Chapter Text
THE WIND WAS CHILLING, EVEN THROUGH THE RECLUSE’S MANY layers of robes, but he did not feel cold.
It was nearing midnight in the Blueberry Yoghurt Village, but the Recluse and… him were still awake. Not that the Recluse wasn’t normally awake at this time—his insomnia never let him get more than an hour or two of sleep a night, and having a Soul-Jam, he wouldn’t be very affected by a few missing hours of sleep—but the fact that the other was up as well surprised him.
The Sage had never been seen in the village past the ten-thirty mark on the clock in the town square, the windows of his Spire dark and still and his lecture pedestal free of books or scrolls, and this tradition had not been broken for the entire time that the Recluse had known him. He was a very orderly man, and had there not been a party hosted by one of the scholar’s best friends in the village, the Recluse was certain he would currently be walking alone.
He was not. He could not tell if this fact was a blessing or a curse.
The Recluse had no idea how the party had been, actually; he’d not attended it. He’d just been passing through the village on his way back to his own tower when he noticed a very blue figure stumbling out of Cheese Croissant Cookie’s inn, giggling slightly, and realized quickly what was going on.
He’d rushed to support the Sage—Witches knew that man couldn’t hold a drop of alcohol if he tried—and with the scholar a near-deadweight tripping along beside the Recluse, had turned around and headed for the Sage’s Spire.
The entire walk so far, Blueberry Milk had been mumbling some jumbled nonsense with a dopey grin on his face that made sense only to him, except for the few times the Recluse had offered (read: threatened) to just drop him back into his Spire through a portal, after which he had given a vehement (and, frankly, whiny) “...Noooo!” in lieu of a reply. (The Recluse would have to deny for centuries afterwards that he found this endearing.)
Eventually, however, these mumbles turned into fragments of sentences (“...left the stove on…” “...she glared at me?”), and then, as the Sage registered what was going on, full, slightly confused statements.
“Sorry if… my hair… gets on you,” was one of the first things he understood. “It’s… hehehe… misbehaving a lot today… hehehe.”
“That’s alright,” the Recluse muttered reluctantly.
He had had experiences with the Sage’s hair before. It was long and full of stars that sparkled in a miniature version of the night sky, but beyond that, it moved seemingly on its own, with a texture like thick yoghurt and, sometimes, a refusal to be controlled in any way.
In a lot of these experiences, however, the Recluse had lashed out against the Sage, the pounding of his heart being too much for him to take around the scholar. Besides his mostly-corrupted magic, words were the only defence he had—and having guarded the Peak of Truth for years on end, he had many of them, most barbed and poisonous.
He did not want to lash out. But it was the only way he could keep his solitary existence atop the Peak just that: solitary.
…The Sage was always too kind to him. No matter how many of his harsh words he used against the scholar, he always came back.
It was almost enough for the Recluse to stop fighting it.
Back to his mission, he thought, hitting himself in the head slightly to stop himself from pondering further. The scholar beside him (nearly on top of him, actually) jolted in surprise, nearly tripping the Recluse, and sputtered out a confused, “Why’dja do thatttt-for?!”
It was hard to resist messing with the usually proper academic (“your enunciation was horrid just then, haven’t you ever heard of syllables?” “It isn’t why, Sage, it’s what”), but he managed, instead telling him quietly, “No reason,” and leading him on down the empty streets of the village.
It was rather a town, or even a small city, than the village it was advertised as, and though it was relatively easy to navigate, with a street plan of mostly squares and rectangles (created by the Sage himself), the Recluse found it difficult to help the smaller Cookie through it. He had left his seeing-eye staff at his tower, and was relying entirely on the slight aid the ghostly eye near his brow gave him—which was not much aid at all, considering just how horrible his sight was in the first place. Sure, he could channel more magic into it to be able to see better, but he was particularly exhausted today, and he didn’t want to waste any mana for teleportation on his sight.
“You’re… you’re very… pretty,” the Sage suddenly murmured, his weight warm and solid against the Recluse’s side. Looking around to find the victim of the scholar’s foolishness, the hermit found the mismatched eyes of the Sage staring unblinkingly at him, and startling slightly, the Recluse flustered for a moment.
And then the Sage continued. “I would… I think I would kiss you…”
The Recluse froze for a moment.
“...Really now,” he replied, slowly, carefully, looking away to avoid his companion’s shimmering gaze. (At what point had he begun to think of the Sage as his companion? he wondered, narrowing his eyes at the ground below his feet.)
“M-hmmm,” the Sage chuckled. “I shouldn’t, though…”
“You’re right,” the Recluse told him, sharply, regretting every syllable that came out of his mouth. “You’re drunk and delusional.”
“...’m not delusional!” protested the scholar. “I already have someone, though… so I can’t… kiss you…”
His speech trailed off into incoherent mumblings again, and standing still in the middle of the road, the Recluse felt this knowledge hit him straight in the heart like a staff to the Soul-Jam. Of course the Sage had someone—why would he, of all Cookies, with thousands of devoted followers and love-stricken fans, not?
“You have someone,” he said, not quite a question, not quite a statement. The words were not barbed, this time; now, they were laden with layers and layers of sour regret.
It took the Sage a minute to reply. His eyes were fluttering shut, and every time he tried to straighten up against the Recluse, he ended up slumping back against his side, but eventually, he managed. “...I… well…” he began, his voice less cheerful than it had been a moment ago. “...it’s more of a joke I like to… ehehe… to bug him with. I don’t… think he sees it that way… hahaha…” He stopped trying to stand up fully, just leaning against the Recluse’s side. “He would never want to be with… with someone like me…”
The Recluse blinked, some kind of defensive surprise on the Sage’s behalf filling the cavity in his chest. “Why in the world would you say that?” he blurted.
The scholar was silent and still for a long moment—then moved slightly in the Recluse’s hold, shifting so that his head rested against the taller Cookie’s chest. He relaxed slightly, eyes closing fully and weight mostly limp against the other, and letting go of his waist, the Recluse placed a hand on his arm just in case he moved again.
“I am Truth in its purest form,” Blueberry Milk said quietly, a sudden clarity in his tone that most certainly must have come from the one thing he knew best: that he was, in essence, the Truth. “He… he prefers lies… I think they comfort him.”
He was awfully similar to this mystery man, the Recluse mused, subconsciously running his other hand through the Sage’s starlit hair. Its texture at the moment was not unlike water, most likely an effect of the alcohol transforming the scholar’s formerly thick, yoghurt-like hair into twisting strands of liquid.
“Aaaaaanyways…” The Sage swayed back and forth for a moment, then rested his cheek against the Recluse’s chest, arms hanging limp at his sides. “He doesn’t really like me. It’s no biggie, though… it just… it hurts…
“...he’s such a recluse.”
…
..
.
The hermit’s stance went rigid.
The scholar was talking about him.
He had hurt him.
Had hurt his lively, brilliant, curious Sage.
Of course it was him.
The Recluse did the only thing he could think of.
He wrapped both arms around the Sage, pulling him into a tight hug. He had not done such a thing in an uncountable amount of years, but though his memories of past embraces were fuzzy and unfamiliar, it felt perfectly right to hold the scholar like this, face buried into his liquidy hair and the rasp of the other’s breath against his shoulder. Hesitantly, confusedly, the scholar returned the hug, arms snaking around the Recluse’s waist with clumsy carefulness.
“What… is this for?” the Sage asked, teasing and a little clearer than before. Though the Soul-Jam didn’t negate the effects of alcohol at all, the scholar was possibly the most brilliant mind on Earthbread, and it was unlikely that his thoughts would stay under the sluggish haze for long.
“I’m sorry,” the Recluse whispered.
The Sage, head now tucked in the crook between the Recluse’s neck and shoulder, was beginning to fight through the fog in his mind, though he was exhausted as well as drunk. There was just… there was something about his mysterious saviour’s voice that he recognized, even when his vision was blurred and swirling, and the man’s cloak swathing his face in shadow. The pale yellow spilling out from the sides of the cloak’s hood were infinitely familiar, and he could have sworn that he saw the peek of a dark blob under that, just like his Recluse’s hair and wings.
…
..
.
Oh, Witches help him.
That was the Recluse.
“—RECLUSE!” Flinging himself out of the other Cookie’s arms and stumbling backwards along the cobblestones of the road, Blueberry Milk glanced around wildly, eyes darting around from under his mussed bangs and from in his hair. “Haha—hehehehe—what are you—?! HA… HAHA… did you—? Ohhhhh… HEHEHE… Re-cluuuuse—!!”
“No—,” the Recluse tried, dread filling him as he reached out again for the Sage, but the scholar only tripped further backwards, holding shaking hands out to stop the Recluse from approaching. “No, Sage, I just—”
“Sto-o-op,” Blueberry Milk cried, a manic, desperate grin on his face, so different from the carefree one that had been there just a few minutes ago. “STOP! Don’t listen to what I say, hahaha!! I’m crazy!! I’m INSANE!!!”
The Sage was floating now, dark, eye-filled hair lashing and swirling behind him in waves of panic. Hurrying towards him, the Recluse tried to reach for him, finally tried, as he had failed to do for so long—but the scholar just laughed again, and his teeth were sharper than knives.
“I’m insane,” the Sage repeated, a whisper soft as the wings of a moth. “I am insane. To think—” his voice raised slowly, cracking with each syllable he spoke— “to THINK, that a SAINT LIKE YOU could ever love a FOOL!!!”
The Truthless Recluse paused.
He stared up at the Sage for a long, long moment.
Then, he lunged upwards, grabbed the front of Blueberry Milk’s half-unbuttoned blue vest, and pulled him out of the air and into a searing kiss.
Now, the Recluse was a very composed man. He always had been, always would be; it was in his nature to carefully control what was displayed in his face and movements.
His doom was always quick, however, when the Sage was involved.
For instance, the day in the markets, when, somehow, the ridiculous scholar had managed to drag him out to do some clothes shopping, or whatever other things he would come up with to disguise the word “torture.” It had actually been quite a nice day outside, and the Recluse had somewhat enjoyed the walk to the markets, but as soon as the Sage had whisked him into a store and magically changed his outfit into one with a sweater, beret, and—ugh—pants, dread had filled him faster than water in a pail. He’d tried to keep his composure, but then Blueberry Milk was all over him, adjusting everything everywhere and brushing some kind of dark gold glitter over his face and trailing his clawed hands on the Recluse’s shoulders for just a bit too long and—Witches!
And, in the Sage’s Spire one day. He’d, admittedly, broken in with a portal, but only for a book or two, and the bottom floors of the place were open to the public anyway! Almost immediately, though, the Sage had crept up on him and scared the shit out of him, and though he’d gotten a hard whack to the midsection with the flower head of the Recluse’s staff for it, he’d seemed perfectly happy, and had just continued talking, yammering on and on about how he could help the Recluse find what he wanted even though it was six in the morning. It was ridiculous, insane, and really, really sweet. The Recluse hated that it made him smile.
Even when he was alone in his own tower, the Sage wouldn’t leave his head. He could be laying back on the couch in his old study and suddenly remember the time the scholar had laid there also, or be finding himself a tiny meal and think of the jellies Blueberry Milk’d brought him once that were perfectly attuned to his palette.
As one might be able to tell at this point, this little problem was much more than just little.
And it was especially horrible when the Sage was pressed up against him, clutching his hair with hands that were more talon-like than they should have been and kissing him like his life depended upon it.
The Recluse was, at this point, losing his mind. He was frantic, wanting to get as far away from the Sage as he could and at the same time wanting to pull him closer; even if he’d tried to do so, however, the scholar was clinging to him like a leech, claws digging into the Recluse’s back now and body pressed up against his, and it was nigh-impossible to even get a breath of air, let alone get away entirely.
He wasn’t going to deny that he didn’t hate it. In fact, he would be frank for once: this was bliss. And if he wrapped his own arms around the Sage and buried a hand in the tar-like hair, no one but the Witches had to know.
They separated as quickly as they’d pressed together, hardly half a minute after the Recluse had grabbed the Sage. Both were breathing heavily, even the Sage, who didn’t truly need to breathe, and the Recluse was stumbling slightly, with the hand that had just been in Blueberry Milk’s hair held close to his chest.
“I kissed you,” the Sage whispered, placing a shaking hand against his lips. His eyes were wider than the moon above. “Witches, I kissed you.”
The Recluse stepped forwards, reached out, maybe to offer his hand to the Sage, maybe to kiss him once again, but the scholar held a hand out in front of him.
“I know you,” breathed the Sage, softly, dangerously, voice not even a fraction of its former volume, but still audible in the silence of the street. “I know you, Recluse, and you did not want to do that.”
The Recluse opened his mouth to reply, to protest, to tell the Sage that it was all he would ever do if he had it his way, but Blueberry Milk continued before he could say anything, on the verge of tears again. “I know, because I have done everything I possibly could to get to this point when I wasn’t d-drunk and angry. When you wouldn’t even accept a simple—a simple touch from me. I don’t—I don’t understand why you would do this to me, why—why you would lie so t-terribly…”
Horrified, heart slamming against his ribs, the Recluse cried, “I’m not—”
“Stop, stop it, stop lying,” Blueberry Milk sobbed, scrubbing at his eyes. “You do this because you want me to be happy again. So you can move on with your miserable life and not have to deal with me.”
“No—never—!”
“I was wrong,” he growled. “I am not the fool. You are.”
The Sage whirled around, stormed away, hair darker than the Recluse had ever seen it and heels cracking the cobblestones below him from the sheer, resounding force of his magic.
The Recluse couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so helpless. He watched after the Sage, horror weighing his every limb down like lead, his heart dropping to the floor.
He had not cried in centuries. He did not cry; he was devoid of grief, he was an emotionless guard of the Peak, of the secrets he had never wanted to hide in the first place.
The Recluse cried now.
And as the Sage walked away, feeling his magic pulsing out around him like some cursed storm, he heard something from behind him, a soft noise from the Recluse that caught his attention as if it were a flashing neon sign rather than a small sob. He felt himself trip over one of his scuffed white-gold heels, stumbling to a stop on the street, and readied himself to continue walking, away from the village, away from the Recluse, but he couldn’t, not when his Recluse was crying behind him, not when he, with his whole soul, could not bear to hear the one he loved so upset.
He was angry. Of course he was angry. He was so, so horribly angry. He knew the Recluse was a liar. Deceit was in his very being. He just—he hadn’t expected him to commit himself so fully to it for the ridiculous endeavor they’d engaged in.
But he stopped. If only because he loved the Recluse.
He stood there, in the middle of the street, staring at nothing, feeling his claws prick into his palms, drawing jam.
He heard a shuddering breath from his Recluse behind him.
Then, the Recluse spoke.
“A long time ago,” he murmured, his usual gruff, annoyed tone replaced by something so vulnerable even the Sage started, “I believed I would never love anyone again.”
The Sage blinked the tears out of his eyes for the millionth time and fixed his gaze on one of the cobblestones below him.
“I have loved, I have loved so much. I still love. Even when that which I love is long-gone. I love my friends, I love my kingdom, I—I love—y—...”
He cut himself off. Blueberry Milk swallowed the sob rising in his throat.
“But love—it’s—it’s fragile, sometimes, and I—I am a fragile Cookie,” the Recluse whispered. “I tried to stop loving.
“I believed I was unsalvageable. I was a worthless, purposeless man. I had been so for years without my Light of Truth. I hid myself away atop my Peak. I thought I could cut myself off from everything. Even my heart.” The Recluse let out another shaky breath. “I did, for a while.”
The Sage absorbed this silently.
“I succeeded. And then… and then you came up the Peak.”
He remembered it all too well. It had been a stormy day, with rain battering his tower, a great attack from sky-bound archers, and lightning splitting the sky with her cold white flame even as the clouds darkened. The Recluse had, despite his demeanor, always hated storms; he preferred calm rain, where he could sit outside and feel the droplets running down his arms, so he was holed up in his tower’s basement, a blanket pulled over his thin indoors robes to protect him from the chill of the room.
All of a sudden, he sensed it: the presence of a Cookie at his Peak’s barriers. His first thought was shock: any Cookie foolish enough to try and battle the barriers as well as the storm was doomed.
His next was fear.
Fear, because he had never felt such a strong magical presence against the barriers. Fear, because this Cookie had to be more powerful than even he to still be alive at this point. Fear, because the Cookie was succeeding.
He shot to his feet, blanket forgotten on the floor as he lunged for his staff and slammed it against the packed earth below him, reinforcing the barriers with everything he had. Panic filled him when he only felt the Cookie press harder against them, a crackling magic not unlike the storm above him slowly pressing his magic to its limits.
The Recluse let go of the first set of barriers with a gasp of pain as the Cookie forced their way through. His jam ran cold as he felt the inner barriers, those just outside the very top of the peak, begin to strain as well, and with a wrench of his staff that cracked the dirt below him, he redirected every preset spell around the Peak to the singular point the Cookie was pressed against.
Even this failed. One stab of magic against the barriers was all it took for the Recluse to fall to the ground, staff clattering down beside him as he cried out in pain. Never had something so quickly exhausted his magic—and never had something hurt him just by attacking the Peak’s barriers.
Fast as he could, the Recluse sent the last of his magic through his own veins to allow him enough power to get up. He grabbed his outer robes from where he’d discarded them on the floor, layered his cloak atop them, set his hat upon his head, and stormed out of the tower to face his opponent.
He expected a Cookie taller than he, mighty and strong, maybe a dragon in their full form, or an elemental, or some beast so powerful even the immortal Recluse could not comprehend them. He expected to be attacked, to be forced past like the barriers had been, for the knowledge he guarded to be stolen, like everything else.
Nothing attacked him. No claws raked across his dough, no spells seized his battered body. Instead, a small blue Cookie trotted past the thin trees around his tower and stopped a few yards away from him.
“Storm’s terrible,” he commented idly.
The Recluse had never been so shocked in his life.
This was the thing that had singlehandedly sapped all of his power?!?
“I—” he stammered. “You—I—”
“Oh, so there is a Cookie up here!” his opponent cried. “I had wondered how those spells were so active. Who are you? Do you live here? Do you guard this t—”
“Stop!” the Recluse roared, slamming his staff into the ground again. Of course, it didn’t do anything, as he was completely out of magic, but it did provide something for him to lean against while he worked through his thoughts.
The blue Cookie, shockingly, did, and the Recluse took the chance to examine him. The rain had trouble reaching past the trees up here, but the man was positively drenched from head to toe, the pristine white-gold-and-blue clothing he wore muddied and wet. He didn’t seem bothered at all, though, curious eyes darting everywhere (they were mismatched, the exact same colours as the Recluse’s own, but with a golden monocle sitting neatly over the blue one) and a smile spreading across his face even as the Recluse felt himself ready to cry.
The strangest thing about him was his hair. It was long and shiny, like anyone’s hair of his apparent status would look, but—it had stars in its blue-white depths, and it kept moving, like a miniature ocean, dripping and swirling as rain slid down it without ever wetting it.
The Recluse opened his mouth again. He searched for words, any words. He had none.
The blue Cookie seemed to notice, all of a sudden, that the Recluse was staring, and met his gaze with a smile. And then—and then—the damn fool held out a hand to shake.
“I’m Blueberry Milk Cookie!” he said. “It’s good to meet you!”
Suffice to say, the Sage remembered well the sheer force of the spell the Recluse had thrown him off the Peak with. He’d tumbled back into the village, frazzled and muddy, his clothes stained and his dough cracked.
“But you were happy,” the Recluse whispered. “You were happy that you had met me. You were happy, that you had actually spoken to the Cookie guarding the peak.”
The Recluse had thought he had fended the blue Cookie off for good. Surely, he couldn’t still be alive after literally being thrown off a mountain. But then, one day, as he was sipping a cup of bland tea in his living room, stewing in his guilt, he felt it again.
This time, the press of magic was much gentler than the original stabbing attacks. It hardly sapped the Recluse’s power, even though the barriers were so much weaker now.
Even so, the Recluse’s cup slipped out of his hands and shattered on the floor.
He wasted no time grabbing his cloak and dashing outside, not even bothering with the hat this time, and near-immediately came face-to-face with the blue Cookie, who had already made it past the barriers.
Stricken as he had ever been, the Recluse shouted, “But you’re dead!”
The man jumped back, probably partly from the sudden appearance of the Recluse, and looked down at himself in shock, patting his torso as if to make sure that the Recluse wasn't correct. “No, I’m not!” he insisted. “I am very much alive, thank you!”
The Recluse felt like he was having an aneurysm. “I threw you off the damn mountain,” he exclaimed. “How in all Oven are you alive?!?”
“You were trying to crumble me?!” the blue Cookie cried indignantly. “Rude!”
Rude?! RUDE?!? This damned Cookie had just spawned back at his Peak after being literally thrown off of it, and he was calling the Recluse’s doing so rude?!? Being crumbled was not rude, being crumbled was the end! Forever!!
“Well,” the man continued, shaking his head slightly and tapping one of his (perfectly shined) heels on the ground, “no matter! You asked a question, I shall answer it!”
He was smiling. He was—this Cookie was smiling. After the Recluse had basically admitted to trying to crumble him. And he was answering his questions with such eagerness—as if the Recluse were a dear old friend asking about what had been going on in his life.
“I am Blueberry Milk Cookie,” the man began grandly. “I live in the Blueberry Yoghurt Village, just out that way, and I hold the Soul-Jam of Truth!”
The Recluse felt his entire brain stall.
The Sage felt a warm droplet trickle down his face. He was crying again. Of course he was.
He thought back to when the Recluse had told him about his having the Soul-Jam of Deceit—a month or so after they’d met. It had, frankly, been the best day of his life: he hadn’t expected his other half to be the Recluse of all Cookies, the one man he truly wanted to spend time with!
“But you hated me,” whispered Blueberry Milk hoarsely. “You hated that I was your other half.”
So many times, the Recluse had thrown his daggers of words into the Sage’s heart. So many times, he had told the Sage, with brutal truth so much worse than his usual deceit, that he hated him, that he would rather crumble than be around him for any longer.
The Sage had persisted. Him and his foolish curiosity had pushed and pushed until it all came crashing back down on him on this one ridiculous night. Maybe he was, in the end, the fool, once more. He would always be the fool. The Jester. The Beast.
He was ready to end the night, to cast some angry spell and throw himself into the air again, to claw at his dough until crumbs fell to the street, to teleport back to the Spire and scream at its ever-changing walls until his throat bled.
The Recluse did not give him that chance. He spoke, a sniffle-cough-sob announcing his presence as if the Sage didn’t Know with his whole being that the Recluse was there.
“I hated you…”
There was a long, long pause, during which Earthbread seemed to still, all to listen to the raw truth only the former Hero of such could truly produce.
“I hated you because you made me love again.”
Blueberry Milk pressed a hand over his mouth.
He heard the Recluse approach behind him, dull tmps of his boots on the ground and the sweep of his cloak behind him; he didn’t come too close, but a traitorous part of the Sage wished he would.
“I don’t know how much longer I can pretend I still hate you,” the Recluse whispered.
Something deep and sad inside him cracked.
Blueberry Milk whirled around, heels scuffing the stones below them as he turned so sharply it hurt, and threw himself into his other half’s arms.