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Can an Ancient truly exist without its Beast?
The decision was a heavy one, born of agonizing friction.
"You’re coming with me," Golden Cheese chirped, though her voice held a steely edge as she seized the emaciated Burning Spice by the elbow.
Forgiveness had always been a bitter pill, especially for the one who had laid waste to everything. Mercy would have been a blessing the Beast had not earned. Perhaps, in truth, it was merely pity – pity for this weakened, once-invincible entity, a being as ancient as the world itself.
The roof of the Golden Cheese Kingdom was inhospitable. There was too much sun, too much oppressive heat. The Queen’s hand rested directly upon Burning Spice’s Soul Jam, a contact that radiated discomfort, stirring in him a desperate urge to flee. But Spice remained seated; he could not take a single step without a searing flare of pain.
"Golden Cheese... my head... it throbs from this..."
"Silence. Do not speak while I work. You are already... in no condition to complain."
"...Why are you doing this?"
"...Be still and hold your tongue. It has to work."
Her words struck like lashes of a whip across his back. She wouldn't waste breath on explanations, nor would she play at being his ally. She simply did what she deemed necessary. Spice understood this – perhaps he even respected her iron will and her refusal to strike down a crippled foe.
The terminal flickered before her eyes, glitching but functional. It was a small mercy, yet it did little to ease the gravity of what was to come. Under normal circumstances, diving beneath the skin and into the very life-code of a Beast would be suicide. Now, it was a frantic attempt to halt an execution – to defy the laws of nature and spare the one who had shown no such grace to the Cheese Queen herself. With every fiber of her being, she felt the spark of his Soul Jam: a surge of primal rage, crushing exhaustion, and something terrifyingly ancient – fear.
Lines of code moved in a chaotic blur, yet to Burning Spice’s observation, Golden Cheese navigated the disorder as if she were coming home. He had no strength left for chatter, though he longed to spit a caustic remark, to shove her away and declare he needed no savior.
But he did. He needed her desperately.
To Golden Cheese, the code looked like a crumbling foundation. A corrupted file that could not be allowed to spread. After analyzing his encoded organism, she chose to challenge the universe itself: she would rewrite the code of a living soul.
It would have been simpler if he were merely virtual. A corrupted file can be deleted, replaced, overwritten a hundred times. But now... under her hand was a living Cookie, whose body might not survive the operation. It was hard to imagine the world after the death of an opposing force. Can white truly exist without black?
Good without Evil?
An Ancient without their Beast?
There was no time for thought, only action. With deft movements, Golden Cheese filled the mercury-ravaged gaps until she decided on a more complex maneuver: a layer-by-layer purge. She set a failsafe – a trigger to pause the execution if the code stalled, giving her a moment to think before continuing.
delete BurningSpice.layers.find("MERCURY_COATING");
She did not know how deep the mercury had seeped. She watched Burning Spice’s vitals with harrowing focus, her hand never leaving his Soul Jam. Images blurred before her eyes – echoes of a past that did not belong to her. She saw the world being built under Burning Spice’s hands. She saw his world before the madness took hold. And then, the moment of the Fall, when everything spiraled into the abyss.
Her heart if a Cookie could be said to have one– leaped into her throat. She closed her eyes for a mere second to steady herself, then resumed the purge.
How much time passed? Only the world knows. The cool desert night descended upon the two sovereigns, indifferent to their need for light. The deletion was complete, but it left behind a hollow void. Burning Spice looked even worse now than he had during his mercury-induced agony. His body was spent.
The final, heaviest decision was to fill that emptiness. Golden Cheese slowly lowered her head to the Beast’s cold brow, touching her Soul Jam to his. She surrendered a portion of her own essence – a small fragment of her totality, but enough for him to find the strength to rebuild himself.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fanart
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Size 2251 x 1637px
File Size 3.57 MB
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