#pre corrupted beasts

It had been a long, long day for you, flittering to and fro at the Fount of Knowledge’s beck and call. As one of his most trusted scholars and the bearer of his bonding kiss, you were almost always the one to aid him with gathering all he needed from the Spire of All Knowledge to prepare for future lessons at his school. Today, however, you stayed a bit later than usual as you helped gather each and every book and scroll he required for a rather in depth lesson he had planned, running yourself quite ragged. Upon noticing just how exhausted you were, your love had offered that you stay in the Tower for the night to rest. You had insisted you were fine, but he saw right through your lie and persisted, stating how dangerous it was to be outside alone so late. The genuine concern in his voice was enough to convince you, so you relented.

Something you were now beginning to regret.

As you lay in the bed of the room your Fount had quickly and meticulously prepared to your known tastes, trying to rest your weary dough, you found yourself plagued with frightening nightmares. Deceitful eyes that followed you wherever you ran, sharp smiles that cackled maniacally at your fear, and bright blue puppet strings that ensnared your limbs and tugged you about as if you were nothing more than a weightless marionette. Your body fitfully tossed and turned beneath the sheets, as if actively fighting to shake you awake, but your mind remained trapped in the darkness. You could feel the strings tugging at your neck, pulled by a puppeteer you could not see. Even as you felt sharp teeth grazing your ear, a vaguely familiar voice whispering incoherently to you from the lips of your captor, your body could not release your mind from its prison. It was only when you felt the stabbing pain of a Beast’s fangs sinking into your dough that your eyes snapped open with a scream, body shooting upright in a cold sweat.

You hyperventilate from the residual fear, your dough feeling like it was both burning and freezing at the same time. Your hand clutched over your heart, pulling at your nightshirt in a panic as if trying to physically ease the tightness you felt gripping your chest. All the sensations, all the pain, the terror…

It was excruciating.

It took a while for you to calm down, at least to the point where you were no longer forcing your lungs to work overtime. You were still breathing a bit quickly, but your breaths were deeper now, taking in more air. But you damn near started again when your door slammed open.

“I heard you scream!” The Fount of Knowledge exclaimed, eyes wide as he looked around for traces of what might have scared you. “Are you alright?!” He rushed to your side, checking you over once, twice, thrice. He paused at your neck. Gingerly, he reached out to it, and before you could ask what was wrong or what he was doing, his fingers lightly grazed the surface of your dough…

And you yelped.

He quickly withdrew as though the sound had burned him, and your own shot up to your neck to grab at the spot that now pulsed painfully, as if awakened in foul anger by the contact. That’s when you felt them. Teeth marks… Sharp punctures in the dough of your neck and shoulder. Sharp punctures that were… wet…? You slowly pulled your hand away; a hand that was streaked with red. Jam. Were you bleeding…? Did something bite you…? Is that why the pain in your dream felt so real? But that then begged the question…

What bit you?

The Fount of Knowledge eased himself onto the bed beside you, sliding his hand into yours and intertwining your fingers together. You gripped his dough as though it were a lifeline. “What happened, YN…?” He asked quietly as he gently used his free hand to clean and patch your wounded neck, as well as wipe the streaks of jam from your hand.

You shook your head. “It was horrible…” you whimpered, voice trembling. “The eyes, the smiles, the laughter, the feeling I couldn’t get away, I…” your voice left you, stolen away by how much you were shaking. He took you into his arms, soothing you as you sobbed into his shoulder. He stroked your back and murmured sweet nothings into your ear to calm you down. As your breathing slowed, he placed a kiss to the top of your head. But your next words caused his body to freeze, breath catching in his throat as it felt like everything suddenly clicked into place in his mind.

“It all felt so real… I can still feel those blue strings all over my body…”

He begged to the Witches he had misheard you. “Blue… strings…?” His voice sounded almost choked, but you barely noticed in your current state.

“There were bright blue puppet strings all around me…” you softly clarified, “They grabbed me, trapped me… controlled me…” Your next words were so quiet he almost didn’t hear you. “I was so scared…”

He didn’t move or speak for several beats after you finished. “My Fount…?” You pulled away to look at him, sucking in a breath when you saw his expression. His lips were slightly quirked down in an almost imperceptible frown and his muscles were rigid. But that wasn’t what caught you off guard. It was his eyes. Eyes that were wide and shadowed, pupils slit so thin as they stared at nothing that you almost couldn’t see them. In all the years you’d known him, you had never once seen him look so serious. So furious. So… terrified… “Light Milk…?”

That brought him back. Hearing his actual name aloud was such a rare occasion. Most only ever called him by his title, Fount of Knowledge. Even if they knew of his cookie name, most still used the title out of reverence. One of the few exceptions was at his academy, where his students referred to him as “professor” instead. The sound of his real name on the lips of another had an almost sobering effect on him. Especially since, other than his friends, you were the only one who ever really used it.

He snapped back to reality, pupils dilating as he focused his attention back on you. You just managed to catch the slight tremble of his lips as he gave you a sheepish smile. “Apologies, my dear.” His words were sincere as he spoke his pardons. “It would seem I traveled afar there for a moment.” He punctuated his statement with a chuckle that didn’t quite match his eyes.

You nodded slowly, the last remnants of your fear bleeding into confusion. “Are you… ok?”

He blinked slowly, expression blank, seeming to process your question. With another blink and a small shake, the blankness vanished. “Yes, yes, of course!” He said hurriedly, though he sounded like it wasn’t just you he was trying to convince. Your eyes narrowed, but before you could press him further, he spoke again. “I’m much more worried about you.”

“Oh, uh-” Lost for words at the abrupt shift in focus back to you, your need to figure out what was bothering him was suddenly almost nonexistent as you floundered to answer. “I’m sure it was a one and done nightmare,” you finally managed to say, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” But even as you spoke those words, your mind was flashing with doubt of their truth.

Light Milk Cookie hummed. Not necessarily in belief; more just in acknowledgment. “I have something for you,” he suddenly said, catching you a little by surprise. The Fount of Knowledge wasn’t as prone to gift giving as a few of the other Great Heroes, so hearing something like that during a moment like this? Well, it caught you a bit off guard to say the least. Nevertheless, you tilted your head curiously, a silent signal to show he had your full attention. His eyes began to glow as blue and golden magic swirled in his hands. It produced a doll that was made to be his spitting image. He smiled as he presented it to you. “He shall protect you in your dreams,” he explained, “Just give him a squeeze, perhaps a kiss for good measure, and you’ll feel me there, and your nightmares will be vanquished.”

You took the plush from him, face bright with awe and love. Yes, Light Milk wasn’t a big gift giver, but every gift he did give had a lot of thought behind it and always radiated with love. The doll was soft and light in your hands. Your heart felt as though it was practically bursting with adoration for the cookie before you as your fingers lightly traced the stitched smile on the doll’s face and gently fingered the gold and blue button eyes. “I love it…” you breathed out. You met his eyes. “Thank you, Light Milk.”

He responded with a passionate kiss to your lips. He cradled your face in both hands as he pulled back. “I will always love you,” he whispered, “Never forget that.”

There was something in his tone that you couldn’t quite place, but you nodded all the same. “Never,” you promised.

The smile he gave you at that was gentle and almost… sad? He stroked one of your cheeks with the thumb of the hand that still caressed it while his lips placed a chaste kiss to the other. “Sleep well, my love.” With that, he pulled away, his fingers lingering upon your cheek for just a few extra seconds, leaving a ghost of their touch when he finally broke contact. As he closed the door, he met your eyes one last time before disappearing behind the wood.

You unceremoniously flopped back onto the bed once he was gone. As your head hit the pillow, your eyes briefly drifted closed, only for your mind to immediately be assaulted by visions of the nightmare. You gasped and quickly opened your eyes again. Damn…

You felt a weight on your chest at that moment, causing you to glance down. Right, the doll. He said it would protect you. And so, you gave him a squeeze, tucked him in beside you, and for good measure, placed a goodnight kiss to his forehead. You drifted off to the sight of that stitched smile and those gold and blue button eyes, a pleasant dream of a date with your personal hero removing any leftover traces of the nightmare from your mind.

—

Darkness seemed to overtake your room as your mind fell into a deep sleep. Malicious blue eyes stared from all around, zeroed in on you and only you. They crinkled with delight as they watched your chest peacefully rise and fall, blissfully unaware of the encroaching danger.

A figure emerged from the shadows, seamlessly materializing directly from the blackness. Heels clicked against the floor tiles as it stalked toward your bed, a predator closing in on its unsuspecting prey. Sharp white teeth grinned as the Beast reached you, the many eyes within its hair and the two on its face shining eagerly as its claws stretched out. But just before it could grab you, gold and blue strings ensnared its wrist, instantly halting its movements. It was given a split second to process before even more emerged from what felt like everywhere at once and seized its body any place they could reach; waist, arms, legs, ankles. It was forcefully yanked back against the wall and away from its prize. The Beast growled, a sound that caught in its throat as a hand as blue as its own encircled its neck.

His golden and blue gaze was narrowed in a glower as Light Milk Cookie looked into a nigh identical face to his own. A face he knew all too well. Oh yes, he knew this face. It was one he had seen around the Spire a lot as of late. A face that took pride in controlling others, glee in wreaking havoc. A face that coveted you with an adoration that greatly tipped the scales into obsession. A face that drank in your tears as you were tortured by sorrow, your body wrought with fear. The face of a madman. His face. Or rather, the face of the cookie he would one day become.

Before, it had only been a theory. The past was set in stone. Everything of the past the Spire ever showed was something that had definitely already happened. The future, on the other hand, was a fickle thing. The Spire would occasionally show shaky paths to the Fount that the future could take, paths that didn’t always come to pass. It was when the Spire started showing those same paths to others that meant what was seen was inevitable and on a countdown to becoming reality. And now that you had seen this version of him…

He dreaded the thought.

His grip tightened around the throat of this future version of himself, eyes blazing with fury. Yes, he was furious. Furious at the Beast for the harm it would bring to you, but even more furious with himself, knowing that he would one day become this very Beast.

“I won’t let you touch them,” Light Milk Cookie’s voice came out in a low hiss, lips twisted in a ferocious snarl.

The Beast in his grip silently stared at him as if mulling over his words, eyes scanning the face of its former self and gauging everything it saw. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, its grin returned. It widened and widened until it spread from ear to ear and was practically splitting its face, eyes wild and manic. It giggled teasingly as it spoke five simple words that made the Fount of Knowledge’s heart drop into his knotted stomach.

“You won’t have a choice~”

—

inhale I like drama /ref