Lily Flower

Pure Vanilla/Dark Enchantress: Sweet!

I'm so sorry. 

MAJOR WARNING: This chapter will be one of the worst in the fic regarding triggering content. Note the tags on this fic, please. Proceed with caution and please take care of yourselves. Explicit list: non-con cannibalism, mild body horror/blood/gore, hint to suicidal ideation, and some kind of religious trauma (unsure definition)

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He fell into somewhat of a routine after that.

Despite serving an evil sorceress, the cookies of darkness had plenty of free time outside of their master's direct orders. Apart from missions, everyone just split up and went about their own business. Strawberry Crepe fixed their bots and kept cracking at the Goliath. Licorice holed in his room to read in the darkness. Dark Choco trained, ate, and slept. Red Velvet stayed at the tower with his dogs.

Pure Vanilla put somewhat of a dent in their pre-set schedules.

He spent a pre-portioned amount of time every day stealing the Strawberry Jam sword and putting it in a variety of circumstances, physical and magical, that would make any bladesmith cry in agony. The prince, compelled by his spell, would expend significant amounts of effort chasing after him.

He would initially tie him up or use a sleeping spell, but the curse quickly became acclimated to these methods and he would be up and raring to reclaim the sword within minutes. It wasn't difficult to keep him at bay, though, Pure Vanilla just had to prepare something new with each attempt.

The ways that he would keep Dark Choco from chasing after him have morphed from genuinely blocking his niece to finding the most creative way he can mess with him. These tricks have ranged from reversing his sense of direction to sitting on top of a high precipe to giving the poor man a charmed paper full of math problems that would only fade once done.

Minus the math, Dark Choco enjoyed these games as much as Pure Vanilla did, since they both gave the prince some much-needed stimulation and memorable experiences on top of being completely harmless. He also got to spend time with him and was glad for it, which he told the healer so earnestly that he got uncharacteristically flustered.

Wasn't he becoming a bit too attached a bit too quickly?

Pure Vanilla didn't have the heart to do anything about that.

In one sword-related instance, which was now dubbed "the furnace fiasco". Dark Choco had escaped the illusion he had created and managed to wreck the mechanic's furnace in a magnificent fashion, taking out half the hangar with it. On an unrelated note, they were forced to clean up and cater to the child's whims for the next few days, until the bots fixed up the damage and Crepe found them suitably contrite.

Licorice came along to snipe at everyone involved and lord their blunder over Dark Choco. The healer, finding his behavior distasteful, stood there and regarded him in disappointment until he squirmed guiltily and joined the clean-up. The two continued this mutual antagonization over his head, feeding into whatever emotional brew they had so callously spent years concocting.

Pure Vanilla let them stew. As much as he disliked the tension, he was not going to be the one forcing everyone to make up whatever grievances they had. They were adults and no one was actively harming the other, which sufficed for him.

It turns out that neither was willing to give up the healer's company, instead choosing to make a temporary peace when the three of them were in the same space. He was rather flattered.

After that incident, Licorice would often deliberately seek him out. The healer was half-convinced that he put in so much effort as some kind of competition with the prince, but regardless of his motivations, this resulted in the reaper consistently badgering him to teach him more magic. Pure Vanilla acquiesced to his requests, careful to bypass the darker and more dangerous spells in his arsenal. The reaper was surprisingly gracious despite the avoidance, saying that he was doing him a favor by teaching him anything in the first place.