Sheeps and Cookies

She was very glad that she had. She had no wish to return to the science she had been so devoted to now... her workshop, down the second hall and a wide, curving stair, remained as it had these centuries passed... she could not bring herself to disturb its cursed rest, the dust that lay heavy on her abandoned studies.

The greenhouse, as it had been intended, had remained a place of rest and peace. The greenhouse, she never wanted to leave. It had welcomed her as an old, old friend, just as Vanilla had so many more times than his heart had deserved to be broken... just as he'd promised he always would.

This place... its high and sweeping ceilings, the decorated windows and stately architecture, had felt like just as warm a welcome as her lover's arms. She knew it had everything to do with his presence here, the work she knew he'd had to do to keep it healthy and thriving. It ached down to her core, to know how much hardship he must have endured to do so... he was not a talent with plants (he insisted he had a black thumb, of all things- it always made her laugh), and must have worked himself to death in its upkeep.

She knew, just as well as she knew his gentle voice, his far too kind eyes, his soft and loving smile, that no hands but Vanilla's had touched this place. Would have wanted to, after the things she'd done. He was not a cookie of halves or fleeting care, against all odds... his patience with Shadow Milk Cookie was testament to that.

His patience with her yet another.

White Lily smiled bitterly to herself, brushing a bandaged hand across the fall of her bangs, surrounded by the scent of lilies and vanilla orchids (they had been planted outside, in the expansive gardens... she'd told him she had room here too, but Vanilla had insisted it be a place just for her), water on stone and freshly turned earth. Blue jellybirds chirped and sang and wheeled joyfully through the air outside, bright and beautiful against the amber rays of a magnificent sunset.

She had spent the day here (the first day she'd been approved to be out of bed again, truth be told- she hadn't wanted to wait another moment, after her months spent in recovery), trying her hand at cultivating life again... the lilies were not as understanding of her ineptitude and lapse of practice as she'd hoped they would be.

She wasn't sure what to blame more. Her hands had a persistent trembling to them now, accompanying her inability to do anything for more than an hour without tiring (as formidable a force as Lady Sugar Swan was, in her capability to recall the souls of the crumbled... she had not also been able to summon her former strength from the Abyss)... but on the other, irritatingly trembling hand, her insecurities had also never been worse, and now focused heavily on avoiding, at all costs, harming another living soul, by accident or not.

It was true that they were only flowers... but she had made an oath, to herself and none other, and it was one she would keep no matter what. Never again would another soul, no matter how small or insignificant in the grand scheme, suffer because of her. By her hands.

...her hands.

She'd been staring into space again. Beyond space, and into time, the time she wished she could forget but knew, better than anyone, that she never could and never should. A past that, even in another life and with another chance, colored the dough of her hands the color of spilled jam, eternal witnesses to unspeakable horror and tragedy. Tragedy of her own making. Crimes punished but not forgiven or forgotten.

She had begged Vanilla to bandage them up, when she had first awoken, before she'd even accepted food or drink. He'd been disappointed, she knew the look well... but he had complied, and had not stopped her or said anything when she'd continued the practice on her own.

Not for her own sake, to hide her crimes from her own eyes... she knew all too well the things she had done, and that she deserved to carry the mark of her disgrace for as long as the witches deemed she be allowed to walk Earthbread.

It was for the sake of everyone else. Those most hurt by Dark Enchantress, by the loss of life and love and time, possessions and homes and friendships and things that not even the goddess of their universe could return to life. It was for those that did wish to forget. Those that deserved to live without the reminder of her guilt, stains she didn't want to ever leave her.

...the bandages were dirtied, after her long day of toil. Soggy, torn, stained, and ready for replacement- showing through the rips the red of her treachery.

This was precisely why she'd insisted that Vanilla spend his day elsewhere, as much as he'd desired to accompany her ("For more than just your well being, Lily... I miss our time together."). Witches knew he had enough to worry about without also fretting over her... it wouldn't stop him worrying, of course, but at least she was trying.

Yet as her luck would have it, as though the fates had decided once again to spoil her intent... it was just as she'd shed her torn bandages and begun to re-wrap her hands that Pure Vanilla Cookie made his appearance, stepping through the arched and glass-paned door, taking off his hat and looking around himself in apparent wonder.

"You've done so much today, Lily! The garden looks more magnificent than ever before- I knew you hadn't lost your touch."

Face flushed and tremulous hands fumbling, White Lily attempted to re-wrap her stained hands both quickly and inauspiciously, turning her back to her approaching and beaming lover with all the stealth of a cream cat attempting to hide its stolen meal.

"Oh, thank you- I feel as though I've barely made progress, I get so tired so quickly..."

Vanilla huffed very gently as he stepped across the paving stones behind her, his smile melting into something even more tender than his adoring wonder... something that spoke of the strength of his love and devotion, something that never failed to bring her nearly to tears.

"Nonsense, my love. You're too hard on yourself, as always... the flowers never looked so radiant when I attended them. Hollyberry says I tend to over-water, haha- I simply think it comes down to skills I do not possess."

His voice carried the love in his eyes that she dared not meet in this moment... his hand, calloused from his journeys but still so warm and soft, drawing its knuckles across her cheek as he halted beside her.

"But that is not news to me, darling. You've always been the best at everything~"

He wanted her to turn and look at him, she could feel it in his patient indulgence, the weight of his warm gaze... but she couldn't. The bandages, her cursed hands, would not cooperate with her- they seemed almost determined to spite her now, the lengths of fabric tangling and resisting her awkward fingers with all their might.

White Lily clenched her lips, frustrated and feeling tears pricking at the corners of her eyecing. Not now... not now, not in front of him, most of all- had it been Silent Salt, who bore so much of the same regret and disgrace as her, she could have borne it. Could have let her other lover help her, and trusted that his stalwart silence was not one of judgment.

He was far away, now, attempting to find and reconnect with the scattered faekind... Vanilla was here, and she could not subject him to this again.

"You never fail to find the perfect compliment, Vanilla... only one of the many things that you exceed me in. But I'm... I'm afraid you've found me in a bit of a predicament. Do you think you could do me a favor, and fetch the wheelchair from my room? I fear I may have overexerted myself-"

It was the wrong thing to say entirely.

Instead of, hopefully, diverting him and giving her a moment to collect herself, she had managed to both confirm and duplicate his concerns about her health, and erased any possibility of him giving her time to finish with her bandages.

"Oh... oh love... this is all my fault. I knew this would happen, I knew I should have insisted on staying with you today. Let me get you off the ground-"

Within a blinking, he had swept her into his arms and begun carrying her to the seats within the gazebo at the head of the greenhouse, holding her gently but firmly to his chest and taking long, determined strides to reach them.

He obviously intended to look her over there, and had one of her mostly still unwrapped hands in his the moment he had set her down, his other hand tucked beneath her chin to raise it and allow him to inspect her face with the intent eyes of the dedicated lover and lifelong healer that he was.

Her face was burning. She swallowed heavily, and tugged her chin out of his hand, averting her eyes shamefully.

His sigh sank her already drowning heart even further.

"Lily, please... don't turn away from me... please let me help you. What's wrong, what can I do-"

His thumb drew slow circles on the back of her hand... the tears that had been on the very brink of rising formed fully now. Her lower lip trembled, her chest heaved.

Could he not see? Could he not tell, just from touching her? The monstrosity of her, what she had become, laying right in his hand-

"Don't pretend you aren't disgusted... please, not you, I can't bear it-"

He fell silent, and that silence felt as heavy as the end of the world.

White Lily sobbed quietly, drawing in on herself... tried to pull her hand away too, away from his still clean and wonderful hands, resigned to the knowledge that they were finally both on the same page.

But he didn't let go. He raised his other hand instead, to hold hers even more firmly and unerringly- not to the point of pain, but to the point that she could tell he had no intention of retreating.

"...I should have laid this to rest the day you woke, Lily. I wanted to, I knew how you felt about it... but there were so many other things we had to say to each other... so much time we had lost, all over again. I shouldn't have let you carry this on your own, my love. I'm... I'm so sorry."

...what?

Lily blinked, taken aback so much that she was shocked out of her breathless tears. She turned at last to look up at her the love of her life, the beseeching sorrow in his eyes somehow just as tender as his soft and pleading voice.

"I... I don't understand. Vanilla, I... how can you even stand to touch me like this...?"

His smile was small... painful... but wholly honest.

"The same way I did while I was waiting for you to wake. These marks you carry... they don't change who you are inside, or define you, any more than a battle scar would. I wouldn't expect you to judge me for my scars... I would never do the same for yours."

"B-but... we both know what they are from. Who they are from. Who I could be at my worst-"

"White Lily Cookie, you are NOT Dark Enchantress. If there is anyone left in our world that believes that now, they do not and will never truly know you."

The firmness of his voice and conviction shook her down to her soul. A gasp flitted from her parted lips- a single tear, all that remained of her self-depreciating sorrow, rolled down her cheek.

Vanilla's thumb chased it, and wiped it away.

"I know it is hard for you. The blame is easy to lay on your own shoulders... you are at your weakest now, and the evidence of a past still fresh lays all around us. I want you to understand something important, though. Something I may have to repeat on our future journeys together... something that I will say a thousand times over, if need be."

He raised her stained hand to his lips, and pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles, her fingers, her knuckles again. His eyes bore witness to the truth of his claim as he spoke it- his smile, serene and at peace, pressed once more to her dough, a solemn promise that she knew, all the way to her jam, that he meant.