#caffeine cookie

…He was not always like this. Even when closer to his true self, he felt attraction to a certain cookie he was close to. A cookie that he had ruined by telling him too much.

Caffeine Cookie.

He raised him like how the Witches raised the virtues, much more carefully and with much more love even. He adored the culture, the power, the empire that Caffeine cookie had built without a Virtue. He let him blossom by himself without having a virtue and job forced onto him. He let Caffeine cookie have true Freedom. And Caffeine helped his people have true Order. Caffeine was someone who was adamant and proud of his culture, yet conscious enough to change it when he sensed wrong in it. He loved his people, and therefore both loved and taught it when they did right and wrong, like how Terebinth taught him.

Caffeine was very misunderstood during his whole reign, both by his own people and especially by the rest of Beast-Yeast. He was very faithful to the Wizards rather than the Witches, and preferred to look after cookies based off what they believe in rather than what virtue and land their dough was formed under.

Caffeine cookie never knew who and what Terebinth cookie truly was. He just saw him as a scholar of an empire once like his. A cookie on the same level as his. Terebinth, however, was the head of the very wizards he looked up to.

Caffeine cookie always came to the Peafowl’s shrine, the place where Terebinth resided, to talk to him. He would come to ask for advice and to vent most times, though sometimes they would also just… talk. Nothing more than that back then.

But Terebinth always missed him when he was away. He saw him as different to other cookies, and felt pity that they took him and his kindness for granted.

A feeling in Caffeine was nagging him at random times, mostly at night, to come to Terebinth just to hear his voice. The Peafowl’s shrine called to him more than ever. The Wizards surely wanted him there.

He started to come in almost daily, noticing how much friendlier and informal Terebinth started to act to him. They would talk like friends more, and Terebinth would even listen to Caffeine’s advice sometimes. He would even bring in rare flowers and peafowl feathers for Caffeine to keep as gifts. Caffeine would notice Terebinth would almost… glow when he was around. He has seen mortal cookies with powers before, but Terebinth had really caught his eye.

They would even debate about life. They would theorise what life is for, what is beyond death, where the virtues came from, et cetera. Terebinth knew all the answers to these, but wanted to keep it all a secret. He just wanted to see Caffeine brainstorm about life. He would ask how Earthbread was still in order, even if the Witches wanted to eat Cookies… but Terebinth would never say how.

He enjoyed Caffeine’s company. He may have been a Wizard, but he was enjoying the cookie world like this. Especially Caffeine. He knew cookies crumble… and that Caffeine will too. But he did not want that to happen.

He wanted Caffeine to ascend to his true level and stay with him forever. He wanted Caffeine cookie to join his ranks. But he cannot. He knows that assigning a cookie to such task would be against the grain, something a wizard nor witch would never do… Surely a witch would not put that much stress on a cookie…

But they did. And as the Virtues fell, the Divine Secrets who monitored them lost faith and were torn apart into the tools of their beholders. Terebinth Cookie felt his power dwindle as they fell, but he could also sense those who became Beholders, whether that be from being the sons of Heroes or Villains.

The Virtues', now Beasts', followers had found and taken over the Caffeinate, promising them false futures. However Caffeine could not snap like the Salt of Solidarity. He was too weak to. He was no virtue, he was just a leader. He fought and fought against them, but his own people had turned against him, thinking his ways of ruling were old fashioned and undesirable. All he could do now was go to the one cookie he knew could help.

He headed to the Peafowl's shrine, the one place hidden from the Beasts, for one last time. He came to ask for help, for Terebinth to speak to the Wizards and to bring back the cookies of his faith and the Caffeinate.

Terebinth sighed, as he was the emanation of the very Wizard he was praying to.

Caffeine's stern asks for help turned into weeps, as he started to wonder why it took so long for Earthbread to fall out of order. And Terebinth responded, that Earthbread is indeed still in order. Good and Evil have to exist together.

Terebinth explained the order of how life powder worked after Cookies crumbled, how it would be reshaped into new dough. How Earthbread was dormant of true Wizards and witches for a long time…

And he would reveal that he is an emanation of one of them. The leader of the Seven Divine Secrets, Archangel Peafowl Cookie. A beautiful, benevolent creature, both a Cookie and a Wizard at the same time… but not for the mortal eye.

Caffeine could not handle any of this. The goal was never for good to win, but to live among evil and neutrality. The Wizards and Witches who formed the Virtues were never there to help them all along… and worst of all… his dough would never rest. It would forever crumble and rebore, crumble and rebore… This constant limbo of life powder making him go through this harsh life over and over again, where he would likely always be misunderstood in every single life that had his essence breathed into it… All because the same Wizards that sent the Divine Secrets down as emanations, and the Witches who made the Virtues for cookiekind… They wanted him, his empire, his people… they wanted everything on earthbread to SUFFER a fate worse than being eaten.

And at once. Reality snapped.

First, he was blinded from the archangel's light. Then, his dough, overwhelmed by what he Learnt at once, started to boil and melt. His life powder clotted into a thick, viscous liquid as it stayed too close to a divine being. His insides brewed, mortified of who he once saw as a friend and filled with ire for those who sent him down. The code of the Terrain would flash in his mind and wrap around his conscience as he experience a new way to Die, never felt by a mortal before.

No cookie, nor a wizard nor witch, could describe what Caffeine learnt, what he saw. Only the true Divine beings, those above the Witches and at the top of the caste, could possibly explain what Caffeine felt and saw that moment.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Peafowl. And he did.

Archangel Peafowl realised he messed up. No mortal should have known this. No mortal should have seen him like this. Not his dear love… Not the perfect Cookie… He's killed his love when trying to comfort him… And he did not know this would happen… not like this…

The Peafowl wept, seeing his love now an unconscious, dormant soul covered in scum that was once life powder and dough.

He buried his boiled, liquified remains in a copper Cezve tomb that lay under the shrine. From that day, he has promised to never show his true form again, and he has promised not to glow too bright. So he could never ruin another Cookie again, whether he loves them or not.

Fortunately, not all hope is lost for them both. Caffeine is not truly dead, though it may feel that way to Terebinth.

As the Terrain spoke, Terebinth found that Caffeine cookie will come back stronger than ever. He is dormant and brewing in the Cezve; he will rise back from dormancy as a Beholder, his Beholder, the most powerful one at that.

But until then, he does not want the other Beholders to realise their duties until then. He wants his only love to heal and regain power first. Then, he shall apologise to Caffeine and help rebuild the Divinity together with all the Beholders.