Chapter Text
“Sorry, I hope I'm not too late?” White Lily’s voice echoed like a soft breeze inside the silent chamber; heavy silence broken by her soft steps when she entered through the heavy set of dark-wooded double doors.
“Not at all! I just arrived myself!” Holy Berry answers with mirth laced to her voice, pointing to a chair on her left in the round meeting table. The young guardian nods politely, sitting down at her place.
Pure Vanilla watches through the eye on his vanilla orchid beholder, seeing every one of his closest friends now inside the Council Chamber of the Vanillian Castle, each sitting at the seats especially made for every Hero.
It is a peaceful evening outside, and the soft light of the sun filtering through the mosaic windows in tinted colors representing each of his friends gives the room a very special feeling—almost mystic in nature. He can even hear a few of his dear blueberry birds singing outside through the silence of the Chamber.
Every one of the Ancient Heroes' gaze falls upon their chosen leader once White Lily is seated. With a tight smile, the Holder of Truth lifts up from his seat. “I once again thank you for taking the time to come all the way to my kingdom, so we could have this important discussion and try to reach an agreement between ourselves,” He bows his head courtly to the others, who mumble softly under their breaths how it is not a problem at all. “We can start with the main subject today, as we have gathered to speak about the Beasts, and understand what our views for each of them are, as well as how to proceed after our first encounters.”
With such said, he points to Golden Cheese, “We should go by order of encounter, as such, I believe you should be the first to say your views on the matter, my friend.”
The greediest of Cookies lifts up from her seat with a hardened face, one that has reached a conclusion way before this council started. “Well, I can say to you that I absolutely believe Burning Spice is a monster who needs to be put down,” Dark Cacao mutter in agreement under his beath, while Holy Berry and Pure Vanilla stare at each other with pensive faces, “He is a brute who cannot understand a thing other than destruction, and he will not stop for anything. I honestly say that if he gets what he wants, and he destroys everything, being left with nothing else but himself, well then, his mind is such a broken thing that he would destroy himself to conclude his objective. That is how deranged his reasoning is. ” She huffs, her wings shuddering slightly at her back.
“To be clear, you do not want to seal him back, but instead, to outright crumble him?” Pure Vanilla questions with a furrow to his brow. He knew his friends did not have good visions of the other Beasts, but to outright declare the only option is to crumble one of them?
“Yes, that is my point exactly.” Golden Cheese declares, crossing her arms and pointing out the Beast’s wrongdoings one by one. “He broke my wings, ravaged my kingdom, and did his best to crumble as many innocent cookies and buildings as he could as if it was some kind of deranged game—”
“—We also know that sealing them back is not infallible,” Dark Cacao pipes up from his seat, interrupting Golden Cheese. “They were sealed, and then they escaped. Who can guarantee they won’t escape again in the future?”
Pure Vanilla’s gaze falls on White Lily, his eyes begging for her to say something. The holder of freedom sighs slowly before looking at the general, “I have been studying new methods of sealings, and trying to understand why the previous method failed. With what I know currently, I am fairly certain that if we were to seal them, given that the faeries take the necessary precautions to avoid any outside interference, the Beasts would be locked up indefinitely with no way for any of them to break out from the inside.” She explains. “And once we deal with Dark Enchantress, there will be no chance for anyone to break them out, be it ten years, or a million years in the future.”
“And who is to say another Dark Enchantress doesn’t appear in those millions of years?” Dark Cacao shoots back, not convinced by her words.
“We can always try to talk with them?” Holy Berry says with a small smile, receiving a growl and a frown from Golden Cheese and Dark Cacao, respectively. “Eternal Sugar has been faring better... ish... She has yet to turn a single Cookie into stone since I made our little deal! She can also be fun to talk to, when she is not in her ramblings about her garden and her need for control... Or when she is not trying to convince me to drink her spiked berry juices... ” Holy Berry grimaces slightly at the faces coming her way from her friends, both Dark Cacao and Golden Cheese interrupting each other in trying to point out how flawed her argument is, and how low the bar must be.
Shaking her hands in front of herself, flustered, Holy Berry finally manages to pipe in the chaotic concoction of voices coming from her friends, Pure Vanilla defending her while Dark Cacao and Golden Cheese berate her. “—Look! My point is that we can talk! And I won’t fall for her tricks, so I can try to convince her to slowly see that what she is doing is wrong. Maybe she can be redeemed, and if one of the Beats can, who is to say the others can’t?”
Dark Cacao strikes first, uncompromising even with his friend's words. “ Redemption? Do you not see what they’ve done? My kingdom rots still because of Mystic Flour’s plague—attempting to turn all to flour. We were lucky to discover a remedy in time, but Cookies from my kingdom who live in the farthest villages still suffer with it. This is not a Cookie capable of redemption; it is a Beast that needs to be put down like any other. If I were not there to stop it, all would've turned to flour already.”
Golden Cheese follows sharply, backing him up with venom laced in her voice. “And what of Burning Spice? He tore my wings from my back. I told you already how he crumbles and destroys without a care, laughing and taking pleasure in his twisted views! You’d waste your mercy on that senseless brute? I agree with Dark Cacao, we need to strike while we are at an advantage.”
“And yet Eternal Sugar has not harmed me, not in any of my monthly visits.” Holy Berry cuts into the arguments with a softer voice, weary but firm. “She listens when I speak. She is still capable of love and mercy." Her gaze fell on Pure Vanilla, knowing how much the vanillian heart bleeds for his opponent.
“If one heart still beats, can we not hope for the others?” Pure Vanilla adds to the berrian's speech, his tone hopeful, begging his friends to understand his point.
Everyone stares at one another in the standoff silence after his words. Two clear votes for crumbling, two clear votes for redemption.
“Some hearts beat, while others do not.” White Lily finally opens her mouth, breaking the heavy silence of the council chamber.
Her vote is the tie breaker; thus, no one speaks as she makes her point. “Eternal Sugar and Silent Salt may be drawn back—might even be capable of being redeemed, perhaps on an off chance. But Burning Spice, Mystic Flour, and Shadow Milk? Their corruption has rooted too deeply, their minds are simply too far gone. There is no redeeming them, and if we cannot agree to crumble them, we need to avoid a bigger rift amongst ourselves by agreeing with the sealing.”
Dark Cacao and Golden Cheese stare at one another, not happy with her decision. The general is the first to agree that if they cannot crumble them, given enough proof, the seal could not be broken, sealing the Beasts once more might be a viable option to keep everyone happy. Holy Berry does not agree with such, but she also can’t give any information that can sway the others into changing their votes.
Pure Vanilla holds back at first—he shouldn’t be sharing such personal things... But if this meeting keeps going in that direction... He does not want to think about the implications of it.
His argument is less about logic and more about compassion.
Trusting his Soul Jam, he opens his mouth slowly, his voice silencing the growing argument between Golden Cheese and Holy Berry about the berrian’s sanity in agreeing to meet a Beast once a month. “I’m sure you have all read the letters about how my encounter with Shadow Milk went. I’ll beg your forgiveness, but I have hidden something important in an attempt to preserve Shadow Milk’s personal feelings...” His voice starts with an uncertain tint, but as he keeps going, he gains confidence in his decision to share this.
The Healer feels the attention of all of his friends falling over him. “Inside the Spire, before my ascension, Shadow Milk attempted to fuse our Soul Jam’s—” Gasps echo through the chamber, doing so is reckless as one soul would surely consume the other and one of them should have ended up dead—he is sure Lily is the one who is most certain of the implications of such, her gasp echoing in the chamber. “—That attempt failed but, for a brief moment my feelings and Shadow Milk’s were one in the same, we shared the same Soul Jam for a brief second, and in that second I felt his loneliness. He claims that his wishes are for chaos and lies, but in the most obscure places of his mind, he hides a deep yearning for something else. Connection. Understanding. Even if twisted in his own way, for him to attempt to do so in such a reckless manner means that deep down, that is his truest of wishes, and I think I can—”
Dark Cacao slams his hands on the table, gathering everyone’s attention and interrupting the Healer. “ Connection? You would clasp hands with the thing that crumbled Elder Faerie?” His hand points to White Lily, who looks away. “The Beast that butchered kingdoms for his own pleasure in seeking chaos and sowing lies!? Your compassion blinds you, Pure Vanilla.”
Heterocromatic eyes open wide, and he glances back at White Lily, who is hugging herself and looking down, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.
She looks up at him, breathing in and out deeply. “I understand you want to forgive. And I cannot tell you who you should forgive, Pure Vanilla.” She speaks slowly at first, the words rolling out of her tongue like boulders. She then smiles briefly. “You forgave me, after all I’ve done,” And then the smile disappears, replaced by something heavy and filled with sorrow and hatred. “But you were not the only one who was wronged by the Beast of Deception. And your forgiveness is not the only one he needs.”
White Lily gets up, pushing her chair away from the table. “If you truly wish me to, I will forgive him, like you did me.” Her eyes harden over his form, “But when you fail to redeem the Beast of Deceit, stand sure I won’t seal him away. There will only be one option left for that Beast.” With these words, she leaves the room with haste, ignoring Holy Berry’s calls.
“Choose, Pure Vanilla.” Dark Cacao says, his words heavy.
Holy Berry, who was halfway through the door after White Lily, looks back, “You can’t do this, Dark Cacao!” She says sternly, “Making him choose like this? Not giving him time to ponder. This is not how you treat your friends!” She stares the general down.
Dark Cacao breathes in and out slowly, controlling his own temper down—they do not need a repeat of him jumping the gun and brandishing his sword, the fluke with the delegates of the Crème Republic was enough. “You’re right. I’m sorry for trying to force you to—”
“You can’t be serious!” Golden Cheese exclaims, getting up from her seat and flaring her wings out. “To redeem a Beast? They are murderous and insane. Even Eternal Sugar! All her sweet talking is simply to get Holy Berry over on their side, and it’s clearly working! The Beast of Deceit is doing the same; he is trying to use Pure Vanilla’s Compassion against him! I can’t understand how none of you can see this!” She leaves the room with a huff, feathers puffed and steps heavy on the marble floor.
Holy Berry simply shakes her head. There is no point in trying to change Golden Cheese’s mind right now, not when the argument is too fresh and her anger too flared up.
Dark Cacao is the last one to get up from his seat. “I guess the meeting is adjourned.” With this, he leaves the room for the berrian and the vanillian.
“I’m sorry, Vanilla, I tried my best, but we can't say everyone had a pleasant experience with their Beasts...” She says softly, coming to his side.
“I promised him.” The Healer says softly, “I promised I would always extend my hand to him. I can’t take it back. Not when I feel like I’m so close to reaching him.”
“We need to let everyone cool their heads off before speaking again. It is a sore subject after all, even to me when Eternal Sugar has been the less radical of the bunch on her ways of ‘controlling Earthbread’.” Holy Berry says, before nudging Pure Vanilla, “Hey, maybe next meeting we can bring in some juice. I can get some good spiking agents from Sugar, that will make everyone more agreeable.”
Vanilla stared at her, scandalized. She laughs, slapping his shoulder and promising she would never do such a thing... Well, maybe the drinking of juice during a boring meeting and not the 'spiking the drinks' with anything. The Healer quietly agrees that some berry juice would be good, getting himself a free ticket to be dragged out of the council chamber against his will to a round of drinking.
He knew she was only trying to make the silence less heavy. But as she pulled him out into the hall, his thoughts were still on Shadow Milk — and on White Lily’s words.
If redemption failed, there would be only one option left.
A full moon blossoms in the sky, much the same as the white lilies basking in its glow in his garden. Pure Vanilla meanders through the small dirt paths amidst the sea of flowers, taking in their refreshing scent and calming down his aching thoughts and racing heart. The sound of his vanilla beholder scepter hitting the dirt with a quiet thud is his only companion in the night, and he couldn’t be more grateful to it.
The previous argument in the council chamber did a number on him. He knows what Lily lost when the Beast got free from his chains and yet he hoped with all his heart his friend could understand him—understand his wishes of trying to redeem the Beast, redeem his other half of the Soul Jam.
And she does understand; she even gave him a chance.
But that chance is his only one.
Now is left to wonder if it would be wise to take it.
If he takes the deal and fails in his attempt, then he would be forfeiting the life of another Cookie—a Cookie he desperately hopes to understand, and yet, is unable to do so. Not only this, but making such a huge choice in lieu of another without their opinion is just plain wrong.
The Healer rubs at his eyes, if only he had more time—scratch that, only more knowledge about Shadow Milk, about who he is and where he stands. About how to approach him and maybe talk to him, if not to have his olive branch accepted, then only to discuss what choice he should make...
But here he is, in the middle of his garden, heart aching and mind racing.
Pure Vanilla looks back at the Vanillian castle in the background. It is late, and he should start heading back. As he steps in the direction of the castle, a heavy downpour falls from the sky seemingly out of nowhere, prompting the Healer to desperately run for cover under a garden gazebo; already feeling the heavy cling of wet clothes on his dough.
Once under cover, he can only shudder, looking out at the heavy rain, which made it impossible to see even a few feet in front of him. His robes clung, damp and heavy, the cold biting deep into his dough.
With a wave of his scepter, a warm wind engulfs his body, heating him up. He should do his best to avoid getting sick in such a critical moment.
Looking back out from the gazebo after heating himself up, Pure Vanilla notices how the rain stopped as suddenly as it started.
The weather is usually not this temperamental this time of year, but sudden downpours are not as uncommon an occurrence either.
“At least the flowers will be happy.” The Hero speaks softly, seeing the sea of blurry white flowers blossoming healthily under the moonlight, not bothering to use his scepter.
Walking out of the gazebo, he is met with the smell of wet earth, the strong smell of milk from the rain clogging a bit of the usual sweet smell of his white lilies.
His mind drifts back to the problem that brought him outside in the first place and without a second thought, his hand falls on the Soul Jam, unclasping the precious jewel from his robes and bringing it to his face, seeing through his lashes the blurry visage of the powerful artifact.
The moonlight shining through the blue gem and giving it a translucent finish, heterochromatic eyes glazing through the jewel and into the sea of white flowers, looking at the moon through the gem, and then bringing it down once more to the flowers.
Pure Vanilla’s brow furrows, Soul Jam falling down to reveal a... Is that a door? There is a door in the middle of the flowers, right atop a small hill in his garden, under a tree he planted long ago alongside his friends.
He clasps the Soul Jam back to his robes and looks through the eye on his beholder to make sure his eyes are not playing any tricks on him.
The door is still there. Just a white wooden frame and door. Sitting atop the hill.
Curiosity peaked. Pure Vanilla does not dare to look away; begone the thought of losing such an event, walking closer and closer. And as he walks closer, he notices his white lilies are strange... The flower petals are smaller and rounder, when they are supposed to be longer and sharper. They also lack the reddish stamen usual of their breed.
Not wanting to leave his eyes from the door, and the lack of light in the garden, he cannot say for certain which breed of flower these are—but he is sure they are not his white lilies; in fact, not a single flower in his garden is a white lily.
The smell of milk grows heavy in the air.
He is face-to-face with the door.
Lifting one hand, he grips the handle, proving to himself that yes, this door is real, and very much material.
Preparing himself for whatever he may find, he turns the round handle and pushes the door open to find himself staring wide-eyed at the inside of a living room.
Moon rays are filtering through the window to the left, and there is a couch and a small coffee table in the middle of the room. A fireplace crackles with wood burning slowly, giving a cozy temperature.
But none of this matters, because sitting on the couch is a Cookie, holding a plushy much like the one he currently has hidden away in his bedroom, needle and thread in hand, while repairing a big tear on the plush torso. That blue-doughed Cookie stares at him with the same wide-eyed expression, both looking at the other like deer caught in the headlights, neither capable of making the first move, as if doing so would break the spell that was currently holding them down.
The spell is suddenly broken by a plush being hurled his way before the blue Cookie was fleeing through a door.
Pure Vanilla deeply regrets not gripping that Cookie's hand when he had the chance back at the Spire. Without a second thought, he gives chase.
Jumping over the couch, he runs after Shadow Milk, who disappeared through a door to the right. The room is pure darkness, and he cannot see a thing. Without hesitation, his hand brushes over his Soul Jam, activating it.
With the increase in power, his robes start to shine into the darkness, countless blue eyes of deceit closing and hissing in pain amidst the endless abyss while he floats in nothingness—not sure anymore which way is up or down.
Looking around, he searches, his eyes of truth shining down on the emptiness.
He finds another white door hidden behind a veil of darkness, and he rushes to it, opening it and getting inside this new room without a care. Pure Vanilla looks around in a frenzy, this time finding himself inside a full classroom. Shadow Milk is at the blackboard, chalk in hand, demonstrating to the students how to prepare lamb meat. He hisses at the Hero before flying over to another door and fleeing the room.
The students try to grab at him, but with a flying spell, and a few instances of stumbling in the air, he is soon out of their reach and hot on the Beast’s trail.
“Please! Shadow Milk stops!” He begs the other to no avail, flying down a long hallway much too similar to the ones back at the Spire. Catching only glimpses of blue coattails to know which turn to take after the fleeing Beast.
“I just wanna talk!” His voice speaks breathlessly, he sees a white door and rushes to open it, finding himself now at a town square.
Looking around, there are many Cookies, much more than even he would hope to see on a very busy day in the middle of his kingdom. They walk and bump into each other, pressing him on strangers without care.
The Healer jumps up into the air, floating with the grace of an ugly duckling who has yet to learn how to fly, eyes scanning around in the crowd for any Cookies with blue dough.
“The other heroes! They want to crush you and the other beasts!” Pure Vanilla’s voice is lost amidst the chaotic cacophony of a thousand voices speaking over one another in the plaza.
His eyes scan the crowd, looking each and every one of them, searching for those beautiful heterocromatic eyes and the crown scar over the right eye. Finding none of these characteristics in a batch of Cookies, he looks at the next one, searching for their eyes. Rinse and repeat as he floats around the city center.
“And I need to prove to them that there is another way!” The Hero speaks, voice louder.
His eyes zone in on a painting in the stall of a vendor. The figure seems to be eerily familiar—an old bearded Cookie sporting a monocle.
“Eternal Sugar has proven she can reason with Holy Berry. If you do the same, we can show the others that there is still hope!” The Healer approaches the stall, his eyes never leaving the painting.
His mind finally supplied that that particular Cookie is the very first headmaster of the Blueberry Yogurt Academy.
“Please, help me prove them wrong!” Pure Vanilla says, looking directly at the painting. He cannot know for sure, but after his time on the Spire, he came to be fairly certain Shadow Milk had many personas, some of them belonging to very important individuals.
One day, he hopes, there will be enough trust between the two of them for him to ask the Cookie of Deceit his true intentions in having so many fake names, and what led him down this wicked path.
The old mage of the painting starts running, jumping from painting to painting on the stalls, and the Hero gives chase.
Shadow Milk travels through a painting of a dinner party, ruining the cake and the decorations, the Cookies on the art sniffling at the loss. He then jumps to an underwater painting, scaring away the jelly fish and getting soaked, bringing water to the next painting, and ruining a noble lady’s dress by bumping into her.
The paintings are getting further and further apart, and more and more Cookies are appearing on the plaza. He is losing the Beast, and this makes him grow desperate.
“I’d do anything!” The Hero screams in desperation. He cannot fail him; he cannot fail his other half once again.
The grumpy mage stops for a simple second, as if caught off guard, and a small, almost imperceptible, smile graces his lips. This gives the hero enough time to get close, close enough to see him fleeing into a door inside of a painting of a hill, standing still near a very familiar tree.
The Hero huffs and puffs, looking at the painting, his hands tracing the canvas, trying to find a way in with no success. White Lily was always the smarter of the two of them, and probably knows the spell needed to jump inside a painting—something he never bothered learning, because he was too focused on perfecting his healing magic.
He sighs heavily, feeling defeated.
His only chance, and he failed—once again, he failed Shadow Milk.
If only he were faster, more adept at other types of magic, better at improvising with random spells! Pure Vanilla grits his teeth. He did his best, but he cannot force others to accept redemption.
Turning around to try and find his way back, he comes face to face with another white door, almost glued to him. He blinks, holding the handle and pushing the door open.
Inside, he finds himself entering a room filled with bookshelves, piles and piles of books scattered around, and splotches of ink sprinkled on the floor.
Both sides of the room have gigantic windows, with a soft morning light filtering through the blue-tinted glass. No matter how hard he tries to look outside, he can only see a vast expanse of white nothingness.
Focusing back on the room, he sees two blue sofas, face to face, amidst them a blue and golden carpet with a coffee table atop it. Papers with meaningless words sit everywhere; some have magical circles he can barely comprehend due to the complexity.
Walking inside slowly, his eyes search for the blue-doughed Cookie, but upon finding himself alone, Pure Vanilla takes one of the papers with a magical circle inscribed on it. He tilts his head slowly, trying to decipher it.
It seems to be a sealing spell of sorts. The sigils remind him of the ones used on the Silver Tree, but he cannot be too sure. Some of the magical runes can be very similar to one another, or identical, with the will behind the one inscribing it determining the final meaning.
Without enough context, he cannot be sure of this particular spell’s contents. But the general feeling the paper gives him is for a chill to run from his hand to his back.
Whatever this spell is, it is a nasty little thing. That, he is sure.
Leaving the paper back where he found it, he sees two blackboards with chalk writings of a language he is not familiar with, alongside percentages. There are some planets and the moon as well.
Shaking his head, he wandered further inside the room, which he now understands to be someone’s office.
There is a big chair with a huge hardwood desk at the back, the top of the table seemingly being the only place that has not been touched by the chaotic tornado that created the mess of paper and ink around every other corner of the room.
The table is completely clean, save for a feather pen atop an open ink bottle, and a closed letter.
His hands find purchase around the blue paper, turning it around and not finding to whom this letter is intended. Not wanting to snoop, Pure Vanilla was about to leave the letter where he found it, but stopped dead in his tracks when a voice whispered in his ear.
“Read it.” It said softly, and before he could stop himself, his eyes were reading over the beautifully inscribed letters, albeit somewhat shaky in their calligraphy.
—
“To whoever still walks Earthbread, 5000 years from now.”
I write this letter with trembling hands, unsure if it’ll ever be read, if there will be a world to deliver it to. I do not know who you are, but if you found this letter, then you are searching for answers... Answers of which I can give, while still sane of mind.
So much has happened these past decades that I scarcely know where to begin. But what matters most is the Beast Cookies. Corruption has taken root in the Virtues. Their minds fractured, their ideals twisted into cruel mockeries of their former selves. They no longer guard us—they hunt us. And the collapse of all society is… Inevitable.
One among them… He was dearest to me. Once. But the Virtue he bore is long gone, warped beyond recognition. I do not know if he can be saved. I fear he cannot.
I have tried. I have prayed. I have utterly failed.
This corruption is one of the mind, breaking the Virtues in such a way that there are only ragged, sharp edges left in their twisted ideals of how to deal with the mortals. We are not safe. No one is safe. Earthbread will be destroyed if nothing is done.
We cannot kill them, not when they sport the Soul Jam created by the Witches. They are much too strong for any kind of magic to be used against them. But we have a plan, to seal them away—giving Cookies in the future, if there is a future, enough time to grow strong enough to deal with them once and for all.
You, who open this letter—whether you are a hero, a wanderer, or just a soul who dares to read it after stumbling into this place—you must do what I could not.
I beg of you. You must bring the Beasts down. Break their dough. Silence their roar. Scatter their crumbs to the winds. Leave nothing that can rise again.
For if they live, none of us will.
Thus, I give this last request to you, 5000 years in the future.
Regretfully, the One who Failed.
—
Pure Vanilla sits down on the chair, heart thumping away in his ribcage, threatening to jump out of his own mouth.
Is this the reason Shadow Milk is so averse to his help? Because someone tried, and failed, to help him in the past?
And if they failed, who is to say he has a chance?
The Healer sighs heavily, looking at the letter. There is too much missing; he cannot come to the conclusion that things are hopeless from the words written down by someone he does not even know.
If only he had a name!
And what happened in those decades to turn the Virtues into Beats? In fact, what even were the Virtues? Elder Fairy had once whispered that the Beasts were born from them, but he never learned more. How could he, when even legends offered no answers?
He looks back at the letter, a heavy headache blanketing over his mind, pulsating nonstop and breaking his line of reasoning.
He growls out in pain, holding at his forehead and closing his eyes—severing entirely the connection between his mind and the vanillian beholder in an attempt to soothe the pain, now bringing in a wave of nausea.
The world starts to spin around him, faster and faster, making him stumble in the darkness.
The Healer groans in pain, holding his forehead.
Where was he again?
He blinks his eyes open, grimacing at the light, which only serves to worsen the pulsating sensation thrumming away like a drum on his head.
A sweet smell wafts in, clogging his nose with the berry-like smell. He feels like he is going to hurl because of it.
“Snoore.” He hears a loud snore coming from nearby, prompting his eyes to open once more, to find himself in the confines of Holy Berry’s room, his dough sprawled on one of the couches, and his friend asleep on the other.
Empty bottle after empty bottle can be seen on the floor—a sea around her, and a few around him.
Right.
Right...
She took him to her room to drink yesterday, after the meeting, to try and lift his spirit. The Healer groans again, throwing an arm over his eyes.
Why did he agree to come again?
—
It took him a while, but Pure Vanilla found the courage to get up from the couch and limp back into his bedroom. Shamefully, he had to stop every ten paces to hold his head in pain and gulp down the rising bile in his throat.
Not a very pleasant experience.
And as he walks back to his room, his head is bombarded by the strange dream he had last night, which did wonders to his growing headache...
Such a strange dream to have, even coming up with a letter begging himself to allow the Beast’s to be crumbled.
This is not right.
The Hero reaches his room and goes straight to his bed, sitting down while taking a glass of water to drink. The cool sensation finally did something to appease some of the headache, allowing him to look around his room tiredly.
His eyelids grow tired, and his eyes slowly start to droop down, prompting him to lie down—but before he could do so, something catches his eye.
A letter.
In fact, a blue letter, closed neatly right atop his working desk.
He jumps to his feet, groaning in pain but approaching the letter all the same.
The same calligraphy. The same words: ‘To you, 5000 years in the future.’ His breath caught—it was not a dream.
With trembling hands, he opens it.