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The great Fount of Knowledge did not need sleep. He did not need food, or air, or drink. He was baked to be faultless, wantless, needless.
He was blessed.
Or cursed.
Depending on who you asked.
Immortal.
One of five.
Knowledge, Volition, Happiness, Change, and Solidarity.
Oodles of other cookies followed their creation. Playthings for the Virtues. Teach them, watch them, protect them, love them, adorn and adore them. The Fount watched them grow, watched them learn, create, destroy, love, live, crumble. Rinse and repeat. An endless cycle. A miserable existence.
Decades, Centuries, Millenniums.
All the same.
It was maddening. The Virtues all began to succumb to the temptations they were baked to defy, to sow chaos and destruction, death and decay, war and fear.
But it didn't stay that way.
Others came. Baked to carry the burden of their soul jams, to stave off the corruption, to save them.
Immortal, but not quite. They had each lived lives far richer than the Virtues could have ever dreamed of. Baked with flavors meant to compliment, to enhance their own ingredients.
Apathy, resolution.
Destruction, abundance.
Sloth, passion.
Silence, freedom.
Truth.
Deceit.
Pure Vanilla Cookie — his other half, the sun to his moon, the sky for his stars, the compassionate light for his sheltered and sealed heart. He came into The Fount’s life, not as a storm, a hurricane, or a whirlwind, but as a whisper. A soft greeting with an even softer smile. He had been a shepherd, once upon a time, and days in the fields left his skin sun-kissed and warm. Even now that he had his Witch-given purpose and was buried daily under robes of his faith, he was still just as soft and as warm as freshly baked dough.
Pure Vanilla needed sleep, food, air, drink — all the things weaker, more pathetic, and short-lived cookies needed.
Granted, he didn't need them as much or as frequently as mortal cookies did. The Fount had caught Pure Vanilla skipping meals more than either would care to admit, and Pure Vanilla always waved off his worries with excuses.
He was immortal, too, after all. He didn't need the food as much as the mortal cookies did.
It left Pure Vanilla feeling very light and fragile in The Founts arms, though he knew the other cookie was anything but fragile.
It still worried him. The Fount knew the only thing keeping Pure Vanilla immortal was the soul jam. And if the Witches — Great Ovens — if the Witches EVER thought Pure Vanilla was less than perfect...
The Fount kept his fears close to his dough. Buried under lectures, data, statistics, debates, long-winded speeches that left lesser cookies dumbly nodding along, flowery words that truly boiled down to nothing, was his fear that Pure Vanilla would be crumbled.
His fear that the Witches would discover The Founts wanting, his longing.
His fear that the Witches would take his Pure Vanilla away from him.
It was irrational.
Pure Vanilla always reassured him. Even if The Fount never voiced his fears aloud, Pure Vanilla always knew what seemed to be bothering The Fount. And he promised with soft hands and softer words, that he would NEVER leave The Fount.
They were immortal. They were each one half of a whole. Inseparable!
But Pure Vanilla was not immortal in the same way The Fount was, not really.
The Witches had made it clear that no matter how far, how fallen, or how corrupt the Virtues had become, they would keep them alive and try again with a new set of cookies to help carry the burden of their soul jams.
After all, the Virtues were the first cookies to successfully live with the life powder. Fully formed. Wielders of soul jams with immense power.
Perfect.
And the witches wouldn't just abandon their first baked cookies.
But Pure Vanilla?
Pure Vanilla, they could and would crumble if he was anything less than perfect. If they ever knew that The Fount had learned to want.
He begrudgingly let the smaller cookie into his world. And somehow, Pure Vanilla got to see him.
All of him.
His scattered thoughts that sometimes came in half-bursts and trailed off into nothing, his chaotic moods that shifted and swayed faster than a storm at sea, his highest of highs, and his lowest of lows.
He saw how The Fount despised the statues of himself, how the portraits of himself were always hidden behind drapes or in locked rooms, or shredded and left in pieces on the floor.
He saw how The Fount would stare a little too long at a cookie, and wonder if he was thinking of the 610,515 ways he could crumble them on the spot.
He saw all of that, and he stayed.
Of course he would stay.
Because he also saw The Fount that would reassure cookies that sicknesses come and go, and that this new wave of cough would pass by as all others had. And he was right.
He saw the way The Fount would entertain the children near their home when the academics and the pilgrims would be satisfied and gone for the day. Even if he was exhausted.
And he saw his smile, learned the way he took his tea, the routine he tried to keep each day.
Which, of course, The Fount noticed.
Because, of course he did.
Because Pure Vanilla was his other half.
And he didn’t want the Witches to take him away.
The Fount found himself adhering to Pure Vanilla’s routine, as well. Which was how he found himself dressing in clothes unbecoming of a Virtue when the sun set in the evening. Rather than transcribe his lectures, or put into creation new runes to learn, or decide which star he would be willing to poet on about next, he found himself pushed onto a bed that was not his, and made to lay still for hours.
Sleep.
Pure Vanilla claimed that even if The Fount did not need it, he should try to rest his body and mind more often.
It might do him some good.
It didn’t take long before their bodies entangled with one another, seeking comfort that no other cookie could provide. And secretly, The Fount adored holding his beloved Pure Vanilla in his arms.
The Fount clung to Pure Vanilla. He had to reassure himself that the other immortal could not leave him. So long as he was with him, the Witches could not take him, right?
He turned and laid his lips on the other cookie's forehead, not with any kind of pressure or heat. Just a presence. A need, a desire for connection in the silence of their shared space.
One clawed finger twirled around a length of the smaller cookie's vanilla-scented hair. A reminder of how he toed the line between his virtuous existence, and his corrupting desires. Him, a beastly Virtue, on the edge of collapsing.
Pure Vanilla, his soft, warm, sweet little cookie.
The Fount watched Pure Vanilla breathe, fascinated at the flickering of his eyes beneath his eyelids.
What was he dreaming of?
The Fount wondered if he could dream. If he could, he knew what he'd like to dream of.
For as much as he believed his life to be a cursed existence, he couldn't imagine going on without him.
His Pure Vanilla.
And wasn’t that just the most selfish thing he could do?