Once upon a time, the world had burned down. Opposing forces faced each other, a divide between them that could not be fixed. Five cookies stood at the edge of a broken hall, small pieces of the formerly grand building crumbling around them. The wrecked remains of the Vanilla castle rained down upon the land below the clouds, crushing the cities in its path and leaving a trail of decimation as the winds blew. The group halted at the broken edge, where the castle opened to thin air, able to go no farther.
The Dark Enchantress hovered in front of them, her large form dwarfed by a cake summons. The creature dripped frosting, red and white trails falling from its body. Faint shiny innards could be seen among the twisting velvet. The abomination, with its multiple red wings, malformed face, and numerous serrated teeth could have terrified any sensible person, but the group before it remained determined.
If they failed to stop the Dark Enchantress's reign, then nowhere would be safe. Their kingdoms' lands would be torched to the crust and their citizens torn to pieces.
The cake summon swung one arm at the figures below. The creature smelling of berries stopped it with a shield, feet skidding across the floors from the force. The dark one swung, his bitter yet invigorating power slicing through the limb. Another arm burst forth from the melting body and stitched itself together as flames launched from the candelabrum upon its head, burning the cookies below. White light covered them, healing from the sweet one, and they attacked once again. A savory figure flitted around its head, striking the candles off with complete precision.
It paid no heed to the mage situated at the very back of the group. The lily flowers upon its head smelled like nothing at all.
Slowly, the summon began to be overwhelmed by the combined forces of these small creatures. A shield rammed into it with powerful blunt force. Large slices bleeding bitter poison flowed from its body. Golden arrows pierced from above. Two flower-bearing scepters crossed, boosting the whole group. The cookies in the back supported the front fighters, healing fatal wounds and strengthening their attacks over and over again. The separate attacks piled up, the damage sustained eventually becoming too great for the rotted magic weaving its body together. The cake abomination collapsed with a great wail, cracks appearing along its form.
As the summon shattered entirely, it saw its mistress, stabbed through the chest, the bottom end of a sunflower sliding smoothly straight through her body and then out the other side. From the eye of the sunflower, a brilliant white, the darkness.
The minion was no more.
Rewind.
Let's start from the beginning. Remembering is easier when you think in linear fashion.
In the beginning, there were the witches.
They had fashioned cookiekind out of dough and flour, water and all varieties of flavorful spices. Each cookie was given their special ingredients, both physical and metaphorical, specially constructed in the oven of their beloved creators. None were the same as another. The cookies took their uniqueness as proof that they had a purpose in the world, a guiding light. Everyone deserved a place in Earthbread, or so the mantra of the weak and helpless proclaimed.
Cookies were blessed with life. They found themselves there, simply existing one day out of nothing, no memory besides a faint warmth of fire in their bodies and a personality composed of the elements they had been crafted with. Eventually, that flavor will develop and mature, affected by their environments. They gain depth and complexity in their dough, but they will never forget that soft warmth of new creation. They treasure their lives, so they also love those who created them.
And the witches were worshipped as kindly deities, ingrained into history and myth as the epitome of holiness and grace.
What a load of bullshit.
Now focus on a specific point in time. There, that's the memory I seek.
Once upon a time, there was a school. Young cookies everywhere were enrolled in this school at the suggestions and machinations of their parents, to learn the basics of cookie anatomy, alchemy, magic, mathematics, and every other conceivable course one could imagine. The appeal for attending was clear. The Institute had the largest collection of knowledge in the world, organized impeccably by the resident bookkeeper. Rabid cookies attempted to secure positions as teachers, just to look upon the grand library. As a result of the constant influx of overly desperate academics, the academy maintained high-quality education and staff.
The beauty of the school can not be understated either. Lush gardens full of nightshade and viguiera flowers bracketed the school grounds. The Institute itself sported stained glass windows overlooking the outside world and torches made from blue will-o-wisp. An observatory sat on the edge of the grounds, and a mysterious staircase broke away from the telescope overlook that was rumored to lead to the stars.
It was only natural for someone like her to reside in such a beautiful place. Though her foul and corrupted form would no longer feel at home within the abandoned recesses of the academy, it suited its purpose in her life. White Lily loved her school, and the Dark Enchantress cared little. She did, however, see the worth that her former self ascribed to all the academy represented, and understood that.
The young girl, of course, had no such hindsight. She used the school as a means to an end. Only later, what little of the mage's residue that still pulsed in the enchantress's shriveled heart could realize what fond memories she made there.
White Lily did not have many friends in the institute. She had a naturally reclusive nature, but that was not the only reason. She had little interest in forming friendships among the other students. It may sound horrible, but they just weren't on the same level as her. Her intellect, ambition, and interests rarely aligned with other children, and trying to connect with no foundation would be ultimately a pointless and tiresome endeavor. The professors, too, had trouble making heads or tails out of her, and eventually resigned to leaving her alone since she still scored top marks.
This multitude of factors ensured that she could experiment undisturbed; teachers liked her well enough, and students sought to be her yet did not approach her. She stood as a cold, unreachable idol to the rest of the school, a physical embodiment of the Institute's success and prestige. A genius beyond her years, set apart from the rest of their kind, destined for greatness even in childhood.
Thanks to this reputation, she could get away with a lot more than her peers. This included skipping classes to pursue her own research. This ultimately led to her near-complete isolation from all the other people within the school.
Well, there was a single other student who managed to worm his way into her heart.
"Why do you choose to stay with me?" she inquired.
"It's boring without you. I'd rather spend time with my best friend than stay in the classroom," he replied mischievously.
How did she manage to get the honor of being his best friend? The boy had no sense, choosing to hang out with a loner even though he had so many friends and admirers. He was somewhat of a hypocrite, she told him, for acting like such a studious and loving person and then casting the others away just for her. He laughed, then lightly agreed.
Even so, she felt a bit of happiness.
Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Literature. All that makes the world in the physical sense, the place of cookies within Earthbread.
They decided to study advanced material together. Both found the curriculum lacking for their level, and tried to rectify their boredom with material beyond their years. White Lily found that linking specific topics to conversations and jokes that Pure Vanilla made helped when it came to retaining information, and worked far more effectively than rote memorization. It seemed friends could be handy after all
Alchemy, Runes, Sorcery. White and black magic. The Speculative Origin of Cookiekind. Cold emanating from the dark side of the moon, forbidden arcane practices they shared in secret.
White Lily's hypothesis, that "evil magic" did not exist, was proven. Sure, more dangerous spells existed, but the intent of the caster determined true morality. The spells had no more evil than a sword, a cold and indiscriminate weapon in the hands of its wielder. If her friend could use such magic, it could not be inherently bad. To ban an entire branch of magic due to its potential for power was nothing less than the height of foolishness.
Pure Vanilla smiled beatifically. He, too, seemed happy at the magic flowing around his fingers. She gazed at him and felt justified in breaking the laws set before them. Striving to discover Earthbread's truths was not evil.
She thought that the forbidden nature of Dark moon magic had been revealed to them. Elated at the realization of the "truth" purposely hidden away from them, White Lily wished to pursue deeper mysteries. She picked up the book they read together, the speculation on cookiekind. The cookie that had written this text collected common notions that people had about their creators, opinions that generally leaned toward positive experiences. With no evidence, the Institute treated these opinions as fact, drilling the wonder of the witches in the students' brains.
The brilliant girl questioned her teachings. She would not be the first to do so, but she was different than her doubtful predecessors.
Normal people would not pry into the matters of Gods. Who would even know where to begin?
"Pure Vanilla, I think we should try to understand how cookies are created."
Normal people would not dare breach the sacredness of creating or destroying the soul.
"I think that's a fascinating subject. I agree."
They sought out information like beasts desperate for water, working with the same passion that they shared when learning magic. She gathered ingredients and her friend smuggled books out of the library, poring over them as if to find the secrets of life. Well, then again, life was exactly what they were researching.
They experimented many times, sneaking into laboratories and using the dangerous instruments as a makeshift oven. Their first tests were little more than burnt mounds of dough. As her friend collected and translated more ancient recipes, a picture began to form. Lists of the approximate recipe had been spread among the books, and they averaged and calculated the averages until they had a good idea of the ingredients for a single cookie.
The experiments started to appear uncanny, and if White Lily didn't look too close, she could deceive herself into believing that the forms lying in front of her were just sleeping.
Farther and farther in. The bodies they had baked soon looked identical to living cookies, but they either broke or melted. They had followed the recipes to the milligram, so what could have gone wrong? Were the old texts incorrect about the baking process? No, that couldn't be. There was something missing. But what?
White Lily pondered this question relentlessly, until one night, the answer came to her in a spark of enlightenment.
"Soul jam!" she cried, vibrating with excitement the next day as she presented her idea. "Soul jam is the only ingredient we are missing." Across from her, Pure Vanilla frowned.
"There's no place we can get soul jam, not without hurting someone else."
"Who's to say that taking soul jam would hurt someone? You don't know that," she spoke beseechingly, "It has never been done before. Plus, people lose jam all the time when they are injured, and a quick healing fixes them up instantly." Her friend opened his mouth to object, but she barreled on. "Think of all the good we can do with this research if it is completed."
"Cookies aren't always fully healed, White Lily. Maybe bodies can be fixed, but cracks can pervade the mind and soul. That might just be a result of the violent nature of their injuries rather than missing jam, but still, I can't get behind doing this."
She huffed in frustration.
He shifted nervously. "Where would you even find a suitable person, anyway? Blueberry Institute is filled with bookworm teachers and inexperienced students, none of whom have particular battle prowess. They aren't any outstanding candidates."
"The headmaster is a strong mage." A dusty image of the school's founder lay crooked in the glass dome. The image was slightly faded from age and neglect.
"You're…really considering it?"
She nodded. His small sacrifice would be collateral in the ever-progressing advancement of magic and science, a scant price for the greater good.
"This isn't a good idea." For once, the boy was dead serious. "I'm not helping you take someone's soul."
White Lily didn't reply. Soul jam was the one thing that they hadn't included in their blueprints, and she felt beyond certain that it was the final ingredient. They were so close to the truth. If Pure Vanilla refused to progress with the experiment, she would do it herself.
And that she did. She brought flowers laced with a sleeping potion into the headmaster's office, making an offhand comment about the blossom's sweet smell. She then waited for a few minutes, then nudged the door open to find the man unconscious at his desk. She extracted some of his jam with a syringe, then gave him a healing potion she kept on hand. No one will ever suspect a thing, and the headmaster will wake in a few minutes thinking he had just been daydreaming. It would be in character, too.
That day, she snuck out into the secret garden. She had baked a cookie beforehand and inconspicuously dragged the body through the school. She had managed to heave it into the glass dome with great effort.
It was time. Carefully, she injected the jam deep into the empty body, hopeful. May the witches- no, may I bring life into you, she prayed
The dough breathed once, and she felt the same ecstasy, the joy of a secret unearthed and a forbidden spell cast. She created life itself!
It then wailed like an infant. She startled at the shrill cry. Putting her hands over the cookie's mouth, she made a shushing noise. She couldn't be caught like this. Under her, the new cookie kept struggling. She should have made it smaller; the baby cookie had been fashioned at an average size, bulkier than her. It was going to break free and cry again.
"Shut up!" she snarled, pressing harder on the baby. A large crack echoed around the glass dome, and the struggling stopped. White Lily removed her hands haltingly, stunned. Its neck had snapped clean through.
Ah, she thought in faint disappointment, I must have kept the oven on for too long.