My Fair Lady (Dark Cacao Cookie x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 32

Tell a friend to tell a friend,
She's BAAAAACK

"Wake up, you fools!"

No response.

"I would have hired cake hounds if I knew you all would be so lazy! Get up, NOW!"

The king looked over, seeing one of his soldiers stirring, a weary eye blinking heavily at him before silently shutting once again. He grumbled, irritated, just before he let out a concerning fit of infectious coughs. His lungs were burnt dry as ash from the air dehydrating his system.

"You will be punished if you do not arise at this instant! That is a command from your king!"

"You're sick, your highness," a voice croaked from somewhere.

"And my son may be dead."

"Your son chose to leave," another said, blending in with the crowd to escape his direct punishment. The king felt his jam boil in his body.

"EVERY ONE OF YOU WILL BE THROWN FROM THE WALL IF YOU DO NOT-!" his voice sputtered, returning to his thick coughs that clouded in the frigid air, crystallizing into puffs of smoke. The cookies huffed before huddling deeper into their blankets.

With a steaming attitude, the king jammed one of his gloved hands into a pouch, holding something smooth and light. From the moment the flap opened, a purple glow shone from the mouth of the pouch, glaring in the king's eyes. However, as soon as the king's hand grazed the surface of the gem, it flickered for a moment, the small bubbles inside spitting with a weak fight. He recoiled his hand in disbelief.

"I can't be..." he breathed.

Along one of the curved ends of his soul stone, a small crack had grown, just enough to where it could cut his gloves open by how sharp the ridges were. His dough grew clammy as if he had just surrendered it to the cold.

It hit him worse than an oncoming stampede. He had neglected his own health, forcing him and his men through the cold, that he forgot how mortal he truly was. At any moment, if his men had not forced him into safety, would he have been decimated to nothing but crumbs in the snow. They would never be able to revive him for his old age, and his soul stone reflected that. That damage was permanent.

All for my son. He thought, feeling a rise of pride swell in his chest.

Stroking the gem once last time, he shut the pouch and stored it away beneath his cloak.

My life goes for nothing less than my son.

———

Dark Cacao grew up with the second best education any royal could be blessed with. His professor always pushed him to excel in every field of study, working with his intellectually brilliant mind to do intellectually brilliant things. One of his favorite subjects was focused in the field of science, tying in with philosophy and the study of the immaterial's existence. Sound waves, for example, though they have no measurable mass, the energy of them could still be inferred through different ways. One of the easiest was the difference between a snow lion's cry and the whisper of a secret. Each sound was clearly there, though the sound waves couldn't be felt by the recoil of something punching at his dough repeatedly at a steady pace.

But right now, silence had never felt so heavy.

In front of him he held a crystal paperweight, a rich hue of violet that casted streaks of violet onto the floorboards beneath his feet. The sun was staring through his window like an intruder, prying into his situation like a stalker. He ignored it however, rubbing along the frictionless surfaces while his eyes blinked drearily.

Every time he adjuster the paperweight, it would create new shapes and light. Even whenever he held it still, the sun would continue to move on, keeping the flow of the shapes constantly moving. He grew more and more exhausted at trying to keep the light from refracting onto specific points, like it rebelled against his very will to be formed to one specific place.

(Y/N), he said in his mind, please forgive me. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry.

The shapes continued to dance, mocking him, throwing chaotic colors across the flooring outside of what he wanted it to. Be more purple, he would command. You're supposed to make purple light. But it would never listen, continuing its charade.

With one distressed yell, he threw the crystal at the wall in front of him, punching a large hole in the delicate exterior.

The sound of the impact made him unbelievably relieved. Finally a sound that he could no longer feel, something immaterial to push out the material burden of nothingness. He wanted to grasp that immaterial existence, taking a great hold of it, inputting his sole control over what it could or could not do, the way it would be able to do nothing but freeze between his firm grip and obey his orders, "escape" forfeiting from the list of options, a servant under his benevolent rule.

But he knew the laws of science said otherwise. That immaterial thing couldn't be held, it would slip through the cracks of his hand, not even being there in the first place, running off to become empty once more in the unrestricted expanse of the universe. Something that has no neck cannot be lassoed.

But that only made him more furious. If only he could rewrite the laws, proclaim their inaccuracy to what he thinks should be right, and be able to force his control on them to have everything go his way. Life would be so much easier, having everything bow down for him, nothing could have the ability to protest against him.

It all started to sound too familiar to him. Like a bee sting that continued to throb, he couldn't shake off the feeling that constantly loomed over him.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not like him. I don't want to be who he became already. I would rather die than take up his tyrannical legacy in the same fashion he corrupted it to be. I would rather die here on the spot as a nameless corpse in history for that matter. Just bring me to crumbs already, witches, if that is what you planned of me. He rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the filth of his thoughts away.

Just for today, he thought, I'll try to let things go as they are.

Word count: 1085