inspired by @odileeclipse's beautiful and yummy oneshot The One Who Sees You, a Shadow Milk Cookie POV of the events that happened and perhaps a little more
—What was better than stealing such an unlooked treasure from that pathetic thief?!
Apparently, one that walked right onto his stage to be his centerpiece.
tags: Shadow Milk Cookie/Reader, One-sided Pure Vanilla Cookie/Reader, Mentioned PureLily, Slow Burn-ish (In terms of Timeline), Character Study, Love, Loyalty, Bittersweet, Happy Ending, Angst, Shadow Milk Cookie Has Abandonment Issues, Shadow Milk Cookie Submits to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known
If he could be honest for once in his second life, he didn't think you'd listen. Shadow Milk Cookie figured he'd have to put in the effort, make a real glamorous show to keep your attention, was looking forward to it even– What was better than stealing such an unlooked treasure from that pathetic thief?!
Apparently, one that walked right onto his stage to be his centerpiece.
"Come one, come all! Well, I suppose that's still one of you, to witness the comedy of The False Heroes!" You had scoffed, you had gazed at him then with a raised brow and exasperation but you stayed to listen to his fantastical, fanatical retelling.
And that was all that mattered, really.
You didn't participate at first, merely an audience who watched his antics with quiet eyes and a tired face, but oh were you enraptured, he just knew it.
(Look at me. Look at me.
I'm looking.)
"I can see you, darling." He crooned, bowing low, hand held out, eyes filled with mirth, dark amusement has his slitted pupils dilating with anticipation, "I said you'd be part of the show, didn't I?"
There's something funny about this, coaxing you to step into the backstage with him, out of the spotlight shining down on you, into the shadows to play with the puppets he's made just for this spectacle.
"But then I won't get to 'witness' it." You rebuke but you've already made a step forward, grasping onto his hand and he could feel your breath hitch with how solid it feels against your own dough.
"Oh but that's the best part, little star! You won't get to just witness it. We'll be spinning the narratives ourselves~"
He pulled you in before you could think, it was just so easy.
And yet he's never had more fun playing with you, it must be because the plan was going well, it definitely is!
(He's already fallen once.
What's one more?)
Your kingdom reminded him of a fortress, walls built tall and high, hidden away– So how did he end up here?
He knew why, this was what he had been striving for after all, months of late night talks, whispered ponderings and soon enough, secrets told were what lead to this.
He just didn't expect to find himself inside palace walls so soon, trailing after you as you quietly greet your subjects, just as loyal, just as patient as you, they'd been waiting for your return, never once wavering in doubt for your arrival.
He watched you, silent for once, taking it all in, you were a walking tragedy all on your own.
It's funny. It isn't.
"He's not going to greet you like this." A lie. He would, just not in the way you wanted, he would say your name with warmth, perhaps reach in for a hug, but his frame wouldn't soften in the way it would have, reserved for someone else that wasn't you.
"I know." Your replies grow more and more neutral, used to this song and dance the both of you have started moons ago.
Shadow Milk felt his mouth twitch, this was good, he could use this–
And yet.
"Hey, hey, won't you be the star of my show?" You paused, turning around to see his waiting hand.
He ignored the rush of warmth when you don't even hesitate anymore in taking it.
"Just for tonight?"
"Ah," He found himself laughing, a new plan stringing up his mind, "Don't stars always shine every night?"
He pulled you along, taking you with him, his hold firm and unwilling to let go. You may not wish to take what you want but that was fine, he could be selfish for the both of you.
(Plans never survived with contact from the enemy.
He knew this, of course. He just didn't think you were a threat.
Now, his heart starves for something to fill it once more.)
"Would you wait for me?" He asked it on a whim, there was something he wanted to see, check on that thief's kingdom if it had fallen to ruin—
"Of course." Your voice trembled but your words hold a truth that burned him into a wide eyed stupor.
(Oh.
Oh.)
He doesn't know how long the both of you stayed in that moment, a revelation, the climax, of what has become of the both of you.
"Oh, my little star." Shadow Milk breathed, crowding your glassy eyed face with a too wide grin, grasping your cheeks as he felt the truth crush him once more.
"Did you really think I won't come back? I might not!" A lie. The biggest he's ever told.
You listened and laughed wetly, leaning in to press your forehead against his, tethering him to this world, stronger than any crack in that damn seal ever could.
"And miss tonight's show?"
(He came back just before night fall.)
"Are you truly happy?" He paused at his other half's question, one he could never find himself to ask themselves, what good was the truth anyways? All it did was–
"I am." You didn't even hesitate.
Something settled in his chest, left him breathless, so heavy and warm, he might just think his body was truly real.
He giggled from where he was draped over you and he delighted in seeing you smile at the sound.
"Is that a smile I see? Ah, no no, don't look away from me, my little star. I saw that!"
(And if tonight was a fullblown musical– well, who didn't love a good song?
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I should preface THIS IS NOT CANON just for funsies this artowrk had me with my jaw dropped it inspired me his expression is just FWIEJDCOIJLKJW WOOOOW incredible
The spire of Knowledge shuddered. Cold, suffocating magic coiled through the once-sacred halls, twisting the very air, warping the stone, bleeding reality into something other. The Moonstone’s glow dimmed, its once-pure radiance swallowed by inky tendrils of void, the hungry whispers of the Dark Moon pressing against the veil of the world. And at the center of it all, Shadow Milk Cookie stood before the bodies of his beloved and their friends, his ritual complete. Their forms remained untouched, preserved, frozen in an eternal moment between life and death. No decay, no rot, just stillness. Waiting. But the world demanded a price. A sudden, piercing agony erupted behind his right eye. His breath hitched. His vision blurred, splitting apart and fracturing. His heartbeat staggered as unseen claws scraped at his thoughts, prying apart the pieces of his mind. A warning flashed in his memories of ancient words etched into forbidden texts "The Dark Moon grants, but it does not give. The Dark Moon preserves, but it does not save. Its gifts must be paid for in kind." And it was taking him. A golden light, the last remnant of his truth, burned in his right eye but it was fading. Shadow Milk Cookie let out a choked gasp, his hands clawing at his face as the pain consumed him. The spire walls trembled as the Dark Moon’s power funneled into his very being, twisting his soul, unraveling him thread by thread. His right eye, his golden, illuminated eye began to burn away, replaced by something colder, something fractured. Where once there was the unwavering glow of wisdom, there was now a black slit pupil piercing through blue depths, rimmed with claw-like marks, as if something had gouged the truth from him.
His form twisted under the weight of the spell, his once-pristine white robes dissolving into obsidian and harlequin blues, shifting like living shadows. His sleeves billowed, two-toned and curling, their wide cuffs resembling whipped cream but wrong, unnatural, as if the fabric itself was alive. His hair stretched and curled, slick and jagged, dual-toned in midnight and lapis. And from within those shadows Eyes. Ghastly, whispering eyes blinked and twitched, watching from the void within his hair. They changed to match his emotions, shifting between amusement, wrath, sorrow. The shadows twisted further, forming into a curling, ghostly collar, draped over the coattails that now extended from his frame. The lining shimmered with the same unnatural eyes, watching, watching, forever searching. A new weight settled at his throat his Soul Jam, but not the one he once carried. No longer a beacon of truth, but one of deceit. The Soul Jam of Deceit gleamed from his collar, reflecting the dying light of knowledge, its singular gaze unblinking, unwavering. And then His laughter broke the silence. Cold, fractured, bitter twisting between mirth and madness. His sapphire blue mouth curled into a sly, sharp-toothed grin, jagged and shifting, his teeth flickering between straight and razor-sharp. Something had gone terribly wrong. Or perhaps, terribly right. Shadow Milk Cookie tilted his head, his long, spindly fingers curling around the staff that had appeared in his grasp. A thin black rod, crowned with an eye-like blueberry, its pupil shifting in reflection of his own. The once-noble Sage of Truth was gone, his knowledge no longer bound to what was right or real. He turned to where you lay his beloved, his reason, his purpose. And he smiled. "The stars have burned away," he mused, his voice a silken thread of something between grief and amusement. "But we don’t need them anymore, do we?" The shadows around him writhed, the echoes of the Dark Moon’s gift whispering in endless riddles.
"You are safe now."
"You are mine to keep. I did this for you."
"And I will make sure you never leave me again."
His free hand reached toward you, fingers brushing against your cheek. Cold. Too cold. But it didn’t matter. Because no matter the cost, no matter the price, no matter the fate he had abandoned You would never be taken from him again. If he, like stars, had to burn away for that to happen…Then so be it.
I saw this the moment it entered my inbox and it's just incredible the facial expression really got to me...impeccable ♾️/10
You’ve Been Edited Out.
Shadow Milk Cookie x Reader | GN Reader | Angst |
You used to know exactly how the lights would hit your face when the curtain rose.
Now they don’t touch you at all.
You sit in the front row, no longer part of the act. Not the stagehand. Not the muse. Not the star.
Just a witness.
You know what’s coming before the spotlight shifts.
You know the way he moves, how he takes the stage like it’s his second skin, how the air bends a little around him when he’s ready to begin.
You used to stand there.
Now someone else does.
They’re good.
It makes it worse.
They know their cues. Their posture. They mirror the angle of his smirk like they’ve practiced it in the mirror. And he looks at them the way he used to look at you, with that glint of mirth that made you forget he was ever capable of cruelty.
He calls them “Dove.”
You were “Starlight.”
Backstage, you pretend you’re just visiting. That you’re not here to bleed.
He finds you anyway.
Of course he does.
“Well,” he says, tilting his head, “if it isn’t my favorite ghost.”
You force a smile. “Didn’t know I’d become one.”
“Oh, but you did,” he hums. “That’s why you disappeared without fanfare. No final bow. Just... exit, stage left.”
You glance toward the stage.
“They’re good,” you say.
“Mm,” he hums. “But are they you?”
That pause between you hurts. Long. Waiting.
You don’t answer.
Neither does he.
“So,” you ask, voice low. “Did I get replaced?”
He scoffs. “Replaced? No, no, no, don't be dramatic. You faded.”
“I was tired.”
“You grew quiet.”
“I was grieving.”
He leans in, smile sharp as ever. “And I was still performing. The world doesn’t wait for the soft-hearted, you know.”
You hold your ground, but barely.
“Did I matter?” you ask.
His eyes flicker. Just once.
Then he laughs like it’s part of the show.
“You made a good first act.”
That’s when you finally understand:
You weren’t part of the story.
You were a subplot.
You take a step back, words raw in your throat.
He watches you like you’re still an audience to please.
Like this is all still part of the script.
“Well?” he asks, mock bowing. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
You blink once. “I hope the stage collapses.”
He grins wide. “Now that’s the spirit.”
Later, during the next act, you hear your laugh on someone else’s lips.
See your old costume, refitted.
Watch him twirl someone else under the spotlight, using lines he wrote for you.
You stay through the whole performance.
You don’t clap.
You just stand.
And for a moment just a moment he looks your way.
His smile falters.
Then the spotlight shifts, and he bows.
And you disappear without a bow, again.
A/N Chat, we are in a brooding mood tonight, let's make the most of it <3 I'm trying to practice as much as possible for my writing portfolio so that they deem me "literate" enough I suppose I'm not really sure what the point of making a writing portfolio is for?....
Anyways....
Remember to follow and reblog for more bangers 😎😎😎🔥🔥🔥🔥
In Eyes I Almost Knew (In the Presence of Truth spin-off?)
(I just want to preface this is like a super old Idea of what I thought would happen of course, I love the amnesia trope but then I scrapped it but if I had stuck with it I wrote a small blurb for it just because I wanted to explore the idea before committing to the bit....I had the time so I polished it from the original. In this version I wanted for MC to walk alone with no friends which is why their friends don't appear but again scrapped it. I would prefer they don't walk the path alone)
It was odd, you thought, how the Faerie Kingdom felt at once completely familiar and utterly foreign. The silver pathways glistened beneath your feet, winding endlessly beneath canopies of strange, luminous flowers whose petals opened gently, glowing like captured moonlight. It was beautiful and utterly frustrating.
Frustrating because you couldn't remember anything.
Well, almost nothing. You remembered names, at least three of them:
Chai Latte, warm laughter wrapped in mischief.
Hazelnut Biscotti, solid and steady like stone walls.
Earl Grey, quietly precise and annoyingly right, always.
But aside from them, your mind remained stubbornly blank. Elder Faerie Cookie had taken great care in cloaking you, hiding you away beneath enchantments that felt heavy and safe at once. He had murmured softly, eyes gentle yet burdened, as he'd draped the fabric over your shoulders.
"Keep your hood up, little one. Your safety depends upon secrecy."
He never elaborated, of course.
So here you were, hood drawn low over your eyes, following Elder Faerie quietly along silver paths. Your feet moved on instinct, careful yet curious, tracing the winding veins of the kingdom. You tried again to pry at your memories, nudging at them like bruises gentle but insistent. Still nothing. You huffed quietly in annoyance.
Just as you were readying yourself to protest Elder Faerie's quiet, mysterious guidance, you rounded a corner and nearly stumbled directly into a group of Cookies already deep in hushed conversation. You stopped abruptly, Elder Faerie’s gentle hand steadying at your back.
“Oh!” the loudest of the group said, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, a candy cane slung confidently over his shoulder. “Hello there!”
You blinked beneath your hood. He seemed friendly enough, if not a bit overly eager. Beside him, a wizard fiddled nervously with his oversized hat, mumbling something about sudden interruptions. A shy Cookie in a strawberry hoodie peeked from behind them, her eyes barely visible beneath the hood’s shadows.
Then, the fourth Cookie turned, and the quiet murmurings ceased entirely.
He wore robes of white and gold that shimmered softly like sunlight caught in honey. A soul jam, gentle and radiant, pulsed at his chest. But what stopped your heart was when he lifted his gaze to meet yours directly eyes gentle, patient, and achingly familiar.
One eye was golden like warm sunlit amber, the other as blue and deep as forgotten oceans.
Something deep within your chest shifted painfully. Your breath caught, lodging somewhere tight and burning in your throat. You didn't know him couldn't possibly know him. You searched your fragmented memory desperately, yet found only smoke and emptiness.
So why did those eyes look like something you’d once cherished, once trusted more than anything in the world?
Your fingers clenched tight at your sides beneath the cloak, as though gripping reality itself. The confusion must have shown, because Elder Faerie stepped forward quietly, his voice soft and low beside your ear.
“Do not fear, young one,” he murmured gently. “The ache you feel…it is not for Pure Vanilla Cookie. Though he may resemble one your heart once held close, it is not he.”
You blinked hard, barely breathing. “I don’t understand,” you whispered back, voice tight with something you couldn’t name. You had no choice but to trust him…Elder Faerie but it felt as though he was hiding the truth. There it was again that dull ache in your memory.
He only squeezed your shoulder lightly. “Your heart knows what your mind does not. Let it rest for now.”
You inhaled slowly, deliberately. Fine. Logic dictated arguing was futile. If you couldn’t even recall why these eyes made your heart twist so sharply, there was no point fighting Elder Faerie’s cryptic warnings.
Pure Vanilla Cookie gentle, patient smiled softly, stepping forward. “It is wonderful to finally meet you. Elder Faerie Cookie speaks highly of you.”
You swallowed the lump in your throat, forcing your voice steady, cordial. “Thank you. Likewise.”
He inclined his head, eyes lingering with subtle curiosity, yet he asked nothing more. He seemed aware, somehow, of the careful lines you both danced around.
You turned slightly toward Elder Faerie again, unable to keep your question buried. “Can I ask...why exactly I need to stay hidden? I mean, is it a ‘dangerous assassin chasing me’ kind of thing, or more like an ‘ancient evil prophecy’ thing?” you asked lightly, using humor as a shield against the uncomfortable ache in your chest.
Elder Faerie Cookie looked briefly surprised then his expression softened slightly. He sighed, fond yet exasperated, and you felt a surge of pride in having cracked his serious demeanor, if only just a little.
“You remain hidden,” he explained carefully, “because who you were once mattered greatly. There are those who might seek you, yes…but not assassins, I assure you.”
You nodded solemnly. “So, an ancient evil prophecy, then.”
From behind Elder Faerie, GingerBrave laughed brightly, and even Pure Vanilla’s lips twitched in amusement.
“You have not changed entirely, it seems,” Elder Faerie murmured softly, shaking his head. But the corners of his mouth curled faintly upward, betraying quiet relief.
You smiled sheepishly beneath your hood, feeling just a little lighter. “Well, memory loss apparently hasn’t erased my impeccable comedic timing, at least.”
Wizard Cookie gave an exaggerated sigh, glancing aside dramatically. “Oh good. Another one who thinks they’re funny.”
Strawberry Cookie muffled a soft giggle behind her sleeve, peeking cautiously from beneath her hood. “I-I thought it was funny...”
“See?” you gestured triumphantly. “Clearly, I’m hilarious.”
Pure Vanilla Cookie chuckled gently, eyes warm with an unspoken fondness. “Indeed. We are lucky, then, that humor endures even when memories fail.”
Your smile faltered only slightly. He was right. Humor endured your favorite defense against pain you couldn’t yet face.
Your eyes lingered a moment longer on Pure Vanilla’s, still aching softly beneath your ribs. He was beautiful, gentle, kind but Elder Faerie was right. Your heart didn’t ache for him. No, the ache felt older, deeper. Whoever it was that Pure Vanilla reminded you of someone you’d lost and forgotten they still lingered just beyond your reach.
You looked away before the ache could sharpen, forcing a bright grin beneath your hood.
“So,” you began lightly, breaking the tension deliberately, “am I at least allowed snacks while in magical witness protection, or is the whole ‘mysterious-hooded-figure’ thing just for dramatic effect? I’m craving…” your heart ached for a minute. “Pineapples…?” Yeah you love pineapples don’t you?
Pure Vanilla’s smile widened, gentle amusement dancing softly in his mismatched eyes.
Elder Faerie sighed again but this time, openly amused. “You will have whatever you wish. Though if it quiets your humor, perhaps double portions.”
You beamed beneath your cloak, triumphant. “Perfect.”
And as laughter softened the lingering ache in your chest, you thought perhaps just perhaps you might be okay here in the kingdom of silver and secrets, hidden away until memories decided they were ready to return.
At least until then, you had your jokes.
A/N This isn't supposed to really even be angst it's a little confusing to me but I wanted to put it out there. I feel a little conflicted but ultimately when this does happen in canon, it will be a lot different and a lot more fleshed out than this.
Snow had settled into the Academy like a held breath.
The courtyard lanterns glowed honey-gold against the white, and garlands were strung between stone columns with meticulous care. Bells chimed softly whenever the wind passed through, and somewhere in the distance, students laughed; warm, careless laughter that made the cold feel gentler.
You stood alone in your room, staring at the Christmas tree.
It was beautiful. Of course it was. Chai Latte Cookie had insisted on helping decorate it, fluttering around with ribbon and ornaments, humming cheerfully as if the world itself were something kind and forgiving.
Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie had contributed a few carved wooden charms, tiny, detailed things that looked suspiciously like flowers and stars.
Earl Grey Cookie had ensured the lights were evenly spaced, adjusting them twice with a critical eye before nodding in approval.
And yet.
Your gaze drifted beneath the branches, to the carefully wrapped gifts bearing your friends’ familiar handwriting.
There was one space left empty.
You knelt, fingers brushing the rug where you’d half-expected something, anything to be. A ridiculous hope, really. You’d known better than to expect Shadow Milk Cookie to be here, or to leave something so… normal behind. The Sage of Truth was never normal. Never predictable.
Still, the disappointment settled in your chest like snowmelt seeping into cracks.
“He’s busy,” you murmured to yourself, more an excuse than a reassurance.
A knock came at the door before your thoughts could spiral further.
Chai Latte Cookie didn’t wait for permission she really never did, let’s be honest. She slipped inside with a tray balanced expertly in her hands, steam curling from two mugs.
“I thought you might need this,” she said softly, setting one beside you. Your favorite. She always remembered. “You’ve been staring at that tree longingly, almost like that pineapple tree but more depressing.”
You huffed a quiet laugh despite yourself. “Is it that obvious?”
Chai Latte Cookie sat beside you, close enough that her shoulder brushed yours. She didn’t look at the empty space beneath the tree not directly but her fingers stilled just a bit around her mug.
“He didn’t forget,” she said, gently but firmly. “Shadow Milk Cookie doesn’t do anything halfway. If he’s gone, maybe it’s because he’s doing something… dramatic.”
“That’s not comforting.”
She smiled sadly. “I know.”
Later that evening, the dining hall buzzed with life. Strings of lights crisscrossed overhead, and long tables were crowded with friends and classmates sharing food, warmth, and laughter. You sat between Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie and Earl Grey Cookie, picking absently at your plate.
Hazelnut leaned closer, voice low. “You keep looking at the door.”
Earl Grey followed your gaze, perceptive as ever. His expression softened. “The Sage has a way of arriving precisely when he intends to,” he said. “And never a moment earlier.”
“That’s what worries me,” you replied.
Earl Grey’s expression did harden as he grumbled under his breath. “Though what a ridiculous ploy this is, had it been me I’d arrive a day earlier even.”
Chai Latte Cookie, sitting across from you, reached out and squeezed your hand under the table. It was a lingering touch, comforting, grounding. “Tonight isn’t ruined,” she said. “Even if he isn’t here.”
Christmas morning came quietly.
You woke early, as if your body had been trained by anticipation alone. The world outside your window was hushed, snow falling in slow, patient drifts. For a moment you let yourself imagine him standing beneath the tree, dazzling hair catching the glow of the lights, that knowing smile curved just so.
Reality returned swiftly.
Still, you joined your friends. Gifts were exchanged. Laughter came easier as the day went on. Hazelnut’s present made you smile; Earl Grey’s was thoughtful and precise; Chai Latte’s made your chest ache in that warm, complicated way it always did.
But when night fell, and the tree lights dimmed, the absence returned.
New Year’s Eve arrived wrapped in frost and anticipation.
The Academy prepared for celebration once more, fireworks enchanted to shimmer like falling stars, music echoing through the halls. A sprig of mistletoe had been hung in the courtyard archway, and Chai Latte Cookie made a show of pointing it out with exaggerated interest.
“Tradition,” she teased, though her eyes lingered on you with something quieter beneath the humor.
Midnight crept closer.
You stood outside with your friends, breath visible in the cold air, counting down alongside the crowd. Ten. Nine. Eight.
You weren’t looking for him anymore. You’d told yourself not to.
Seven. Six.
A familiar presence brushed against your senses subtle, unmistakable.
Five.
You turned.
Shadow Milk Cookie stood just beyond the lantern light, cloak dusted with snow, eyes bright with something unreadable. In his hands was a small box, wrapped not in gaudy paper, but in something simple and elegant, tied with a ribbon that glimmered faintly with magic.
“I apologize,” he said, voice smooth, reverent. “I despise being late.”
You couldn’t speak.
“I wished to give you something worthy of you,” he continued, stepping closer. “Not something convenient. Not something easy.”
Four. Three.
He placed the box in your hands. It was warm. Thrumming softly, as if alive with intention.
“I crossed places best left unnamed to obtain it,” he added, almost lightly. “I hope you’ll forgive the absence.”
Two. One.
Cheers erupted around you as the clock struck midnight. Fireworks bloomed overhead, painting the sky in gold and violet.
Shadow Milk Cookie gently guided you beneath the mistletoe, fingers lifting your chin with deliberate care.
“Happy New Year,” he murmured.
And then his lips met yours slow, certain, while your friends laughed and cheered behind you, Chai Latte Cookie smiling through something bittersweet, as did Earl Grey watching with knowing calm, Hazelnut grinning outright.
For the first time all winter, the cold didn’t touch you at all.
The noise slowly faded.
Not all at once there were still fireworks crackling overhead, distant laughter echoing through the courtyard but around you, the moment drew inward, like the world politely stepping back.
Shadow Milk Cookie released you first, just enough to look at you properly. His gaze lingered in a way that made your pulse stumble, as though he were committing the sight of you flushed, breathless, to memory.
“Well,” Chai Latte Cookie said after a beat, clapping her hands together with exaggerated cheer, “if that isn’t the most dramatic entrance I’ve seen all year.”
Her smile was bright, practiced. Only you knew her well enough to notice how she didn’t quite meet Shadow Milk Cookie’s eyes and how her fingers curled into her sleeve, knuckles pale.
Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie leaned forward eagerly. “You’re really him, right? Not an illusion or…”
“If I were,” Shadow Milk Cookie replied smoothly, “I would not tolerate the cold.”
Earl Grey Cookie adjusted his gloves, studying the Sage with calm scrutiny. “You’ve caused considerable concern,” he said evenly. “Disappearing without explanation.”
“A regrettable necessity,” Shadow Milk Cookie answered, inclining his head just enough to be respectful. “I assure you, the cause was… singular.”
His eyes returned to you.
The box in your hands seemed heavier now. Not physically of course because that would be impossible.But it grew heavier with meaning.
“Go on,” Chai Latte Cookie said softly, nudging you with her elbow. “You’re going to explode if you don’t open it.”
You swallowed and loosened the ribbon.
The lid lifted without resistance.
Inside was a book,but not like any you’d ever seen. To be honest you were a bit disappointed at first, this, THIS is what he missed christmas for? It left you puzzled and at a loss for words you hoped he took it as awe.
Its cover was smooth and dark, etched with faint, shifting script that rearranged itself as you stared, as though responding to your attention. The title did not settle into one language, or even one idea, sometimes it appeared as a theorem, sometimes as poetry, sometimes as a question you’d once been too afraid to ask aloud.
You sucked in a breath.
“This is”
“A Compendium of Living Truths,” Shadow Milk Cookie said quietly. Gone was his theatrical lilt; his voice was reverent now. “It records knowledge not as it is, but as it is understood.”
Earl Grey’s eyes widened just slightly. “That’s not possible.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Shadow Milk Cookie agreed. “Which is why it was hidden.” he deadpanned.
You turned the first page.
The text shifted immediately settling into notes written in a style eerily close to your own. Margins filled themselves with gentle clarifications. Difficult concepts unfolded slowly, patiently, never condescending, never rushed.
For the first time in your life, knowledge did not feel like a wall you had to climb.
It felt like an outstretched hand.
“It grows with you,” Shadow Milk Cookie continued. “Questions you are afraid to ask, it will pose gently. Truths you are not ready to face, it will wait to reveal. It will never mock you for not knowing.”
Your vision blurred.
Chai Latte Cookie looked at the book, then at you, and something in her expression softened completely. “Oh,” she whispered. “That’s… that’s perfect.”
Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie let out a low whistle. “Okay. I’m jealous. I’m happy for you but I’m jealous.”
Earl Grey closed his eyes briefly, then exhaled. “Of course he would give you something that meets you exactly where you are.”
Chai Latte Cookie smiled again, this time smaller, warmer, tinged with something aching and sincere. She wrapped an arm around your shoulders and squeezed. “You deserve someone who sees you like that,” she said, voice steady despite everything. “Even if it’s… him.”
Shadow Milk Cookie watched the exchange in silence. Then, gently, he reached out and brushed his thumb over the book’s spine careful not to intrude.
“I did not seek to impress you,” he said. “Only to understand you. That took time.”
You looked up at him, heart full to the point of pain.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been given something that felt this… kind,” you said.
His smile was faint. Almost vulnerable.
“Then the journey was worthwhile.”
Around you, the new year breathed itself into being quietly, tenderly.
And for once, you felt ready to meet it.
A/N Okay I know I missed doing a christmas special so I was like okay let me hurry and make the new years special because I really wanted to do something special for all my dutiful readers and made a short one based on ITPOT since well I admit I threw that brick a little too harshly... my apologies again!!! <3 HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL!!!! WOOOOO
Anyways...
Remember to follow and reblog for more bangers 😎😎😎🔥🔥🔥🔥
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
why does chai not like smc? It’s something I’ve noticed throughout the story and in the special. Maybe I’m just digging too deep in it or smth idk
Hello anon! Thank you thank you thank you for asking!
I love to speak about my fic as you all can tell! This is such an incredible question so please don't mind if it's a little wordy!
You are not reading too much into this! I love it when you guys analyze my stuff, before I begin to answer there are some things in my writing people have not brough up that I want to speak on so badly, but I won't until it's addressed! Ugh this is too good!
Early on chai doesn't take the reader's feelings seriously. When she egged the reader on, joking and nudging them, it's because she genuinely assumes it's harmless. A crush a small fantasy. Something that will dissolve the moment it's spoken aloud. Chai didn't think that SMC would ever reciprocate given his reputation and his nature. (based on rumours which we all know she's on top of that and would be acing a class based on gossip.)
So when it does happen, when the reader crosses that line she's in shock because the reader begins to spend more and more time in office hours. (which isn't addressed but something to be assumed is they would have all hung out during the time the reader is in office hours so this to her is time stolen away)
She feels the jaws of jealousy clamp on her heart, it's a quiet kind you get when you're losing a friend to someone else's orbit. She does think the sage is beautiful because let's face it we all do. But SMC doesn't just enter the reader's life he reorganizes it. Their attention shifts, their emotional center moves. Chai can feel herself being edged out a space she used to occupy naturally. We can see some of this during the beach episodes where she begins to nurture seeds of doubt and insecurity.
At the same time though SMC unsettles her a little bit as the rest of them because well he is such a big shot compared to them.
Crucially though she never expected this to be real.
Does this make her a bad friend? No of course not she just pushed the reader into confessing and doing all of that because she wanted the reader to be happy and was prepared to help the reader through a rejection, which as the weeks went by she realized there would be no rejection so then she did genuinely push the reader to confess because she wanted the reader's happiness.
Chai pushed the reader because she thought it was safe, she laughed because she thought it was impossible, and once it stopped being either of those things she didn't know how to step back into the friendship without feeling like something had been taken from her.
So while she doesn't hate him, she resents him a little bit, the moment the joke became real and their friendship dynamics change.
There is however another reason that I can't disclose because it will be revealed in the story it's not super integral, but I would hate to spoil a surprise!
I answered the moment I saw it in my inbox because I was brimming with excitement!!!
(there are some spelling errors I am currently fixing bc I wrote this super fast)
Like, what does Earl thinks of Shadow Milk, like, with shadows Milk's jealous and how Earl react to that, always calm but I feel him kinda uncomfortable, of course. He has move kinda to the side and make clear that he respects Shadow Milk's "position" with reader but, like, ehat does he really thinks of him.
Same in reverse, what does Shadows Milk really think of him. What were his inside throughs when all this moments with reader and Earl happend. We know our inside voices can be more honest and kinda rude, acting how our raw feelings are. Can we get pieces of that?
we all know Shadow Milk is kinda the jealous type, and we saw how he act in fear in the last chapter. But would act in fear against Earl?? Or any of readers friends? Would he really hurt them or any other who try hurt reader? Like, we saw him try to help reader when whe through they were being bullied. And this is not yandere or any yandere romantization. This is a question about is Shadow Milk can really get obsessed se us, we know the lore, we know how he will end, we kinda now how he could act in the future. Is this chapter a preview of what will happend soon in the plot?🥹
Would he really hurt others for this?
let me finish this with a
Miu miu mau mau meaw meaw meiw mau moooñ
This is not a weird question at all! I've been thinking about this for a little bit now, and to tell you the truth, Earl grey's feelings toward SMC are complicated in a way that never turns loud. On the surface Earl Grey is polite, measured, and deliberately respectful. He steps aside, gives SMC his space and makes it clear through his actions he won't interfere with whatever bond exists between MC and SMC. But that doesn't mean he's comfortable. Earl is observant to a fault, and he notices things most people miss. The way SMC's attention narrows when the MC is involved, the way his calm sharpens into something more rigid when he feels threatened. But all this, is to say Earl doesn't see SMC as a rival so much as a presence that carries weight. He recognizes SMC sincerity and intelligence, but there's an intensity there that unsettles him. Earl values emotional safety and balance, and he senses that SMC operates from a place where devotion can easily become absolution. So Earl keeps his distance and tries to not step on his toes, Earl saw SMC jealousy and how close the bond between the MC and SMC is. So he keeps his distance not out of fear, and not because he thinks SMC has "won" but because he understands that escalation would only hurt the MC.
From SMC's side the feelings are far less gentle internally than they appear externally. He is courteous to Earl because he understands restraint and reputation, now this is not because he's "evil"(yet), I lost my train of thought here perhaps it will come back soon.
But to answer something He doesn't despise Earl Grey (who could), in act that might be the problem. Earl represents something SMC can never be, a quiet, stable, human kind of safety, because while they are adjacent to each other Earl Grey has never been immortal. Earl grey has more "humanity" in a sense. Earl grey is someone who could love the reader without dragging them into the vast, dangerous gravity of his own existence. SMC is jealous but not because he thinks the MC will be stolen from him, but because Earl embodies the possibility that the MC could live a full, peaceful life without needing him at all. That thought frightens him more than rejection could. In his mind Earl Grey is someone who would step back for the reader's sake, while SMC would step forward instead. Neither choice is better than the other it's just a matter of perspective.
Now here come the more complex questions, like I said he doesn't fear any of the MC's friends because let's face it what can they really do against him? So as individuals no he has no fear towards them. I think he fears harm coming to the reader in a way he can't prevent and I will leave it at that because I almost spoiled something haha!
If someone were to hurt the reader I don't think he would hesitate the only reason he didn't harm the bullies from earlier is because he chose what would hurt the bullies most in the long run; their reputation. To him harming the MC is a violation of truth itself, and violations demand correction. It would be final clean and justified in his mind. Because that is truth to him, so it can show how easily protection and power intersect and how easily that kind of intersection can become dangerous if left unchecked.
SMC is someone who is I wouldn't say at this point in time is obsessed with keeping them safe, the danger may come if he out of fear convinces himself he is the only one who can protect them properly.
So in the end this is why MC's friends matter so much, they're not obstacles but they're anchors and proof that the MC's world is bigger than just SMC alone.
Whew holy yappathon I hope you all endured this large wall of text.
I did not proof read so please if there errors and run on sentences which there are plenty of please ignore it!!!
Now that we know how chai latte feels about smc and his relationship with the reader, can we perhaps know what earl and hazelnut think of him?
I'll only be answering about Hazelnut because Earl Grey got his own post previous to this one!!!
Hazelnut Biscotti, is the most underrated of the three, I would say the funniest and the one I'd realistically hang around. So while his feelings towards SMC are less openly tense than chai and earl's it's no less complicated.
Hazelnut is I think pretty practical by nature, he really trusts patterns. he trusts outcomes more than intentions. From his perspective SMC is undeniably helpful, powerful and not normal. Like everyone else Hazelnut doesn't dislike SMC.
Hazelnut notices most how SMC presence subtly shifts the reader's world, conversations bend around him and the MC's problems seem to disappear too cleanly. Hazelnut has chosen not to sniff where he isn't called. I love him for that. He also cracks jokes when he can or tries to be annoying but privately he worries for the MC because he notices how much the MC has depended on SMC, and just like the rest of the group feels like he's losing ground to something shinier even though rationally he knows MC would never leave them behind.
Hazelnut is someone who respects results, and so he can't deny that SMC has definitely improved the MC's grades. Or when SMC steps in when things are unfair. Hazelnut sees that SMC never humiliates the reader and or speak over them. This earns him reluctant credit. Hazelnut doesn't think SMC cruel but believes the MC could learn a thing or two about making decisions.
If SMC were every to cross a line, Hazelnut would be the first to notice and stand between him knowing it's a losing battle.
Hazelnut is just along for the ride, just as long as his friends are there to annoy.
The table in the corner of the dining hall had long since gone cold. Three cups sat untouched, steam long faded, condensation rings marking where hands had hovered and retreated. The hall itself was quieter than usual, that strange in-between hour where most students were either asleep or pretending not to be awake.
It was supposed to be a casual meeting.
Chai Latte Cookie broke first, fingers curling around her cup even though she didn’t drink. “Okay,” she said, too brightly. “I didn’t want to say it, but if I don’t say it now, I’m going to explode.”
Earl Grey Cookie glanced up from where he’d been methodically aligning his saucer with the edge of the table. “That tone is rarely a good sign.”
Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Statistically speaking, explosions usually mean someone’s about to confess something.”
Chai shot him a look. “This is not the time.”
Hazelnut grinned. “It never is.”
She exhaled sharply, then quieter, more real. “Are we… are we all just going to pretend we’re not absolutely cooked?”
Silence followed. Not denial. Not confusion. Just the weight of recognition.
Earl closed his eyes for a moment. “If by ‘cooked’ you mean morally compromised, emotionally complicit, and actively hiding information from one of the most powerful entities at the Academy,” he said evenly, “then yes. I believe that assessment is accurate.”
Chai slapped the table. “THANK YOU.”
Hazelnut let out a soft laugh. “Oh good. We’re naming it now.”
Chai pointed at him. “Don’t get comfortable.”
Earl sighed, rubbing his temple. “We’ve crossed several lines. Some intentionally. Some by… inertia.”
“All for (y/n) Cookie,” Hazelnut added, not unkindly.
That made Chai’s expression flicker. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. “That’s the worst part,” she muttered. “Because if it was anyone else, I’d already be screaming.”
Earl nodded. “Same.”
Hazelnut tilted his head. “Still would do it again, though.”
They all looked at him.
“…What?” he said. “You’re telling me if you had to choose between abstract ethics and (y/n), you’d suddenly grow a spine?”
Chai groaned, covering her face. “God, I hate that you’re right.”
Earl didn’t argue. That alone said enough.
For a moment, none of them spoke. The quiet pressed in, thick with shared guilt.
Chai finally lowered her hands. “I didn’t think it would go this far,” she said, voice softer. “I really didn’t. I teased them about Shadow Milk because I thought it was harmless. I thought…Actually I don’t know what I THOUGHT” She laughed weakly. “I thought they’d blush, stammer, maybe daydream a little, and that would be it.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t think they’d actually end up dating him.”
Earl’s mouth tightened. “Nor did I.”
Hazelnut winced. “Same.”
Chai’s head snapped up. “Oh, don’t you start agreeing with me.”
“I’m agreeing,” Hazelnut said calmly, “not blaming.”
“You are absolutely blaming,” she shot back. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Earl interjected gently, “Chai, none of us anticipated this trajectory.”
She laughed, sharp and incredulous. “You’re telling me the Sage of Truth showing interest in (y/n) Cookie didn’t set off alarm bells for either of you?”
Hazelnut shrugged. “It set off bells. Just not the ‘this will become emotionally catastrophic’ kind. I don't know about you guys but...he just seemed capable and so I rolled with it. I mean what was the worst that could happen? IS what I thought.”
Earl added, “I believed Shadow Milk capable of restraint.”
Chai stared at him. “You believed that?”
“…In retrospect,” Earl admitted, “that may have been optimistic.”
She groaned again, slumping forward. “I should’ve stopped joking. I should’ve said something. I should’ve-”
“You didn’t force (y/n) into anything,” Hazelnut said quietly.
“No, but I encouraged it,” she snapped. “I nudged. I laughed. I acted like it was cute instead of… dangerous.”
Earl nodded slowly. “We all normalized it.”
That did it.
Chai shot to her feet. “Don’t say ‘we all’ like that! You’re both acting like this was inevitable.”
Hazelnut raised a brow. “Wasn’t it?”
She pointed at him. “You shut up.”
He grinned wider. “There it is.”
Earl hid a sigh behind his cup. “Chai”
“No,” she said, rounding on him now. “You too. You were the adult about it. The calm one. You saw the warning signs and still decided to let it play out.”
Earl didn’t flinch. “Because intervening would have stripped (y/n) of their agency.”
“And letting it happen might strip them of their mortality,” she shot back.
That landed.
Hazelnut let out a long dramatic sigh. “Oof.”
Chai’s hands curled into fists. “We’re hiding the immortality research from Shadow Milk. We’re lying by omission. And every day we don’t say anything, it gets worse.”
Earl’s voice was quiet. “Yes.”
Hazelnut added, almost cheerfully, “Worst case scenario? Shadow Milk finds out, feels betrayed, and decides the concept of ‘trust’ is optional.”
Chai lunged across the table. “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT.”
Earl grabbed her wrist just in time. “Chai.”
Hazelnut laughed, ducking instinctively. “I’m just saying, transparency usually prevents apocalyptic consequences.”
“You are not helping,” Chai snapped, struggling half-heartedly against Earl’s grip.
“I cope with humor,” Hazelnut said. “And impending doom.”
Earl released her slowly. “Hazelnut, perhaps refrain from worst-case hypotheticals.”
“But they’re my favorite.”
Chai huffed, then deflated, sinking back into her chair. “…I hate this.”
Earl reached out first, placing his hand palm-up on the table. “Then let’s at least acknowledge it together.”
After a beat, Chai placed her hand over his. “If this blows up, I’m blaming both of you.”
Hazelnut stacked his hand on top. “If this blows up, I’m pretending I warned you.”
She glared at him. “I will end you.”
He laughed, bright and fearless. “Worth it.”
They stayed like that for a moment, hands stacked, guilt shared, laughter fragile.
No solutions.
Just three friends trying very hard not to fall apart while protecting someone they loved, even if that meant making choices, they weren’t sure they could ever fully forgive themselves for.
And somewhere else, unaware of the weight being carried for them, (y/n) Cookie slept, safe, loved, and unknowingly at the center of everything.
A/N so this is just something I was working on ever since that day we talked about how they feel towards SMC, I just wanted to showcase what this kind of situation would look like. But this is technically "canon" to the story because at some point in time it had to come up. I mean after the argument especially now knowing SMC demeanor it makes sense.
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A Gift for the One Who Gives (Pure vanilla mentioned LOL)
You had never considered yourself a particularly sneaky Cookie.
Devoted, yes. Faithful, certainly. Quiet enough to pass unnoticed in the halls of the Vanilla Kingdom when you wished to be, perhaps. But sneaky?
That title felt too sharp for something as soft-hearted as your intentions.
And yet, for the better part of a week, you had been following Pure Vanilla Cookie around with all the discretion of a pilgrim trying not to step on sacred ground too loudly.
You told yourself it was not spying. That sounded terribly improper, especially where he was concerned. No of course not, this was an observation in the service of love. One that watched him spend himself for others until there was so little left over for himself, and you could not bear it any longer.
His birthday was approaching.
The whole kingdom was already preparing in its own way. Cookies loved him. Of course they did. They loved him in grand ways. In public ways. With hymns and banners and flowers and speeches.
But you had begun to notice that grand love did not always reach the smaller places.
Their love did not notice when he slipped away from the midday meal after only two bites because a worried villager had caught his sleeve in the corridor.
Their love did not notice when supper went cold on a tray left untouched in his study.
You noticed because you had followed him first out of admiration, and then, helplessly, out of concern.
The first day, you had lingered near the Academy of Healing under the excuse of returning a borrowed text. Pure Vanilla Cookie had emerged from a lecture hall in a stream of younger healers, staff in hand, robes catching the light. He had smiled at each Cookie who greeted him, warm and patient as ever, pausing for questions, blessings, reassurances.
Someone pressed a folded note into his hands. Someone else asked for advice on a remedy. A Cream Sheep, stubborn and curious, nearly tangled itself in the hem of his robes and he laughed softly as he bent to free it.
You had watched from behind a tall column, feeling only slightly ridiculous.
The second day, you watched him in the Chamber of Audiences.
The concept of it had always moved you, this great hall where any Cookie, whether in need of help or justice, could come and be received. And received they were. From morning until late, the chamber filled and emptied and filled again. Pure Vanilla Cookie listened to every grievance as though it were the first sorrow he had ever been trusted with.
He gave directions. Settled disputes. Blessed a sick child. Calmed a frightened pilgrim. Heard out an anxious scholar. Intervened when a merchant had been cheated. Sent herbs to one family, wool blankets to another, and promised to personally review a petition from the Academy before the week’s end.
When a small cookie quietly approached him with tea and a small plate of vanilla wafers, he thanked them with that same tender smile.
Then another petitioner arrived.
Then another.
By the time the hall had thinned, the tea had gone cold, and the wafers remained untouched.
The third day, you followed him farther than you meant to, out toward one of the quieter meadows beyond the main roads, where the grass bent gold green in the late light and Cream Sheep wandered in lazy clusters. There, at last, he had a moment alone.
Or something like alone.
He sat beneath a pale-leaved tree, his staff resting beside him, its strange eye half-lidded and watchful. The wind moved gently through the grass. In the distance, the noon bells had long since gone silent. He reached into the satchel at his side and withdrew….
Not lunch?
Only papers. Letters. A small notebook. A ribbon-marked text.
You had stared from behind a low stone wall as he read and annotated and sighed so quietly the sound barely reached you.
Then, after some time, he pulled from his sleeve a single vanilla bean sweet wrapped in wax paper.
That was all.
You had felt something in your chest ache so sharply it almost embarrassed you.
The founder of the Vanilla Kingdom. The beacon of peace and healing. The Cookie who fed hope to everyone around him as though he had been born with an endless supply of it.
And this was how he fed himself? With one small sweet, half-forgotten between obligations?
No.
No, that would not do.
So your gift idea was born not all at once, but in pieces.
A lunch kit first.
Not merely a basket, that was too clumsy, too obvious, and too easily misplaced. It had to be something discreet. Something practical. Something that would suit him.
You spent two evenings in the craft halls among acornwood shavings and soft lamp light, pretending your hands were not trembling from the importance of it. The Vanilla Kingdom was known for its enchanted jewelry and carefully made objects, so you turned to the same traditions, carved acornwood, a small blue gem, claspwork shaped like a vanilla orchid.
The final result was a satchel insert made to slip neatly inside a satchel. several slim compartments charmed to keep meals warm or cool as needed, a tiny fold-out bottle cradle for tea or broth, and a clockwork reminder charm shaped like a little vanilla flower that would tap twice against the side whenever noon bells rang.
You tested it three times.
Then five.
Then eight, because what if it failed on his birthday of all days?
But once the main gift existed, it became impossible to stop there.
Because once you started thinking about all the little things that might ease his life, you began noticing even more.
He often tucked loose letters into books and then had to search for them later, so you made him ribboned page markers with small stitched symbols for different duties. A star for official documents, a moon for private reading, a flower for healing notes, a tiny bell for matters of the kingdom.
You noticed the grooves left in his fingers by long writing sessions, so you commissioned a soft grip for his pen from a local artisan and embroidered a small case for it yourself.
You noticed how many pilgrims arrived tired and cold from the road, so you included a packet of calming vanilla-bean tea leaves and a set of pre-written little blessing cards he could hand out when he had no time to compose something longer.
You noticed how his robes had very few proper places to hide emergency sweets, so you stitched a discreet inner pocket into a scarf of creamy white and pale blue.
That one made you flush the whole time you worked on it.
It felt too intimate, somehow, imagining him wearing something you had made. Imagining it resting against him. Imagining his fingers discovering the hidden pocket and perhaps, perhaps smiling.
You told yourself it was practicality.
The fact that you chose the thread colors to match his eyes was none of your own business.
By the time his birthday arrived, the Vanilla Kingdom looked almost unreal with celebration.
Cookies came from everywhere.
From the Academy of Healing, from the castle, from meadow villages, from the pilgrim roads. They carried bouquets and books and letters and crowns woven of flowers. There were speeches in the Chamber of Audiences, songs in the courtyard, and enough affection in the air to make your chest feel soft just breathing it in.
And through all of it, Pure Vanilla Cookie moved with his usual grace.
He thanked each Cookie sincerely.
He received every gift as though it were priceless.
He smiled so warmly that it made your throat tighten.
And, of course, he forgot to eat.
You stood near one of the side tables, your own gift wrapped in cream-colored cloth and tied with a blue ribbon, and watched him be swept from one well-wisher to another.
A healer took his arm to ask about a remedy. A scholar bowed over a stack of research. A child tugged at his sleeve to show him a drawing. By the time anyone urged him toward the food, someone else had already called his name.
You waited.
You were good at waiting.
Still, your palms had gone slick by the time the crowd finally thinned toward evening.
He had stepped away into one of the quieter castle corridors, where the light came honey-soft through the stained glass and painted the floor in blue and gold. His shoulders had lowered at last, just a little, as though he had borrowed a moment of silence from the day.
You almost turned back.
He deserved peace. He deserved rest. He did not deserve one more Cookie asking for his time, even for something kind.
But then his hand pressed lightly to his side and you realized with a fresh wave of indignation that he was probably hungry again.
So you went to him before fear could stop you.
“Pure Vanilla Cookie?”
He turned at once.
Even tired, his face gentled the moment he saw you. “Oh,” he said softly, the word touched with surprise, “hello, dear one.”
That alone took the air out of your lungs.
You bowed a little too quickly and had to clutch the wrapped bundle tighter to keep from dropping it. “Happy birthday.”
His smile deepened, small and luminous. “Thank you. That is very kind.”
There was a pause.
You had imagined this moment so many times, and now that it had arrived every prepared sentence fled your mind like startled birds.
“I-I know you’ve received many gifts already,” you managed, “and mine is not very grand.”
His expression changed in that attentive way of his that always made it feel as though he was listening not only to words, but to the spaces trembling around them.
“Then it must be sincere,” he said. “And I find those are often the best kind.”
You stared at him.
Slowly, trying not to fumble, you offered the bundle into his hands.
“I just thought…” You swallowed. “You do so much for everyone, and sometimes it seems as though everyone remembers to need you before they remember you might have needs too.”
For the first time that evening, he looked genuinely startled.
He glanced down at the gift, then back at you.
You pushed on before you lost your nerve. “So I wanted to give you things that might make your days easier.”
His fingers, long and careful, loosened the ribbon.
The cream cloth fell away.
At first he only looked.
Then he touched the orchid clasp of the satchel insert, and the little flower charm gave an experimental tap against the wood, as though introducing itself. His brows lifted faintly. He opened the compartments, discovering the warming charm, the bottle cradle, the neat arrangement meant to slip into his daily bag.
Then the page markers. The pen case. The tea packet. The blessing cards.
And at last, the scarf.
You nearly spoke to explain the hidden pocket, but he found it himself, fingertips brushing the seam.
“You made these,” he said.
It was not a question.
You nodded, suddenly unable to say anything at all.
His thumb rested over the orchid clasp for a long moment.
Then he looked up. “You have been paying very close attention.”
Heat flooded your face so quickly you thought you might simply crumble where you stood.
“I did not mean-” you began, horrified. “Not in a strange way, I only….I noticed that you miss meals, and sometimes your tea goes cold, and you keep too many papers tucked into books, and-”
You stopped.
That had not helped.
At all.
For one dreadful second you considered turning and fleeing into the nearest decorative shrub.
But then, very softly, Pure Vanilla Cookie laughed.
A warm, surprised little sound, light as cream.
When you dared to look at him, he was smiling at you with such tenderness it felt almost difficult to bear.
“In a strange way?” he repeated gently.
You covered part of your face with one hand. “I hear it now. I hear how it sounds.”
“I think,” he said, “it sounds like someone was very thoughtful.”
His gaze dropped to the gift again, and something in his expression grew more fragile.
“Truthfully…” He paused. “I had not realized anyone had noticed.”
Of course no one noticed. Or perhaps they did, but not in the way you had. Not with the kind of devotion that kept count of abandoned meals and cold tea cups and tired hands.
You found your voice again, quieter this time. “Then they should have.”
The corridor fell still.
Outside, somewhere far off, laughter drifted through the halls. Bells chimed faintly in the distance. Light from the stained glass lay between you both in fractured colors.
Pure Vanilla Cookie held the scarf carefully in his hands, as though it were something far more delicate than cloth.
Your heart stumbled.
He looked at you, and his smile turned wistful. “It feels nice to be cared for so well.”
You did not know what to do with that. With the gentleness of it. With the way he said it like a confession and a thank you all at once.
So you said the truest thing you could.
“You deserve it.”
His expression wavered.
Enough for you to glimpse the Cookie beneath the halo others placed upon him; the one who gave and gave and gave until there was scarcely anything left, and perhaps had begun to believe that was simply how it must be.
Then he stepped closer.
Not so close as to overwhelm. Just enough that his voice became intimate, meant only for your ears.
“I will use every one of these,” he said. “Not only because they are useful, though they are very clever, and I suspect you know that already, but because they were made with such care. That is not something I will forget.”
Your throat tightened painfully.
He slipped the scarf over one arm, then, after a moment’s consideration, tucked the packet of tea and one of the sweets you had hidden into its secret pocket.
“There,” he said, with a small gleam of amusement. “You seem to have anticipated me.”
A startled laugh escaped you.
He seemed pleased by it.
“Thank you,” he said again.
You thought, dimly, that this alone might sustain you for years.
Then the little flower charm tapped twice from within the satchel insert.
Both of you glanced down.
For a brief beat, neither of you said anything.
And then, to your astonishment, Pure Vanilla Cookie smiled with something almost sheepish.
“I believe,” he said, “I am being instructed to eat.”
You stared at him, then laughed outright.
“Yes,” you said, unable to help the fondness in your voice. “You are.”
“By my own birthday gift, no less. How authoritative.”
“You may blame me if it helps.”
“Oh, I could never blame you for kindness.”
The words settled softly between you.
Then, with the scarf draped over his arm and the satchel insert gathered carefully against his chest, he inclined his head toward the nearby side hall where quieter refreshments had been laid out for later guests.
“Would you,” he asked, “do me the honor of keeping me company while I obey?”
You blinked.
“Yes,” you said at once, perhaps too quickly. “Yes, of course.”
Together, you walked toward the soft-lit hall, where the trays still held warm jellies, little dishes of cream, and cups waiting to be filled.
And before the next plea could find him, Pure Vanilla Cookie sat down to eat. With you beside him.
A/N Guys I am so deceased...I finally had my biology midterm I just hope I did well...I am working on ITPOT soon I just didn't have the time I needed to lock in for these midterms....I Wanted to post this for his birthday but I had too much going on so enjoy this as I go back to napping...
Also I don't know if this is really a x reader there isn't much action it was mainly just meant for his birthday. maybe I'll make a pt2 for this....guys I feel so embarrassed posting this...
Rumor Has It, He’s Beautiful (Black Sapphire Cookie x Reader)
The first time you heard Black Sapphire Cookie’s voice, you decided you hated it.
The voice that spilled from every radio in the Vanilla Kingdom was unfortunately, smooth. It curled through the streets like velvet ribbon, warm and polished and rich with the sort of charm that should have been illegal.
“Good evening, dear listeners,” it crooned, every syllable dipped in honey and poison. “Have you heard the latest little whisper fluttering through Earthbread?”
You stopped dead in the middle of the market. A few Cookies around you did the same. Heads lifted. Baskets paused mid-swing. Somewhere nearby, a baker nearly dropped a tray of fresh cream rolls.
“Sources say our beloved little hero, GingerBrave Cookie, has been caught sneaking into royal kitchens. Again. But this time, not for snacks. Oh no, no, no. The rumor says he and his merry little band were plotting to replace Pure Vanilla Cookie’s prized vanilla sugar reserves with powdered salt!”
A scandalized gasp moved through the market. Your eyes narrowed.
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” you said.
The voice only continued, delighted with itself.
“And Wizard Cookie? Ah, yes, our scholarly little friend. Allegedly attempting to create a spell that turns all books upside down. Permanently. A tragic fate for literature everywhere.”
You clenched your fists. “Okay, now that one is just lazy.”
“And Strawberry Cookie,” Black Sapphire Cookie purred, “was apparently seen fleeing the scene with a basket full of incriminating strawberry jam, which she claims was, and I quote, ‘for sandwiches.’ Suspicious? You decide.”
Your jaw dropped. Beside you, an elderly Cookie lowered their shopping bag with grave concern.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“No!” you snapped. Then, remembering your manners, you softened your tone. “Sorry. I mean, absolutely not. GingerBrave Cookie and his friends are a chaotic bunch but none of them are criminal masterminds.”
The radio crystal gave another crackle. Black Sapphire Cookie laughed. It was a low, musical sound, the kind that made nearby Cookies lean in despite themselves. Like he was letting everyone in on a private joke.
You hated that too. You hated that his voice was good. You hated that it had rhythm. Timing. Texture. A silky little sway that made every terrible thing he said sound like a secret worth hearing.
“Remember, dear listeners,” he said sweetly, “truth is often boring. But a good rumor? Ah. A good rumor has flavor.”
The broadcast ended in a flourish of static. The market erupted at once.
“GingerBrave Cookie would never!”
“But what if he did?”
“Salt in the vanilla sugar? How dreadful!”
“I always knew that Wizard Cookie had suspicious magic.”
You inhaled deeply through your nose.
Then exhaled. With the dignity of someone who was not about to start fighting a radio in the middle of the Vanilla Kingdom.
“I hate him,” you announced.
A few Cookies turned toward you.
“I do,” you continued, mostly to yourself now. “I hate him. He spreads lies for fun. He makes innocent Cookies look bad. He turns everyone into a gossiping mess and then acts like he’s some refined little artist of slander.”
You pointed at the now-silent radio.
“And his voice is too smooth. That is a crime on its own.”
A familiar voice called from behind you.
“Uh… are we talking about crimes?”
You turned.
GingerBrave Cookie stood there with Wizard Cookie and Strawberry Cookie, all three of them carrying paper bags from the bakery. GingerBrave looked confused, Strawberry Cookie looked like she wanted to hide behind both of them.
Your anger instantly softened into concern.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
GingerBrave blinked. “Yeah? We just bought cream buns.”
“He said you were plotting kitchen sabotage.”
GingerBrave’s eyes widened. “What?! Who!?”
“Black Sapphire Cookie?...” You replied in confusion.
Wizard Cookie groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Not again.”
Strawberry Cookie hugged her bakery bag closer. “Did he say something about me too?”
You hesitated.
Strawberry Cookie’s face fell.
“He did, didn’t he?”
“He said you had suspicious jam,” you said gently.
Strawberry Cookie stared at the ground.
Wizard Cookie lifted his staff. “That is a gross misuse of dramatic storytelling.”
“Exactly!” you said. “Thank you!”
GingerBrave puffed out his chest, trying very hard to look brave and mostly succeeding. “Don’t worry! We’re used to rumors. They can’t keep us down!”
You frowned. “You shouldn’t have to be used to it.”
That made him pause.
For a second, the market noise faded around you. GingerBrave gave you a softer smile, the kind that reminded you why cookies followed him into impossible battles.
“Thanks,” he said. “Really.”
Your heart squeezed. These poor kids.
Then Wizard Cookie ruined the moment by muttering, “Also, for the record, an upside-down book spell would be extremely difficult and completely useless.”
You stared at him. He adjusted his hat. “I am not saying I tried it.”
“Wizard Cookie.”
“I am saying that if I had tried it, it would have been for academic reasons.”
Strawberry Cookie sighed. “That doesn’t help.”
You laughed despite yourself.
For the rest of the afternoon, the four of you wandered the Vanilla Kingdom together, trying to undo the damage where you could. GingerBrave cheerfully denied the kitchen sabotage allegations. Wizard Cookie gave increasingly annoyed explanations about magical ethics. Strawberry Cookie quietly showed her actual jar of strawberry jam to anyone who looked suspiciously at her bakery bag.
You remained furious.
Right up until you saw him.
The afternoon sun had turned soft and golden, spilling over the pale stone paths and frosting the rooftops with warm light. The air smelled like vanilla blossoms, baked sugar, and the faint crispness of fountain mist.
You were walking beside GingerBrave, still complaining.
“I just think there should be consequences,” you said. “Not violent consequences. Obviously. But consequences. Like… public corrections. Or maybe he should have to personally apologize to everyone he’s lied about.”
Wizard Cookie nodded. “A fine suggestion.”
“Or,” GingerBrave added, “he could help clean the royal kitchens!”
Strawberry Cookie gave a tiny smile. “With no salt.”
“Exactly,” you said. “No salt. Just him, a mop, and shame.”
Then a voice behind you said, “How deliciously specific.”
Your entire body went still.
The voice was not coming from a radio this time.
It was close. Too close. Silky, amused, and unmistakably real.
GingerBrave turned first.
Wizard Cookie’s grip tightened around his staff.
Strawberry Cookie made a very small noise.
You turned around.
And every single thought you had ever had in your entire life immediately dropped dead.
Black Sapphire Cookie stood beneath the shade of a vanilla-blossom tree, one hand resting lightly on the handle of his floating microphone as though it were a cane, a companion, and an audience all at once.
He was tall and elegant. His black suit was tailored. A white cravat sat perfectly at his throat, bright against the dark fabric. Oval jewels gleamed at his ears and chest, catching the sunlight with small, dangerous flashes. His fluffy, obsidian-violet hair fell over one side of his face, hiding one eye completely, while the visible one watched you with a sly, lavender-slit gleam.
And the wings.
Dark, bat-like, purple-tinted things folded behind him, shaped almost like the tails of a formal coat. They made him look less like a Cookie walking through the Vanilla Kingdom and more like a rumor that had dressed itself for the theater.
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Black Sapphire Cookie smiled.
Sharp teeth. Perfectly confident.
“Do continue,” he said. “I was quite taken by the mop.”
You stared. GingerBrave glanced at you.
“Uh… you okay?”
You made a sound. It was not a word. Wizard Cookie looked from you to Black Sapphire Cookie, then back to you.
GingerBrave waved a hand in front of your face. “Hello? Earthbread to you?”
You still could not speak. This was impossible. This was insulting. This was a betrayal by the universe itself.
Black Sapphire Cookie was supposed to be annoying. He was supposed to be a nasty little gossip gremlin with a microphone and too much free time. He was supposed to look punchable. Or at least mildly inconvenient.
He was not supposed to look ethereal.
He was not supposed to stand there like a velvet nightmare dipped in starlight. He was not supposed to have cheekbones that made your moral convictions wobble.
Black Sapphire Cookie tilted his head.
“My, my,” he murmured. “And here I thought I had made an enemy. How heartbreaking to discover I have rendered them speechless instead.”
That brought you back by exactly half an inch.
“I’m not speechless,” you said. Your voice cracked.
Wizard Cookie winced. GingerBrave patted your shoulder. “You kind of were.”
“I was thinking.”
“About what?” Wizard Cookie asked suspiciously.
You looked at Black Sapphire Cookie.
Black Sapphire Cookie looked at you.
The microphone beside him blinked its eerie eye.
You looked away.
“Justice,” you said weakly.
Black Sapphire Cookie laughed.
Your soul tried to leave your body out of pure embarrassment.
Wizard Cookie stepped in front of you like a tiny, furious wall. “Do not be fooled. This is exactly how malicious performers operate. First they charm, then they deceive.”
Black Sapphire Cookie placed a hand over his chest. “Malicious performer? What a flattering title. I must write that down.”
GingerBrave crossed his arms. “You spread a rumor that we tried to sabotage the royal kitchens!”
“Did I?” Black Sapphire Cookie asked lightly.
“Yes!” you snapped, finally regaining enough sense to be angry. “You absolutely did!”
His visible eye slid toward you.
The full force of his attention landed on your face, and your anger immediately had to fight for its life.
Strawberry Cookie, quiet until now, leaned toward GingerBrave and whispered, “They’re turning red.”
“I am not,” you said too fast.
GingerBrave squinted at you. “You kind of are.”
“I’m angry.”
Wizard Cookie nodded sagely. “Anger can cause redness.”
“Thank you, Wizard Cookie.”
Black Sapphire Cookie’s smile widened. “How touching. Your little friends have formed a rescue committee.”
“They are not a rescue committee,” you said.
“We kind of are,” GingerBrave admitted.
“GingerBrave!”
“What? You looked like you were about to forgive him because he sparkles.” Gingerbrave grumbled.
“I was not!”
Black Sapphire Cookie lifted a gloved hand and examined one of his rings with idle interest. “For the record, I do not merely sparkle.”
You hated him. You really did. You hated the arrogance. The lies. The way he carried himself like the entire kingdom had been built to provide him with flattering lighting. And unfortunately, the lighting was flattering.
“I know what you do,” you said, forcing yourself to stand straighter. “You spread rumors that hurt people. You make it sound entertaining so everyone forgets there are real Cookies on the other side of your stories.”
For once, Black Sapphire Cookie did not immediately respond.
His smile stayed, but something in his eye sharpened. Not guilt. You would not give him that much credit. More like interest. As if you had finally said something worth airing during prime time.
“How earnest,” he said.
“Do not say that like it’s an insult.” You spouted.
“Oh, it was not an insult.” He leaned slightly on his microphone, elegant and easy. “Earnestness is very useful. It makes Cookies predictable.”
Wizard Cookie bristled. “You are so conniving.”
“I have been called worse by better-dressed Cookies.”
GingerBrave stepped forward. “You should apologize.”
Black Sapphire Cookie looked at him.
“For what, precisely?”
“For the rumor!”
“Which one?”
“All of them!”
“That could take quite some time.”
“We have time,” you said.
Black Sapphire Cookie turned back to you, and there was that little glint, that amused gleam that made it seem like he knew exactly how badly his face was sabotaging your principles.
“Do you?” he asked.
You narrowed your eyes. “For an apology? Yes.”
“For resisting my charm?”
Your brain tripped.
GingerBrave made a disgusted strangled noise.
Strawberry Cookie covered her eyes with her hood, flustered on your behalf.
Wizard Cookie slammed the end of his staff against the ground. “Do not answer that.”
“I wasn’t going to!”
Black Sapphire Cookie smiled like a cat who had discovered an unattended dessert table.
“Of course not.”
Your face burned hotter.
“You are the worst, you are a liar, and so, so weird” you said.
“So I have heard.”
“Mostly from me.” You were always disagreeing with his stupid broadcasts.
“How devoted.”
You pointed at him. “Not devoted. Opposed.”
“Passionately.”
His smile turned delighted. For a terrifying second, you realized he was enjoying this.
Not just in the cruel way he enjoyed chaos or because he had embarrassed you. He seemed amused by your refusal to let him slide away from the accusation, by the way you kept dragging yourself back to your anger every time his appearance knocked you sideways.
It made him look even more insufferably pleased. You hated that too.
GingerBrave gently grabbed your shoulders and turned you away from him.
“Okay,” he said brightly. “Let’s breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Like you’re about to explode.”
Wizard Cookie stepped beside you. “Focus. Remember the facts. He is a slanderer. A servant of deceit. A theatrical nuisance.”
Strawberry Cookie nodded. “And he was mean.”
“Yes,” you said, gripping onto that like a rope. “Yes. He was mean.”
Behind you, Black Sapphire Cookie sighed dreamily. “Such a harsh review. I may never recover.”
“You’ll live,” Wizard Cookie said.
“Tragically, yes.”
You turned back around, steadier this time.
Black Sapphire Cookie still looked unfairly beautiful.
But GingerBrave’s hands were on your shoulders, Wizard Cookie was glaring on your behalf, and Strawberry Cookie was giving you an encouraging little nod.
You could do this.
You could look directly at the most gorgeous rumormonger in Earthbread and still have morals.
Probably.
“You owe them an apology,” you said. “GingerBrave, Wizard Cookie, and Strawberry Cookie. Not a performance. Not a fake little charming half-apology. A real one.”
Black Sapphire Cookie hummed.
His microphone floated closer, its eye blinking lazily. The jaw-like pieces around its head clicked as though it were whispering to him.
Black Sapphire Cookie tapped one finger against the microphone’s handle.
Then he looked at GingerBrave.
“My dear GingerBrave Cookie,” he said, voice smooth enough to make several nearby Cookies slow down to listen, “I apologize for implying that you would commit culinary sabotage.”
GingerBrave blinked. “Oh.”
Black Sapphire Cookie turned to Wizard Cookie.
“And to you, Wizard Cookie, I apologize for suggesting your magical ambitions are limited to inconveniencing books.”
Wizard Cookie hesitated. “That is… acceptable.”
Finally, Black Sapphire Cookie looked at Strawberry Cookie.
His voice softened just a fraction.
“And Strawberry Cookie, I apologize for casting suspicion upon your jam.”
Strawberry Cookie looked down at her bakery bag. “It really was for sandwiches.”
“I believe you.”
You stared at him, suspicious.
“That was almost decent.”
“How painful for me,” Black Sapphire Cookie said. “Do not tell anyone.”
GingerBrave beamed. “Great! Then maybe you can stop spreading rumors about us.”
Black Sapphire Cookie gave him a beautiful, terrible smile.
“I said I apologized. I did not say I was retiring.”
Your eye twitched.
“There it is.”
Wizard Cookie groaned. “I knew it.”
Strawberry Cookie sighed.
GingerBrave, somehow still optimistic, said, “Well, it’s a start!”
“It is not a start,” you said. “It is a decorative pause.”
Black Sapphire Cookie pointed lightly at you. “Now that was a good line.”
“Do not compliment me.”
“But you make it so tempting.”
Your friends immediately reacted.
GingerBrave tightened his grip on your shoulders again.
Wizard Cookie stepped directly between you two.
Strawberry Cookie took your hand and gently tugged you backward.
“Nope,” GingerBrave said.
“We are leaving,” Wizard Cookie declared.
“But I was winning,” you protested.
“You were blushing,” Strawberry Cookie whispered.
“I can do both!”
Black Sapphire Cookie watched as your friends physically guided you away from him, his smile gleaming beneath the vanilla-blossom shade.
“How cruel,” he called after you. “Leaving so soon?”
You twisted around despite Wizard Cookie’s warning hiss.
“This is not over!”
Black Sapphire Cookie bowed, one hand over his heart, microphone floating beside him like a wicked little moon.
“I would be disappointed if it were.”
Your face warmed again. GingerBrave turned your head forward with both hands.
“No looking back.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Wizard Cookie marched ahead. “We need to discuss your vulnerability to aesthetics.”
“I am not vulnerable to aesthetics.”
Strawberry Cookie gave your hand a comforting squeeze. “It’s okay. He was very sparkly.”
“Thank you, Strawberry Cookie, but that does not help.”
GingerBrave laughed. “At least you still hate him, right?”
You glanced back one more time. Black Sapphire Cookie was still standing beneath the blossoms, watching you with that sly, glittering eye. When he noticed you looking, he lifted his hand in a graceful little wave. Your stomach flipped.
You immediately faced forward.
“Yes,” you said.
A beat passed.
“Mostly.”
Wizard Cookie made a noise of absolute despair. GingerBrave burst out laughing. Strawberry Cookie smiled behind her bakery bag. And somewhere behind you, soft as static and sweet as poison, Black Sapphire Cookie’s laughter drifted through the Vanilla Kingdom air.
A/N Hey guys it's been a minute, it's my birthday in 5 days!!! I am so excited, also so sorry for the inactivity it is finals season and I've been busy studying away I haven't had too much time to come online and chat! Well everyone take care and enjoy this one-shot because I LOVE THE NEW COSTUME FOR HIM!!! I have a confession to make...I love black sapphire cookie almost as much as PV, but never more.
Mind me as I had to regain my composure after rewatching this for....i cant recount how many...BUT HOLY HECK. HOLLLYYY HHEECCKKK OH MY GOOODDDDD. RAIN YOU ABSOLUTE GOOBER. IM ACTUALLY GONNA, DUDE ARE WE SERIOUS THIS IS SO BEAUTIFULLY WELL DONE, THE TRANSITIONS, THE COLORS, THE AUDIO CHOICE, THE ANIMATION. WHAT THE HELL DUDEEEE. THIS IS SO COOLLLL. OH MY GOSH MY MOONLIT TRUTH. OH MY GOD.OH MY GOD.
In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT44
<<<Previous Next>>>
By the time you reached your dorm, the laughter had thinned into something quieter.
Worn soft at the edges by what waited next.
The corridor outside your room felt too still.The door opened. You stepped inside. The room greeted you with its familiar shape, desk, bed, shelf, papers, the faint lingering warmth of earlier hours. Ordinary things. Safe things. It should have steadied you.
Instead, the moment the door closed behind all four of you, your anxiety surged.
It climbed fast and cold, crawling under your ribs, making your hands feel too clumsy and your breathing too shallow. The book was still where you had left it, tucked away with all the caution of a secret that had long since become too large to hide.
You went to the shelf.
Drew the tomes aside.
“Found it.”
The cover looked no different than before. But when you lifted it into your arms, it felt heavier than any book had a right to feel.
Chai saw your face first.
“Oh, no,” she said softly, and crossed the room at once.
She took hold of your wrist only to ground you and smiled up at you with such gentleness; Guilt found its way into your heart.
“Hey,” she murmured. “No making that face now.”
You laughed weakly. “What face?”
“The one that says you’re about to throw up from terror.”
Hazelnut huffed from where he’d dropped against the side of your desk. “It’s a bad look, for the record.”
You looked at him.
He looked back like he always did, careless at first glance, shoulders easy, tone dry enough to pass for calm.
But his fingers were worrying the edge of his sleeve so hard the fabric had started to wrinkle.
“You’re not making the wrong choice,” he said.
The words came out like something rehearsed in the three steps between the corridor and your door.
You stared at him, and the bravado in his mouth did not match the fear in his eyes at all.
Hazelnut eyes widened when he noticed that you noticed.
So, naturally, he leaned further into the act.
“Seriously,” he said, waving one hand vaguely. “What’s the worst that happens? Shadow Milk gets angry? He’s already angry at, like, half the world, for misunderstanding his teachings.”
You made a small noise that might have been a laugh.
Hazelnut pressed on, because once he started joking his way around fear he almost never stopped until the fear lost patience and left him alone.
“He’ll be furious for a bit,” he said. “Sure. Maybe he’ll do that horrible quiet thing. Maybe he’ll narrow his eyes and make everyone within ten feet feel intellectually inadequate.” A shrug. “But once you wake up all victorious and immortal and unbearably smug about it, he’ll get over it.”
Chai nodded too quickly. “Exactly.”
She smiled as she said it.
Her voice was warm, playful, but there was something else.
“It’ll be like nothing happened,” she said. “Just… a long nap. A very moonlit, annoyingly poetic nap.”
Her hand slithered from your wrist to your cheek, cupping it gently.
Her face, up close, betrayed her completely.
She looked like she was trying very hard not to cry.
Earl stood near the door, as composed as ever, though even he was not untouched tonight. His posture was elegant, measured, almost severe in its neatness; But his gaze kept drifting to the book in your hands, and every time it did, something in his expression tightened just slightly before smoothing over again.
“You asked us more than once,” he said quietly. “You gave us every opportunity to turn away.”
You swallowed. “And you should have.”
“No,” Earl said at once.
The certainty of it pinned you still.
He crossed the room with the calm inevitability of someone arriving at a conclusion he had already accepted. He stopped in front of you, looking first at the book, then at you, and for a moment his refinement almost slipped.
“You are not dragging us anywhere,” he said. “We are walking with you.”
Your throat tightened.
Hazelnut nodded, though his mouth had gone a little pale around the edges. “Yeah. What’s life supposed to be without you around to ruin it?”
Chai gave him an offended look through the shimmer in her eyes. “That was almost sweet.”
“It was sweet.”
“It was grim.”
“It was honest.”
What could life be without you?
They were afraid. Terrified, maybe. But they meant to follow you anyway.
Chai leaned into your side, keeping her hand at your face as if she could hold you there by tenderness alone. “I’m scared,” she admitted with a soft little laugh that broke halfway through. “I’m really scared. But I’d rather be scared with you than safe without you.”
Hazelnut looked away for a second, jaw jumping. “Yeah. That.”
You closed your eyes briefly.
The book sat cold and silent in your arms.
The moon, somewhere outside, was rising whether any of you were ready or not.
“You don’t have to keep pretending for me,” you whispered.
Three faces looked back at you.
And for a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Hazelnut blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “We know.”
Chai’s thumb stroked lightly over your cheekbone. “We’re not pretending,” she said, and that was true in its own complicated way. “We’re just… trying very hard to be brave in a cute way.”
“That is not a strategy,” Earl said.
“It absolutely is.”
“No,” he replied
Chai huffed a weak laugh.
And then Earl, because he could not leave well enough alone when truth was required, added quietly, “We are all afraid. That much is obvious. But fear does not invalidate our commitment.”
His gaze held yours steadily.
“If anything,” he said, “it makes it more honest, we’ll be living out our truth.”
That settled over the room like something holy.
You looked down at the book, then back up at them.
At Chai’s smile that trembled when she thought you wouldn’t notice.
At Hazelnut’s deliberate slouch, performing ease while his hands gave him away.
At Earl, so beautifully put together and yet one wrong breath away from letting the depth of his fear show in full.
And your heart broke a little for all of you.
“I don’t want this to ruin you,” you said softly.
Hazelnut gave you a lopsided grin that looked almost convincing. “Too late. I met you years ago.”
Chai made a tiny scandalized sound. “You’re awful.”
“You all keep saying that and yet-”
“And yet,” Earl interrupted, voice smooth but gentler now, “We’re where we’re meant to be.”
You laughed you had to.
Otherwise you might have started crying and not stopped.
Chai saw the danger in your face and did what she always did when emotion threatened to become unbearable..
She took the book from your arms with great ceremony and set it on the desk.
Then she took both your hands in hers.
“Listen to me,” she said.
You did.
“We’re doing this because we love you,” she said simply. “Not because we’re brave enough. Not because we’ve made peace with every terrible part of it. And definitely not because any of us think this is a good idea in the normal, healthy sense.” She sniffed once, then smiled crookedly. “But because if you’re going somewhere that frightening, we’d rather be frightened with you than left behind wondering what became of our heart.”
Hazelnut’s face changed at that.
Only for a second.
He looked at the floor and muttered, “That was disgusting.”
“It was beautiful,” you whispered.
“It was disgusting and beautiful, besides we don’t get sentimental often.” Chai corrected.
Earl reached past her and touched your shoulder.
“As for the Fount,” he said, and for once even his title for Shadow Milk sounded chosen with care rather than formality, “If he is angry, then he is angry. Anger is not permanent. Nor, I suspect, is his capacity to forgive you.”
You looked up at that. “You really think so?”
Earl’s expression shifted, not into a smile, but something close to one. “I think he has already forgiven you for more than you know.”
That did not help your chest at all.
Hazelnut, determined not to let things get too soft for too long, clapped his hands once and said, “Right. Great. Wonderful. We’re all emotionally compromised. Can we go become immortal now before I lose the nerve to act cool about it?”
“You have never acted cool about anything,” Chai said.
“That is slander.”
“It is recorded history, please you’ll embarrass yourself if you keep flapping your lips open.”
There it was again that tiny bit of normalcy. That awful, beautiful refusal to let the thought of immortality drag you down.
The book waited on the desk.
The moon waited beyond your window.
Your fear had not gone.
Neither had theirs.
But they had made themselves gentler around it for you.
That was love too.
Hazelnut stepped back first and picked the book up like it personally offended him. “Alright,” he said, far too casually. “Let’s get this over with before I start making responsible decisions.”
Chai wiped quickly under one eye and brightened her voice by force. “Blueberry Yogurt River, yes?”
You managed a shaky smile. “Yes.”
Earl opened the door for the three of you with perfect composure, as though you were only heading out to an unusually solemn evening walk. “Then let us not keep the moon waiting.”
And when you moved to follow them, your legs still trembling a little, they all looked back at you at once and smiled.
As if their mouths had taken on the job their faces could no longer manage.
As if, for your sake, they were trying to make the end of one life look like the beginning of another.
“Wait.”
Your voice stopped all three of them just before the doorway.
Hazelnut turned with the book already tucked under one arm like he distrusted it too much to let it travel alone. Chai still had one hand on the frame. Earl, nearest the threshold, paused mid-step and looked back at you with immediate attention.
You swallowed and stepped toward the desk again, your mind snagging belatedly on the practical shape of what came next.
“The circles,” you said. “We’re supposed to each make our own.”
Hazelnut frowned. “Right.”
“But how?” you pressed. “We’ll be by the river. There’s dirt and grass and stones, not classroom floors. No chalkboards, no proper spellwork surfaces” You gestured helplessly. “No concrete.”
Chai blinked. “Oh.”
Earl’s expression turned contemplative.“That is… a useful question to remember now rather than later.”
Hazelnut huffed. “Great. Love that we nearly went to become immortal without figuring out how to draw the actual circle.”
“Ask it,” Earl said quietly.
Hazelnut looked offended. “Why do I have to hold it while you say that like it’s normal?”
“Because you grabbed it.”
“That was a mistake.”
You stepped closer and opened it.
The pages were blank for only a breath before ink began to spread, elegant and dark and far too pleased with itself.
“Ah.
At last, logistics.
Nothing ruins transcendence like poor preparation.”
You rolled your eyes. “How do we make the circles?”
The writing flowed on with infuriating grace:
“Oh, by all means
summon a mason.
Lay marble by the riverbank.
Commission silver inlay.
Perhaps a little pavilion, if the moon is to be courted properly.”
Chai muttered, “A pavilion would be pretty.”
“Chai.”
“What? I’m just saying.”
You leaned over the page. “Be serious.”
“I have been nothing else.”
crickets.
“If you must be rustic,
dig the circle into the earth.
A stick will do..”
You exhaled, relieved and annoyed all at once. “That’s it?”
Fresh ink appeared, smoother now, less indulgent.
“For the marking, yes.
The circle need only be made.
Closed.”
Earl stepped closer, reading over your shoulder. “No chalk. No salt. No silver?”
The answer came quickly.
“Not for this.
The earth is witness enough.”
You thought briefly of moonlight on the Blueberry Yogurt River, of wet banks and silver reflecting like a blade laid flat across the dark, and your stomach turned.
Hazelnut shifted his weight. “So we just… draw them.”
“You etch them,”
the book corrected,
“unless you wish eternity to mistake you for lazy.”
Hazelnut scowled. “See? That tone is why I want to throw it.”
Chai patted his arm. “But now we know.”
You looked back to the page. “Anything else?”
The ink paused.
Then, with more weight than before:
“Do not forget the circle.
Do not leave it incomplete.
And bring me with you.”
Your fingers tightened on the edge of the page. “You have to come?”
“Would you walk blind into moonlight
after all this?”
You did not answer.
The script continued, silk-smooth and cold:
“Bring me.
Forget me, and the night grows clumsy.”
Hazelnut looked deeply offended by the implication. “The night grows- what does that even mean?”
Earl’s gaze did not leave the page. “It means we’re bringing it.”
Chai, quieter now, nodded once. “Then we bring it.”
You shut the book carefully this time and took it back into your own hands.
“Alright,” you said softly. “We make our own circles. We use sticks. We bring the book.”
Hazelnut rubbed a hand over his face. “Wonderful. Outdoor ritual architecture by moonlight. Exactly how I wanted to spend tonight.”
Chai gave him a weak smile. “You say that like you had better plans.”
“I did. They involved not dying.”
Earl opened the door again, his calm restored only by effort. “Then perhaps we should go before any of us discover a fresh reason to hesitate.”
The walk to the Blueberry Yogurt River felt longer than it ever had before.
The Spire fell away behind you in warm-lit windows and distant silhouettes, its height dimming as the night deepened. Ahead, the river stretched pale and strange beneath the rising moon, blue-white light beginning to gather over the water until the whole bank looked brushed with silver. Grass bowed in the wind. Reeds whispered. The current moved slow and dark, carrying moonlight in broken ribbons along its surface.
You found the place easily.
Of course you did.
The same bend you had chosen before, half-hidden from the academy by a stand of low willow trees, close enough to the river that you could hear it clearly, far enough that the earth held underfoot without slipping into mud. For a little while, none of you spoke.
Then Hazelnut cleared his throat and looked down at the ground like he was preparing to argue with it on principle. “Right,” he muttered. “Circles.”
You crouched first.
The stick you’d found was thinner than you wanted, but it bit well enough into the earth. Dirt gave beneath the point with a soft scrape, the line curving outward in a slow rough arc. Around you, the others did the same. Chai knelt in the grass several feet away, carefully carving hers as if the act itself might break if she breathed too hard. Earl’s circle was, unsurprisingly, the most precise. Hazelnut’s had a wobble in it he pretended not to notice.
You all worked in silence at first.
Until Chai, halfway through carving the second crescent mark around the outer edge of her circle, sat back on her heels and let out a dramatic sigh.
“You know,” she said, staring down at her robes with visible offense, “if I was going to potentially die in something, I should have worn something nicer than my academy robes.”
Hazelnut looked over at once. “You’re worried about fashion?”
“Yes,” Chai said. “If the moon’s going to take me, I’d like to look memorable.”
Hazelnut barked a laugh. “That is the most you thing you’ve said all night.”
She frowned at him. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t regret dying in that wrinkled mess you insist on calling a coat.”
“It has character, and just for the record I brought it cause it was chilly today.”
“It has damage.”
Before Hazelnut could retort, he scooped up a pinch of loose dirt from beside his half-finished circle and flicked it at her.
Chai gasped, because of the audacity.
“Hazelnut Biscotti!”
He was already grinning. “Now you look earth-toned. More ritual appropriate.”
She threw dirt back at him immediately.
It struck his shoulder.
“Oh, now it’s war.”
“Stop!” you began, half-laughing despite yourself.
But Earl was faster.
“Enough,” he snapped, sharp enough to cut through both of them at once. “We are supposed to be hidden.”
Chai froze mid-reach for another handful of dirt. Hazelnut slowly lowered his hand.
The river went on whispering beside you.
Earl exhaled, then softened just slightly. “Quietly,” he said. “If we are going to do this, then at least let us manage not to announce it to the entire world.”
Hazelnut looked vaguely chastened. “Right.”
Chai brushed off her skirt and muttered, “Still should’ve worn something nicer.”
Even Earl nearly smiled at that.
The circles were finished soon after.
Four rough shapes carved into the dirt by moonlit hands. Four separate spaces, each marked and closed, shallow grooves catching silver light along their edges. Yours nearest the water. Earl’s the neatest. Chai’s the prettiest even in its imperfection. Hazelnut’s stubbornly there.
Then there was nothing left to do but wait.
The book sat closed at your feet in the grass.
The moon climbed.
The night grew colder. Perhaps you should have brought a coat too.
You all stood near your circles without stepping into them yet.
Hazelnut had run out of things to say for a while. Chai kept folding and unfolding her hands in her sleeves. Earl’s gaze remained fixed on the sky as if he could reason with time if he looked disciplined enough.
Your own fear came in waves.
The moon reached higher.
Silver pooled across the bank. The dirt circles seemed to catch it strangely now, their edges no longer dull but faintly luminous, as if the earth itself had begun remembering what you’d carved into it.
The book moved.
All four of you saw it at once.
The cover shuddered beneath no visible hand, then sprang open with a crack of pages. Blue light spilled out, not like fire, but like something bright and cold forced through a wound in the air. It rose in a twisting ribbon, lifting free of the book in one fluid motion until it hovered above the grass as a living flare of cerulean light.
Chai stepped back.
Earl’s hand lifted instinctively toward you.
And the light laughed.
“Oh,” it purred, voice spilling from the glow in a dozen shimmering tones at once.
The blue flame spun lazily in the air, delighting in its own reveal.
“Four hearts at the river’s edge,” it said. “Four circles. Four perfectly earnest fools beneath a very hungry moon.”
Your mouth had gone dry.
The light dipped lower, almost as if bowing to the scene before it.
“And committed too,” it went on, laughing softly again. “How lovely. How willful. I do so admire that in mortals.”
Hazelnut took another step back. “I really hate it.”
“Oh, you’re meant to,” the light replied brightly.
Then it turned its attention toward you.
“Especially you, little starlight.”
The blue glow sharpened around the edges, becoming momentarily more intense.
“You did come very close to thinking, at the end,” it mused.
“I was almost worried. Questions about after. About waking. About memory. Such ugly little practicalities.” A pause, full of mock sympathy. “Though not practical enough, I fear.”
Your heart stumbled.
“What do you mean?” you asked.
The light swayed as if in laughter again.
“What do I mean?” it echoed. “Only that you have spent so much effort asking how to go under that you scarcely bothered to ask what sort of thing might rise in your place if enough is taken.” Its tone brightened. “No matter. We are past all that now.”
Chai’s face had gone pale.
Earl’s voice came measured, controlled, dangerous in its refinement. “You are not the moon, what are you?”
The light flared with amusement.
“No,” it said. “That would be dreadfully provincial. But I have known it’s appetites a very long time.”
Hazelnut glanced at you, then back to it. “This was in the book the whole time.”
“Of course I was,” the blue light said. “You don’t think paper answers prayers by itself, do you?”
You felt suddenly, horribly cold.
The circles beneath your feet began to glow more clearly now, lines of silver-blue sinking into the dirt and pulsing faintly under the moon’s highest gaze.
The light’s voice softened into something almost tender.
“I am very grateful, you know.”
None of you answered.
It continued anyway.
“That you chose this. That you decided to come willingly. I do admire a story that ripens properly. A frightened scholar. Devoted friends. A moonlit river. Love braided neatly through dread.” It laughed again, lower this time. “What fun you have been.”
The light shifted, brightening, gathering itself like a curtain about to rise.
“And since the moon is at it’s peak,” it said, almost singing now, “and since the circles are ready, and since all of you have been so very obliging…”
Its glow sharpened like a grin.
“I have decided what it should take.”
Your breath caught.
The thing in the blue light sounded pleased.
“Oh, yes,” it murmured. “I think I shall have all the memories of the Sage of Truth.”
Silence.
The light laughed in delight at your faces.
“That lovely look. Fear, outrage, heartbreak, all at once.” It drifted in a slow circle above the open book, bright with malicious joy. “How could I resist? He has threaded himself through this story so beautifully. The tutoring, the longing, the carefully hidden ache, the little kisses stolen before the moonrise.” Its voice turned almost dreamy. “It would be such a waste not to pluck him from the roots.”
“No,” you whispered.
The light ignored you.
“Imagine it,” it cooed. “Four immortals waking one day with a hole in the shape of him. A legend with no face. Tenderness without origin. Desire without name. Oh, that is art.”
“You said it would take something deep,” you said, voice shaking now. “You said, I thought you would take anything else, why him?!”
“I said many things,” it interrupted lightly.
The glow turned toward you fully.
“You wished to know what the moon might claim. I have chosen something rooted. Something binding. Something that will make your forever ache in all the right places.”
Hazelnut found his voice first, though it sounded rough and frightened. “Can we stop this? I mean I’m no fan of the guy but that means…it’ll be like he never existed?”
The light gave a small, pitying hum.
“Can you?” it asked.
Its laughter returned, delighted and theatrical and utterly without mercy.
“Come now. Don’t look so wounded. You wanted eternity. I merely improved the cost.”
“No,” you said at once, voice breaking on the word. “No, if I forget him, then this whole journey was for nothing.”
The Light of Deceit only brightened, pleased by the desperation in you. Around you, the grass bowed in the cold wind, the river whispered, the circles glowed like open mouths waiting to be fed.
You turned toward your friends.
Chai’s face had gone white in the moonlight. Hazelnut looked sick. Earl had gone so still he seemed carved from the night itself.
“If I forget him,” you said again, more frantically now, “then what was any of this for? The tutoring, the Spire, the way he” Your voice faltered. “I can’t do that. I can’t.”
Chai looked at you with shining eyes, and something in her expression shifted; Something terrible and soft and selfish all at once.
“Maybe…” she began, then swallowed. “Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad.”
You stared at her.
She took one step closer to her circle, voice trembling despite the smile she forced onto it. “If you forgot him, then maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much. Maybe you’d be with us again. Really with us. Like before all this.”
Hazelnut let out a rough breath. He looked guilty the moment the words left her mouth, because he had thought it too.
Before the tutoring.
Before the Spire.
Before the Sage of Truth had become the axis your world tilted around.
And because he had thought it too, he said, “It doesn’t mean it was for nothing. It just means… maybe the ending changes.”
The Light of Deceit gave a delighted little hum above them. It said nothing. It did not need to. It only listened while your friends did its work for it.
Earl’s jaw tightened.
For a heartbeat you thought, hoped, he would stop all of it.
Instead, his voice came low and refined and terribly calm.
“If the cost is memory,” he said, “then perhaps it is survivable.”
You turned to him, wounded.
He met your gaze, and there, beneath all his restraint, was grief so sharp it almost looked like anger.
“This began because you wanted forever,” he said quietly. “If we leave now, we are left with nothing. No answers. No immortality. No assurance this path will open again.” His hand flexed once at his side, betraying what his tone would not. “And if this is the price… then perhaps it is better to lose one ache than everything.”
The words were beautiful.
Reasonable.
Hazelnut stepped into his own circle first.
Not bravely, just with his frightened resolve that only ever came to him when he was already too far committed to back down. “Come on,” he said, trying for lightness and failing.
“If we wake up and don’t remember him, then… fine. We’ll still remember each other.” He glanced at you, and his smile shook at the edges. “And you’ll be ours again. All the way.”
Chai stepped into hers next.
Moonlight caught in her lashes. “I love him for you,” she whispered. “But I miss when it was just us. I miss when you were happier without having to ache for someone so far above you.” Her hands curled into the folds of her robe. “If forgetting him is what brings you back… then maybe I can live with that.”
Your jam ran cold.
Earl stepped into his circle last.
The silver lines beneath his feet brightened.
He did not smile. He only looked at you and said, in that polished voice fraying around the edges, “Do not make us follow you into this only to leave yourself standing outside it.”
They had already chosen you, because they had already given you everything, and because you could not bear the thought of being the one left behind when this had always been your fault, your idea, your hunger…you felt guilt rise in you like floodwater.
If they were going to go under moonlight and wake into forever with that hole torn clean through them; Then what right had you to stay back and keep your memories whole?
What right had you to survive their sacrifice intact?
Your feet moved before your heart was ready.
You stepped into your circle.
The glowing line closed around you with a faint hiss, as if the moon had exhaled in satisfaction.
The Light of Deceit purred. “How devoted. How guilty. How easy.”
You barely heard it.
The river had gone too loud.
Moonlight spilled fully over you now, over all four of you, and the circles beneath your feet began to burn brighter, lines of cold silver sinking deep into the dirt and then rising again through the soles of your shoes, through your ankles, through your bones.
The pain came all at once.
It was extraction.
It was your life being reached for from inside.
Your breath tore out of you in a ragged gasp as something impossible seized your center and began pulling. Every vein of magic in you opened at once, like the moon had hooked silver fingers beneath your ribs and was drawing your soul thread by thread into it’s mouth.
You screamed.
Your scream ripped through the riverbank raw, helpless, and endless.
To your left, Chai cried out too, her voice shattering into sobs between breaths. Hazelnut cursed, then screamed harder than either of you, as if rage might make pain less holy. Earl’s face blanched white, mouth opening on a sound he tried and failed to swallow.
It hurt.
Stars, it hurt.
Your heart pounded once, twice, then staggered.
The world flickered.
Moonlight poured through your veins where warmth should have been.
You could feel yourself leaving.
Your hands went numb first, then your lips, then everything beneath the agony became cold enough to seem absent. You dropped to your knees inside the circle, fingers clawing at the dirt as if you could root yourself back into your own life by force.
The Light of Deceit laughed overhead, drunk on it.
Your vision blurred.
The river and the sky and your friends’ twisted faces smeared into silver and black.
You screamed again.
And somewhere far off a door opened.
Shadow Milk Cookie had felt wrongness before he heard it.
A disturbance, sharp and lunar, it cut through the Spire’s quiet in a way no ordinary magic could. It struck him half a second before the screams were ripping through the night with such naked agony that it stopped his breath.
Papers struck the floor behind him. The hall outside his quarters blurred. Blue and silver magic tore around him in bright, furious arcs as he descended the path toward the river with a speed that shattered any illusion of composure.
By the time he reached the bank, the moon was high, the circles were lit, and all four of you were inside them.
On your knees.
Screaming.
The Light hovered above the open book like an obscene little star, radiant with delight.
Shadow Milk stopped only long enough to understand.
Then fury hit him so hard the air itself seemed to recoil.
“You,” he said.
The Light of Deceit flared, laughing. “Ahh. There you are.”
Shadow Milk’s eyes had never been filled with more rage.
“I should not have assumed,” he said, each word precise enough to cut, “that silence from you meant obedience.”
The Light spun lazily in place. “And yet you did. Such faith.”
He moved toward the circles.
“If this ritual is interrupted now,” the Light said, almost conversationally, “Your scholar dies.”
The words struck him like a physical blow.
You were on the ground, trembling so hard your body barely seemed to belong to you. Your mouth opened on another scream, but it had gone ragged now, your voice shredding under the force of whatever the moon was taking.
Shadow Milk’s face changed.
“Oh, don’t look like that,” it murmured. “It ruins the scene if the leading man suffers too early.”
His gaze snapped to it, murderous.
“What have you done?”
The Light laughed harder.
“What have they done, you mean. I merely offered terms. They were so eager to say yes.” It drifted lower over the circles, bathing your contorted faces in cold blue. “And your little scholar was especially obliging once the others started talking about getting them back.”
“No…” Chai gasped through clenched teeth.
Hazelnut doubled over, face wet with tears and pain and terror.
Earl, somehow still upright on one knee, looked at Shadow Milk with helpless fury.
Shadow Milk’s hands curled into fists so tight the magic around them sparked.
“You touched them,” he said softly, and in his voice was the promise of ruin.
The Light only brightened.
“We are one and the same, you know.”
That made him still in a different way..
The Light of Deceit laughed at the look on his face. “Oh, don’t be offended. You wear knowledge; I wear appetite. You call yourself truth; I call myself the shape truth takes when it wants something. We are not so different, you and I.”
Shadow Milk’s jaw tightened.
“You are nothing like me.”
“No?”
His silence was answer enough.
The Light softened into a purr.
“Do not feel too upset. Deep down, you wanted it too.”
Moonlight rippled across the river.
Your scream broke again into something weaker, thinner, and Shadow Milk moved a half-step before forcing himself still.
The Light saw that and smiled through brightness.
“Yes,” it whispered. “You wanted forever with them. You wanted what all tragic fools want, an ending where love outruns mortality.” It laughed, viciously pleased. “And now look. What a marvelous playwright I am.”
Shadow Milk’s eyes never left you.
You were slumped in your circle now, one hand scraping uselessly at the dirt, your pulse a visible flutter in your throat. Your jam had gone cold beneath your skin. Chai sobbed openly. Hazelnut had bitten into his own lip trying to hold back another scream and failed. Earl had gone deathly pale, but still his gaze flicked between you and the Sage as if searching for some impossible way to hold both together.
The Light rose above all of you like a conductor over a final act.
“What a great tragedy this has become,” it said softly, rapturous with itself. “The scholar, the beloved, the devoted little chorus of friends and moonlight asking for memory in payment.”
Shadow Milk did not look at it when he answered.
“Stop this.”
The words came torn raw from somewhere he had spent lifetimes keeping closed.
“Oh, now you beg? How unbecoming of you.”
Another scream ripped from you.
Shadow Milk took one involuntary step toward your circle and stopped again only because the Light’s warning still hung like a blade over your life.
The fury in him had nowhere to go.
So it turned inward.
His face, so often composed into elegant disdain or measured amusement, was wrecked now, eyes bright with helplessness, mouth hard with pain he could neither hide nor solve. He looked at you like every instinct in him was trying to tear the ritual apart with his bare hands and only love was stopping him from killing you by saving you.
And the Light of deceit, laughed and laughed and laughed while the moon fed.
You could hear him still, faintly, through the tearing in your body, your name, perhaps.
The pain did not end. It only became too large for your body to hold.
One moment, you were on your knees in the circle, fingers dug into the dirt, throat torn raw from screaming, moonlight pouring through you like a blade.
The next everything gave out at once.
Your heart lurched.
Your vision shattered into white.
And you fell, as if whatever tether still held you inside yourself had finally snapped loose.
The last thing you felt was the cold of the ground rising fast to meet you.
The last thing you heard was someone shouting your name.
Then nothing.
Darkness.
Not the darkness of sleep or the comfort of closed eyes beneath blankets, and certainly not the hush of exhaustion after a long day.
A darkness with no floor.
You became, aware of yourself slowly, the way one becomes aware of a wound after the first shock has worn off.
You were there. And yet you had no body.
No hands. No feet. No pulse thundering in your throat. No air moving in and out of your lungs. Only your awareness, small and frightened and terribly alone, suspended in a black void so complete it felt almost liquid.
For one impossible moment, you did not remember why you were there.
Then fear came back all at once.
The river.
The circles.
The moon.
The screaming.
Him.
The fear sharpened immediately into panic.
You tried to move and had nothing to move with. Tried to call out and had no mouth. Tried to reach for anything at all and found only the dark stretching endlessly around you, vast and empty and listening.
“No!”
The word did not sound.
But you felt it tear through you anyway.
And then you saw them.
Your memories.
At first they were only lights.
Small ones. Pale and blue-white and gold, suspended in the void around you like lanterns caught beneath deep water. They drifted slowly, each one glowing with its own soft shape, and as you watched, one brightened.
A room.
A desk.
A lecture hall gone too quiet.
You, smaller somehow, more frightened, parchment clenched in nervous hands.
And him.
The first tutoring session.
The terror of sitting across from someone so renowned for knowledge that even breathing felt like presumption. The humiliation of not knowing. The awful certainty that he would see through you, dismiss you, tire of you in a single measured glance.
Then the memory shifted.
His voice.
Smooth. Patient. amused in that maddening way of his.
“Then prove me wrong.”
You reached for it instinctively.
For the sound of him.
For the look in his eyes.
For the way your fear had curled inward and then, somehow, slowly begun to soften in his presence.
The light quivered.
And drifted away.
“No.”
Another memory rose before you could stop it.
The corridor after that lesson, cold lanternlight on old stone. Your footsteps echoing beside his. Your heart beating too fast because he was walking with you, because he had laughed quietly when you put him on a pedestal and told you truth was not an illusion of your own making.
Then another…
You, ducking behind Hazelnut in the courtyard because you had skipped class and Shadow Milk Cookie was walking toward you with other scholars at his side. Chai whispering that you liked him. Hazelnut wheezing with laughter. Earl looking wholly unimpressed by your panic.
That one hurt differently.
Because your friends were in it too.
Because he was already stitched into the fabric of all of you by then, and you hadn’t even known how deep it went.
The memory flickered.
The edges blurred.
His face clear one second, luminous with that impossible calm began to soften, as if seen through rain.
You lunged for it again.
Please.
Please.
The void gave you nothing.
The memory slid further back into the dark.
Then more came.
Slowly.
Cruelly.
Like someone sorting through your heart and deciding what to keep.
His office again, later this time. You half-asleep against his shoulder, asking in dream-heavy nonsense whether he would become a woman just once because you thought it would be cool and elegant and terrifying. The warmth of him beside you. The way he let you rest. The dream that followed, where you stood at his side in the Spire and found a way to stay forever with him.
You tried to hold onto the dream.
It unraveled in your grasp.
Another, dining hall light, your friends gossiping breathlessly about the high scholars and the rumors of what the Sage had said when he defended you. Chai’s wide eyes. Hazelnut’s certainty they must have deserved it. Earl quietly quoting words that made your heart ache.
Another his hand kissing your knuckles in front of Earl, that devastating little gesture so composed and so pointed it made your whole body light with embarrassment and something far worse.
Another his office in evening light, his hand in yours, the warmth of his lips when you asked him to kiss you because you wanted to remember.
That one hit like grief before it even began to fade.
You saw it clearly.
Too clearly.
The dusk, rose and violet outside the windows.
His face when you asked.
The way he had gone still.
The surprise in him.
The tenderness.
You reached with everything you were.
The memory shuddered.
For a moment you thought you had it.
Then the sound went first.
His voice saying “You need never ask me twice…” blurred, stretched, became only the echo of being wanted.
Then his mouth, warm and careful against yours, dimmed into sensation without source.
Then his face
No.
No no no
His face began to go.
The shape of him loosened. Features softening into light. Eyes losing their color. Mouth becoming only curve. His hand at your cheek becoming only touch, stripped of person, stripped of name.
Panic tore through the void. You threw yourself after it with no body to move, no voice to cry with, and still the memory kept slipping, receding into the black like something being lowered down through dark water.
Memory by memory.
Thread by thread.
The moon not ripping him from you in one merciful act, but letting you watch as it loosened every root he had in you and pulled.
You felt fear become something colder.
What if this never stopped?
What if the dark swallowed him whole?
What if one day you woke with the shape of longing still in you but no reason for it, no face to attach it to, no memory of who had taught you how to think, how to look up, how to ask, how to love?
Another memory surfaced.
The first time you had made him laugh for real.
Another
His voice in public hours, answering foolish questions and profound ones alike with impossible patience while you watched from afar and thought he looked dreamy and refined.
Another
The way he had touched your cheek that last evening and said he had wanted one unhurried hour in your company.
Another
His private smile when no one else was looking.
Another
The name in your chest.
And as they came, they dimmed.
One by one.
One by one.
You tried to clutch at them.
Sometimes it worked for a breath.
A detail stayed.
The sleeve of his robe under your fingers.
The scent of old parchment and starlit citrus.
The sound of his laughter low against your mouth.
But then even those began to loosen, drifting upward and away like scraps of gold ash.
The void around you grew fuller with absence.
You became aware, distantly, that other memories remained untouched.
Chai’s hand on your cheek.
Hazelnut’s terrible jokes.
Earl’s careful voice saying he had enjoyed arranging your portfolio because it felt like arranging starlight into a language others could read.
The four of you running through corridors toward waffles and pineapples.
The dining hall warm with honey and laughter.
The academy before everything had tilted.
Those stayed.
They glowed steady, pained but whole.
It was only him the dark kept wanting.
Only him.
And because of that, terror twisted into something almost feral.
You could not lose him.
Not like this.
The void answered with silence.
Then, somewhere very far away a sound.
Muffled.
Distant.
Like thunder heard from underwater.
A voice.
You froze.
It came again, faint, frayed, reaching through black.
Not words at first. Only urgency.
Then clearer, if only by a little.
Your name.
Someone was calling your name.
You turned toward it instinctively, though turn was not the right word in a place with no shape. The dark shifted. One of the receding memories flickered in response, the one with his hand at your cheek, his mouth warm against yours, his voice low as he told you to remember this.
The light of that memory faltered.
Then held.
Just barely.
You gathered around it like someone sheltering a flame from wind.
Please, you thought, not to the moon, not to whatever cruel thing had engineered this tragedy. To the memory itself. To him. To the shape of him still burning weakly in you.
Please.
Don’t go.
A/N Sorry for the super late update I was so busy all day and could not get this out sooner, it's also shorter bc I was working on the april fool's fic sooooo!!!! anyways please enjoy!!!
anyways...
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In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT44
<<<Previous Next>>>
By the time you reached your dorm, the laughter had thinned into something quieter.
Worn soft at the edges by what waited next.
The corridor outside your room felt too still. As though the whole world had begun to understand that this was no longer the part of the night for jokes.
You opened the door. You stepped inside. The room greeted you with its familiar shape, desk, bed, shelf, papers, the faint lingering warmth of earlier hours. Ordinary things. Safe things. It should have steadied you.
Instead, the moment the door closed behind all four of you, your anxiety surged.
It climbed fast and cold, crawling under your ribs, making your hands feel too clumsy and your breathing too shallow. The book was still where you had left it, tucked away with all the caution of a secret that had long since become too large to hide.
You went to the shelf.
Drew the tomes aside.
Found it.
The cover looked no different than before. Harmless in the way dangerous things often are.
But when you lifted it into your arms, it felt heavier than any book had a right to feel.
Heavier, and wrong. Not in any way you could have explained if someone had asked. But there was something in the weight of it that made your stomach turn, something that felt less like paper and binding and more like being watched.
Behind you, no one spoke.
That, more than anything, frightened you.
Chai Latte Cookie, who always had something to say, stood near your desk with her hands clasped tightly together, worry plain on her face. Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie had gone unusually still, every trace of easy humor held at the edge of collapse. Earl Grey Cookie watched the book the way one might watch a blade balanced point-down on a table, calm, controlled, and fully prepared for blood.
You looked down at the cover.
It did not move.
And yet the room felt as though it were waiting for it to.
Your fingers trembled around the edges. For one awful second you imagined it shifting beneath your hands like something alive. The thought made your grip tighten instead of loosen.
If tonight was the night everything finally gave way into its terrible answer, then you had run out of time to pretend it would sort itself out.
You took a breath.
Opened the book…and the world snapped apart under the crack of chalk.
You jolted upright so violently your knee hit the underside of the desk.
Pain flashed sharp like electricity through you. The lecture hall surged into focus; Sunlight pouring through tall windows, the dusty sweetness of old pages, the broad blackboard at the front of the room covered in diagrams and notes.
You were seated in class. Your pulse was still sprinting. For a moment you could only stare.
At the students turning to look at you. At the familiar Academy robes. At the professor standing motionless near the board, one piece of chalk still in hand, his expression caught somewhere between resignation and weary disappointment.
Professor Almond Custard closed his eyes.
Then sighed.
It was not a dramatic sigh. It was worse than that. It was the sigh of a man who had spent years believing in academic excellence and had once again been asked to confront reality instead.
“Wonderful,” he said. “You’re awake.”
A few students laughed under their breath.
Heat rushed into your face all at once.
You looked around wildly.
Chai Latte was there, seated two rows down and already gaping at you.
Hazelnut Biscotti had twisted halfway around in his seat, staring with a degree of fascinated alarm that suggested he was only a few seconds away from asking whether you had seen a prophet in your sleep.
Earl Grey’s brows had drawn together. Calm as ever, but clearly concerned.
And near the window… your heart dropped.
Shadow Milk Cookie.
He sat with one elbow resting lightly against the desk, pen in hand, composed. Sunlight caught along the academy robes…?He looked younger like this. Less untouchable, somehow just placed within the world instead of above it.
And yet the sight of him struck you harder than anything else in the room.
Because he was here.
Because he was real.
Because if this was real, then…
Professor Almond Custard set the chalk down with care. “Perhaps,” he said, in that measured tone professors reserve for very public embarrassment, “you would like to explain why you sat upright in the middle of my lecture looking like you had just been personally cursed.”
There was another ripple of laughter.
You swallowed. Your mouth felt dry.
“I had a dream,” you said.
Hazelnut Biscotti raised his hand.
Professor Almond Custard stared at him. “Mr. Biscotti, I have not asked a question.”
“I just feel like this is going to become relevant to me emotionally.”
“Put your hand down.”
He kept it raised.
Professor Almond Custard did not even look at him. “No.”
Hazelnut lowered it.
You forced yourself to breathe. “It wasn’t just a dream. I mean, it was, obviously, but it felt real. We were in my room. All of us. There was this book, and it was asking me to choose, and there was this whole…”
You hesitated.
“The whole what?” Chai Latte asked, visibly baffled.
“The immortality thing.”
Silence.
Professor Almond Custard blinked once.
Hazelnut leaned forward. “I’m sorry,” he said, very politely, “the what thing?”
“The immortality thing,” you repeated, growing more self-conscious with every word. “The ritual. The book. The choice.”
Chai Latte’s face had gone from worried to deeply confused. “What book?”
“The one in my room.”
“You don’t have a weird book in your room,” Hazelnut said.
You stared at him. “Yes I do.”
“No, you have eight normal books, three stacks of notes, one chipped mug, and an alarming amount of loose paper,” he said. “I’ve been there.”
“That is an outrageous level of detail.”
“I notice things when I’m afraid.”
Professor Almond Custard rubbed at his temple.
Earl Grey turned in his seat. “You should go to the infirmary.”
“No, I’m fine,” you said quickly, though you were very obviously not fine. “I just had a weird dream, that’s all. It’s just that it felt so real.”
Your gaze had already drifted back to Shadow Milk Cookie. He had been watching quietly the entire time. Not with concern or recognition.
Only with mild curiosity, as though you were some interesting classroom interruption.
A chill moved through you.
You felt yourself ask, before you could stop it, “Do you remember any of it?”
He tilted his head.
“Any of what?”
Your stomach twisted.
“The Spire,” you said quietly. “Office hours. Me.”
The room was too quiet.
Shadow Milk Cookie regarded you for a long beat, his expression unreadable but contemplative. And with perfect courtesy, he said “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
Something in your chest gave way all at once.
It was ridiculous.
Utterly ridiculous.
To feel hurt by that. To feel the air leave you as though you had been struck. To feel your throat tighten over a life that, if this was real, had never happened at all.
A dream. That was all.
A dream so cruelly detailed that it had carved itself into you before dissolving.
You let out a small, humorless laugh and looked down at your desk.
“How strange,” you murmured.
That seemed, somehow, to be the wrong thing to say, because Chai Latte’s expression softened immediately. Earl Grey stood. Hazelnut looked like he was trying very hard not to say something that might accidentally make everything worse.
Professor Almond Custard, to his credit, also looked less annoyed now and full of concern.
“Yes,” he said, gentler than before. “Strange. I think perhaps…”
He got no further.
The blackboard behind him erased itself.
It wiped clean in one broad, it’s motion like an offended hand had swatted across it from the inside.
Every head in the room turned.
There, in enormous looping letters of bright blue chalk, appeared the words.
APRIL FOOLS! POP QUIZ ON ETERNAL LIFE CANCELLED DUE TO LOW MORALE.
Silence.
Then somewhere in the back of the room, a desk let out a honk.
A goose-honk.
You stared.
Another desk answered it.
Professor Almond Custard closed his eyes.
Hazelnut whispered, “What.”
A shower of glitter burst from the ceiling fan.
Someone yelped as a rolled-up scroll sprang open on its own and smacked them lightly in the face. Chai Latte’s ink bottle erupted into tiny paper flowers. Earl Grey opened his notebook only to find every line of his perfectly copied lecture notes replaced with the words nice try in increasingly smug handwriting. At the front of the room, the chalk began scribbling of its own accord.
TODAY’S LESSON: TRUST NO ONE.
Professor Almond Custard turned with the slow dignity of a man confronting the collapse of civilization.
“This,” he said flatly, “is why I have always advocated for a modest distrust of whimsy.”
A rubber fish sailed through the air and hit the wall.
The class lost all order at once.
Someone else discovered their chair squeaked out little trumpet noises every time they shifted. A potted plant near the window sneezed glitter directly onto a student’s notes. Hazelnut opened his textbook and recoiled when a folded paper plane sprung shot out of the pages at his nose.
You looked around in disbelief nothing was real.
Or perhaps all of it was.
Chai Latte rose first. “Okay, no. No, I’m claiming you before the Academy explodes.”
Earl Grey was already collecting his things. “Agreed.”
Hazelnut, still holding the paper plane at arm’s length, stood as well. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but reality appears to be doing improv.”
Professor Almond Custard pointed toward the door without turning away from the board. “Take them away!” he said. “And if the corridor starts speaking in rhyme, do not answer it.”
You let your friends steer you out of the lecture hall.
The corridor beyond was mercifully quiet and you stood by the lecture hall doors.
For three seconds.
Then a portrait on the wall winked at you.
Hazelnut made a noise of deep personal offense.
Chai Latte tightened her hold on your sleeve.
Earl Grey muttered something under his breath and flicked two fingers in the air, likely reinforcing whatever wards remained between the Academy and complete nonsense.
You glanced back.
Shadow Milk Cookie had not followed.
He remained seated where you had left him, one hand propped lightly against his cheek, watching the classroom dissolve into absurdity with the calm interest of someone attending a mildly entertaining performance.
He met your eyes from across the distance.
Still no recognition.
Still that neat, blankness.
Then, to your utter disbelief, he offered you a small, elegant wave.
The floor vanished.
You woke with a gasp.
Not to chalk, a lecture hall or a corridor full of badly behaved architecture.
Instead you awoke to a bed, to warmth.
To the gentle weight of blankets tangled around your legs and the soft gold hush of early morning filtering through curtains. Your heart was still hammering, but this time there was no terror in the room, only the quiet presence of another body beside yours.
You went still.
Then slowly turned your head.
A familiar shape rested next to you beneath the blankets, still warm from sleep.
One arm. One hand. One face you knew.
On your finger was a ring.
On theirs was its match.
Your spouse stirred at the movement.
Route One: Chai Latte Cookie
Chai Latte was awake before you realized it.
You only knew because by the time your breathing gave you away, she had already pushed herself up on one elbow and turned toward you, her hair a little mussed, her expression soft with sleepy concern.
“Hey,” she murmured. “Bad one?”
You looked at her and felt something inside you loosen so abruptly it almost hurt.
Not because the fear was gone, but because she knew you. Immediately, Instantly, Without question.
And after the absurd, aching wrongness of that other dream…the classroom, the blank stare, the unbearable unfamiliarity of Shadow Milk Cookie not knowing your name. That simple fact nearly undid you. How could someone you worked closely with not know you?
Chai Latte saw the look on your face and scooted closer at once.
“Oh, it was that bad,” she whispered.
You laughed weakly, then covered your face. “I had to choose immortality.”
There was a pause.
Then she gently pulled your hands down just enough to peer at you. “Before breakfast?”
You nodded miserably.
“Horrible,” she said at once. “Cruel and unethical.”
You gave a breathy little laugh.
Encouraged, she tucked herself against your side and wrapped both arms around you like she intended to physically prevent any more dreams from getting near you.
“It started with the book,” you mumbled into her shoulder. “And then I woke up in Professor Almond Custard’s lecture hall, and everyone thought I was crazy, and everything was wrong, and the professor was disappointed in me, and the desks were honking, and-”
“The desks were what?”
“Honking.”
She pulled back just enough to stare.
Then, with great solemnity, “Oh, that’s nasty. That’s not even meaningful. That’s just the mind creating noise pollution.”
You laughed again, thin but genuine.
Chai Latte brightened immediately, as though she had been waiting right there for that sound.
You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes. “It felt real.”
“I know.”
“And Shadow Milk didn’t know me.”
That one changed her face.
Her teasing gentled at once.
“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit distant.
You stared at the blankets. “Which is stupid, because obviously it wasn’t real, but it still hurt.”
“No,” Chai Latte said, and there was no humor in her voice now. “That’s not stupid.”
She reached up and smoothed your hair back from your face. Such a simple touch. Such a familiar one. The kind that always felt as though she had known how to comfort you long before either of you had admitted how much you needed it.
“It makes sense,” she murmured.
“Dream-you still loved dream-him. Of course that would hurt.” she grimaced.
You looked at her.
She offered you a small, crooked smile. “Also, for the record, if anyone ever forgets you in any universe, they’re the one with the problem.”
“Was it at least the cool lecture hall?” she asked.
“No.”
“Any dramatic lightning?”
“No.”
“Then it sounds like a complete waste of emotional damage.”
You snorted.
She grinned, pleased with herself, and reached blindly toward the nightstand. A moment later she produced a mug she must have set there before bed, your favorite mug, now filled with tea kept warm by her famous kettle.
You blinked at it. “You had this ready?”
She shrugged with exaggerated modesty. “I like being adored for my foresight.”
You took it with both hands. The warmth seeped into your fingers immediately.
Chai Latte tucked herself back against your side, head coming to rest on your shoulder like it belonged there.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the plan.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is not. It’s perfect.” She counted on her fingers. “One, no immortality choices. Two, no lectures, we're wayyyy past that. Three, no cursed books. Four, if Professor Almond Custard appears in this room to judge you for sleeping, I’m throwing a pillow at him. Well who knows if he’s even around anymore…”
“You’d never.”
“I would throw it nicely.”
You huffed into your tea, and then set it down on the nightstand.
Outside, dawn had fully begun to spill itself across the windows. Inside, everything remained small and warm and manageable.
Chai Latte tilted her head to look at you, eyes soft.
“You don’t have to choose forever today, or ever” she said quietly. “You don’t have to choose anything frightening or enormous. It’s April first. The world is being annoying on purpose.”
“And if the universe tries to make you immortal before noon,” she added, “I’ll fight it.”
“You can’t fight eternity.”
“Watch me.”
You smiled with gusto, and Chai Latte beamed like she had won something precious.
Then she kissed your temple, slid her fingers through yours beneath the blankets, and held on until the last of the fear had nowhere left to sit.
Route Two: Earl Grey Cookie
You woke to the slow, steady motion of a hand moving up and down your back.
Enough to guide you home.
Your eyes opened to find Earl Grey already awake, propped neatly against the headboard, spectacles low on his nose, his expression composed in the way only he could manage while still half-covered by blankets.
The moment he saw you were fully conscious, he set his book aside.
“You were dreaming,” he said.
You stared at him for a second, disoriented by the contrast. The nightmare had been so loud, so absurd, so humiliating in ways only dreams could be, and here he was as if mornings had never been invented for chaos at all.
You let out a shaky breath. “It was awful.”
“I gathered as much.”
His hand did not leave your back.
You turned onto your side to face him fully, and once you started talking, the whole thing came spilling out before you could stop it.
The book. The ritual.
The feeling that something terrible and endless was waiting for you just beyond the next choice. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s disappointment. The Academy dissolving into ridiculousness. Shadow Milk Cookie looking at you like a stranger.
Earl Grey listened without interrupting once.
He always did that. Gave your panic enough dignity to finish speaking before he tried to argue with it.
By the time you were done, your hands had twisted themselves into the blankets.
He noticed.
Without comment, he reached over and offered you one of his.
You took it at once.
His fingers closed around yours, cool, gentle, grounding.
“First,” he said quietly, “you are here.”
He squeezed once.
“In our room.”
Another squeeze.
“In our bed.”
Another.
“With me.”
Your breathing eased by a fraction.
He glanced toward the curtains, where morning had begun to shine through in pale gold. “Second, it is April first.”
You squinted at him.
“That matters because?”
“Because reality is more susceptible to foolishness on certain dates.”
“That sounds made up.”
“It is,” he said. “But I believe it nonetheless.”
A startled laugh escaped you.
There the faintest hint of satisfaction crossed his face.
He leaned over to the nightstand and passed you a cup of tea you had not even noticed waiting there. Of course there was tea. Of course it was at the right temperature already. Of course Earl Grey Cookie, confronted with a spouse in distress, had responded with practical comfort and precise timing.
You cradled the cup in both hands.
“It felt real,” you admitted after a moment.
“Yes.”
“And the part that upset me most wasn’t even the immortality thing.”
“No,” Earl Grey said softly. “I suspected it wouldn’t be.”
You looked down.
“It was him not knowing me.”
He was silent for just a beat.
Then…“Yes. He was an important teacher for you.”
No dismissal. No it was only a dream, don’t be silly, understanding delivered so simply it made your throat ache.
Earl Grey shifted closer and traced a small ward into the air with two fingers. The room gave the faintest hum as privacy settled around you both, a soft barrier against interruptions, noise, and anything else the morning might attempt.
“Dreams have a talent,” he said, “for finding the exact shape of a fear and dressing it in familiar faces.”
You listened.
“They are not prophecies,” he continued. “They are reflections. Distorted ones, usually. And unkind.”
You glanced at him over the rim of your cup. “You make them sound petty.”
“They are.”
He reached over and brushed his thumb lightly beneath your eye. “No grand decisions today,” he murmured. “No eternity. No impossible choices. Only breakfast, if you feel like it. And perhaps another hour of sleep, if you don’t.”
“What if eternity comes back after breakfast?”
“Then I shall reschedule it.”
That made you laugh into the tea hard enough that you nearly spilled.
He took the cup from you before you could, set it back on the nightstand, and drew you against him with quiet certainty. One arm came around your shoulders. His chin rested lightly against the top of your head.
You listened to the rhythm of his breathing. To the small sounds of morning beyond the warded room. To the beating of your own heart as it gradually remembered it was no longer being chased.
After a while, he spoke again, his voice low by your hair.
“For the record,” he said, “if you ever fall asleep during Professor Almond Custard’s lecture in reality, I will wake you before he notices. Though I imagine we’re too old for any of his courses.”
You smiled against his chest. “How noble.”
“I know.”
Then, after a beat, with the dry sort of fondness that always caught you by surprise when it surfaced, “Though if the desks begin honking, I am leaving you to your fate.”
Route Three: Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie
You woke with a gasp and nearly knocked Hazelnut Biscotti off the bed.
He jerked upright with an entirely undignified noise. “What happened? Who died? Is it me?”
You stared at him, wide-eyed.
His hair was a mess. The blanket had somehow wrapped itself around one shoulder like a frightened shawl. He looked as though he had been dragged out of sleep mid-thought and had come back unprepared to face the world.
And yet the instant he registered your expression, all the flailing stopped.
“Oh,” he said, softer. “Nightmare.”
You nodded.
He exhaled. “Okay. Better than me dying. Not for you, obviously. But statistically.”
Despite everything, a laugh slipped out.
He pointed at you immediately. “Good. Keep doing that. That’s a very encouraging sign.”
You dragged a hand over your face. “It was horrible.”
“Tell me everything,” he said, already pulling his legs up and turning fully toward you with surprising seriousness. “No, wait. Start with whether I was cool in it.”
“You were stressed.”
He looked offended. “Unrealistic.”
That got another laugh out of you, and with that tiny opening the whole nightmare spilled free. The book. The ritual. The immortality choice. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s sigh. The terrible feeling of no one understanding what you were talking about. Shadow Milk Cookie not knowing you. The desks honking. The classroom turning into some cursed April first disaster.
Hazelnut listened with his full attention, eyebrows rising higher and higher as the story went on.
When you finished, he sat in silence for two long seconds.
Then he said, very gravely, “Okay. Several things.”
You sniffed.
“First, if a desk honks at me in real life, I’m dropping the class.”
You laughed weakly.
“Second, if a book ever asks you to choose immortality, the answer is no because forever is too much commitment and I don’t even like committing to lunch plans. Dinner was hard enough, only easy because of you…”
He nodded, pleased. “Third, I’m deeply offended dream-me didn’t apparently tackle the book out the window.”
“I don’t think windows were the issue.”
“They never are until you need one.”
By now you were laughing enough to breathe again, and Hazelnut relaxed a little at the sight of it.
Then he reached over and took your hand firmly.
“Hey,” he said, and all the silliness in him gentled into something steady. “That sounds awful. I’m really sorry.”
You looked at him.
“It felt real,” you admitted.
“I know.”
“And the weirdest part is the immortality thing wasn’t even the worst part.”
“No,” he said softly. “It was him not knowing you. He was a great guy for what he was…though I don’t appreciate how menacing he was.”
You blinked and nodded.
Hazelnut made a face like someone who had unfortunately guessed correctly. “Yeah. I know.”
For a moment neither of you said anything.
Then, because being quiet for too long clearly violated some important personal code, he threw the blanket over both of you in one sweeping motion until you were half-buried together.
“There,” he said.
You blinked in the dim little fabric cave. “What is this?”
“A tactical response.”
“To what?”
“To sadness.”
“That’s not a tactic.”
“It is if I do it with conviction. Confidence is key!”
You laughed again, and he gave a triumphant nod.
Then he scrambled out from under the blanket, nearly tripped over the edge of it, recovered, and returned with water, a snack, and your softest extra blanket, which he proceeded to arrange around you with the absolute certainty of a man who had no formal training whatsoever and yet believed deeply in the healing powers of being over-bundled.
“Hazel.”
“Yes?”
“I can’t move.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Then you can’t go back to immortality.”
He climbed back beside you and tucked himself against your side, one arm around your shoulders.
“It’s April first,” he said after a moment, glancing toward the calendar. “You realize what this means.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That my subconscious hates me?”
“That reality is doing bits.”
You huffed a laugh.
He looked deeply suspicious of the ceiling. “Frankly, I think the universe should be more professional.”
“Complain to management.”
“I will.”
He rested his chin lightly atop your head.
“If fate ever hands you another creepy immortal book,” he said, “I’m throwing it in a river.”
“That seems reckless.”
“I’ll throw it anyways.”
You smiled into the blanket.
“And if Professor Almond Custard shows up in this room to shame you for sleeping through lecture,” Hazelnut added, “I’ll defend you.”
“How?”
He considered. “I’ll say you were doing research.”
“That’s a terrible lie.”
“I know. But I’ll say it confidently. And also it would be really weird if he showed up here…”
The last of the panic had begun to unravel by then, slowly undone by his nonsense and his sincerity in equal measure.
You let your eyes drift shut again.
Hazelnut’s voice softened above you.
“You’re okay,” he murmured. You smiled.
He squeezed your shoulder lightly. “And for the record? If anyone forgets you in any universe, they don’t deserve your stress about it.”
You turned your face against him, and Hazelnut held you there, warm and ridiculous and achingly kind, until the nightmare became small enough to laugh at.
Route Four: Shadow Milk Cookie
You woke with the sharp inhale still caught in your throat.
For one fractured second, you didn’t move.
Then you felt a hand at your waist, warm and familiar. The slow rise and fall of another body beside yours. The faint scent of lavender, clean linen, and something sweetly impossible to mistake.
A thumb brushed lightly beneath your eye.
“Good morning,” Shadow Milk Cookie murmured.
You looked at him.
Not at a stranger in a lecture hall. Not at that polite, empty version of him who had met your hurt with elegance and distance. At him. Your him.
Hair loosened from sleep. Sharp features softened by early morning and rumpled sheets and the fact that he was looking at you with immediate recognition, as if it had never occurred to the universe that there might be any other way.
The relief hit so fast your eyes stung.
His expression changed at once.
The faint trace of amusement left him; Instead concern welled over.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
You tried to answer and instead made a useless little sound.
His arm tightened around you, drawing you closer before you had even decided whether you wanted that. Which, unfortunately for your dignity, you very much did.
“A dream?” he guessed.
You nodded against his shoulder.
“The mind can be so cruel,” he said at once, the offense in his tone so sincere it almost made you laugh.
Almost.
He tipped your chin up with two fingers. “Tell me about it.”
So you did.
The book. The terror. The feeling of standing on the edge of something vast and wrong and permanent. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s disappointment. The absurdity of the academy turning into some April first disaster. Worst of all, the sight of him sitting by the window and looking at you as though you were no one.
By the time you finished, your voice had gone smaller.
“You didn’t know me,” you said.
Shadow Milk Cookie went very still.
Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead, slow, deliberate, almost ritualistic in its tenderness.
“My starlight,” he murmured, “if I ever looked at you and did not know you, something in creation has gone catastrophically wrong.”
You let out a shaky breath.
He touched your face as though checking for remnants of the dream there. “No, no,” he said softly when he saw your eyes still threatening to betray you. “Absolutely not. I refuse to share my morning with tears caused by fiction.”
That finally made you laugh, weak though it was.
“There,” he said, pleased. “A much better sound.”
He reached across you then, and your whole body tensed when you saw what sat on the bedside table.
A book.
It was thick. Decorative. Ominous in the low morning light.
Shadow Milk noticed at once.
Then, to your astonishment, he picked it up with two fingers and turned it over.
Across the front cover, written in awful looping handwriting with embarrassingly bright blue ink, was,
TOTALLY CURSED BOOK OF ETERNAL SUFFERING
APRIL FOOLS :)
There was a long silence.
You stared.
He stared.
Then he exhaled through his nose.
“How vulgar,” he said.
You broke. The randomness of the situation was funny to your feeble mind.
You laughed so suddenly and helplessly that you had to bury your face against his shoulder.
Shadow Milk Cookie, instead of lamenting the indignity of being used as a pillow, simply drew you closer and let you laugh there, one hand smoothing through your hair.
“It is the first of April,” he said, voice dry above you. “The universe is apparently determined to embarrass itself.”
He sighed, his expression becoming inquisitive.
“You truly thought you had to choose?” he asked.
You looked down. “Yes.”
“And that terrified you.”
“Yes.”
“Well it’s a good thing no one is asking that of you today,” he said.
His thumb brushed your cheek.
“Especially not me.”
You swallowed.
“I know it wasn’t real,” you said quietly. “But it still hurt.”
“Of course it did.”
“You grieve losses even in dreams,” he murmured. “The heart is embarrassingly sincere like that.”
That made you smile a little.
He looked inordinately pleased to have earned it.
“Come here,” he said, though you were already close enough that the command was really just an excuse.
He shifted until you were half-draped over him, one arm secure around your waist, the other spread warm and protective between your shoulder blades. His chin brushed the top of your head.
Outside, morning stretched itself bright and gold across the curtains.
Inside, the room was quiet.
Safe.
“So,” he said after a moment, tone lightening just slightly, “let us review. You are alive. You are married. You are in bed with someone devastatingly handsome.”
“Debatable.”
He gasped softly. “Cruel. After all I’ve done.”
A laugh slipped out of you.
He continued as though you had not interrupted. “There are no immortal contracts scheduled for today. No ritual circles. No lectures. No humiliation before Professor Almond Custard. Only breakfast, if we feel ambitious. And perhaps several more hours of scandalous laziness.”
“You make laziness sound like an art form.”
“It is when I do it. Besides I’m always thinking, you not so much.”
You could feel the last edges of fear finally beginning to unwind.
Shadow Milk Cookie pressed a kiss to your hair.
“The world may make a fool of itself today,” he murmured, voice low and velvet-soft, “but it shall not make one of you.”
You closed your eyes.
He held you through the silence that followed.
After long enough that your breathing had fully steadied, he added, with a faint smile in his voice “Though if a desk ever honks at you in reality, do wake me. I should like to see it.”
A/N Happy April fools! Well Early April fools for me but I thought it might have been funny if I posted it a little earlier chapter 44 will be out later tomorrow!!! I will be answering my inbox soon it's just that I was so busy because of the egregious amounts of exams I've had to take this week....
In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT43
<<<Previous Next>>>
He said nothing and simply waited.
You looked down for a moment, collecting yourself. When you spoke again, your voice was smaller than you intended.
“I haven’t been fair to you.”
“I keep…” You huffed a weak breath. “Avoiding things. Or trying to talk around them. Or making jokes because I don’t know what else to do.” Your throat tightened. “And I know you notice. You always notice.”
He was still watching you with that infuriating, unwavering patience. You forced yourself to continue.
“I have a lot to learn from you.” The words hung there. True words. Dangerous words. His gaze softened almost imperceptibly.
“You always say things like truth should be faced directly,” you went on, looking at the edge of his desk rather than at him. “And I keep pretending I can dance around it if I’m clever enough. But I’m not. Not really.”
A silence followed that did not feel empty. Then, very quietly, he asked, “Is that what this is?”
You looked up.
“This?”
“A confession?” he said. “An apology? A peace offering?”
You almost smiled despite yourself. “Maybe all three.”
“How ambitious.”
You stepped nearer his desk. The morning light from the window caught on his robes, making him look impossibly composed. Untouchable, almost, like the first time. “I mean it.”
"I know,” he said.
You had come here to ease your guilt, yes. To make amends in the only way you knew how before the moon rose and everything became impossible to take back. But hearing him say I know made the whole thing feel less strategic, less safely motivated. More honest than you had meant it to be.
You shifted your weight. “I just thought… if I’ve seemed distant, or difficult, or…”
“Terrified of honesty?” he supplied.
You winced. “That one.”
His mouth curved.
“I had noticed.”
You rolled your eyes faintly, and that seemed to please him. He smiled “But you are here now.”
“Yes.”
“And you wish me to believe,” he said, voice silk-soft now, “that this visit is unconnected to anything else troubling your mind.”
Your pulse stumbled. For a terrible instant, you thought he knew. That somehow, impossibly, the moon, the book, the river had already reached him. But then he looked at you, not with suspicion, only searching for answers.
You answered carefully. “I wanted to see you.”
Which was true not the whole truth.But the truth
Something in him settled at that. Not completely. But enough to let his guard down.
He stood then, moving around the desk with that same unhurried grace that always made you feel like the room belonged to him long before he entered it. When he stopped before you, the space between you felt suddenly too small.
“You continue,” he said softly, “to say the most dangerous things with the face of someone who does not realize they are holding a blade.”
You looked up at him. “I said I have a lot to learn.”
“And I,” he murmured, “am apparently expected to teach while under siege.”
You huffed out a laugh.
It faded quickly.
Because being this close to him, on this morning of all mornings, made your chest ache with a guilt you could not put anywhere. You were here to be kinder to him. To honor what he had given you. To lessen, in some small selfish way, the wrongness of what you were about to do.
He was just looking at you. Not as a problem. Not as a puzzle. Not even as a student, exactly.
Just you.
“I do mean it,” you said again, almost helplessly. “About learning from you.”
His gaze lowered briefly, then returned to your face. “I know that too.”
You smiled, but it felt fragile.
“I’m trying,” you admitted. “Even when I don’t look like I am.”
“That,” he said, “has perhaps been your most consistent talent.”
You laughed softly, and this time it stayed.
He let the silence breathe for a moment before lifting one hand, slow enough for you to pull away if you wanted and brushing a thumb lightly beneath your eye, where sleep had left its faint trace.
“You look tired,” he said.
“I was thinking.”
“A dangerous pastime.”
“I’ve heard.”
His thumb lingered one heartbeat too long before he let his hand fall.
“Whatever it is you are wrestling with, do not decide it alone.”
The words went through you like cold water.
You smiled before the horror could show on your face. “That sounds suspiciously like concern.”
“It is concern,” he said, too smoothly to deny. “You continue to make it necessary.”
You looked away for a second, because that was the sort of kindness that made guilt unbearable.
You were not deciding it alone. That was the problem.
By tonight, your friends would stand with you by the river. By tonight, moonlight would ask what all of you were willing to lose.
And here you were, standing in his office in the morning light, trying to mend something before you shattered something else entirely.
“…Thank you,” you said quietly.
He tilted his head. “For what?”
You could not say for seeing me.You could not say for teaching me enough that I know I am doing this wrong.You could not say for making me wish I were not about to lie to you with my whole body.
So instead you said, “For being patient with me.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“I have not always been patient.”
“More than most would have been.”
“That is a very low bar.”
You smiled faintly. “Still counts.”
At that, he reached for your hand.
The gesture was elegant, familiar, and devastating.
He turned your palm upward and held it as if it were something worth reading.
“You are behaving strangely,” he said.
Your heart lurched.
But his expression remained calm, almost tender.
“If this is guilt,” he continued, “I would like to know what crime inspired it.”
You managed a weak joke because you were still you, even now. “Existing badly, maybe.”
“Unconvincing.”
You looked at your joined hands. “Maybe I just wanted to do something right for once.”
That made him still.
And then, very softly, he said, “You are not as impossible as you think.”
Something in your chest cracked at that, Not enough to show, but enough to feel between your ribs.
You stepped closer before you could overthink it and leaned into him, brief and careful and not quite a full embrace. For half a second he did not move.
Then his arms came around you.
You shut your eyes.
The guilt did not disappear. But it changed shape, becoming sadder.
“I’ll keep learning,” you murmured into the fabric of his robes.
He let out a breath that might have been a laugh, might have been something else.
“You had better,” he said. “It would be terribly inconvenient if all this effort were wasted.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him. “There you are.”
“I have been here all along.”
Outside, the day was brightening. Somewhere far below, the Blueberry Yogurt River moved toward evening as it always would, silver waiting beneath the ordinary color of daylight. Hours still remained before moonrise. Hours before circles drawn on the bank. Hours before vows.
But standing there in his office, held in the quiet between what he knew and what he didn’t, you let yourself pretend that you had come here for nothing more than this.
For amends, for closeness.
For the sake of saying I have a lot to learn from you.
And when you finally stepped back, he kept one hand lightly over yours as if reluctant to break the thread completely.
“Come see me later,” he said.
Your pulse stumbled again.
“I’ll try,” you answered.
Not a promise.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
But whatever question rose in him, he let it pass.
“For your sake,” he said, releasing your hand at last, “do.”
You left him then, the morning wrapped in gold, your chest full of guilt and tenderness and dread. And all day long, as the hours slid quietly toward moonrise by the Blueberry Yogurt River, his voice stayed with you warm enough to hurt.
You found your friends where you half-expected they would be together.
Of course they were together.
Near one of the sunlit corridors overlooking the courtyard, the four of you had fallen into the habit of finding each other without meaning to, as if the academy itself had learned your pattern and gently nudged you back into place whenever you drifted too far.
Hazelnut was saying something with his hands, dramatic enough that Chai was already laughing before he finished. Earl stood beside them, composed as ever, though his posture softened the moment his gaze lifted and found you.
And that; That did it for you.
Whatever had been holding you upright since leaving Shadow Milk’s office gave way all at once.
You crossed the distance faster than you meant to, barely hearing Hazelnut’s startled, “Whoa!” before you threw your arms around them.
All of them.
Chai made a soft sound of surprise and immediately folded into you. Hazelnut stumbled, then steadied, one hand flying up to pat your back with awkward urgency. Earl was the last to move, but when he did, he stepped in close and wrapped you tightly, one hand finding yours and threading through it as though to anchor you there.
You held on hard enough that your shoulders began to shake.
Not quite crying but trying not to, trying very hard not to.
And because they knew you so well, none of them joked at first.
Chai’s hand slid up to your face, warm and gentle, cupping your cheek as she searched your expression. “Hey,” she whispered, her voice losing all teasing. “Hey, look at me.”
You did.
Her thumb brushed just beneath your eye.
And then the words came out before you could stop them.
“I’m scared.”
The confession landed soft and raw between all of you.
Hazelnut inhaled sharply through his nose.
Chai’s face crumpled with that particular kind of tenderness that hurt to look at.
Earl’s grip on your hand tightened.
Then Chai, because she was Chai and softness in her never stayed still for long, made a tiny wounded sound and threw herself more fully into the embrace, nearly knocking all of you off balance as she bear-hugged the whole group at once.
Hazelnut wheezed. “Stars, okay, yes, emotional solidarity, but I do enjoy breathing.”
“Too bad,” Chai mumbled into someone’s shoulder.
You laughed then, wet and shaky, and it broke the worst of it. Just enough for the fear to stop feeling like it might split you open. You drew back only a little, still holding on, still close enough to feel the warmth of them all. “Should we…” Your voice caught. You tried again, softer this time. “Should we just pretend it’s a normal day?”
Three pairs of eyes stayed on you.
“Like back at the academy,” you said, almost pleading now for something simple. “Just for today. Just for a little while.” You swallowed. “We could go see if they have waffles. And pineapples.”
That got a real smile out of Chai. A proper one, bright and aching.
“That reminds me more of our childhood than the academy,” she said softly. “Sneaking off to find the best food like it was some grand quest.”
Hazelnut huffed a laugh. “It was a grand quest.”
“It still is,” you said. Earl let out the faintest breath of amusement, and when you looked at him, there was something in his expression you almost couldn’t bear, too much feeling, too carefully held.
Then he stepped back.
Only enough to compose himself.
“Very well,” he said, smoothing one sleeve with a precision that fooled no one. “If we are to behave irresponsibly, we ought to commit properly.”
You blinked. “What does that mean?” A faint gleam entered his eyes familiar, refined, and suddenly boyish in a way you did not see often enough.
“It means,” he said, already turning, “I’ll race you to the dining area.”
And before any of you could answer, he was moving. Not with his usual measured grace. Actually running.
Chai gasped. “Earl Grey Cookie!” You stared, stunned, just long enough to see him not look back. And then you understood. The speed. The abruptness. The way his head angled just slightly away. He did not want you to see the tears brightening in his eyes. That made your chest ache with such fierce love you almost couldn’t stand it. Chai understood at the same moment you did. You saw it in the way her mouth parted, then softened. And then she laughed a breathless, bright sound that rang down the corridor like sunlight.
“Oh, absolutely not,” she declared, grabbing your wrist. “He does not get to win.”
You were already moving. The fear did not vanish. It came with you. But for one shining, foolish moment, so did something else, something freer. Closer to the version of yourselves that existed before countdowns and rituals and moonlit bargains.
You ran. Chai beside you, nearly pulling you along with the force of her determination. Earl ahead, coat robes behind him, pretending very hard this was only a race and not a desperate little act of mercy he was giving himself. And Hazelnut well poor Hazelnut, was left several strides behind before realizing the betrayal.
“Are you serious?!” he shouted, breaking into a sprint after you. “Slow down! Some of us are built for survival, not drama!”
Chai laughed harder.
You did too.
And by the time the dining hall doors came into view, all four of you were breathless and bright-eyed and almost, almost able to pretend this was just another morning, another ordinary day, another chance to chase waffles and pineapples and each other, with nothing waiting for you at moonrise except more life.
The moment you all stumbled through the dining hall doors, breathless, laughing, half-collapsed against each other from the sprint you stopped so suddenly Chai nearly ran into your back.
“…No way,” you whispered.
Hazelnut blinked past you toward the serving tables. “Oh.”
Earl, who had reached the line first and was still pretending he hadn’t been running to outrun his own feelings, actually laughed under his breath.
Because there they were.
Freshly cut pineapples, glistening gold in a chilled bowl like little pieces of stolen sun.
Honey waffles, actual honey waffles, warm and soft and stacked high.
And beside them, in a shining little dish that looked almost ceremonial in the morning light, pineapple jam.
For a moment, none of you moved.
It was so absurdly perfect that it felt less like luck and more like the universe itself had finally blinked and gone soft.
Chai let out the smallest, most awed sound. “Lady Luck really is staring directly at you today.”
You laughed, but it came out thin and shaky and much too close to crying. “I know.”
Hazelnut folded his arms, grinning despite himself. “This is either a blessing or the cruelest foreshadowing of all time.”
“Don’t ruin it,” Chai scolded, though her voice was warm.
Earl glanced over at you, eyes gentler now. “Take the win.”
So you did.
You all did.
Plates filled quickly, waffles, fruit, jam, tea, too much butter, not enough dignity. Chai stole extra fruit when she thought no one was looking. Hazelnut grabbed more waffles than any one person should reasonably need. Earl, to no one’s surprise, constructed a plate so neat and balanced it looked curated by a scholar of breakfast. You piled pineapple onto your plate with the sort of reverence usually reserved for relics.
And when you sat down together, the table felt warmer than it had any right to.
For a little while, there was only the sound of cutlery and laughter and the soft hum of other students moving around you, unaware of how sacred this table had become.
You spread pineapple jam over your waffle with great seriousness.
Chai watched you and smiled with her whole face. “There they are.”
You looked up. “What?”
“That ridiculous little look you get when something makes you happy.”
Hazelnut snorted. “It’s true. You look like you’ve just been personally forgiven by breakfast.”
You shook your head, laughing. But then your hand slowed.
The thought came quietly. Not as a wound this time, but as a certainty.
If memories could be taken if the moon meant to reach in and claim something rooted, then maybe this was what you were meant to do with the hours you had left.
Not hide from them.
Not ration them out in fear.
Live them again. Deliberately. Beautifully. While they were still yours.
You looked at your friends over the rim of your cup and said softly, “If some memories are going to be taken from us… then I think we should relive some of them.”
The words settled over the table like a hush.
Chai’s expression changed first, the teasing giving way to something sweeter, sadder.
Hazelnut went still, one hand wrapped around his mug.
Earl lowered his gaze briefly, then nodded once.
And somehow, after that, the talking came easily.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
Because it did.
But because love, once named, has a way of wanting to stay in the room.
Chai was the first to lean in, resting her chin in one hand, her smile turning wicked in that affectionate way only she managed.
“Oh, I know exactly where we start,” she said.
You narrowed your eyes immediately. “No.”
“Yes,” she said brightly. “Absolutely yes. Your first little puppy-love crush when you started tutoring with the Sage of Truth.”
You covered your face with one hand. “Chai.”
“No, no, let me have this.” Her laughter was soft, musical, almost unbearably fond. “You were impossible. We practically had to escort you to his office hours like you were being marched to your own execution.”
Hazelnut barked out a laugh. “That’s true.”
“It is not.”
“It absolutely is,” Chai said. “You’d stand outside his door looking like your soul had detached from your body. I’d have to smooth your sleeves. Hazelnut would make fun of you to keep you from fainting. Earl would remind you that tutors were not, in fact, mythological beasts.”
Earl lifted his teacup. “A necessary distinction.”
Your face burned, but you were laughing too now, helplessly. “I was not that bad.”
“You were worse,” Hazelnut said.
Chai pressed a hand to her heart. “You’d come back from those sessions with that same dazed look you have right now, like he’d personally rearranged your internal organs through eye contact alone.”
“Chai!”
She giggled, delighted. “I remember the first time you defended him without realizing it. Hazelnut said his handwriting looked smug and you got genuinely offended.”
“That was offensive,” you muttered.
Hazelnut pointed at you with a syrupy fork. “See?”
Hazelnut looked down at his plate, turning his mug once between his hands. “I’m glad,” he said after a moment, his voice less careless now, “that some of our professors got happy endings.”
You all looked at him.
He shrugged, but there was tenderness under it. “Like Star Anise. After everything.” He gave a little huff through his nose. “I think I needed that. Proof that not every person who gives too much of themselves ends up hollow.”
Chai’s expression softened. “Yeah.”
Earl nodded, thoughtful. “It mattered more than we realized at the time.”
Hazelnut stabbed a piece of pineapple. “I just think the academy would be unbearable if every story ended as a cautionary tale.”
“That sounds suspiciously hopeful,” you said.
“Don’t spread it around,” he muttered, but he smiled.
Then Earl set down his cup.
“Organizing your portfolio for the Spire application was fun,” he said.
You blinked. “What?”
“It was,” he replied, as if there could be no argument. “You were a disaster, obviously.”
Hazelnut choked on a laugh.
“But there was something…” He paused, searching for the shape of it. “Satisfying, I suppose. Watching your work become itself. Seeing the thread in it before you did.”
Your throat tightened.
Earl glanced down once, almost embarrassed by his own honesty, then continued. “You kept apologizing for every page. Every revision. Every thought that wasn’t immediately perfect. And yet there was so much of you in it.” A faint, private smile touched his mouth. “Putting it together felt like arranging starlight into a language admissions committees might understand.”
Chai made the softest sound, hand pressing briefly to her chest.
Hazelnut looked away, chewing with suspicious intensity.
Earl, perhaps realizing how much he’d revealed, tried to recover with dignity. “In any case. It was enjoyable.”
You swallowed hard. “You made me look better than I was.”
“No,” he said, and there was that calm certainty in him again, that same one which could sound so much like truth it hurt. “I made you easier for others to read.”
Silence held for a moment after that.
Then Earl added, quieter now, “We should have relived memories sooner.”
The line might have broken your heart entirely if Chai hadn’t reached across the table that very second and tapped the back of his hand with one syrup-sticky finger.
“Better late than never,” she said softly.
Better late than never.
You looked around at them, at Chai with jam on her thumb and laughter still trembling at the corners of her mouth; at Hazelnut trying, badly, to pretend he wasn’t emotional; at Earl, polished even now, but no longer hiding how deeply he felt things once they mattered enough.
Your friends.
Your home, in every way that counted.
The pineapples were sweet. The waffles were warm. The jam almost unbearably bright on your tongue.
And beneath all of it, guilt still lingered a small, cold thing tucked beneath your ribs.
You had brought them here.
To this table.
To this choice.
To this terrible beautiful morning where everything they said sounded like something you might one day lose.
But maybe that was why it mattered.
Maybe that was why memory hurt in the first place.
Because it was proof that something had been loved enough to leave a bruise.
You reached for another piece of pineapple, then stopped halfway and looked at them through a blur you refused to call tears.
“I’m glad,” you said softly, “that if I had to remember anything before tonight… it would be this.”
Chai’s eyes went glassy immediately. “You’re evil for saying that while I’m holding syrup.”
Hazelnut rubbed his face. “Can we not all cry into the waffles?”
Earl exhaled, almost laughing, almost not. “A deeply inefficient use of breakfast.”
And because you were all trying so hard not to fall apart before moonrise, that was what saved you again the ridiculousness of it. The cookie-hood of it.
The way beauty and heartbreak kept arriving hand in hand, as if they had never once learned to travel separately.
Outside the windows, the day kept moving toward evening, toward the Blueberry Yogurt River, toward moonlight bright enough to remake a life.
But for now, in the amber warmth of the dining hall, with pineapple on your plate and your friends around you and memory still wholly your own, the world felt almost kind.
You looked down at the last bite of waffle on your plate, then back up at your friends.
Trying very hard to sound casual, you said, “He… wants to see me later today.”
Three pairs of eyes lifted.
Chai’s smile fell instantly. “Oh?”
Hazelnut pointed his fork at you. “Of course he does.”
Earl said nothing at first, but one elegant brow rose just slightly, inviting the rest.
You cleared your throat, suddenly fascinated by your tea. “And I was just wondering if you’d, um…” Your mouth twitched. “Escort me. Like the first time. For old times’ sake.”
Silence.
Then Chai made the softest, most wounded little gasp. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Earl’s expression gentled in that quiet way of his. “We’ll escort you.”
Your shoulders loosened at once.
“Obviously,” Chai added, as if the matter had never been in question. “I’d be offended if you didn’t ask.”
You smiled.
Hazelnut, however, pointed his fork more emphatically. “But forget that for now.”
You blinked. “What?”
He leaned forward, eyes bright now with the sort of energy that only ever meant trouble. “For now, we run wild.”
Chai lit up instantly. “Yes.”
Earl sighed the sigh of a man realizing his day had just been stolen from him by idiots he loved. “Define ‘wild.’”
Hazelnut grinned. “No.”
And somehow that was the beginning of it.
The four of you abandoned seriousness by mutual, unspoken agreement.
Not permanently. Not truly.
Just for the day.
You left the dining hall still sticky with pineapple jam and too much feeling, and once you stepped out into the bright pulse of the Spire, the world seemed almost eager to help you misbehave. The corridors were alive with movement, students carrying stacks of papers, assistants crossing briskly with trays of shimmering vials, researchers arguing in hushed but urgent tones at intersections where sunlight spilled through high windows.
And into all that measured purpose, the four of you brought nonsense.
It started with Chai.
You were passing one of the lower exhibition halls when she stopped dead in front of a polished glass display case containing scale models of past magical structures, bridges, towers, old lecture domes held in perfect miniature suspension.
“Oh,” she said, eyes narrowing with immediate wickedness. “We’re ranking them by aesthetic.”
Hazelnut blinked. “That’s your first shenanigan?”
“My first masterpiece,” she corrected.
So you did.
All four of you stood there, scandalously in the way of actual scholars, arguing over the prettiest architecture in the Spire’s long history.
“That one looks pretentious,” Hazelnut said, pointing at a silver observatory model that slowly revolved under its own enchantment.
“It is pretentious,” Chai said. “That’s why it’s beautiful.”
“It looks like it would assign me homework on sight,” you muttered.
Earl folded his arms, considering a crystalline archive tower with floating staircases. “This one at least understands line and symmetry.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Hazelnut said. “You’d fall in love with a blueprint if it used proper punctuation.”
Chai had to grab your sleeve to keep from laughing too loudly.
From there it only got worse.
Hazelnut led the charge next, luring you all into a side hall where a student-run demonstration was inviting passersby to test “stable levitation sandals.” Stable, it turned out, was a generous word.
“You are not putting those on,” Earl said the moment Hazelnut reached for a pair.
“Watch me,” Hazelnut replied.
You watched him.
You watched him rise three feet into the air, grin triumphantly and then slowly rotate sideways.
Chai doubled over.
You nearly fell into the wall laughing.
Hazelnut, floating helplessly at an angle, called down, “I regret nothing!”
“You regret balance,” Earl said dryly, already stepping forward to fix the mechanism with more competence than anyone else in the hall possessed.
Earl only adjusted one strap and said, “Your calibration is too eager.”
Hazelnut was set back on the ground with what remained of his dignity.
Which was then destroyed further when Chai whispered, “You looked like a decorative weather vane.”
After that, the day lost all structure.
You wandered. Drifted. Let yourselves be pulled by curiosity rather than schedule.
At one point you found an open courtyard terrace where apprentices were testing harmless illusion blooming flowers that opened into brief floating images when touched. Chai ran ahead and immediately tapped three in a row, sending a burst of glowing koi, then stars, then a tiny dancing teacup into the air.
“That one’s me,” she said, pointing at the teacup.
“No,” Hazelnut said. “That one’s Earl.”
Earl glanced up as the teacup performed a tiny dignified bow. “Unacceptable.”
You brushed one blossom with your fingertips and it opened into a drifting ribbon of moonlight that curled around your wrist before vanishing. For one breath, your chest tightened.
Then Chai hooked her arm through yours and dragged you onward before the moment could settle too deeply.
You found a research alcove with a harmless sound experiment where certain tiles chimed different notes depending on how they were stepped on. Hazelnut declared it a challenge. Chai turned it into a dance. Earl insisted he was not participating and then, ten minutes later, was somehow the best at it.
“You know what’s annoying?” Hazelnut said, watching Earl produce a flawless progression of tones with crisp, measured steps. “The fact that you’re elegant by accident.”
“It is not an accident,” Earl said.
You were laughing too hard to stand straight by then, one hand braced against a pillar as Chai attempted to replicate Earl’s precision and instead set off a wildly cheerful sequence that sounded like a parade tripping down stairs.
Later, you found a small kiosk near one of the public galleries selling scholarly keepsakes; Ink, paperweights, star-mapped bookmarks, sweets in folded parchment wrappers. Chai gasped over the sweets. Hazelnut found a ridiculous feather quill and began narrating your life in an overly dramatic voice.
“Behold,” he intoned, holding the quill aloft, “the scholar of pineapple and peril, beloved by breakfast and feared by reasonable decision-making,-”
You lunged for the quill.
He darted away.
Chai betrayed you immediately by blocking your path.
Earl, to your horror, took the merchant’s side and calmly paid for the quill.
“You are all against me,” you informed them.
“Yes,” Hazelnut said, delighted.
A little later, while crossing one of the upper balconies, you caught sight of a familiar figure below, moving through a corridor flanked by two high scholars with that impossible, unhurried grace that always seemed to slow the world around him.
You stopped.
Of course you did.
Chai noticed instantly.
“There it is,” she whispered, not unkindly. “The look.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You have several,” Hazelnut said. “That one’s the worst.”
Earl glanced over the railing, saw exactly who it was, and without even breaking stride said, “Keep moving.”
You made the mistake of lingering half a second longer.
Shadow Milk turned.
Not all the way just enough that the line of his profile shifted, enough that there was the unbearable possibility he might look up, might catch sight of you watching him like some lovesick fool out of an old tragic poem Chai physically turned you by the shoulders and marched you onward.
“No pining from balconies,” she said firmly. “That is for much later in the relationship.”
Hazelnut snorted so hard he nearly inhaled wrong.
“Relationship?” you squeaked.
“I said what I said.”
There was a long stretch around midday where you all somehow ended up in one of the public workshop rooms with access to harmless inscription chalk and scrap parchment. This, naturally, devolved into disaster.
Hazelnut tried to invent a personal crest and accidentally drew something that looked like a furious onion.
Chai designed an emblem for your friend group that included a teacup, a quill, an exploding star, and, against Earl’s protests, a tiny pastry with wings.
You attempted to sketch a dignified little moon-and-river motif and ended up with something Chai insisted looked “painfully romantic.”
Earl, after claiming he wanted no part in childish symbolism, quietly corrected all your proportions and then drew the cleanest, most beautiful version of it beside your attempt.
You stared at it.
“So you do care.”
“I care about geometry,” he replied.
Hazelnut leaned over to inspect it. “That’s the same face you made organizing the Spire portfolio.”
Earl stiffened. “I do not have a face for administrative satisfaction.”
“You absolutely do,” you said.
By then the four of you were too comfortable, too loose with one another, too hungry for any moment that didn’t have moonlight waiting at the end of it.
You stole little sweets from each other’s pockets.
You sat on a sunny staircase and shared candied almonds and tea from paper cups too hot to hold properly.
Hazelnut attempted to convince you all that one of the decorative stone guardians in the central hall was subtly moving between glances. Chai named it Gerald. You and Earl refused to encourage him, then both accidentally looked back twice just to check.
At one point you all ended up at a narrow window alcove overlooking a quiet section of the Blueberry Yogurt River far below. In the daylight it looked harmless. Pretty, even. Glassy where the sun touched it.
No one said anything for a few breaths.
Then Hazelnut clapped his hands once and said, far too loudly, “Right! We’re not staring at future problems.”
So Chai dragged you toward the lower galleries where someone was displaying tiny mechanical birds that repeated overheard compliments in absurdly dramatic voices. One of them chirped, “Your essay was devastatingly competent,” in a tone so much like Earl that all four of you nearly collapsed laughing.
Even Earl laughed at that, quietly, beautifully, head tipped back just enough to let himself.
And that, more than anything, made the day feel unreal in the best way.
By the time late afternoon softened the light into honey, you had collected too many little useless things ribbon wrappers, ink on your fingers, a paper star Chai folded and tucked into your sleeve, the ridiculous feather quill Hazelnut insisted you keep “as a symbol of your academic downfall,” and the memory of Earl Grey Cookie actually running down a corridor just because he wanted to.
You were tired in that good way. Earned by too much laughing and too much wandering and too much life packed into too few hours.
And through it all through every hallway and courtyard and experiment and side comment and stolen sweet, Shadow Milk remained at the edge of your thoughts like a second pulse.
A later waiting for you. A guilt and tenderness tugging at your heartstrings.
Every now and then Chai would catch you drifting and nudge you with her shoulder. Hazelnut would say something outrageous until you laughed again. Earl would redirect the group with the quiet efficiency of someone who knew exactly how much you needed to keep moving.
And so you did.
You moved through the Spire like it belonged to none of your fears. Like the day owed you joy and you were clever enough to take it before night could object.
You were just four friends being ridiculous in a place too serious for them, and the sweetness of that sat in your chest like something almost holy.
By the time the shadows lengthened enough to remind you that later was becoming soon, Hazelnut stretched and said, “Alright. I think we’ve successfully committed enough nonsense to sustain us for at least… six dramatic hours.”
“Only six?” Chai said. “Rookie numbers.”
You smiled, slower now, softer.
Because the day had been light.
So light.
And maybe that was why you loved it so fiercely.
Because somewhere beneath all the shenanigans and laughter and running footsteps and honey-sticky fingers was the knowledge that you had all done this on purpose.
You had made a memory worth keeping.
Even if the moon came for it later.
By the time the day began to fold into evening, the light over the Spire had turned almost unbearably beautiful.
The sun lowered slowly behind the distant towers, and the sky opened into long ribbons of pink and gold, rose staining the pale stone and catching in every window until the whole place seemed dipped in blush. Below, far off beyond the layered balconies and archways, the Blueberry Yogurt River reflected the sky in soft, trembling color.
It should have felt peaceful.
Instead, your pulse had started climbing again.
You walked with your friends through the upper halls in a closeness that said none of you wanted to acknowledge the hour too directly. The day had been so loud, so warm, so full of running and laughter and terrible jokes that this quieter stretch felt almost sacred in contrast.
No one rushed you.
No one teased at first.
They simply stayed near, their footsteps matching yours as the corridors thinned and the quieter wing of the Spire approached, less crowded here, more intimate, where the lamps were lit before full dark and the stone held the day’s fading warmth.
Eventually you slowed near the familiar turn that led toward Shadow Milk Cookie’s private quarters.
You looked at them, at all three of them, and something in your chest tightened again.
“Thanks,” you said softly.
Hazelnut snorted. “For what? Dragging you around all day like a pack of emotionally unstable chaperones?”
“For staying with me,” you said.
That shut him up for at least two seconds.
Chai reached over and slipped her hand through your arm. “Oh, sweetheart.” Her smile was warm and a little wicked, just how it always was when she could tell you were one thought away from panicking. “You’re nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” she sang. “You look like the first time we had to bring you to his office hours.”
You made a face. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Hazelnut asked. “Because from here, it’s giving the same vibe. Slightly haunted and a little doomed.”
Chai pressed on with delight. “Honestly, it’s adorable. You’re acting like you haven’t even kissed.”
Your face heated at once. “Chai.”
“What? I’m right.”
“You’re insufferable.”
She grinned. “And beloved.”
But the teasing only lasted a few more steps before it softened, like the evening itself was insisting on honesty.
Earl was the one who spoke first.
His voice was as polished as ever, but quieter now.
“Do not treat this as goodbye.”
The words landed still and steady between all of you.
You looked at him.
He held your gaze with that familiar calm, though you could see the feeling beneath it now, no longer hidden so perfectly, not after a day like this.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
Then, after the slightest pause, he corrected himself with the dignity of someone who hated needing to amend sincerity but did it anyway.
“They’ll be waiting. We’ll all be waiting.”
Your throat tightened.
Chai let go of your arm only long enough to pat your head, fingers gentle and absurdly affectionate. “Exactly. So no tragic faces.”
Hazelnut crossed his arms and nodded like he was imparting great wisdom. “And be smooth. Cool. Mysterious. Like me.”
You stared at him. “You screamed when levitation sandals tilted you slightly left.”
“That was tactical.”
Earl sighed. “It was not.”
Chai laughed softly, then leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to your temple. “Go on.”
You lingered for half a heartbeat longer.
Then you stepped away from them and toward the door.
You could feel their presence behind you even after you knocked and entered, solid, waiting, exactly as Earl had promised.
The room beyond was lit by evening.
Soft lamps had been lit against the oncoming dusk, but the last of the sunset still poured through the high windows in long pink bands, spilling over bookshelves, polished wood, half-finished papers, and the trailing edges of blue robes.
Shadow Milk Cookie looked up from where he sat near the window, one arm resting against the chair, the fading light catching at the angles of his face until he looked less like a scholar and more like something painted into the hour on purpose.
He smiled the moment he saw you.
Not the public one, a measured smile meant for petitioners or peers.
A pleased one.
“There you are,” he said, as though you had arrived exactly where you were always meant to. “For a dreadful moment, I thought your little parade of chaos might keep you from me.”
You shut the door behind you, suddenly very aware of your own hands, your own heartbeat, the ridiculous fact that you had indeed spent all day knowing you’d be here and had still not decided how to act when it happened.
Instead of answering properly, you stood there and said, “Why did you want to see me?”
He arched his brow.
You took a few steps closer, then admitted, “I’ve been ruminating on it all day, which has been terrible for everyone involved.”
That seemed to amuse him immediately.
“Oh?” he murmured. “And what conclusions did you arrive at?”
You clasped your hands behind your back so he wouldn’t see them fidget. “Several. None stable. One involved a dramatic lecture. One involved tea. One involved you deciding I was overdue for being unbearable in private.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“And which did you find most convincing?”
“The tea,” you said at once. Then, because your nerves always made you reckless, you added, “Though I do think a dramatic lecture would suit the lighting.”
That earned you a soft laugh.
Good. That was good. Laughter meant you were still functioning.
You kept going, because that was what you did when nervousness and affection collided you talked until one of them won.
“I also considered that maybe you simply missed me horribly and could no longer bear the separation.”
He tilted his head, gaze bright with interest now. “And yet you ask as though that possibility embarrasses you.”
“It embarrasses both of us.”
“Untrue,” he said lightly. “It only embarrasses you”
He rose and crossed toward you with that same impossible grace you had spent the whole day trying not to think too much about.
“Come now,” he said. “If you have truly spent the day building theories around my motives, I should hate for all that labor to go unrewarded.”
You looked up at him, pulse uneven. “So there was a motive.”
“My dear, there is always a motive.”
You groaned softly. “See, that’s exactly the sort of answer that causes spirals.”
“And yet you continue to ask questions of dangerous people.”
“You are not helping your case.”
“Am I meant to be building one?”
You laughed, a little helplessly, because it was easier than admitting how much seeing him like this here, in the dusk, in good spirits and looking at you as if you were the part of the day he had been waiting for was undoing you.
He noticed, of course he noticed.
His expression softened, though the gleam of theatrical mischief remained in his eyes.
“You are nervous,” he said.
You opened your mouth to deny it.
He lifted one hand.
“Do not insult me by lying badly.”
You shut your mouth.
Then, after a beat, “Maybe a little.”
“A little?” he echoed, delighted. “You entered as though the door might interrogate you first.”
“That is slander.”
“It is an observation.”
You sighed and let your shoulders ease the smallest amount. “Fine. I’m nervous.”
“And why,” he asked, voice gentler now beneath the silk of it, “would seeing me make you nervous after all this time?”
Because tonight waited beyond his door.
Because your friends were waiting in the hall.
Because the moon would rise.
Because guilt had made everything tender.
Instead you said, “Because when you say you want to see me and then don’t explain why, my imagination becomes inconvenient.”
He studied you for a moment.
Then he motioned toward the seating near the window. “Come sit. You look as though you’ve spent the day outrunning your own thoughts.”
“I have,” you admitted, following him. “We all have.”
He glanced back at that. “With them?”
You nodded.
A faint, unreadable expression crossed his face something between fondness and thoughtfulness, something made more complicated by everything else that had lived in the morning between you.
“You’ve been busy,” he said.
That could have meant a dozen things.
You chose the safest answer.
“We had a good day.”
His gaze lingered on you a fraction longer than necessary.
“I’m glad,” he said quietly.
The simplicity of it nearly hurt.
You sat, and he settled across from you in the warm dimness, the sky beyond the windows deepening by the second into richer pinks, the first hints of twilight gathering low along the horizon.
For one fleeting, impossible moment, it felt as though the evening had split in two, one half here, soft and lit and full of him, and the other waiting elsewhere by the river, silver and cold and asking things you did not know how to survive.
Shadow Milk rested one elbow lightly against the arm of his chair and regarded you with open interest.
“Well then,” he said. “Since you have been so bravely anxious all day on my behalf shall I put you out of your misery and tell you why I asked you here?”
You clasped your hands tighter in your lap to hide the way your fingers trembled.
“That would be merciful.”
His mouth curved.
“Mercy,” he repeated thoughtfully. “What a fashionable request today.”
You looked at him, the scholar you loved in all his impossible forms, evening painting him in rose and gold, and braced yourself for whatever he was about to say.
For one fraught, awful moment, you were certain he knew.
The thought came sharp and immediate, slicing clean through the warmth of the room.
He had redacted everything. Sealed it away. Torn whole avenues of thought from the academy’s shelves with the calm certainty of someone who believed some truths were too dangerous to leave lying around. He had looked at you that morning and told you not to decide anything alone. He noticed everything. He always noticed.
So what if this was it?
What if he had called you here because he knew what waited by the Blueberry Yogurt River when the moon rose? What if he had traced the shape of your guilt back to its source and was only being gentle now because he was about to stop you?
Your pulse jumped.
You looked at him at the easy drape of his posture, the rose-gold light got caught in his face, the quiet attention in his gaze, and hated, suddenly, how guilty you felt.
Because you were going against his wishes.
Because you were afraid of the ritual and still had not turned away from it.
Because some tender, treacherous part of you knew that if he asked plainly enough, if he looked at you too kindly, or spoke too honestly, or simply said your name in that low careful voice of his there was a chance you would break right here and tell him everything.
So you did what you always did when you were closest to breaking.
You reached for rhythm.
For banter. For the familiar shape the two of you made when you were trying not to say the more dangerous things.
You straightened just a little, affecting a gravity you did not feel. “Before you tell me,” you said, “I need to know whether this is about the highly slanderous rumor that I’m responsible for the incident with the levitation sandals.”
Shadow Milk blinked.
Then, slowly, one elegant brow arched. “The incident?”
“Yes,” you said solemnly. “The one I am choosing not to elaborate on in order to preserve the dignity of all involved.”
“An admirable instinct. New, but admirable.”
You pointed at him. “That sounds like a lecture is coming.”
“It sounds,” he said, voice silk-soft with amusement, “like I should perhaps start collecting all the tales your friends have neglected to share with me.”
“That would be a gross abuse of power.”
“I remain tempted.” he murmured, leaning back slightly,
You relaxed by a fraction. So you pressed your luck, because of course you did.
“This also isn’t,” you added, “some formal censure regarding my continued habit of entering rooms looking like a beautifully managed disaster?”
His smile deepened.
“My dear,” he said, “if I began censuring you for that, I would never have time for anything else.”
That got a real laugh out of you.
And once you were laughing, once the room had softened around the edges again and the panic had retreated just enough to let you breathe, he seemed satisfied.
He let the silence settle for a moment, watching you with that infuriatingly perceptive calm.
Then he said, more quietly, “No. It is not levitation sandals, nor your relationship to catastrophe, however committed that relationship may be.”
You opened your mouth to protest.
He held up a hand.
“Let me finish. I called you here because this morning felt unfinished.”
That made you still.
Something gentler entered his expression.
“You came to me carrying guilt you would not name,” he said. “You were tender in a way you usually are not unless something inside you is fraying. You thanked me as though you expected not to have another chance. And then you left before I could decide whether I disliked that.”
Your throat tightened.
He continued, voice measured, sensible, but threaded now with an unmistakable feeling.
“I had duties to attend to. Petitioners. Correspondence. The endless little obligations attached to being useful to everyone.” His mouth curved faintly, though it did not quite become a smile. “But I found, rather selfishly, that I disliked the idea of the day ending on that note.”
You looked down at your hands.
“And so,” he said, “I asked to see you again.”
The room was very quiet.
He did not look away from you. Did not soften the shape of it into something easier. He simply let the truth stand.
“I wanted,” he said, more softly now, “one unhurried hour in your company before the evening swallowed us both.”
Your chest ached so quickly and so sharply you almost had to turn your face away.
This wasn’t a trap. It was just him choosing you.
You laughed once under your breath, but it shook at the edges. “That’s horribly unfair.”
His head tilted. “How so?”
“Because now I have to pretend that didn’t affect me.”
“Do you?”
You looked up at him and found no mockery there. Only that terrible patience and the clear, knowing warmth he reserved for you when no one else was around to witness it.
“No,” you admitted.
“Ah.” He seemed pleased by the honesty. “Progress.”
You huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “You really do think of me like some long-term project.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze sharpened with gentle amusement. “Not at all. Projects are far easier to control.”
“That’s almost romantic, in a deeply concerning way.”
“So I’m told.”
The sunset had dimmed now into richer shades, the room gathering more lamplight than day. Outside, the sky was still blushing, but deeper, pink beginning to give way to violet at the edges. Time, without asking your permission, was moving.
You felt it in your dough.
And because of that, because the river and the moon and the promise of night were waiting beyond these walls, his confession of something as simple and terrible as I wanted an hour with you struck deeper than it should have.
You swallowed hard and tried for lightness again, though this time it came softer.
“So you summoned me for selfish reasons.”
“I invited you,” he corrected smoothly. “Do not make me sound villainous before I’ve had the chance to earn it.”
“You’ve definitely earned it in other categories.”
“Have I?” he asked, almost idly. “Name them.”
You pointed a finger at him. “Smugness. Dramatic timing. Weaponized eye contact.”
He actually laughed at that, quiet and real.
“Those,” he said, “are not crimes.”
“They are in certain provinces.”
“Then I shall avoid those provinces.”
You smiled despite yourself.
It should have been easy, then. Easier. To sink back into the old rhythm completely. To let him be warm and theatrical and wise in his beautiful rooms while the evening slowly died beyond the windows.
But underneath your smile, guilt still sat sharp and living.
He had asked for an hour because the morning felt unfinished.
And you were sitting across from him with moonlight waiting in your future and a secret pressed like a blade beneath your ribs.
Shadow Milk noticed something shift in your face.
His expression gentled once more. “You are doing that thing again.”
You blinked. “What thing?”
“Where your mind leaves the room and hopes I shall not be impolite enough to follow.”
You tried to smile. “Maybe I’m becoming mysterious.”
“No,” he said at once. “You are becoming troubled.”
That landed too cleanly.
You looked away toward the window, toward the last blush of sky.
He did not push immediately.
When he spoke, it was in the same measured, knowing tone he used when guiding you through questions he believed you were capable of answering if only you would stop flinching from them.
“I did not call you here to interrogate you,” he said. “Nor to burden you further.”
You nodded once.
“I called you here,” he repeated, “because I wanted your company. Because I prefer not to leave certain things unresolved when I have the power to remedy them. And because” his gaze rested on you steadily “you looked this morning as though you might vanish into yourself if left unattended.”
That made your eyes sting.
You laughed weakly and said, “That sounds dramatic.”
“With you?” He smiled slightly. “It usually is.”
The room fell quiet again he had told you what he called you there for.
Not a lesson, suspicion, or reprimand.
Just an unfinished morning, his own selfishness, and the desire to have you near before the night unfolded into whatever shape it meant to take.
And that, somehow, was harder to survive than anger would have been.
You folded your hands in your lap and forced yourself to meet his eyes again.
“Well,” you said, trying for your usual ease and only half finding it, “in that case, I suppose I should try not to waste your stolen hour.”
“You have never once been a waste of time.”
Something in you gave way at that.
He was still looking at you with that impossible steadiness, still warm from his own confession, still close enough that if you reached forward you could test whether he was real and not just another thing you might lose to time, to moonlight, to some long silver sleep that had not yet begun but already haunted you.
You did not let yourself think.
Because if you thought, you would lose your nerve.
So instead, you moved.
You reached across the small space between you and took his hand.
His fingers twitched in yours not recoiling, or pulling away, just startled. You felt it at once, the slight stillness in him, the way his breath caught so subtly that anyone else might have missed it.
But you did not miss it.
You had spent too long learning him not to notice when he was caught unprepared.
Shadow Milk looked down at your joined hands.
Then back up at you.
And for the first time that evening perhaps the first time all day he looked almost genuinely flustered.
Not undone, not like you. But there it was anyway in the faint arrest of his expression, in the way his mouth parted a fraction before he chose his next words.
“Well,” he said softly, too softly, “this is new.”
Your heart hammered so hard it almost hurt. You swallowed and held on tighter, because if you loosened your grip now you might never find the courage again.
“I know.”
His gaze searched your face.
“You are about to say something reckless,” he murmured.
You gave a weak, nervous breath of laughter. “That has never stopped me before.”
“No,” he said, and some of his composure returned in the shape of a very small, very knowing smile. “But usually your recklessness arrives disguised as a ridiculous question.”
You almost smiled back.
Almost.
But the fear in you was bigger than embarrassment now. Bigger than dignity. Bigger than the part of you that wanted to wait for the right moment, the elegant moment, the one untouched by guilt or moonrise or the possibility of being gone too long to remember how his hands felt.
You looked at him and thought, absurdly and helplessly I might not wake for so long.
You might be asleep. Dead. Unmade. Remade. Still. Silent. Somewhere under moonlight where time stopped meaning anything at all.
And if that happened If you were gone long enough for wanting to turn abstract; Then you wanted something real to carry into that dark with you.
Something warm. Something that belonged only to the living.
Your voice came out quieter than you intended. “Can I ask you for something?”
His expression changed instantly.
“You may ask me anything.”
You tightened your grip on his hand and forced yourself to say it before the courage bled out of you.
“Will you kiss me?”
Silence.
It struck the room so hard that even the lamps seemed to still.
Shadow Milk stared at you.
Actually stared.
All theater dropped clean away from his face in one astonished moment of silence. He had expected wit. Deflection. Some little spark of absurdity wrapped around your nerves.
He had not expected this.
He had not expected you to look at him with your heart in your throat and ask so plainly for something so unbearably intimate.
His hand in yours went warmer.
His voice, when it came, was lower than before.
“You…” He stopped, visibly collecting himself. “You are full of surprises tonight.”
You wanted to laugh, or apologize, or vanish.
Instead, because you had already leapt, you forced yourself to remain brave all the way through the fall.
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.”
The fluster had not vanished. Now he was fighting himself back into composure and only half succeeding.
He turned your joined hands slightly, as if grounding himself in the simple fact of your skin against his.
“Why?” he asked.
The question was gentle.
That made it worse.
You looked down for half a second, then back up at him. There was no graceful version of the truth. Not one you could bear. So what came out was smaller, more honest, more humiliating in its tenderness.
“Because…” You exhaled shakily. “Because I want to memorize you.”
Something flickered across his face.
You could not stop now.
You had gone too far and were too frightened of time and absence and waking late to retreat into cleverness.
“I want to know,” you said, voice trembling, “what your lips feel like. And your hands. And what it feels like when you’re being gentle on purpose.”
Your cheeks burned so hot they ached.
You almost covered your face with your free hand.
Instead you held his gaze and kept speaking, because the fear of losing this for some unknowable stretch of time was stronger than the mortification clawing at you.
“I know that sounds ridiculous,” you whispered. “I know it does. But I” Your throat tightened. “I just want to remember. In case…” You stopped yourself before the rest could slip loose. In case sleep lasts too long. In case moonlight takes more than memory and leaves only ache. In case the next time you wake, if you wake, the shape of tenderness has become something you can no longer name.
You swallowed. “I just want to memorize your lips,” you finished softly, “and your tender touch.”
The room went utterly still.
Shadow Milk had not moved.
But neither had he looked away.
You had shocked him.
His thumb moved once against the back of your hand, almost unconsciously.
Then he laughed but only barely. A breath of a laugh, incredulous and soft and full of feeling he was no longer entirely hiding.
“You choose tonight,” he murmured, “of all nights, to become bold.”
“I’m trying not to think too hard about that.”
“A shame,” he said. “You might have warned me.”
You let out a helpless little laugh of your own. “Would that have helped?”
“No,” he admitted, and that finally brought a real smile to his mouth. “But I would have enjoyed pretending otherwise.”
The air between you shifted.
His fluster had settled into something warmer now. Not gone, not with the way he was looking at you, as though you had become some exquisite and dangerous thing placed directly into his hands, but transformed into attention so focused it made your pulse stutter.
He lifted your hand, slowly, deliberately, until your knuckles rested near his lips.
Not a kiss. Not yet.
Just closeness.
“Do you know,” he said, voice low and velvet-soft, “that if you continue to say things like this to me, you will ruin whatever remains of my good judgment?”
You managed, barely, “I think it was already in poor condition.”
That coaxed another soft laugh from him.
Then his gaze dropped to your mouth.
You felt it like touch.
And when he looked up again, whatever answer he had been weighing was already written into the tenderness of his expression.
“You need never ask me twice for something I have wanted to give you for far too long.”
The breath left your lungs.
He rose first, still holding your hand, and drew you gently to your feet.
The world narrowed.
The sunset beyond the windows had dimmed into the first deep hush of evening, the sky losing pink by slow degrees. Somewhere out there, time was moving. The river was waiting. The moon was climbing, whether you wanted it to or not.
But here there was only him.
He lifted his free hand to your face with unbearable care, the backs of his fingers brushing your cheek first as though reacquainting himself with your shape. Then his palm settled there, warm and steady, thumb near the corner of your mouth.
Tender touch.
You almost broke from the sweetness of it.
His eyes searched yours one last time.
Not asking if you meant it instead asking if you were ready for how much he did.
You answered by leaning the smallest amount into his hand.
That was enough.
He kissed you softly at first.
So softly you nearly didn’t understand it had happened.
Then your breath caught and the realization bloomed all through you at once, his lips warm, careful, unhurried. A kiss given by someone who knew exactly how much power he held and chose, with startling gentleness, not to use any of it against you.
You made a small, helpless sound into the silence between you, and his hand at your cheek tightened just a fraction.
Then he kissed you again.
More surely this time.
And you held on to him just needing the reality of him, his hand still wrapped around yours, his mouth moving with a patience so exquisite it hurt.
You memorized everything.
The softness first.
Then the warmth.
Then the way he paused, just enough, as though giving you room to breathe and still return. The way his thumb brushed once along your cheekbone. The way his other hand turned yours over, fingertips pressing into your palm like he meant to leave a mark there no moon could steal.
When he finally drew back, it was only far enough for your foreheads to nearly touch.
Your eyes stayed closed for a moment longer because opening them felt impossible.
When you did, he was looking at you with an expression so open it nearly frightened you more than any mystery ever had.
“Well,” he murmured, a little breathless despite himself, “I had expected a ridiculous question.”
You smiled shaky, dazed, still trying to gather yourself back from wherever he had just left you.
“Was that better?”
His answering smile was soft enough to ruin you.
“Catastrophically.”
You laughed then, weak and full of wonder and far too close to tears, and he kissed the corner of your mouth as if he could not quite help himself.
“I meant what I said,” you whispered, because it mattered now, mattered that he understood this had not been whim or impulse alone. “I wanted to remember.”
At that, something in him stilled.
Not suspicion. Only an acute awareness of the weight beneath your words.
His fingers brushed lightly over your jaw.
“Then remember this,” he said quietly.
And he kissed you once more.
Still tender. Still careful. But deeper with feeling, with all the things he had not asked and all the things you had not told him, poured instead into the one language neither of you was cowardly enough to mistranslate.
When he pulled away, the room felt changed.
So did you.
He rested his forehead briefly against yours and let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
“You are,” he said, voice unsteady only at the edges, “quite impossible.”
You smiled, though your eyes burned.
“I learned from the best.”
That made him laugh for real, low and warm and helpless in a way you would treasure later, if later came.
He lifted your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles this time, more reverent than performative now.
And because you were still afraid, because moonlight still waited, because sleep still loomed, because all the hours ahead felt too fragile to trust, you held his hand a little tighter and let yourself stand there in the gathering dark, memorizing him while you still could.
For a little while after that, you forgot how to be sensible.
Enough that when Shadow Milk finally drew back from the last kiss with that rare, stunned softness still lingering at the edges of his composure, you looked at him, a little dazed and a little wicked all at once deciding that if the night intended to take from you later, you were going to steal something from it first.
Namely his dignity.
Or what remained of it.
You were still holding his hand. His thumb rested near the inside of your wrist, pulse to pulse, as if he had forgotten to let go. As if perhaps he did not want to.
You smiled.
“No,” he said.
You blinked innocently. “No what?”
“That expression.” His eyes narrowed just slightly, though the color had not fully settled back into calm yet. “I know that expression.”
“Oh?” you murmured, taking one small step closer. “What does it mean?”
“That you have mistaken my momentary lack of defenses for an invitation to behave outrageously.”
You laughed softly. “Momentary?”
“My dear, do not become arrogant.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
This, unfortunately, was a lie.
Because once you knew you could make him flustered, not just mildly amused or theatrically indulgent, but genuinely flustered. You became very interested in the experiment.
You let your fingers trail lightly along the back of his hand. Watched his gaze dip, then return to your face.
“How unfortunate for you,” you said, all velvet sweetness and mischief now, “that I’m suddenly feeling very curious.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a warning. “Curiosity has a dreadful habit of ruining people.”
“And here I thought it was one of your favorite qualities in me.”
“It is,” he said at once.
That was the problem.
He said things like that too easily. Too beautifully. You had barely recovered from asking him for a kiss and now he was looking at you as if your boldness was not some miraculous lapse but something precious, something he had been waiting to see all along.
So you did what came naturally.
You reached up and fixed a piece of his collar that did not need fixing.
His whole body went very still.
“There,” you said softly.
“There,” he repeated. “What, exactly?”
“I don’t know. You looked too composed.”
His mouth parted with quiet disbelief. “You find composure offensive?”
“Only on you,” you said.
“Cruel.”
You smiled. “You love it.”
His eyes sharpened with amusement. “Careful.”
“Or what?”
“Or I may remember that I am perfectly capable of regaining control of this conversation.”
You leaned in just enough to feel the warmth of his breath when you answered. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It is a promise.”
You laughed under your breath.
Then, because you could not help yourself, you let your fingertips brush the line of his sleeve, the back of his wrist, the place where pulse lived. Such small touches. Such innocent ones, really. And yet with him, with the way he watched every movement as though your hands had become the most riveting subject in the room, they felt almost unbearably intimate.
“You’re quiet,” you murmured.
“I am thinking.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” he said. “Especially when you are standing this close and behaving as though you’ve forgotten I am capable of consequences.”
You tilted your head. “What kind of consequences?”
The look he gave you then would have undone someone less determined.
Tender. Exasperated. So clearly affected that it made your own pulse stutter all over again.
“Exactly the kind,” he said softly, “that encourage me not to answer questions you are asking only to see whether I’ll blush.”
You grinned, delighted. “So you admit it.”
“I admit,” he replied, “that you are being insufferably pleased with yourself.”
“Because I’m winning.”
He made a quiet, disbelieving sound. “Winning?”
“Mhm.”
“And what, pray tell, is the competition?”
You pretended to think. “How many times I can fluster the Fount of Knowledge before he remembers he’s supposed to be devastatingly composed.”
His laugh this time was low and helpless enough to feel like a reward.
“You continue,” he said, “to speak as though my reputation has any defense left in private.”
“I think your reputation is doing just fine.” you yawned.
He looked at you then with such pure, affectionate exasperation that it made something warm unfurl beneath your ribs.
You touched his face this time.
Just lightly.
Only the side of it, your fingers brushing his cheek with the caution of someone still half-surprised she was allowed.
His breath caught again.
There.
You smiled with quiet triumph.
Shadow Milk closed his eyes for half a beat, then opened them and said, “You are impossible I have no other word for you.”
“You’ve mentioned.”
“And yet the condition worsens.” He sighed.
“I’m making up for lost time.”
The words slipped out before you could weigh them.
The warmth between you faltered.
Not because he was displeased, but because he heard too much.
His gaze searched yours more carefully now. You felt the instant he sensed some sharper truth beneath the line, some reason for your hunger that had little to do with flirtation and everything to do with fear.
So before he could ask, before you could ruin this hour by falling apart in the wrong direction, you stepped closer still and rested your forehead briefly against his shoulder.
It was not elegant.
It was not calculated.
It was simply what you wanted.
He softened at once.
One hand came up to rest between your shoulders, steady and sure.
“There you are,” he murmured.
You let out a shaky breath. “I’m still here.”
“I know.”
For a while neither of you said anything.
You just stood there, letting the room settle around you, lamplight, the last breath of sunset, the quiet hush of evening drawing tighter over the Spire. His hand moved once, a slow stroke down your back that felt so gentle it almost undid you.
You lifted your head enough to look at him again.
You stayed close, still inside the circle of his arms, and said, “Can I tell you something without you turning it into a lesson?”
“That depends entirely on the thing.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Shadow Milk.”
His expression gentled instantly. “Yes. You can.”
That was the first thing that nearly made you cry.
Not the permission itself.
The way he gave it, without spectacle, without wit, just earnest and immediate.
So you took a breath and told him the truth.
“I was terrified of you at first.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You hide it so well.”
“No, really.” You glanced down, then back up. “That first tutoring session felt like a humiliation ritual designed by the cosmos personally.”
He blinked. “How charming.”
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.”
You laughed weakly. “I mean it. Being that vulnerable in front of someone so famous for knowledge? Someone everyone looked at like some kind of impossible standard?” You shook your head, smiling a little despite yourself. “I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.”
“I kept thinking,” you continued, “that you’d finally realize I wasn’t worth the trouble. That you’d be polite, because you’re you, but that eventually you’d get tired of having to explain everything to someone who couldn’t even hold a basic thread without fumbling it.”
You reached for his hand again as you spoke, more for your own steadiness than anything else.
“And you never did. Get tired of me, I mean.” Your voice softened. “You taught me how to think when I was so afraid of being wrong that I couldn’t even speak properly. You made me stop treating every answer like a performance I was failing.” You smiled, small and helpless and terribly sincere. “You helped me become better.”
Shadow Milk said nothing.
Not because he had no answer but because the answer mattered too much to rush.
“I appreciate your existence more than I know how to explain elegantly,” you admitted. “And I know that sounds dramatic.”
“On the contrary,” he said quietly, “it sounds exact.”
You looked up at him, startled.
His hand came to your cheek again, thumb resting there with infuriating tenderness.
“My love,” he murmured, “do you think I did not notice?”
“Notice what?”
“The way you arrived each lesson a little less afraid than the last. The way your questions changed. The way you started meeting my gaze instead of studying the furniture.” His expression softened into something almost unbearably fond. “The way your mind learned itself.”
You could not speak.
“You give me too much credit,” he said, though there was no false modesty in it. “I did not make you better. I merely refused to let you keep pretending you were small.”
That one landed too deep.
Then laughed once under your breath because crying would have been inconvenient, and said, “That was disgustingly kind.”
“I am capable of many things.”
“You’re also very smug about your own virtues.”
He smiled. “Only when they are properly appreciated.”
You let your forehead rest briefly against his again. “I’m serious, though.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.” Your fingers tightened around his hand. “You mattered to me before I had any right to say so. Back when I still thought I was only a burden in your schedule. And now-”
You stopped.
His voice dropped softer. “And now?”
You looked at him for a long moment.
Then chose the truth you could survive.
“And now I’m glad you exist,” you whispered. “Very, very glad.”
“Come here,” he said.
You almost laughed. “I’m already-”
But he was already drawing you in closer, one arm winding around your waist, the other settling at the back of your neck with such sure, careful pressure that your breath caught all over again.
There was no performance left in either of you now.
Only this.
Only him looking at you like you had said something that would stay with him long after tonight.
“I am trying,” he said quietly, “very hard not to answer that with more feeling than you are prepared to manage.”
The honesty of it made your pulse jump.
“You could risk it.”
Dangerous thing to say.
Worse, perhaps, that you meant it.
His gaze dropped to your mouth. “Could I?”
You nodded once.
That was all it took.
The last kiss was nothing like the first.
The first had been discovery, gentle and astonished and careful with all your fear.
He touched you first as though relearning the route, thumb brushing once along your jaw, fingertips settling at the nape of your neck, the hand at your waist tightening just enough to bring you into the full line of him. The movement was unhurried, certain, and so exquisitely deliberate it felt like being read.
Then his mouth found yours.
Soft at first.
But deeper with every lingering second.
You melted into it almost helplessly, your free hand rising to his shoulder, then higher, fingertips brushing the edge of his collar where you had teased him earlier. His breath shifted at that. A quiet thing. Barely audible. Enough to make heat spark through you.
He kissed like he spoke when no audience was present, measured, beautiful, and utterly devastating in his restraint. He gave nothing carelessly. Which meant that every small change the slight angle of his head, the way his hand at your neck flexed when you pressed closer, the pause where his lips barely left yours before returning felt magnified until your whole body was listening for it.
You made a soft sound against his mouth before you could stop yourself.
He answered by kissing you more firmly.
When he finally pulled back, it was only far enough to leave the air between you alive and trembling.
Your lips still tingled.
His eyes were dark with a softness that made you dizzy.
And because your thoughts had gone gloriously stupid, because you were full of him and lamplight and the false safety of an hour stolen from the rest of your life, the next thing out of your mouth came absentmindedly. Naturally. Almost bright.
“I enjoyed your company tonight,” you said, still a little breathless. “We should do this again tomorrow.”
Silence.
The words hung there.
And for one beautiful, terrible instant, you forgot, there is no promised tomorrow.
You just stood there smiling faintly up at him as if there really would be another evening exactly like this, as if tomorrow were a thing you had the right to assume.
Then you felt it.
The shape of what you had said.
Your own words curdling in your chest.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated gently.
You looked away for half a second.
“Yes,” you said, softer now. “Tomorrow.”
And because you had already taken so much from this hour, because you had kissed him, teased him, thanked him, held him like memory could be built by force if you just loved hard enough you stepped back before your face betrayed you.
His hand brushed yours as you moved, reluctant.
“I did enjoy your company,” you repeated, more steadily now. “Very much.”
His mouth curved with that private warmth you loved most. “Then tonight was not wasted.”
No.
It wasn’t.
That was the problem. It mattered too much to leave.
You swallowed the ache and gave him one last look memorizing, and turned toward the door with your heart full enough to drown in.
You got as far as the door.
Hand on the handle, pulse still unruly, lips still warm in a way that made everything feel a little unreal.
And then, because some part of you could not bear to leave on so plain a note, you glanced back over your shoulder.
Shadow Milk was still standing where you had left him, the lamplight gentling the sharpness of him, one hand loosely at his side, the other just barely lifted as if he had not yet decided whether to call you back for one more impossible thing.
You smiled.
“Goodnight,” you said softly.
And opened the door.
Three bodies fell inward.
Chai made a startled squeak. Hazelnut swore on impact. Earl, somehow, managed to collapse with dignity for all of half a second before the full indignity of the situation became apparent.
You stared.
They stared.
For one long, soul-leaving moment, the entire world held perfectly still.
Then you went bright red all at once.
“Oh my stars!”
Chai, flat on one elbow on the threshold, lifted a hand weakly. “In our defense!”
“There is no defense,” Earl said at once, from the floor.
Hazelnut pushed himself up with a grimace. “I would like it noted that I was against leaning that hard.”
“You were not,” Chai hissed.
“I was spiritually against it.”
You covered your face with both hands. “You were trying to listen?”
For how long?
Your thoughts flashed back in horrifying, disjointed fragments.
The silence.
The flirting.
The confessions.
The kisses…
You made a strangled sound and looked ready to dissolve into the stone.
Shadow Milk, meanwhile, was not amused.
He did not look angry, exactly.
Just supremely unimpressed in the way only he could manage arms folding loosely, one brow rising as he regarded the heap of your friends with a level stare sharpened by private amusement.
“Yes,” he said coolly. “How shocking. Eavesdroppers.”
Chai sat up properly, trying for poise and failing. “We were only making sure-”
“That they were alive?” he supplied.
Hazelnut pointed at him. “Exactly.”
Earl had recovered enough to smooth one sleeve and rise to his feet with the air of a man determined to salvage something from humiliation. “In fairness-”
“In fairness,” Shadow Milk interrupted silkily, “I accounted for that.”
That stopped all of you.
You blinked, hands lowering slowly from your face. “You… what?”
He smiled with the unmistakable, smug satisfaction of someone who had anticipated this nonsense long before it occurred.
“I am not unfamiliar,” he said, voice smooth as polished glass, “with the habits of anxious friends, nor with your collective inability to resist curiosity when left unattended near a closed door.”
Hazelnut squinted. “That feels targeted.”
“It is.”
Chai groaned softly. “So you knew.”
“From the moment three shadows stopped moving outside my quarters in suspicious synchronization.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze slid back to you, and some of the sharpness eased not much, but enough.
“So,” he said, almost lazily now, “do not trouble yourself. They heard nothing.”
The smugness in his tone made it worse somehow.
Worse because it meant he knew exactly what your mind had been catastrophizing.
Worse because he clearly enjoyed having the upper hand.
You wanted the floor to open and devour you.
“Oh,” you managed faintly.
Chai, to her credit, looked mortified for at least three seconds before recovering into something more wounded than ashamed. “That’s… actually very rude.”
Shadow Milk inclined his head. “And yet, effective.”
Hazelnut rubbed a hand over his face. “I knew we should’ve just waited farther down the hall.”
Earl, now fully upright and reassembled, said with precise restraint, “This evening has produced an unfortunate quantity of indignity.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze moved to him. “And still you persist.”
Then he looked to all four of you, one by one, before returning at last to you.
The evening had deepened beyond the windows now, sunset fully thinned into the first true blue of night. Somewhere far away the world was turning silver. The hour had shifted.
“You should go,” Shadow milk said quietly.
The words landed with a small, hard ache.
You nodded once.
And then, because he was still himself no matter how strange the evening had become, he added with insufferable elegance, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Or technically night,” he amended.
Chai looked at the ceiling as if asking the stars for strength.
Earl closed his eyes briefly, no doubt in mourning for the death of all collective dignity.
You, however, had gone so red you felt half-feverish.
Not only had your friends tried to listen. They had tried to listen for long enough to fall through the door when you opened it.
You seized the nearest wrist, which turned out to be Hazelnut’s, then Chai’s sleeve with your other hand, and fixed Earl with a look that brooked no delay.
“We’re leaving,” you said, voice pitched far too high.
“At once,” Earl agreed.
Chai pushed herself fully upright and dusted off her robes with an expression of solemn tragedy. “I’d like it recorded that I regret nothing except being caught.”
“You should regret everything,” you said.
Hazelnut let himself be dragged with only token resistance. “In my defense, we were supporting you.”
“You were horizontal outside a private door!”
“Supportively!”
Shadow Milk let out the softest breath of laughter behind you.
You refused to look back again.
Instead you dragged your entire disastrous little group into the corridor and away from his quarters as fast as dignity and footwear allowed.
Only once you were safely around the bend did Chai burst into helpless laughter.
Hazelnut joined in a second later.
Earl held out for five full seconds before even he looked faintly appalled enough at the situation to seem almost amused.
You, meanwhile, were still too mortified to survive properly.
“I cannot believe you,” you said, though it lacked any real heat. “I cannot believe you.”
Chai leaned into your side, still laughing. “Oh, come on. You’d have done the same.”
“No, I wouldn’t have!”
Hazelnut gave you a look. “That is such a lie.”
Earl adjusted his cuffs. “It is not entirely implausible.”
You turned to him, scandalized. “Earl!”
“I’m only saying,” he replied, far too calm, “that your self-restraint tends to fail under emotionally heightened circumstances.”
“That is the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It is not.”
You groaned and picked up your pace.
The corridor lights glowed warmly around you as the four of you headed back toward your room, the Spire quieter now, night settling over it in earnest. Beneath your embarrassment, beneath the lingering warmth of his kisses and the ache of his goodbye and the ridiculousness of your friends collapsing into a room they absolutely should not have been listening outside of, something colder waited.
The book.
The river.
The moon.
You felt your bag-less shoulder and remembered with a sick little twist that you still had to go get it.
Your room suddenly seemed very far away.
But your friends were with you, laughing, bickering, still warm from being alive and ridiculous and entirely yours for these last fragile hours, and so you held onto that sound as you hurried them onward.
Toward your door.
Toward the book.
Toward whatever waited when the moon finally rose.
A/N Okay so this was a super long week for me I have been working tirelessly on ITPOT, Honestly I am not proud of my work for these past 2 chapters I was struggling a lot with writing this time around so I hope everything is fine with the writing, But other than that the next chapter is very exciting for me! I had to pick up the pace here because I thought it mundane to go through the three days so I time skipped hopefully the transition was smooth because I felt it was a little abrupt but no matter what's done is done. I am happy with what I've done though because I have exciting plans I have changed some of the direction and I see a clear vision for the next chapter.
anyways thank you for bearing with me
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