

Pure Vanilla tapped lightly again.

“Please, just… drop the barrier. Let me in. Let me see you.”

Shadow Milk didn’t answer. He just watched him for a beat longer, before flopping back down into the grass, facing away. He couldn’t entertain that voice. That hope. He buried himself deeper into the illusion of nothing, trying to drown out the sound, the kindness.

It didn’t stop.

The tapping shifted.

Moments later, a light knock sounded at the side of the barrier in front of him.

He didn’t have to turn his head this time, Pure Vanilla had come around, kneeling now on the other side, peering in with those same stubborn eyes.

Shadow Milk blinked slowly.

He didn’t even have the energy to be annoyed.

There was no anger left in him. No resistance. No scorn or sharp remarks.

All he had was simple numbness.

Shadow Milk did not stir, he knew the barrier could not be broken. He had poured what was left of his initial unrecovered magic ability into the barrier. 

Or, maybe the barrier could be broken by such a cookie like Pure Vanilla. Though he still was not startled, he knew the cookie would not dare jostle the barrier with him so closely inside it.

Even if the cookie broke it, he could not heal the hollowness from within. Any healed fragments would be taken down, pushed away and rejected as he’s broken from the inside once again.

Because of his mentality, it would all be useless and the process would continue. 

Shadow Milk wanted that.

He continued to ignore the healer cookie’s pleas, he didn’t even find it in him to wonder why the cookie was still in the area, or even the anger that should of followed.

He couldn’t care, not anymore.

Not like it would matter to him in a few moments.

Tap Tap Tap.

The touch in his barrier was distracting enough for him to release his hold on the soul jam briefly. He frowned slightly, finally staring into the eyes of Pure Vanilla directly, finally seeing him clearer.

Pure Vanilla’s eyes displayed a type of worry he’s never seen. 

How could someone worry for him? Especially a cookie such as him?

Laughable, foolish.

He paid him no mind, simply continuing to focus at his soul jam, halting his natural functions. He didn’t look at Pure Vanilla, didn’t acknowledge, didn’t care. The hero can go spread rumors or stories all about how he had won and the beast had finally fallen, again.

An ending he’s familiar with.

But of course he wasn’t granted the quietness of stillness, the peaceful drifting he was hoping to achieve. Because when had anything ever gone his ways.

Because Pure Vanilla didn’t stop tapping.

Even after his voice had quieted, even after his pleas had dissolved into soft murmurs of reassurance. he kept tapping. Gentle, rhythmic. Not forceful, not demanding. Just… there.

It was beginning to work.

Not in any overt way. Shadow Milk remained slumped in the grass, his limbs leaden, his breath shallow. But the very presence of the tapping… the consistent tender rhythm, paired with that steady warmth of Pure Vanilla’s presence… it distracted him.

He was supposed to be focusing on his soul jam, on stilling it completely. That was the plan. Sink deep enough, slip far enough, until it all stopped and he could dream forever.

But now his mind drifted elsewhere. To the persistent echo of soft knocking, to the blurry shape of that glowing figure sitting just outside the translucent wall of his barrier. To those eyes, wide, too full of something so vulnerable it made his gut twist.

Shadow Milk scowled faintly.

Of course. Of course he would show up now. Right as the final flicker of resistance gave out, right when he was about to tip fully over the edge.

How frustrating.

His soul jam pushed against him now, sensing the lapse in his control. The internal resistance he’d been clinging to wavered, too unfocused, too tangled in Pure Vanilla’s voice, his presence, his maddening refusal to leave.

Shadow Milk’s claws dug deeper into the soil beneath him, irritation simmering low beneath his skin. He didn’t speak. He didn’t want to give Pure Vanilla the satisfaction of acknowledgment.

But he turned his head.

And for a moment—just a moment—his eyes met Pure Vanilla’s again.

That stupid soft smile greeted him, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if Pure Vanilla hadn’t found him at his lowest, nearly gone, nearly faded.

Shadow Milk didn’t smile back.

Of course he didn’t.

But he didn’t look away, either.

Pure Vanilla’s voice returned, quiet as a breeze but unwavering. “You don’t have to say anything,” he murmured, more to the air than to him. “I just want to be here. That’s all.”

And he stayed.

No more pleading. Just soft words, now and then, and his presence seated calmly outside the barrier like he had all the time in the world. Like he was willing to wait as long as Shadow Milk needed.

Shadow Milk stared at him, breathing slow and shallow.

And in that silence, he realized something else.

He had forgotten the stillness of death he was chasing.

His thoughts, once wrapped around nothingness, were now stubbornly wrapped around Pure Vanilla.

And his soul jam was beginning to win.

“There you are.” Pure Vanilla’s hand remained flat against the barrier, he didn’t push or try to shatter it, simply lightly touching it. “Keep your eyes on me, okay?”

Coming here and disturbing him further. Now making demands of him?

The gall. The audacity.

Shadow Milk couldn’t focus.

How awful, he was now losing all of his progress. 

The soul jam’s power was not negotiable, his already weakened magic output paired with his weakened mentality and physical ability allowed for the opportunity to slip so far into nothingness, to block off the automatic ability baked into his very dough that wasn’t happy with him slipping away.

His mind darted to Pure Vanilla, still distracted by that stupid tapping.

Had the cookie come to take from him even more? To rid him absolutely with nothing and take the other half of the soul jam? 

Hah, the irony. If that was the case, the hero would easily find himself struggling down the road of corruption. Just like they all had.

He could almost smile at the thought, history repeating itself.

If Shadow Milk was there in the future to see it, he would have laughed at it. Hopefully he wouldn’t be, but if he was he would have.

“Keep your eyes on me.”

Pure Vanilla’s voice was soft—almost too soft—but insistent, gentle in the way the wind might nudge the edge of a wilting petal.

Shadow Milk didn’t respond, not aloud. His eyes were still on him, heavy-lidded, tired beyond exhaustion, but open. Watching.

“That’s it…” Pure Vanilla breathed, and there was a smile in his voice, small and aching. “You’re doing so well.”

Shadow Milk scoffed internally. Well? He was sprawled in the grass, the dirt, numb, weakened by his own hand, a second away from slipping into an oblivion that even his soul jam was now struggling to prevent. What kind of twisted definition of ‘well’ was that?

But still… he didn’t look away.

“You’re okay, just stay with me,” Pure Vanilla murmured, scooting a little closer to the edge of the barrier, his fingertips now lightly brushing the surface. “You’ve always been strong, haven’t you? But even strong Cookies deserve rest. Real rest.”

His voice was calm, melodic. He didn’t push, didn’t scold or beg. Instead, he just… talked.

About a breeze he’d felt walking through the paths that morning. The color of the sky above the Vanilla Kingdom. A book he had read that reminded him of Shadow Milk for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. About tea, and warmth, and the way clouds looked when they passed over the Castle’s sunlit towers.

None of it mattered. Not to Shadow Milk. He wasn’t listening.

But that wasn’t the point.

The cadence, the calm, the presence, it filled the space between his thoughts. Kept them from spiraling inward again, kept his mind from drifting too far into the void.

He hated that it worked.

His claws twitched in the dirt, still aching to cling to the silence he had so carefully built. But he kept his gaze where it was. On that irritatingly bright face. On the soft, slow-moving mouth that never stopped speaking.

“…And you know,” Pure Vanilla said, tone light, “the flowers here aren’t as scary as they look. Some of them are actually quite kind. I think you’d like them. The darker ones, the ones that hide under leaves, they don’t seek attention, but they still bloom.”

Shadow Milk’s lips parted as if to retort, but nothing came out. He just breathed. Shallow. Then deeper.

“And, you’re still with me,” Pure Vanilla said quietly, as if in awe. “That’s all I need.”

The soul jam inside Shadow Milk flickered again, stronger now. Pushing against the fading barrier of his will.

He was too tired to shove it back down.

And Pure Vanilla, still murmuring, still there, kept holding his attention. Gently pulling his mind forward, just far enough to keep him from slipping.

Did the vanilla cookie sense he was slipping away through some faint connection their soul jam and turn around from his journey back to crispia? How… soft.

Shadow Milk looked up to the moon for a moment, she seemed more distant then before, but still watching; her coldness feeling like warmth to him.

Maybe she had heard his off handed comment, maybe Pure Vanilla was the savior she had sent to him.

Foolish, foolish choice.

Shadow Milk’s eyes—dim, glassy—finally slipped shut.

The quiet rush of breath from him was slow, content even, as if he were sinking into the earth itself. The whisper of his soul jam was growing fainter again, the glow against his chest flickering like a candle struggling in an unseen wind.

Yes, he thought. Finally.

Then—

“Shadow Milk.”

The voice came again, threading into the silence like light cracking through shutters.

He grimaced. His brows twitched, pulling tight with irritation. Of course. Of course he wouldn’t be allowed peace, not even now.

“Shadow Milk, please… look at me.”

Pure Vanilla’s voice was still calm, but the tension beneath it bled through the words. More desperate now. Still gentle, but insistent in the way of rain tapping on a window that wouldn’t open.

Firmer taps came against the barrier—tap tap, tap-tap—rhythmic but now laced with rising urgency. Shadow Milk’s fingers curled tighter in the dirt, claws catching on stone. He clenched his jaw.

“You were doing so well. Just… just open your eyes again.”

He didn’t. He wouldn’t. His body had already begun to sink, his limbs heavier, vision gone, soul jam dimming to a thread. He had committed. The quiet he craved was just within reach.

“Don’t go silent on me now,” Pure Vanilla whispered. “Not when I know you’re still there.”

Another knock. Harder. A rattle of magic across the edge of the barrier. It made his skin prickle.

Shadow Milk’s breath stuttered.

Why won’t he let go? Why won’t he stop?

His thoughts grew jagged, full of raw edges and smoke. The presence outside the barrier was overwhelming, too bright, too loud, even when gentle. Even when kind.

“You’re here. You’re right in front of me,” Pure Vanilla went on, voice cracking just once, a tremor he tried and failed to hide. “I can feel it. Don’t shut yourself away again, please. Just… one more look. That’s all I’m asking.”

Shadow Milk snapped his eyes open.

They blazed, tired, furious, and full of bitter fire.

His gaze landed square on Pure Vanilla, who had moved closer still, pressing his palm against the barrier, his expression unshaken despite the storm brewing behind Shadow Milk’s stare.

The beast’s breath came heavy through gritted teeth. “You’re—relentless,” he rasped, voice shredded with exhaustion.

Pure Vanilla didn’t flinch. “I have to be. You’d disappear the moment I blink.”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

And Shadow Milk, trembling and weak, did the only thing he could.

He looked away again. But not with the same finality as before.

He wasn’t fading this time.

He was stalling.

His soul jam had picked up in his moment of distraction, pulsing in angry resistance trying to heal him.

Even his own soul jam was working against him.

Shadow Milk’s claws scraped against the dirt again as he slowly, weakly tilted his head back toward Pure Vanilla. The glow of his soul jam sputtered like a dying ember, alive, but only barely. His voice, when it finally broke the quiet, was hoarse and thin, each word heavy with spite dragged from the pit of exhaustion.

“Why return?” he rasped, barely louder than the rustling leaves. “You already got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

His eyes narrowed, lips curling into something bitter, not quite a snarl, not quite a smile.

“Satisfaction… in tricking the untrickable.” A harsh breath shuddered from him, a humorless scoff. “The great Pure Vanilla, so radiant, so unwavering. Go back to Crispia. Return to your castle and your star-kissed throne.”

His gaze turned upward, not to look at the healer, but past him, to the sky, dim and cloud-choked.

“And there, with no one watching, you can lift your arms to the heavens and rejoice. Proclaim to the very stars themselves that you had done the impossible—you had won.”

The air between them went silent again, heavy with the weight of it.

But Pure Vanilla didn’t look victorious.

And Shadow Milk, collapsed and curled beneath his own chains, barely conscious, didn’t sound like he believed his own words. Not really.

But it was alright for him, everything was.

Pure Vanilla’s breath hitched softly, but he didn’t flinch from the venom in Shadow Milk’s words. His hand remained pressed to the barrier, the light of his magic flickering gently around his fingers—not forceful, not demanding. Just… present.

For a moment, he didn’t speak.

Then, with quiet conviction, he answered.

“I didn’t win.”

His voice was steady, but it cracked at the edges. “This was never about winning, Shadow Milk. You think I came back here to gloat? To prove something to you?” He shook his head, eyes locked to the hollowed ones behind the barrier. “I came because I care. Because something in this forest… something in you cried out so loudly, it rattled my soul jam.”

His fingers slid gently down the barrier, as if he could trace the curve of Shadow Milk’s cheek through it. “You could vanish into your own darkness, lock yourself away forever, and I would still come find you.”

His voice softened, trembling slightly. “Because when I saw you like this, I didn’t see a trick I’d bested, or a monster who deserved to be sealed…”

“I saw you.”

The light of his magic glowed again in his palm, warm and pulsing like a heartbeat. “And I couldn’t let you go without at least trying to remind you that you’re not beyond love. Or warmth. Or being wanted, not as a prize or upper being, but as a cookie.”

He lowered his head just slightly, resting his forehead against the barrier.

“So if all I can do is sit here and talk until you stop chasing silence… then I’ll do it. I’ll be the fool who stays.”

The chains against the barrier rattled once, clicking against eachother as they rumbled. If it was unconsciously Shadow Milk’s doing, he didn’t say.

Shadow Milk couldn’t find the strength to talk again, maybe he could of, he didn’t try.

But his eyes stayed stubbornly on Pure Vanilla.

Pesky Pure Vanilla. Somehow always beating him. Always.

So, Shadow Milk didn’t speak.

He didn’t have to, not when his silence screamed louder than any words could. The tension in his shoulders unraveled as he sank deeper into the grass, the blades gently folding around his form like a grave too soft to bury anything properly. The world was dulling, slipping from him in gentle strokes, like a dream pulling him under. His soul jam flickered faintly beneath his chest, the magic still straining, still resisting, still trying to heal a Cookie determined not to be whole.

And he felt it again.

That spike of heat—anger—a twisted curl of frustration that bloomed under his ribs.

He found me. Again.

After everything, after all his efforts to wither into nothing, Pure Vanilla still stood outside the barrier, calling, tapping, waiting. Not pleading. Not begging.

Just being there.

A cruel trick. A quiet insult. The kindest knife of all.

Shadow Milk’s jaw clenched. His claws gripped the soil beneath him again, trembling, but not from cold. He hated how it felt, how it always felt, like Pure Vanilla was besting him without even trying. Not through magic, not through force, but through relentless, infuriating presence.

Even now, when Shadow Milk tried to let go, to fall forever… he couldn’t, because that voice kept tethering him. Not loud, not booming. Just there.

“I’m sorry,” Pure Vanilla said, and Shadow Milk almost laughed.

Of course you are.

But the voice didn’t waver. “I’m sorry for pushing you. For dragging truth into wounds you weren’t ready to show me. But I won’t regret coming here. I won’t regret trying to reach you. Even if you hate me for it.”

The taps against the barrier grew louder, firmer—like a heartbeat, like a rhythm that refused to fade. Shadow Milk’s eyes opened a sliver, and he saw Pure Vanilla again, eyes bright with something painfully sincere, a glow in the darkness he couldn’t extinguish no matter how deeply he curled into the void.

“Please,” Pure Vanilla said softly, the sound almost muffled through the silver veil, “just stay with me a little longer. That’s all I’m asking.”

Shadow Milk shut his eyes again, breathing shallowly.

He was so close. He could feel the drift overtaking him, the edges of everything fraying into stillness. The pull was gentle, like slipping into cold water, his body going limp, his thoughts quieting…

And then…

“…Don’t.”

A voice.

It pierced like a thread of gold against the grey of unconsciousness. Soft, strained, but it reached him.

Shadow Milk twitched. His body betrayed him, reacting to the sound, the tone, the truth behind the words.

“Just stay. Stay here with me.”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even desperate. It was quiet in that way that sincerity always was. Raw. Steady. Too steady.

His eyes opened again.

A low, seething breath left his lips.

The world bled back in around the edges, colors sharpened by irritation and exhaustion. His limbs didn’t obey yet, but his gaze did. He turned his head, just enough to see Pure Vanilla through the transparent barrier, still sitting there, still tapping. Still talking.

Still ruining everything.

“You never listen,” Shadow Milk rasped, his voice dry with resentment. “Even now, you meddle. When I was almost free.”

His vision flickered, but it held. Just barely.

“And for what? So you can play the hero? Bask in your righteousness, claiming the last breath I had left?” He bared his teeth in a grimace that almost wasn’t a smile. “You can’t even let me fade without your voice clawing me back.”

The anger simmered, hollow and tired. A final flare of something before it was extinguished completely.

Pure Vanilla didn’t recoil. He didn’t even move. He just remained still, eyes fixed on him with that maddening gentleness.

“You always do this,” Shadow Milk muttered, eyes narrowing to slits. “You win. Even when I fall.”

He exhaled sharply and looked away again.

“Everytime you talk, the process restarts and I have to do it all over again.” His eyes snapped to Pure Vanilla again. “Is that what you want? To make me suffer in some type of chased loop so I never get what I want? Even now?”

Pure Vanilla’s eyes half lidded at him, it made Shadow Milk angry. Not because of its fakeness, oh no, it was very much real and lacked what he hated most, pity. And that infuriated him. Quietly. 

He didn’t have energy to lash out. Not anymore.

Pure Vanilla’s voice rang out. “No, the opposite.” The palm that had been on the barrier stroked it up and down gently, almost as if Pure Vanilla knew that Shadow Milk could faintly feel it as if it was his own dough. “I don’t want you to feel alone at your lowest, to feel like you deserve such a permanent stillness.” 

A gentle press at the barrier, he felt the magic outside shift. 

“You are worthy of companionship, of company. A friend”

Shadow Milk quietly scoffed.

“I learned you will always deny it, because that is all you’ve ever known, all you are used to.”

How did he—

“You want familiarity, and I am unfamiliar to you.”

Shadow Milk was silent, still staring blankly at Pure Vanilla. Maybe in the past he might have offered a jab retort toward that statement.

“Please, let me be familiar to you. Let us get accustomed to each other. No one wants to be alone, not truly.”

So many things Shadow Milk wanted to say.

Don’t act like you know anything about me.

Stop pretending.

You mean nothing to me.

He didn’t find the strength, the motivation. He simply stared.

Pure Vanilla kept talking.

His voice—still muffled through the barrier, still so infuriatingly gentle—pressed on, patient, unwavering, like the breeze that slipped through the dark branches overhead.

“You don’t have to be alone like this.”

Shadow Milk didn’t respond. He didn’t even twitch this time. His body was still cold with numbness, soul jam flickering again with tired magic. But something in the way Pure Vanilla said it… something quiet, something unrehearsed, curled around him.

“I’ve… felt like this before.”

That made his gaze shift.

A small movement, subtle, but real. His eyes didn’t fully open, but they tracked where Pure Vanilla sat outside the barrier, hands resting lightly on the curve of the magic, not knocking anymore. Just there.

“There were nights where the silence sounded better than healing,” Pure Vanilla continued softly. “Where I thought… if I just stayed still enough, maybe the weight would lift. Maybe I’d become part of the quiet and stop having to carry everything.”

His tone wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t soaked in guilt or martyrdom. It was honest, soft and almost too vulnerable for someone who always carried light in his hands.

Shadow Milk blinked. Once. His breath caught in his throat but didn’t leave him.

“I know that kind of silence,” Pure Vanilla murmured. “I know what it tries to promise.”

For the first time since Pure Vanilla had found him, Shadow Milk listened. Really closely listened.

And the flicker in his soul jam stilled, not extinguished, but suspended. Hovering.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t rise.

But he didn’t close his eyes either.

This was mildly interesting to him now. 

A soft, golden glow spilled across the twisted roots and dead leaves of the forest floor. Pure Vanilla had lowered his head, hands pressed gently to the barrier, and from his fingertips poured warmth—healing magic—though it could not breach the seal Shadow Milk had wrapped himself in.

Still, Shadow Milk felt it. The hum. The pressure. The way that warmth pooled just outside, brushing against the edge of his “prison” like sunlight nudging a locked door.

He slowly turned his head, his narrow eyes glowing dully through strands of unbrushed hair. Pure Vanilla met that gaze with a quiet smile, one small and steady despite the unease he carried behind his expression.

“I’m not here to pull you out,” he said, softly. “I’m not here to fight you, or fix what doesn’t want to be fixed.”

The magic flowed brighter, just enough to cast flickering reflections on the silver shell of the barrier. Pure Vanilla’s leaned his weight against the barrier, resting against it. Shadow Milk could feel it.

“I just want to sit with you. That’s all.”

Shadow Milk stared at him.

A silence followed. Long, brittle. The kind that scraped at the bones.

Then—clink.

The chains wrapped around the barrier gave a sudden shudder. One link cracked with a sound like ice under pressure.

Pure Vanilla blinked, watching as the delicate lattice binding the outer shell gave way. The silver chains splintered apart like dry twigs, falling away in slow, sparkling pieces.

He exhaled. A breath of relief—and reverence.

“You’re doing so well,” he said, his voice dipped in awe, a murmur meant only for Shadow Milk. “You’re still here. You’re trying, even now.”

The last of the chains cracked and fell to dust.

Two layers of silver remained.

But for the first time since finding him, Pure Vanilla’s light touched just a bit closer. And Shadow Milk did not look away.

Shadow Milk didn’t know what he wanted anymore, did he want to chase the darkness and freedom of being unconscious and being able to imagine whatever happy land he finally could or did he want to stay in the waking world. 

His eyes scanned over Pure Vanilla, still offering the smile.

He did not know, he could not decide.

Shadow Milk’s body remained still, but his mind churned beneath the surface like a storm behind frosted glass. The grass beneath him felt soft, almost inviting, like it wanted to lull him into stillness again. Permanent stillness. A dreamless sleep. The kind where there was no Pure Vanilla. No memories. No struggle. Just a void, heavy and quiet and merciful.

And wasn’t that what he deserved? What he wanted?

His vision dimmed at the edges again, shadows creeping like ink into the corners of his mind. He let himself fall.

But—tap. Tap. Tap.

The rhythmic sound pressed gently against his thoughts, not harsh, but ever-present. Insistent. A familiar voice followed, a quiet murmur just loud enough to brush the edges of his fading awareness.

“You’re still here, Shadow Milk. You’re doing well,” Pure Vanilla said, steady despite the ache in his voice. “You don’t have to decide everything right now. Just stay.”

Shadow Milk’s jaw clenched. His claws twitched faintly in the soil.

He didn’t want to stay. The waking world was misery. It scraped against every raw edge he’d tried to bury. Every second awake was another breath he didn’t ask to take. But…

The tapping didn’t stop. And neither did the voice.

“You’re not alone,” Pure Vanilla added, softer now. “You never were.”

Shadow Milk’s eyes opened again, slowly, the same silver-violet dullness staring out through tangled strands of hair. He turned his head, just enough to see the other cookie again, his stupid, unyielding light glowing softly through the cracks.

With a sharp exhale through his nose, Shadow Milk shut his eyes once more, dragging a clawed hand through the dirt beside him.

And then—

A second barrier split down the middle. Like a film peeling off a wound, the delicate outer layer broke in a soft shimmer, fluttering away like ash caught on a breeze.

Only the thickest, shell remained now, woven deep with preservation magic, pain, and pride. The part that still refused to fall. Woven out of quiet desperation for a final resting place.

Shadow Milk didn’t look up again. He didn’t speak. He simply lay there, unmoving, uncertain.

Indecisive.

And Pure Vanilla waited. Still tapping. Still offering nothing but warmth.

What did he want to do, did he want to give him?

He looked through the last barrier of his unbreakable defense, staring through into the eyes of Pure Vanilla Cookie.

Perhaps if the cookie finally felt satisfied in ‘breaking’ down his barriers, he would lose interest and leave. And he would finally be allowed the opportunity to fade for good.

That sounded nice.

And yet, there Pure Vanilla was. Sitting just beyond it, eyes wide with exhaustion and soft with something dangerously close to love. He didn’t speak now. He just waited.

And then,

“Please, let me see you.” Pure Vanilla’s voice was soft, always soft. Like he was talking to a frightened injured animal. “Let me be by your side.”

A final plea to bring down the very walls that was meant to hold him in place, meant to keep him still.

Maybe if he saw it fall—if he watched the great, untouchable Shadow Milk crumble at last—he’d feel satisfied. Triumphant. And maybe then he’d go.

Maybe he’d finally leave him to the silence.

That… sounded nice.

Shadow Milk inhaled shallowly, his cracked voice barely a whisper in the airless space between them.

“…Okay.”

The final barrier splintered.

It broke without ceremony, unraveling into flecks of dull light that shimmered like old dust in the dark. Nothing dramatic, no grand collapse, just the quiet disintegration of the last thing keeping anyone out.

And then, there was nothing between them.

Shadow Milk didn’t move. His body was still limp against the earth, curled inward like something wounded and feral. His soul jam flickered weakly on his chest, fighting to hold onto what little power he hadn’t strangled out of it. His breath came shallow, uneven.

But his eyes, lusterless and exhausted, remained open and half lidded.

He stared at Pure Vanilla as if daring him to be the first to speak. Daring him to gloat. To reach forward and declare victory.

Go on, he thought bitterly. Say you’ve won.

But Pure Vanilla didn’t say a word. He just slowly moved closer through the now-unsealed space, quiet and reverent, as if stepping into a sacred ruin.

Shadow Milk closed his eyes again, not in defiance, but in surrender.

He was in the most vulnerable position, if Pure Vanilla wanted to crumble him now, it was the perfect chance. Shadow Milk would not fight back.

If Pure Vanilla wanted to take his soul jam, it was the perfect chance, he would’ve maybe flinched, tried to lean back even, but he would not fight back. If he had picked that route, he would have simply crumbled anyway, speeding up this terrible loop they have.

As he thought, he felt Pure Vanilla’s hand rest on his soul jam, squeezing gently as if he was about to pull it off.

Predictable old cookie.

He did not fight, he didn’t even flinch.

So this was it. After all the coaxing, all the tenderness, all the false promises of companionship, it had always come down to this.

He’d known Pure Vanilla would eventually reach for it. Everyone did, in the end. His soul jam: fractured, burdened, dangerous. A cursed treasure. A thing others either wanted to destroy or to purify, never something they could simply… leave untouched.

So when the hand settled over it, resting with intent, he didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t flinch. Let him take it. Let it end like this.

But then—

The pressure didn’t increase. There was no yank. No sharp rip. No pain to jolt him.

But there was warmth.

A steady palm cupped the soul jam like it was something delicate. Not dangerous in gesture. Not ruined either. It was a pulse of life beneath trembling fingers. A quiet steady thrum of something still trying.

Shadow Milk’s brows drew slightly together, and his breath caught as another hand—light and slow—drifted up through his hair. His eyes opened, sluggish and unfocused, only to shut again as Pure Vanilla gently combed his fingers through it, untangling dirt and dried leaves with an almost reverent care.

Then came the shift. A soft tug beneath his shoulders, and he let himself be moved without resistance. He barely registered his head being lifted, guided until it rested on something far warmer and softer than the cold earth. Fabric. A lap. The familiar folds of white and golden robes against his cheek.

He was brought up further from Pure Vanilla’s lap, his head and face now resting against the other cookie’s stomach from where they were sitting. 

Right below his bright soul jam. A contrast to his now dull one.

The irony. Even the soul jam that was now so close to him, Shadow Milk couldn’t find himself to care.

Shadow Milk’s claws curled faintly into the grass as the hand in his hair continued its gentle motion. His breathing stayed shallow, barely audible, but a crack of surprise stirred through his stillness.

Pure Vanilla’s voice came low. Steady. Not smug. Not victorious.

“Still with me,” he whispered, as if to himself. “Good. You’re doing so well.”

Shadow Milk didn’t respond. Not with words. But his chest rose with a faint inhale, and his muscles loosened just slightly, an unconscious lean into the touch above his temple.

More praise followed. Soft, constant.

“I’m here now. You don’t have to be alone in this.”

“You’re safe.”

“I promise I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

Each word dropped like a stone into still water, rippling out into the cracked walls of his mind. And though Shadow Milk gave no answer, his soul jam throbbed—barely, stubbornly—beneath Pure Vanilla’s palm.

Not healing.

Not yet.

He felt it—

That flicker of power, the pulse of his soul jam slowing again beneath his ribs, sinking into silence. Shadow Milk took one final breath inward, guiding his will like a cold knife. This was it. The last attempt. No more pain. No more light. Just sleep.

But then—

A jolt.

His eyes snapped open with a sharp intake of breath.

A radiant warmth surged through his chest, flooding his soul jam like a river breaking its dam. His body twitched faintly, not in pain—but in a startled, involuntary reaction to the sheer intensity of the power suddenly coursing through him. He blinked, and for a moment the world blurred in golden light.

Pure Vanilla’s hand still rested over his soul jam, now glowing with steady healing magic. Tendrils of soft, controlled energy seeped into him, cradling the cracks in his soul jam with more gentleness than his own body had ever afforded itself.

Shadow Milk’s breath shook.

“Apologies,” Pure Vanilla whispered, his voice close, warm, unwavering. The hand that was carding gently through his hair gave him soft apologetic scratches.  “You started to fade again. I couldn’t let you go.”

He didn’t remove his hand. Didn’t give Shadow Milk space to resist. The healing was calm but insistent, like sunlight pouring through the cracks of a ruined cathedral. His magic worked with frustrating precision, overriding Shadow Milk’s sabotage, bypassing the barriers of thought and will he’d constructed over his time of self-starvation.

Shadow Milk groaned low in his throat, a tired, wounded sound. Pure Vanilla’s own coo’s and shushes echoing back to him. His claws twitched weakly at his sides, trying to summon strength to reject it, but there was none left. He couldn’t hold both forces back. Not the soul jam’s innate survival, and not Pure Vanilla’s overwhelming compassion.

The light didn’t burn. It didn’t slice through him like a blade. But it didn’t soothe, either. Not truly. It only forced him to feel everything, the ache, the strain, the misery too long ignored. Healing came, and with it, unbearable awareness.

He slumped further into the warmth now beneath him, shoulders sagging like wet cloth, a shell of pride slowly drowning in exhaustion.

“I didn’t ask you to save me…” he rasped, his voice cracked and low.

Pure Vanilla only shushed him gently, brushing loose strands of hair away from his face. The magic from his palm pulsed steadily, unwavering in rhythm.

“I know,” Pure Vanilla murmured. “But I never needed to be asked.”

Shadow Milk grimaced, turning his face slightly away, not out of hatred, but fatigue. His soul jam throbbed with reluctant life under Pure Vanilla’s touch, and no matter how desperately he tried to shut the door again, the light kept creeping through.

Too tired to fight.

Too tired to flee as well.

And the warmth—infuriating, unbearable—would not stop.

Pure Vanilla’s magic was slow, unrelenting, a calm tide washing over shattered stone, cradling each fracture with maddening tenderness. His hand remained steady over Shadow Milk’s soul jam, its glow softer now, pulsing in rhythm with his breath.

“You can sleep now,” Pure Vanilla whispered, his thumb brushing against the cracked surface of the jam like a promise. “You’re safe… You’ll wake again. I’ll make sure of it.”

Shadow Milk’s throat tightened.

A rage curled in his gut, not the kind that lashed out, but the quiet, bitter fury of something cornered. Of a thing denied its final silence. This was supposed to be it. His end. His surrender. He had sculpted it so carefully, down to the last breath, and here Pure Vanilla was, unraveling it thread by thread with a voice so gentle it made him want to scream.

He hated him.

Hated the mercy in his words. Hated the kindness of his hands. Hated the light that never asked permission before forcing its way into the hollow places he had left to rot. Shadow Milk turned his head just enough to glare, but there was no fire behind it. No bite. Only exhaustion. Only a smolder.

And still, he didn’t move.

He could have. The strength was slowly returning, his limbs no longer dead weight. His soul jam—now crackling faintly with returning life—would have obeyed if he asked it to strike, to push away, to rebuild the barriers Pure Vanilla had gently dismantled one by one.

But he didn’t.

He lay there. Unmoving. Letting him be close to him.

He let it happen.

Because surrender didn’t always look like chains or battle cries. Sometimes it looked like silence. Like choosing not to rise. Like letting a hand rest on your chest without protest, even when it throbbed with something you swore you’d never feel again.

Shadow Milk blinked up at the sky above them. Still dark. Still heavy. But less empty now.

And when he let his eyes drift shut again, this time it wasn’t to fade forever.

It was simply to rest.

Pure Vanilla had made sure of it, out of that—unwavering compassion he had for him. His quiet final permanent peace now turned into normal usual rest.

And for that, Shadow Milk will always hate him.

—