Lily, he's sorry, he regrets it all. He sighs hard and puts the half of the letter in his inner robe pockets for now, then moves to stand aside and let Shadow Milk scour the room, his eyes looking around slowly as he does.
The first of it is a familiar rabbit- Mafuyu Asahina.
She has full marks in everything, but her mother keeps insisting that she can do better, must do better, are you sure this is everything you can teach her blahblahblah blah BLAH, good GODS woman. Your daughter's an exceptional student of remarkable talent and rather than nurturing that spark of light you're smothering it in oil! (Note to self, slip more wisteria into her tea next consultation.) Honestly though, when she's allowed time to herself she seems more artistic... which makes her academic achievements even better. Still, she indulges his games and theatrics, and when she does show curiosity it's a beast to behold.
And Cassie! Full marks again, can you believe that she almost didn't get an education? Girl's going to revolutionize the world, he can see it! Her mathematics and magical formulas are especially impressive, and he hopes once they can escape the forest that she can really come into bloom. ... Kinda terrifying when you look at her already packed schedule though. Take a NAP now and then, jeeze.
There's more, all with sass and comments in stride. But those students haven't been confirmed yet. So shhh. There's also a note that one of the local teacher's kid is going to be a sponge for knowledge as he gets older- better strike while the iron's hot!
The Letters are... more complex. And plentiful by far. Percival and playful banter- except from the sounds of it, life in the Grove is getting... worrisome, and there's a distinct feeling that some letters have been hidden away elsewhere. Then Lily, affectionate and playful and exchanging notes on their current research topics. It's warm. Both of those letter sets are warm. Lily includes flowers and Percy includes bundles of herbs. Percy also writes more often, and with multiple pages- there's so much love in every swirl of ink, and he goes on about the children they look after, the wedding invitation reiterated in multiple letters, the description of the local Guardians- and that statue on the beach!
Best friends. Confidants. The gaps between letters can only be from when he himself was present too.
Other letters include ministers encouraging him to return to the capitol, we can't have our greatest teacher yet in some hick town. Colleagues asking about living in fae woods, and a Salem Strode or a Birûsk Shula reaching out now and then. Wonder who those could be.
There's half of a very passive-aggressive back and forth with a rival scholar who has CLEARLY never actually read other research papers in the field of enchantments. Something about looking at it is incredibly annoying...
...
And then there's the Journals.
The most recent is probably the most important, but he can read his boyhood days in school, neck and neck with Lily in the class rankings with Percy right behind, their friendship and a mutual loneliness- Lily doesn't like to go home during the breaks for a reason. Salem and Birûsk enter his life, as do others- a M.F and an Eleanor Shirin. Breakthroughs and love and success, so much success.
Too much success. Maybe do not try and break into the forbidden so much, you keep getting, uh, strongly worded letters from the church. Thank goodness your reputation and prowess protects you.
The last though...
Percy sent for help, and who was he if he didn't answer? ... Lily is deranged, caged like a broken animal who knows her death is coming because it whispers in her ears that it's coming for her and Percy can't help her. Seamus is reluctant to admit it, but he's... also not sure. But what is this knowledge for if not to be used? And if he must break reality, so be it.
But Aldric's condition is also worsening, and people are disappearing more and more by the day. He teaches to give a sense of normalcy to the students, and then researches throughout the night.
It's easy to focus on the report cards, honestly. There's nothing particularly damning in them, and they are interesting besides. The little rabbit, yes, this seems to inform some things doesn't it? His curiosity over her grows. Ah, and this must be what Heihei had meant about poisoning her. It really does sound like him, like he used to be, he remembers briefly, the spark of joy that came from watching students blossom. His time as headmaster really had been a happy one, hadn't it? What happened, what happened-
More letters ... More letters and he still suspects things to be missing. He hones in on some of those dates, some of those gaps, the way some letters leave off while the next begin strangely with missing context. He reads them all, piecing together more and more of this ironic tragedy.
The diaries take some time to read through, though he is very fast comparatively. A former fount of knowledge would be well versed in speed-reading, after all. The names he takes note of, piecing together possibilities of who they could be. It strikes him how strange it is that so much can cross lives, if he is right, and he's pretty sure he is. He wants to learn more about them... the other beasts. Had their lives, too, enjoyed some kind of paradise here? Were they also fated for their downfall on Earthbread? Who put this into motion? Was it the creature? The entity in the woods? Is that who he has to direct his newfound blackened fury towards?
Though his emotions on everything dip and rise depending on what he's reading, he manages to keep himself together, fueled instead by the maddening desire to learn and understand. There is a mystery here, pieces of a puzzle, there is a grand finale that they don't have the script to, and he needs to find it. If he doesn't, he feels like he will lose some missing piece of himself he hadn't realized was gone.
The research isn't here, so it must be elsewhere. He has more rooms to search. When he looks up, he looks at Pure Vanilla and there is ...a complicated expression on his face. Like he isn't quite sure who he is right now, all he knows is he needs to move forward or the lack of answers will eat him alive. He wordlessly hands PV the journals before heading out of the room.
He knows what he is looking for now. Where is the lab, he's certain there must be one.
Watching Shadow Milk is... like watching Lily. The fervor in which he devours the material presented him, the manic way he shuts the rest of the world out around him as he does. The expression on his face when he finally lifts his head and their eyes meet. The need to keep going, to learn more, himself be damned by whatever he finds.
Which raises the question in him again. Why was he chosen to be the opposite for Knowledge, when White Lily would have been so much the wiser choice? He looks at two and sees the similarities far easier than he sees his own. Both were Knowledge, are Knowledge. Doubt chews at his core, and he narrows the growing connection so Shadow Milk doesn't feel it.
He takes the journals when they're handed to him and turns to follow Shadow Milk at a distance, opening the journals to read a little here or there. Ah, he thought so. It matches the broken half of the letter. He closes the journals again without reading much and merely holds them tight.
The lab... is in two parts. One is clean and precise- or as much as it can be after years of disuse, and was meant for lessons. But hidden beneath a set of tiles is the way down to the second half.
It's dark, reeking of old blood and ink, of matted fur and dust, of pain and misery and desperation.
Multiple iterations of magic circles litter the floor, failed corpses of animals and even the plant-animal hybrids, spirits snuffed out. Etched into the wall is a door that both know must remain closed, must not open, how familiar, how tragic, how fitting-
And then there is the notes. Percy's letters of monsters and a broken temple, people going missing, and Lily's madness. Scrawled notes smuggled out of the inn that smell like flowers about the voice heard and visions gave and she never wanted to hurt anyone not Percy especially please please make it stop make it stop make it stop help me I must claw this wretched thing from my veins but there are no knives-
Notes on failed experiments. The wrong species. The wrong pull. Something is interfering with the lay lines, something is keeping the souls, the magic circles aren't right why isn't anything WORKING--
Lily is gone and Percy is going to follow soon. There's talks of a ritual to send their souls away. But if Lily is gone and shattered and lingering what will happen to her? If he can keep Percy alive long enough to save him, good. Good. But they both know a part of her is still there. He thinks and dares not speak this to Percy that Lily will too be reborn, but as shattered as her soul was by the monster causing all of this, he fears she will be incomplete, missing parts of her- and then there are others who have perished before this heresy, but leave a mark yet... He prays he is wrong... but he was never a devout man.
And if they make it through this, then the door- the door will bring his beloved friends back home to him.
The first lab is of no interest to him, not yet anyway. He moves past it after giving it a moments scan, finding that he will not waste his time here too long. The smell driving him, and perhaps also, the feeling of deranged, corrupted magic, also pulls him to finding the hidden door without much fuss. Of course, yes, this makes sense. It's all going to be down here.
There is a sinking feeling in his stomach, as he descends those stairs, ghosts and phantoms clinging to his arms and legs, trying to pull him back. Why don't you keep the lie, keep the deceit, do you really need to seek this Truth? What will it get you in the end? More pain, MORE PAIN!.
But his soul is mingled with Truth, filling up the parts of him that's missing and locked away, the parts of him that filthy gnat sealed when he woke here. He moves forward like a cookie possessed and as he finds what he's looking for...
He falls silent, a deafening quite that rings the ears so loud it invites madness. Depending on how long it takes for Pure Vanilla to catch up to him, he will find his Other Half at the center of the room, amidst the old carnage and madness, holding some of his-- Seamus' research. He begins to laugh.
And it rises into hysteria, loud, maddening and distraught.
CW: animal sacrifice, animal death, necromancy here on out
The dread had been bad enough as he followed Shadow Milk down, the eerie feeling creeping into his skin enough that he had kept his eyes closed the entire time. He didn't want to see, the smell was bad enough. Rot and dust, and emotions echoing in the room around them. Cloying and clawing and desperate to make themselves known and felt.
When he opens his eyes, he wishes he hadn't.
He recognizes some of the circles, Percy having drawn them himself in mad desperation. There are others he doesn't (but he does, they look like some of the circles Lily and him had drawn together to try and make the perfect Cookie, but different, different enough), and then there's the decayed remains of animals. Seamus had actually tried where Percy couldn't.
The door grabs his eyes and he stares at it, fingers digging into the journals in his arms. They call. They cry. They scream. They whisper and laugh and-
No, that laughter is Shadow Milks and he yanks his eyes from the door, heart in his chest. He quickly sets the journals down amongst the littered notes and crosses the distance. His arms wrap around the other first, before he opens that connection again and floods him with reassurance.
No, no, shh. I'm here. Focus on me, focus on this. Focus!
And he digs his fingers into that embrace, not to pull him away, but to find some kind of purchase, to anchor himself while he feels the madness claw right out of his throat. While the Truth fills him like a poison.
"OH, this is so FUNNY, Vanilly. Don't you see?!"
Another laugh tears itself out of his throat, he tips his head back, but he is clearly shaking in Vanilla's arms, his knees threatening to buckle.
"This story, it was aaaaalways meant to be a comedy! Haha! Why else would I make such a delightful jester, Oh, what a show stealer I am! Look at all this! For them! For them!"
But finally some of that reassurance reaches, cools him like a salve, and some of the hysteria finally gives way to ...distraught conflicted feelings. Who is he? Who is he really? He threatened to dismantle reality and the natural order for ...For Vanilla and Lily and in his next life did everything in his power to break and destroy them. Was wanting them back so vile that he deserved this kind of karmic punishment? That he endured eons or torment and loneliness?
I am growing tired of this poetic irony.
He can't accept that, he won't. If it's sweet Deceit, so be it. This is all the creature's doing, and it will pay for the part he has been forced to play.
He can only guess. Why they all went to the same world together, and then went through so much in so many different lives. Why Shadow Milk walked the same paths there as he did here, and then fell, fell into Madness and Corruption, and then was punished and locked away. Treated like a mad Beast rather than someone who had broken under the weight of too much pushed onto his shoulders while alone.
Like Lily locked away in the Inn room.
And why they were then placed after, walking in his footsteps, forced to follow after him. More karma? Did a yearning he not understand drive him to pick them out specifically and torment them, because he didn't understand? Why not make them be together, so they could support one another, why torment them so much more?
Why? Why why why-
"Shadow Milk," his voice is soft, and he shifts his hands up to the other's head, tugs him down into his shoulder, wraps his arms around him. I'm here. I'm with you. Shh. Lean on me, fill yourself with me. Listen to me.
It is strangely dehumanizing, isn't it? Referring to their predecessors as Beasts. What a strangely cruel thing to become their name after it was all said and done.
The sound that comes out of him is furious and anguished all at once, not unlike when they had their little altercation in TR's room a few days ago. He has to get it out, because if he holds it in, he knows he will go mad. He will become that monster fate has been trying to make him all this time. That he has been all this time, but he'd somehow tricked himself into reaching for the light anyway now that they were in this place.
He opens the gates and lets Pure Vanilla in. He feels his mind starting to fray, trying to reconcile the cruel reality of all this. This Truth was rotten, actually, and he wants so badly to climb back into the lies he knows to be comforting.
He digs his fingers into his hair, mindful of those eyes, and digs his mind into his Other-Half's. It's difficult yet, the connection is growing stronger the longer they spend together, but it's still delicate. And he's fighting against the fraying. He has to hold onto the edges and whisper quietly.
The past doesn't matter. It's happened, it's another life. What matters is the now, this road we're walking. Together. You're not alone. And I know it's difficult.
Ovens, it he knows it must be difficult for Shadow Milk to see this life where he had friends and loves, and then to try and reconcile it with the life he was forced to live for... for eons.
I know. But he did not do this for himself. He did not do this for some sick twisted gain. He wasn't a monster. He loved so strongly that he couldn't do anything but try to help the people he held in his heart.
... And wasn't that the same for Shadow Milk, back when he was the Fount of Knowledge? Willing to share, to encourage everyone around him to grow, out of love for them? His fingers dig, take sharp hold.
He latches onto it, desperate. Lets Vanilla fill every crack and crevice to help keep him together. The anger finally starts to quell, the violent anguish seeps out of him little by little. He leans into Vanilla's touch like a lifeline. Drinks it up, tries to meld himself into him as much as he can.
He's left with just a single lingering feeling. An echo of Vanilla's own words. Why?
His love and happiness had always come with a twisted price, hadn't it? He grew tired of cookiekind's aversion of Truth, grew miserable, The Light Of Knowledge a weight in his mind that kept pulling and pulling until he drowned. And when his lies became so easy, and so sweet, that joy had lit him up from within until it twisted him. Until suddenly he felt the power at his fingertips to carry on that joy to into something vengeful. The crack in his mind that had festered into something horrific.
It began here. He sees it now.
There's a soft, unkind laugh from the connection.
I see. That's why my reflection looks at me with such disgust. What a joke.
Vanillas exclamation is both outloud and in Shadow Milks head. There's force behind it as well. Perhaps he would have agreed, when he first encountered the other, was being ripped apart by him. But he's felt his soul.
He can't agree with it now.
His hands shift down and dig into clothes, blunt nails biting against skin under them. The urge to shake Shadow Milk is strong but he'd have to back away to do that and he knows if he does, the other is going to crumble. So instead he makes his hug as crushing as possible.
Do not trust what your own eyes tell you! You have been seeped in Deceit for so long it is all you see! You know well if you lie hard enough, it becomes your Truth.
A soft exhale and he turns his head, leans it against the one on his shoulder.
You see what you believe you should see, someone who you once were, staring back in disgust. But look at the notes around you, look at how hard he toiled for love. He would not hate you. He would not hate who he became because he became it out of love. You became who you are because you loved but no one was there to help you with the weight.
Was Percy? Did Percy fight to stay for his friend who was coming to his rescue? An ache in his chest tells him no. No, he abandoned him.
It catches him off guard, not gonna lie. Shakes him out of whatever hateful spiral he was threatening to fall into.
It's not lost on him that of all people, Vanilla really should be the last one trying to defend him to himself, but ...well. That's who Vanilla was, right? Even when he tried to break that out of him, it remained. It is also not lost on him, that he may be trying to crush his spine not unlike the way he tried to crush his soul back in the Spire. How the turn tables, indeed.
It's sobering, and he settles down finally. There is a strange, ironic amusement almost at the end of his words.
Silly-Vanilly.
It's a touch fond. He isn't sure he entirely believes him, because while he had been mad for much of his reign as Beast, he does too, still remember it. He remembers how much sick violence and twisted glee ran through him, stringing up entire civilizations and watching them fall by his own machinations. It's hard to call something like that love, even by his measures.
But...it is a nice lie, isn't it?
That man was foolish ...exactly as foolish as I am, what a funny twist, huh?
He gets his feet under him again, takes a deep breath, basking for a moment more of closeness, before he starts to pull away. If uh, PV will let him, that is.
Yeah, he might find the grasp a little hard to get out of. Not impossible if he really wiggles, but someone is clinging tightly. And he huffs to Silly-Vanilly, pouting just a bit.
You are foolish. Say it.
Oh there's a hint of what was there in the Inn.
Say you're not alone now, say you're not a monster. Do you hear me? You were a Cookie who bore the weight of too much thrust onto him, with no one who could entirely understand you! You had to wait so long... Neither you nor the man who was here are monsters!
Oh. Okay. He won't force them apart, so he lingers.
But this demand ...what's gotten into him. He falls quiet a moment, opening his mouth a few times and shutting it, then ...giving him the most bewildered expression.
Vanilly, You remember that I pushed children off the top of my Spire, right? I would PROBABLY do it again, if it got me what I wanted. I can say I'm not alone now, but I'm deeeeeeefinitely still a monster.
It was cute, though, this sentiment. It makes him weirdly happy that Vanilla got so suddenly up in arms about it.
Oh no, do not get me wrong, my Other Half. I will not deny you were a monster. We all have choices, and you made yours.
Now he does pull back so he can look Shadow Milk in the eye. Probing the man whose confused about who he is, and what he should be.
I am not excusing you of your sins, nor will I. But you must see what I see.
He speaks outloud again, his voice soft but ringing with his conviction.
"A man who is trying. A man who has put his foot down onto a new path. You were a monster, and you delighted in it. But you're not one now. Please, do not say you are any longer."
Why does that hurt so much to hear? What a wild, confusing feeling he has in his chest right now. He almost wants to start screaming again. Throw a wild tantrum, push Vanilla away and prove to him how wrong he is. Prove he is a worse monster than the one that's currently imprisoning them.
But then he strangely steps outside of that feeling, for a moment, he exists as if that monster is beside him, and he sees with a shocking clarity what it is. Pure Vanilla speaks Truth, and maybe for the first time he's actually seeing it, too.
The toll of the Light of Knowledge.
Something else rises up in him, something terrifying, something akin to panic, but as it reaches its peak all he feels is a strange release. Like he's finally been set free. Like chains that had been wrapped around his mind he hadn't noticed before suddenly broke and fell around him. A flood of emotion sweeps him up and leaves him breathless as the surprised tears start to fall. Ugh, this body.
He looks shell-shocked, like he isn't sure what to make of it all.
"Fine...fine," He finally says. His voice quiet. "I'm ...I'm not a monster."
"You are not," he agrees, and tilts Shadow Milks face so he can press a warm kiss to his forehead. The touch is full of pride and love. Shadow Milk is on the path to redemption, and Pure Vanilla will guide him. Despite the torment and pain he caused him, as he's forgiven what he's done to him.
Has he? Has he forgiven? Or has he tasted that madness and is sinking in to it in his place, rising him up as he himself sinks?
He pulls back again to look around, slowly take the room in, his hand moving down to grip Shadow Milks, fold their fingers together.
"Do you want to come back here later?"
Because he knows once Shadow Milk is more stable, he'll want to come back here. Want to open the books. Read the journals. The torn letter in his pocket feels like a physical weight.
Why are Shadow Milk and Lily so alike, why does he keep trailing in their footsteps?
Selfishly he basks in that contact, feeling himself finally equalize. He feels weirdly light, despite how wretched he had been moments ago. Was this ...catharsis? Nngh. He gives his hand freely, at least, and holds it tight.
Vanilla isn't being careful about their connection, though. While he seems to claim he is no longer full of doubt, something is clearly still at the edges of his mind. He frowns for a moment. He is less affected by that bit about forgiveness than maybe expected. If Vanilla hasn't truly forgiven him, then he would find that more believable. That he may be lying to himself about it is the issue.
His worry about madness is much more pressing to him. They are two sides of the same coin, but this is not the way he thinks it should be. When he thinks of the idea of him rising for Vanilla to sink, it makes him clench his jaw, conflicted. Why is he so upset by this suddenly? Didn't he want this for him? Wanted to see the Jam corrupt him wholly? No, not anymore. Not with his mind so clear for the first time in thousands of years.
"...I want to take a look at the door before we leave. Did you see anything of interest?"
Oh he's no longer full of self-doubt, but there's ton of other things to doubt. Especially when sometimes the black abyss grins up at you, and you look into it and find you can't recall what love is. They are two sides to the same coin are they really doesn't it seem like Lily should be on the other side and unless they find that precious balance, one side of the coin will be up while the other down.
That's how it goes.
He hums softly to the question and looks towards the door again, then smiles to being foolish.
"I always am, Shadow Milk," is his response before his smile fades. "It's a door like in the Academy. They whisper behind it." His staring is maybe a little unnerving as he listens to the voices of the souls that yearn. He can only marginally see behind it, maybe that's for the best, but he can hear them clearly. Not that he can pick out individual words, but they fill his ear. They whisper longing. They scream for release. He should look away, he should stop listening, he-
He should open the door.
His free hand jerks up momentarily towards it - is this the same urge Lily had when she opened the one in the Academy - then he drops it again as he controls that sudden desire, exhales. A chill creeps up his spine and lodges itself into the back of his brain and he shakes his head, then closes his eyes. Resolutely closes them, shutting out the world entirely. Shutting out the whispers.
"I don't know if the souls behind the door are it's or not," corrupted pieces clinging to insects, Vash's clinging to his body still but flaking and peeling in pieces, "but it's not to be touched."
He knows it, at least. He will address this some other time. He is going to be watching him. What is this constant nonsense about the Guardian being in his place? He does not want her in his place, he wants Vanilla, so why is he so worried? Does he not understand why he stands as Truth? He will have to find a way to shake that out of him. Make him see what is very obvious to him, at least.
"Unsurprising of my handy work, I suppose, seeing as yours truly built that door, too."
Ah, but while those voices are dull and difficult for him to hear, mostly just through their connection, he shares that same chill, and he pulls back on Vanilla the moment he feels him start to try and move forward. Stands in front of him.
"Infuriatingly, my connection with the other-realm is tightly sealed, or else I'd be able to pick apart the threads of this things magical fabric." Annoying, still. Annoying to be denied something that was as easy as breathing for him for so long.
"What's the percentage in this place of fool-hearty, self-proclaimed main characters who might stumble upon this door and make bad choices."
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sticksandbones2025-02-06 07:42 pm
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He looks right at Pure Vanilla as he walks in, tongue out, long and forked like a snake and grins at him. Then he stands up!! dusts his hands off!!
"Human blood is gross! Man, what are these people eating, hahaha!"
Anyways. Let's go take a look at that little writing desk so he can give himself some psychic damage.
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There's a set of diaries, a collection of letters, and student reports.
Where do you want to start?
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To smother the worry and apprehension.We will go in order of: Student reports, collection of letters, and then diaries.
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She has full marks in everything, but her mother keeps insisting that she can do better, must do better, are you sure this is everything you can teach her blahblahblah blah BLAH, good GODS woman. Your daughter's an exceptional student of remarkable talent and rather than nurturing that spark of light you're smothering it in oil! (Note to self, slip more wisteria into her tea next consultation.) Honestly though, when she's allowed time to herself she seems more artistic... which makes her academic achievements even better. Still, she indulges his games and theatrics, and when she does show curiosity it's a beast to behold.
And Cassie! Full marks again, can you believe that she almost didn't get an education? Girl's going to revolutionize the world, he can see it! Her mathematics and magical formulas are especially impressive, and he hopes once they can escape the forest that she can really come into bloom. ... Kinda terrifying when you look at her already packed schedule though. Take a NAP now and then, jeeze.
There's more, all with sass and comments in stride. But those students haven't been confirmed yet. So shhh. There's also a note that one of the local teacher's kid is going to be a sponge for knowledge as he gets older- better strike while the iron's hot!
The Letters are... more complex. And plentiful by far. Percival and playful banter- except from the sounds of it, life in the Grove is getting... worrisome, and there's a distinct feeling that some letters have been hidden away elsewhere. Then Lily, affectionate and playful and exchanging notes on their current research topics. It's warm. Both of those letter sets are warm. Lily includes flowers and Percy includes bundles of herbs. Percy also writes more often, and with multiple pages- there's so much love in every swirl of ink, and he goes on about the children they look after, the wedding invitation reiterated in multiple letters, the description of the local Guardians- and that statue on the beach!
Best friends. Confidants. The gaps between letters can only be from when he himself was present too.
Other letters include ministers encouraging him to return to the capitol, we can't have our greatest teacher yet in some hick town. Colleagues asking about living in fae woods, and a Salem Strode or a Birûsk Shula reaching out now and then. Wonder who those could be.
There's half of a very passive-aggressive back and forth with a rival scholar who has CLEARLY never actually read other research papers in the field of enchantments. Something about looking at it is incredibly annoying...
...
And then there's the Journals.
The most recent is probably the most important, but he can read his boyhood days in school, neck and neck with Lily in the class rankings with Percy right behind, their friendship and a mutual loneliness- Lily doesn't like to go home during the breaks for a reason. Salem and Birûsk enter his life, as do others- a M.F and an Eleanor Shirin. Breakthroughs and love and success, so much success.
Too much success. Maybe do not try and break into the forbidden so much, you keep getting, uh, strongly worded letters from the church. Thank goodness your reputation and prowess protects you.
The last though...
Percy sent for help, and who was he if he didn't answer? ... Lily is deranged, caged like a broken animal who knows her death is coming because it whispers in her ears that it's coming for her and Percy can't help her. Seamus is reluctant to admit it, but he's... also not sure. But what is this knowledge for if not to be used? And if he must break reality, so be it.
But Aldric's condition is also worsening, and people are disappearing more and more by the day. He teaches to give a sense of normalcy to the students, and then researches throughout the night.
It's not enough. It may never be enough.
...
His notes on the research are not here.
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His time as headmaster really had been a happy one, hadn't it? What happened, what happened-More letters ... More letters and he still suspects things to be missing. He hones in on some of those dates, some of those gaps, the way some letters leave off while the next begin strangely with missing context. He reads them all, piecing together more and more of this ironic tragedy.
The diaries take some time to read through, though he is very fast comparatively. A former fount of knowledge would be well versed in speed-reading, after all. The names he takes note of, piecing together possibilities of who they could be. It strikes him how strange it is that so much can cross lives, if he is right, and he's pretty sure he is. He wants to learn more about them... the other beasts. Had their lives, too, enjoyed some kind of paradise here? Were they also fated for their downfall on Earthbread? Who put this into motion? Was it the creature? The entity in the woods? Is that who he has to direct his newfound blackened fury towards?
Though his emotions on everything dip and rise depending on what he's reading, he manages to keep himself together, fueled instead by the maddening desire to learn and understand. There is a mystery here, pieces of a puzzle, there is a grand finale that they don't have the script to, and he needs to find it. If he doesn't, he feels like he will lose some missing piece of himself he hadn't realized was gone.
The research isn't here, so it must be elsewhere. He has more rooms to search. When he looks up, he looks at Pure Vanilla and there is ...a complicated expression on his face. Like he isn't quite sure who he is right now, all he knows is he needs to move forward or the lack of answers will eat him alive. He wordlessly hands PV the journals before heading out of the room.
He knows what he is looking for now. Where is the lab, he's certain there must be one.
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Which raises the question in him again. Why was he chosen to be the opposite for Knowledge, when White Lily would have been so much the wiser choice? He looks at two and sees the similarities far easier than he sees his own. Both were Knowledge, are Knowledge. Doubt chews at his core, and he narrows the growing connection so Shadow Milk doesn't feel it.
He takes the journals when they're handed to him and turns to follow Shadow Milk at a distance, opening the journals to read a little here or there. Ah, he thought so. It matches the broken half of the letter. He closes the journals again without reading much and merely holds them tight.
CW: animal sacrifice, animal death, necromancy
It's dark, reeking of old blood and ink, of matted fur and dust, of pain and misery and desperation.
Multiple iterations of magic circles litter the floor, failed corpses of animals and even the plant-animal hybrids, spirits snuffed out. Etched into the wall is a door that both know must remain closed, must not open, how familiar, how tragic, how fitting-
And then there is the notes. Percy's letters of monsters and a broken temple, people going missing, and Lily's madness. Scrawled notes smuggled out of the inn that smell like flowers about the voice heard and visions gave and she never wanted to hurt anyone not Percy especially please please make it stop make it stop make it stop help me I must claw this wretched thing from my veins but there are no knives-
Notes on failed experiments. The wrong species. The wrong pull. Something is interfering with the lay lines, something is keeping the souls, the magic circles aren't right why isn't anything WORKING--
Lily is gone and Percy is going to follow soon. There's talks of a ritual to send their souls away. But if Lily is gone and shattered and lingering what will happen to her? If he can keep Percy alive long enough to save him, good. Good. But they both know a part of her is still there. He thinks and dares not speak this to Percy that Lily will too be reborn, but as shattered as her soul was by the monster causing all of this, he fears she will be incomplete, missing parts of her- and then there are others who have perished before this heresy, but leave a mark yet... He prays he is wrong... but he was never a devout man.
And if they make it through this, then the door- the door will bring his beloved friends back home to him.
All of this is for them.
CW: animal sacrifice, animal death, necromancy
There is a sinking feeling in his stomach, as he descends those stairs, ghosts and phantoms clinging to his arms and legs, trying to pull him back. Why don't you keep the lie, keep the deceit, do you really need to seek this Truth? What will it get you in the end? More pain, MORE PAIN!.
But his soul is mingled with Truth, filling up the parts of him that's missing and locked away, the parts of him that filthy gnat sealed when he woke here. He moves forward like a cookie possessed and as he finds what he's looking for...
He falls silent, a deafening quite that rings the ears so loud it invites madness. Depending on how long it takes for Pure Vanilla to catch up to him, he will find his Other Half at the center of the room, amidst the old carnage and madness, holding some of his-- Seamus' research. He begins to laugh.
And it rises into hysteria, loud, maddening and distraught.
CW: animal sacrifice, animal death, necromancy here on out
The dread had been bad enough as he followed Shadow Milk down, the eerie feeling creeping into his skin enough that he had kept his eyes closed the entire time. He didn't want to see, the smell was bad enough. Rot and dust, and emotions echoing in the room around them. Cloying and clawing and desperate to make themselves known and felt.
When he opens his eyes, he wishes he hadn't.
He recognizes some of the circles, Percy having drawn them himself in mad desperation. There are others he doesn't (but he does, they look like some of the circles Lily and him had drawn together to try and make the perfect Cookie, but different, different enough), and then there's the decayed remains of animals. Seamus had actually tried where Percy couldn't.
The door grabs his eyes and he stares at it, fingers digging into the journals in his arms. They call. They cry. They scream. They whisper and laugh and-
No, that laughter is Shadow Milks and he yanks his eyes from the door, heart in his chest. He quickly sets the journals down amongst the littered notes and crosses the distance. His arms wrap around the other first, before he opens that connection again and floods him with reassurance.
No, no, shh. I'm here. Focus on me, focus on this. Focus!
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"OH, this is so FUNNY, Vanilly. Don't you see?!"
Another laugh tears itself out of his throat, he tips his head back, but he is clearly shaking in Vanilla's arms, his knees threatening to buckle.
"This story, it was aaaaalways meant to be a comedy! Haha! Why else would I make such a delightful jester, Oh, what a show stealer I am! Look at all this! For them! For them!"
But finally some of that reassurance reaches, cools him like a salve, and some of the hysteria finally gives way to ...distraught conflicted feelings. Who is he? Who is he really? He threatened to dismantle reality and the natural order for ...For Vanilla and Lily and in his next life did everything in his power to break and destroy them. Was wanting them back so vile that he deserved this kind of karmic punishment? That he endured eons or torment and loneliness?
I am growing tired of this poetic irony.
He can't accept that, he won't. If it's sweet Deceit, so be it. This is all the creature's doing, and it will pay for the part he has been forced to play.
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Like Lily locked away in the Inn room.
And why they were then placed after, walking in his footsteps, forced to follow after him. More karma? Did a yearning he not understand drive him to pick them out specifically and torment them, because he didn't understand? Why not make them be together, so they could support one another, why torment them so much more?
Why? Why why why-
"Shadow Milk," his voice is soft, and he shifts his hands up to the other's head, tugs him down into his shoulder, wraps his arms around him. I'm here. I'm with you. Shh. Lean on me, fill yourself with me. Listen to me.
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The sound that comes out of him is furious and anguished all at once, not unlike when they had their little altercation in TR's room a few days ago. He has to get it out, because if he holds it in, he knows he will go mad. He will become that monster fate has been trying to make him all this time. That he has been all this time, but he'd somehow tricked himself into reaching for the light anyway now that they were in this place.
He opens the gates and lets Pure Vanilla in. He feels his mind starting to fray, trying to reconcile the cruel reality of all this. This Truth was rotten, actually, and he wants so badly to climb back into the lies he knows to be comforting.
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The past doesn't matter. It's happened, it's another life. What matters is the now, this road we're walking. Together. You're not alone. And I know it's difficult.
Ovens, it he knows it must be difficult for Shadow Milk to see this life where he had friends and loves, and then to try and reconcile it with the life he was forced to live for... for eons.
I know. But he did not do this for himself. He did not do this for some sick twisted gain. He wasn't a monster. He loved so strongly that he couldn't do anything but try to help the people he held in his heart.
... And wasn't that the same for Shadow Milk, back when he was the Fount of Knowledge? Willing to share, to encourage everyone around him to grow, out of love for them? His fingers dig, take sharp hold.
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He's left with just a single lingering feeling. An echo of Vanilla's own words. Why?
His love and happiness had always come with a twisted price, hadn't it? He grew tired of cookiekind's aversion of Truth, grew miserable, The Light Of Knowledge a weight in his mind that kept pulling and pulling until he drowned. And when his lies became so easy, and so sweet, that joy had lit him up from within until it twisted him. Until suddenly he felt the power at his fingertips to carry on that joy to into something vengeful. The crack in his mind that had festered into something horrific.
It began here. He sees it now.
There's a soft, unkind laugh from the connection.
I see. That's why my reflection looks at me with such disgust. What a joke.
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Vanillas exclamation is both outloud and in Shadow Milks head. There's force behind it as well. Perhaps he would have agreed, when he first encountered the other, was being ripped apart by him. But he's felt his soul.
He can't agree with it now.
His hands shift down and dig into clothes, blunt nails biting against skin under them. The urge to shake Shadow Milk is strong but he'd have to back away to do that and he knows if he does, the other is going to crumble. So instead he makes his hug as crushing as possible.
Do not trust what your own eyes tell you! You have been seeped in Deceit for so long it is all you see! You know well if you lie hard enough, it becomes your Truth.
A soft exhale and he turns his head, leans it against the one on his shoulder.
You see what you believe you should see, someone who you once were, staring back in disgust. But look at the notes around you, look at how hard he toiled for love. He would not hate you. He would not hate who he became because he became it out of love. You became who you are because you loved but no one was there to help you with the weight.
Was Percy? Did Percy fight to stay for his friend who was coming to his rescue? An ache in his chest tells him no. No, he abandoned him.
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It's not lost on him that of all people, Vanilla really should be the last one trying to defend him to himself, but ...well. That's who Vanilla was, right? Even when he tried to break that out of him, it remained. It is also not lost on him, that he may be trying to crush his spine not unlike the way he tried to crush his soul back in the Spire. How the turn tables, indeed.
It's sobering, and he settles down finally. There is a strange, ironic amusement almost at the end of his words.
Silly-Vanilly.
It's a touch fond. He isn't sure he entirely believes him, because while he had been mad for much of his reign as Beast, he does too, still remember it. He remembers how much sick violence and twisted glee ran through him, stringing up entire civilizations and watching them fall by his own machinations. It's hard to call something like that love, even by his measures.
But...it is a nice lie, isn't it?
That man was foolish ...exactly as foolish as I am, what a funny twist, huh?
He gets his feet under him again, takes a deep breath, basking for a moment more of closeness, before he starts to pull away. If uh, PV will let him, that is.
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You are foolish. Say it.
Oh there's a hint of what was there in the Inn.
Say you're not alone now, say you're not a monster. Do you hear me? You were a Cookie who bore the weight of too much thrust onto him, with no one who could entirely understand you! You had to wait so long... Neither you nor the man who was here are monsters!
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But this demand ...what's gotten into him. He falls quiet a moment, opening his mouth a few times and shutting it, then ...giving him the most bewildered expression.
Vanilly, You remember that I pushed children off the top of my Spire, right? I would PROBABLY do it again, if it got me what I wanted. I can say I'm not alone now, but I'm deeeeeeefinitely still a monster.
It was cute, though, this sentiment. It makes him weirdly happy that Vanilla got so suddenly up in arms about it.
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Now he does pull back so he can look Shadow Milk in the eye. Probing the man whose confused about who he is, and what he should be.
I am not excusing you of your sins, nor will I. But you must see what I see.
He speaks outloud again, his voice soft but ringing with his conviction.
"A man who is trying. A man who has put his foot down onto a new path. You were a monster, and you delighted in it. But you're not one now. Please, do not say you are any longer."
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Why does that hurt so much to hear? What a wild, confusing feeling he has in his chest right now. He almost wants to start screaming again. Throw a wild tantrum, push Vanilla away and prove to him how wrong he is. Prove he is a worse monster than the one that's currently imprisoning them.
But then he strangely steps outside of that feeling, for a moment, he exists as if that monster is beside him, and he sees with a shocking clarity what it is. Pure Vanilla speaks Truth, and maybe for the first time he's actually seeing it, too.
The toll of the Light of Knowledge.
Something else rises up in him, something terrifying, something akin to panic, but as it reaches its peak all he feels is a strange release. Like he's finally been set free. Like chains that had been wrapped around his mind he hadn't noticed before suddenly broke and fell around him. A flood of emotion sweeps him up and leaves him breathless as the surprised tears start to fall. Ugh, this body.
He looks shell-shocked, like he isn't sure what to make of it all.
"Fine...fine," He finally says. His voice quiet. "I'm ...I'm not a monster."
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Has he? Has he forgiven? Or has he tasted that madness and is sinking in to it in his place, rising him up as he himself sinks?
He pulls back again to look around, slowly take the room in, his hand moving down to grip Shadow Milks, fold their fingers together.
"Do you want to come back here later?"
Because he knows once Shadow Milk is more stable, he'll want to come back here. Want to open the books. Read the journals. The torn letter in his pocket feels like a physical weight.
Why are Shadow Milk and Lily so alike, why does he keep trailing in their footsteps?
"Or do you want to keep going?"
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Vanilla isn't being careful about their connection, though. While he seems to claim he is no longer full of doubt, something is clearly still at the edges of his mind. He frowns for a moment. He is less affected by that bit about forgiveness than maybe expected. If Vanilla hasn't truly forgiven him, then he would find that more believable. That he may be lying to himself about it is the issue.
His worry about madness is much more pressing to him. They are two sides of the same coin, but this is not the way he thinks it should be. When he thinks of the idea of him rising for Vanilla to sink, it makes him clench his jaw, conflicted.
Why is he so upset by this suddenly? Didn't he want this for him? Wanted to see the Jam corrupt him wholly? No, not anymore. Not with his mind so clear for the first time in thousands of years."...I want to take a look at the door before we leave. Did you see anything of interest?"
To his other worry, Shadow Milk frowns a moment.
"You're the one being foolish, Vanilly."
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That's how it goes.
He hums softly to the question and looks towards the door again, then smiles to being foolish.
"I always am, Shadow Milk," is his response before his smile fades. "It's a door like in the Academy. They whisper behind it." His staring is maybe a little unnerving as he listens to the voices of the souls that yearn. He can only marginally see behind it, maybe that's for the best, but he can hear them clearly. Not that he can pick out individual words, but they fill his ear. They whisper longing. They scream for release. He should look away, he should stop listening, he-
He should open the door.
His free hand jerks up momentarily towards it - is this the same urge Lily had when she opened the one in the Academy - then he drops it again as he controls that sudden desire, exhales. A chill creeps up his spine and lodges itself into the back of his brain and he shakes his head, then closes his eyes. Resolutely closes them, shutting out the world entirely. Shutting out the whispers.
"I don't know if the souls behind the door are it's or not," corrupted pieces clinging to insects, Vash's clinging to his body still but flaking and peeling in pieces, "but it's not to be touched."
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"Unsurprising of my handy work, I suppose, seeing as yours truly built that door, too."
Ah, but while those voices are dull and difficult for him to hear, mostly just through their connection, he shares that same chill, and he pulls back on Vanilla the moment he feels him start to try and move forward. Stands in front of him.
"Infuriatingly, my connection with the other-realm is tightly sealed, or else I'd be able to pick apart the threads of this things magical fabric." Annoying, still. Annoying to be denied something that was as easy as breathing for him for so long.
"What's the percentage in this place of fool-hearty, self-proclaimed main characters who might stumble upon this door and make bad choices."
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cw repitition
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