#celestial cheese cookie

"I brought you a book."

That was one way of putting it, one could suppose. Not a lie, not an exaggeration. Pepper Jack did, well and truly, bring Burning Spice a book. One that he just so happened across on his wayward path through the palace library one fine afternoon, after innocently straying from his warden's side when a flustered cheesebird spared him from her attention for just a few moments.

"Oh, don't you worry your darling little head about those," he remembers Celestial Cheese cooing down at him sometime before, all at once patting his darling little head and steering it away from the sight of the bookshelf with a doting grip turned domineering. "Those books are really rather boring. Not suitable for children, in any case. Here, come this way. Plenty of children's books for you to enjoy over here, see?"

Whether he was quick enough to swap out the cover for that of one of those coveted children's books, or she simply, mercifully forgot he existed at all for the duration of her impromptu summoning, Pepper Jack still wasn't quite sure. It likely made little difference; both roads led to the same end. The one where he retaliated against Celestial Cheese's touch and command with petty prejudice.

"It's a history book," he told the man behind the glass pane, "like I know you like to read."

Tugging the cover off and letting gravity take care of the rest - good riddance, that cover is hideous - he cracked the book open at last, its spine creaking with lack of use, a musty scent rising from the pages to Pepper Jack's nose when he exposed them to the air.

"I couldn't find any books on the Wild Spices," he explained. "I tried to look for one where I could, but... I guess they never bothered to collect any."

Flip, flip, flip. "It's weird, when you think about it. If you have enemies, then you'd want to know everything you can about them, right?" Nothing of particular note yet, according to his judgment. "It's what you always told me. I guess... Nobody ever told Celestial Cheese that?" He wasn't one to complain if a book didn't have pictures, but... the font is small, and the murkiness of the strange water would likely cloud the book's image even further. "Or I guess she thinks she's too good to know stuff like that. I wouldn't put it past her, to be honest."

He turned enough pages enough times until- a-ha! Finally, an illustration. A good one, too: a battlefield, seemingly alive with movement. With great joy, he spread the book wide open and turned it around, holding it up close. "But this book is cool, too, see? Look at this drawing. These civilizations had pretty advanced weaponry for their time, didn't they?"

In his mind, Pepper Jack heard him say that yes, they were quite advanced for their time, and thus it was hardly any wonder they chose to go to war; one must remove their competition swiftly and decisively, before it can grow too stiff. In reality, the only answer that might have been gleaned from Burning Spice were the stray bubbles rising up through the liquid.

"Here, I'll tell you what the notes say. Forty to sixty centimeters in length, two-sided, used for close combat. Forged with harder steel on its sides, while softer steel was used for the center. Short, but strong and flexible. Surprisingly difficult to make." From behind the book he peered at him curiously. "Have you ever fought with something like this? Or would you fight with it? I know you never cared that much about swords..."

"... Maybe there's something else in here for you." A few more pages flew from one end to the next before he settled on something new. "Look at this one! It's a diagram of one of the warring armies' swords!"

Papyrus met plexiglass for the second time - only for a moment, until the long silence compelled him to pull it away.

Maybe he has, maybe he would. If only he could say so. If only he was actually there to tell him.

"You..." Doubt began to press its weight against him, lowering the book from the glass and his eyes down to its pages. "You like the book, don't you? Is it boring? Should I have gotten something else?"

He knew how much this Burning Spice hated boredom. Or, he thought he did. He believed he did. Strongly enough to bring his eyes back to the man's sleeping face, brave enough to try to search his blank expression for something again.

"Father-" What stung more, the feeling of his teeth sinking into his bottom lip to silence him, or the fact that he didn't do so fast enough to keep the word from slipping out? "My... M-my father..." He trailed off, swiping his tongue over his aching lip as he racked his flustered brain for some way to salvage the conversation. "... My father likes to read. Sometimes, we'll go to the palace library and... and read something together. And I'm the one to choose the book, most of the time. He'll only choose when I keep insisting."

The book shuddered loudly once more as he closed it shut; what a shame that it had remained so unloved before today. "My father likes a lot of things. He likes to read, and hunt, and fight. He likes to cook dinner for us many nights, meals from his home. He likes to sit and meditate outside sometimes... Sometimes, I walk by and we notice each other, and he asks me to join him. He told me knowing how to clear your mind is an important skill to have. I... I'm better at it some days than others. What about you? Do you like any of those things, too?"

Perhaps... he enjoyed the last one? Without a choice in what else to do, perhaps he did, and was good at it. Great, even; better than Pepper Jack could ever hope to be. And perhaps, without anything else to do, mastering such an important skill brought him a measure of peace.

Pepper Jack sighed.

"I wish I could hear you," he said. "I know you're in there. You're not dead. I... I don't really know what you are. But you're not dead. And if you're not dead, it means you can hear me, somehow. I want to hear you, too."

With a flap of his wings, he fluttered upwards. Carefully, he set the book down atop the container lid. It would be safe up there, and it would only be a moment.

Down he drifted, reaching his hands out to touch the glass. Down they slid along with him, until he and they came to a stop before Burning Spice again, the latter's placement granting Pepper Jack the illusion of holding his face.

"I worry about you." Obvious statement, dreadfully so. One he would've chastised himself for any other time. But some foolish part of him thought that if he said it aloud, if he gave his thoughts life, then that life might better reach the poor man than if he'd stayed quiet. "It's hard to see through the water sometimes, but I'm scared you're getting thinner. How do you eat or drink in there? Do they put vitamins in the water? Do they keep track of your body functions with any of the machines below us? How are you still...?"

All Celestial Cheese needed was the Soul Jam. It is through its harnessed power that she accomplishes all that she can and does. So why did she bother keeping its owner, as well? What has stopped her from simply killing Burning Spice and harvesting the Soul Jam from his corpse? Why go to all this extra trouble? All the time trapped in this horrible place and Pepper Jack was as close to the answer now as he'd been when he first arrived. More than anything, he wanted Burning Spice to be the one to tell him. His father was not a liar and never has been, and there was no one else worth trusting to know or offer the truth. But to have his truth, he needed Burning Spice. And Burning Spice, for every second of every minute of every day Pepper Jack has been kept here, has been kept in a quiet prison far worse still than he.

An old flame of curiosity flickered to life in his mind.

"If all you do is sleep," he asked the hapless prisoner, "then do you ever have nightmares? And if you went to sleep angry and afraid, and never had the chance to wake up and clear your mind, then are nightmares all you ever have?"

What a pitiful, agonizing existence, if one could even call it that. Already Pepper Jack was painfully aware of Celestial Cheese's capacity for cruelty, even beyond the fate worse than death she visited upon Burning Spice. But surely... surely, now that she has what she wants from him, she'd at least be kind enough to let him sleep peacefully? Even Pepper Jack knew oblivion was better than hell.

"My father has nightmares, too," he eventually whispered to him, a secret spoken into the cool glass as he drew closer, meant only for his deaf ears. "Sometimes, he dreams of the Witches coming back and taking me away, and locking me up in the Silver Tree. He'd hack and slash at the trunk, he'd rip out all the leaves and branches, he'd try to tear the tree up by the roots. He... He'd beg them to let me go and take him instead. But they never listened. It was never enough."

As he told his tale, he turned his gaze up, down, left and right. Gliding over the freezing glass trunk; peering down at the thick, heavy roots reaching down into the abyss; winding along the branches poking out from the container's every side, their hum so soft but the shock they emitted at a single touch betraying their true nature.

"... But nightmares always end. If you don't wake up, someone else will wake you from them. No matter how bad they get... They're not eternal. They don't have to be."

In reality, Pepper Jack touched his forehead only to the container. In his mind, the container was done away with, granting him the freedom to comfort Burning Spice as he wished.

"I'm sorry I'm taking so long," he lamented. "I know how to sneak in here without being caught, and I know how to open the Sarcophagus so I can see you. But I can't figure out the rest. I'm trying, I do everything I can when I'm here. But it's hard. Everything here is so strange and overwhelming. And I just... I'm scared I'll hurt you by accident."

Growing heavy with doubt and creeping exhaustion, his wings drooped, and himself along with them. He caught himself quick, hoisting himself back up to eye level with Burning Spice. None shall part them, not even gravity or the growing strain in his wings.

"But I'll keep trying. I'll get you out of here. I'll wake you from your nightmare. I promise."

Another secret shared between them; an admission to his treachery against the Crown, an innocent wish for a future free from this smothering darkness. A balm on both souls, or so he hoped.

"Then, when we leave, we... we can spar, if you want. Or we can go hunting. You can make a nice meal out of- no, no, I-I'll do it! I'll cook. I know how to make curry and naan, I'll make you those. You don't have to do anything."

It likely wouldn't be tomorrow, or anytime soon, really. Even so, a smile dawned on Pepper Jack's face the longer he dreamed of such a blissful moment. He could not help himself.

"And then... We can go look for books somewhere. Some other library, far from here. And we can read something together. You can choose what this time."

It was the least Pepper Jack could give him after all he's endured, no? That modicum of control over destiny, however small and fleeting?

"Won't that be nice?"

No answer.