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It was dark.
It was dark, and the chill of the surrounding air was surprisingly fresh. There was even something about it that felt relieving, like pressing one's face against a cool surface on a hot day.
As Gingerbrave squinted into the darkness and tried to get his eyes to adjust, he tried to remember.
After a solid minute of concentration, the young cookie actually couldn't remember for the life of him how he got here, especially not from where he was before. Although he wracked his sugary brain terribly, all he could recall before this was running with Gingerbright. He could remember looking over at her and seeing some frightened look on Bright's face, but that was about it.
Maybe he just tripped and fell down into a hole somewhere, and she was just startled. That felt like the best explanation for things, especially as to why it was so dark down here.
"Bright?", Brave shouted into the pitch blackness. "I'm down here, Bright!"
Brave realized his voice didn't echo down here, but he pushed his growing unease away. This was just a new adventure! It was just a new adventure in maybe a smaller cave than usual!
At least he knew how large or, in this case, small this place was now. Rockstar really knew his stuff about acoustics! Plus, he was awesome enough to pass this information on to Brave. With a confident smile and an experimental puff of his chest, Brave set off to find a wall. If there was a wall, there was a way to an entry point— a door or an opening in some crevice. He was confident that he would find at least some way out of here.
But it was on his first step that he realized that his footsteps didn't echo, either. Brave then noticed that he actually didn't seem to be stepping on anything concrete per say. Or rock, or tile, or wood, or grass, or...
Anything .
A nervous chuckle bubbled out of Brave's throat. He then experimentally tapped his foot on the... Ground?
There was nothing.
There were no tapping sounds to listen to, and no matter how much he strained his ears and tapped away, there was still nothing. The sensations of pressure against the bottoms of his feet were missing as well. It was as if Brave was standing tall on thin air, suspended yet still firmly planted somewhere.
Even stranger was that the unreasonably strong urge to gag from the lack of balance never came to him. There was no sense of vertigo, and there was certainly no feeling of falling.
After a few moments of grasping at straws, Brave came to another conclusion.
He must've hit his head real hard on something.
The weird sense of balance, not being able to hear sounds correctly, his poor memory- Geeze, he had to be more careful next time!
"Bright!" he called once more.
He still couldn't find a wall.
"I'm right here! I'm right here, Bright!"
If this was a cave, there had to be some kind of draft, or a light source from somewhere. Brave couldn't give up yet. Even if the cold was the same no matter which direction he turned, and he could only see as far as his own limbs, he couldn't give up on looking for anything different.
...Aha! There we go!
Beaming with almost unrestrained delight, Brave began making his way towards the patch of bright white in the distance. It was obviously a way out of here. He was going to climb out of this crevice, and he was going to get his butt back to base camp, and he was going to be scolded by Bright for being so careless, and he was going to love every second of it!
The bright white patch soon came into clearer view.
Gingerbrave slowed to a stop.
The patch did not.
Though Brave wanted to take off in the other direction, his legs were locked into place. His heart pounded, the strawberry in his veins whooshing between his ears.
The patch had eyes, and the patch was staring directly at him.
"...Hey!"
The young cookie's voice came out smaller than intended. As he saw the patch become more of a skull, he yelled again with everything he had.
"HEY!"
The skull jumped back a bit, seemingly startled by Brave's cry. It would've made him laugh if he wasn't so tense.
The skull laughed, though. It was quiet and almost awkward, but it laughed.
"That's... A first," it said.
The darkness receded a bit, and Brave was able to make out shades of ornate purple and dark brown surrounding the skull. There were even smaller skulls attached to the cloak around the large skull, and the large skull itself now even seemed flatter than before. But Gingerbrave wasn't as concerned with the skull's change of depth as much as he was now concerned by the glinting, shiny metal of the large scythe held firmly in the form's purple-gloved hand.
The figure must have noticed Brave's apprehension, as it let out a non-threatening huff and raised its free hand in a slow, relaxed gesture of peace.
"It's not for you," it reassured. "Don't worry."
As Brave sighed in relief, the figure continued.
"For the bravest cookie who ever lived, you're more skittish than I imagined," it said, seeming to glance over Gingerbrave carefully. "Not to mention much... smaller than I anticipated."
"I'm not small!" Brave snapped in response. "I'm just... waiting for my next growth spurt. That's what Milk Cookie tells me, anyway."
The short cookie widened his stance and balled his fists up in determination as the skull-headed figure watched in pensive silence, "But I'm gonna get out of here to get it! Just you see!"
There was no reply from the figure. With the expressionless skull quietly staring both at him and through him, Brave felt more and more vulnerable with each passing second. Stark vulnerability soon gave way to frustration. Who was this weirdo? Was this some prank?
Where even was this?
"...I'm so sorry, Gingerbrave," the figure finally said with a much too gentle intonation. "I know it's hard to believe, and it must be very hard to grasp, but—"
Brave felt his stomach twist itself into a knot as the implications of this figure's words coupled with its appearance hit him like a train. He surely couldn't be— He could never, ever—
"Stop messing with me!" Brave demanded. "This is just some super crazy cave, and I'm just super crazy lost! Heck, you're probably just someone I just imagined because it's so dark and quiet in here!"
The figure let the distraught Brave continue.
"A-Alchemist Cookie says if you don't get enough light and if you don't hear anything for a while, your, uh—" He was still struggling to justify all of this. "Your brain makes stuff up! It's why we all go outside and why we talk and run and—"
He looked down, finding his hands gripping at the air fruitlessly. He closed them into fists once more, the small sounds of his own more subtle movements filling his head like strained rubber.
"I dunno..."
When Brave looked up again, he noticed there was a bit more light than earlier. He could now see that, while he was talking, the more cookie-like figure strapped the intimidating scythe to a belt on their cloak, and they were now delicately wringing their hands together.
"It's okay not to know about things like that," they carefully intoned. "But I would like to see what you know about..."
They paused just as carefully as they were speaking.
"About what happens after a cookie doesn't get up after falling," the figure finally sighed lightly. "Where a cookie is supposed to go after they..."
"Crumble?" Brave asked bluntly.
"Yes," the figure said, nodding. "Just... Tell me what you know about that."
The smaller cookie scrunched his eyes closed to remember.
"...There's flowers. Lots of flowers, and—" Brave was finally starting to feel sick, but only because of a new wave of feelings catching in his throat. "It's always nighttime, but Blackberry says you can look up and see everything really clearly. Blackberry actually knows a lot about it, I should get back to ask her—"
"I know those flowers well, Gingerbrave. Keep going."
"U-um... There's a cookie that leads you there, I think. I can't remember their name or uh— What... What they look like."
The hooded cookie's robes made a shuffling sound as they walked over to Brave. They took one of his hands and held it like a concerned parent comforting their shaking and skinned-knee child. A rush of embarrassment swept through Brave at the fact that his hand was shaking, and made his uneasy tremors worse.
"Perhaps you should open your eyes now, Gingerbrave," the cookie soothed. "It's okay."
Gingerbrave opened his eyes.
Flowers littered the cave floor... No. Flowers littered the sprawling fields that stretched before Brave and the skull-masked cookie under an endless starry sky. Purple flowers coloured the hillside mostly, but there were some different kinds of white ones that dotted the landscape, too.
"Isn't it beautiful?" The other cookie asked softly. They were knelt down by Brave and rubbing the side of his hand with their thumb. "Lilies, and poppies, and nightshade... There's even patches of baby's breath for kids like you. All under the clearest summer night."
"...I wanna go home," Brave finally hiccuped.
The cloaked cookie simply pointed out a more bountiful patch of purple nightshade flowers, "Over there is where the flowers used to make me were picked. They were the only ones my creator could touch without them shriveling up... We can go over there if you want to."
"I wanna go home," Brave repeated, eyes beginning to water.
Nightshade Cookie looked at Gingerbrave with such sorrow that it stuck to the young cookie even through the mask Nightshade wore. Brave remained firm in his defiant look despite his tears.
"...This really is a long way from your home," Nightshade tentatively acknowledged Brave's request. "How did you end up here, anyway?"
Then it finally hit Brave like a sack of bricks.
He and Bright were investigating something.
Cookies were going missing— Plucked from camp in the middle of the night for the past month. It was why everyone decided to move camp again, some even splitting off into their own units to find somewhere safer. Gingerbrave didn't fault them, but the older cookies were always too focused on running away from the danger instead of just getting rid of it. Facing your fears was always the best thing to do, wasn't it?
So Brave and Bright decided to do just that.
The two children made the run back and waited near the clearing their previous campsite was. Though they were wound up from fear, they were excited to finally end the terror. They would find the beast and stop it, and everyone would be so proud of them!
But the beast found them first, and the beast was hungry.
Brave and Bright fled— darting through trees, leaping over riverbanks, roots, and rocks. The two ran for their lives from the Fox. The last things Brave saw before waking up in the "cave" were Bright ducking out of sight, an oncoming branch, and the blurred outline of orange and white mixing together into…
Brave's head began to hurt.
Brave's head began to hurt, and he was starting to cry. Nightshade gently guided the cookie closer, and Brave wept into their robes.
The spectre pressed their gloved hand against the back of his head. They did not tell him to hush or to stop crying as they held his sobbing form, because, in their eyes, he had every reason to cry.
After all, the bravest cookie in history was only a scared child who wanted his friends back.
Prying was customary, and as a spectre of death, it was supposed to be routine as usual. However, their heart was still moved by the sorrow of what was ultimately just a young boy who just so happened to be martyred as a catalyst of change. The love in his heart and the memories he carried told of a grand power of inspiration he wielded in life. Tales of escape and adventures upon adventures all fluttered against the reaper's touch. Gingerbrave was favored by all, even garnering the good tidings of legends and those only dreamed of in fairytales…
What would be the point of losing such a powerful soul so driven by the innocent need to do what was right to such circumstances…?
Nightshade most certainly didn't see the point of it ending like that. They closed their eyes in silent deliberation.
It was settled.
Though the baby's breath was beautiful, and the sweet night eternal, Nightshade never enjoyed ferrying children through the fields of Lethe. The memories of lives cut short were always the most painful to let go of. There would never be a proper meaning or point for their passings, and leading this particular child to blissful oblivion wouldn't change that.
Sorry, Grim.
Nightshade sat up straight, moving their hands to Gingerbrave's shoulders. Brave blinked away some of his tears to gaze at them.
"Dry your eyes, dear child," Nightshade soothed. "You're not leaving yet."
Brave's eyes widened, and he quickly wiped his remaining tears off on his arm.
"What?" he asked hopefully. "I'm— I'm going home?"
Nightshade nodded, "Yes, but we need to take care of something first…"
Though Nightshade didn't say it specifically, the orange and white haze of the Fox still came to mind. Gingerbrave nodded solemnly.
"I know things like this are terrifying, Gingerbrave," Nightshade said deliberately. "But that's what makes 'bravery' actual bravery. Being brave doesn't mean you have to be completely fearless..."
The cloaked cookie pulled away for a moment, and Brave looked up at them with anticipation. With a small shuffle of fabric, Nightshade set aside their mask and took off their hood.
They smiled warmly at Gingerbrave, whose eyes lit up hopefully.
"It just means you have to follow through."
…
Much to Nightshade and Gingerbrave's luck, the Fox that had been hunting down cookies for the past month had a habit of playing with his food before eating it. Even luckier, although just for Nightshade, this particular fox had been one of those few who had a 'second chance' from the reaper given him many, many moons ago.
The Fox, presently, had been trying to make a diorama of sorts with the stiff leftovers of the other gingerbread cookies, and there was Gingerbrave in the middle of it all. There was just something about the little cookie that gave the fox a nostalgic feeling. He couldn't bring himself to take a bite no matter how much he hungered, and he couldn't break off a single part of him no matter how angry he was at his endless famishment.
As the fox left the makeshift stage, now bored with his play, Gingerbrave took his first true breath in almost half a day. His ears popped and his head throbbed, but he was back.
Nightshade Cookie's gift to Gingerbrave was not without its extra perks, either. The boy took a moment to recollect about his journey back to the land of the living as he waited for a solid chance to make his first move.
[ "You see," Nightshade whispered to Brave as the two crept through the chambers lining the creator of the sugary reaper's river earlier that day, "People with my favour perish under one of two conditions." ]
Once the fox was well gone, Brave very quietly slipped into the robes left beside him. His heart was pounding fiercely as if it were making up for lost time as the cookie began to make his first, shaky steps.
[ "You either make a truly heroic sacrifice for the sake of good and all of its constituents," Nightshade's forward words echoed through the caves— and through Gingerbrave's memory— like drops of water falling from limestone. ]
Brave picked up the mask as the fox hummed nearby.
[ "Or you are justly destroyed because you've become what even the most vile of monsters fear." ]
The scythe rested only a few feet away.
Donning the mask and lifting his hood up, Gingerbrave snuck over to the scythe. It felt light, but incredibly sturdy in his hands. He felt a twisting sickness in his gut, but he took comfort in the fact that, at the very least, it wouldn't bend or break under his anxious vice of a grip.
The Fox, dissatisfied with the little noise humming provided, began to mutter his song.
"I'll fix your feet, so you can't walk..."
Brave thought of the cookies who could probably break the handle of this thing clean in two as he took great care in stepping closer.
"I'll lock your jaw, so you can't talk."
His mind flickered briefly to Ninja Cookie and his cool throwing stars. They'd probably just get stuck in the wood, but Ninja was a determined kind of cookie. Even though they were only like tiny pinpricks to the Witch, he kept chucking each star with precision... The Witch was much bigger than the Fox, too.
"I'll close your eyes so you can't see..."
Werewolf Cookie was good at destroying stuff, yeah, but only on nights when the moon was full. The sleeping fox's fur was a burnt orange rather than smokey grey, thankfully. Foxes didn't howl either. The Fox continued his song.
"This very hour come and go with me."
Muscle Cookie could totally make a pretzel out of this scythe... The young cookie tried not to look at the stale bits and crumbs everywhere. He decided he should not be thinking about pretzels right now.
Despite deciding this, however, he accidentally stepped on one of the stale bits. His foot sunk into it with an airy crunch , making nausea flood the young cookie's head.
The words choked to a stop in the fox's throat.
Gingerbrave wanted to run, but he was brave. He was brave, so he stared up at the fox— his would-be murderer, if Nightshade knew no pity— in tense determination.
The two's eyes locked, but Brave's body moved despite his own reservations. He raised the scythe up as far as his short arms could stretch, then further. His head felt underwater, as if he were a mere observer swimming outside of his own body, and the words flowed from his mouth like a torrential river.
"Death, I come to take the soul, leave the body and leave it cold."
…
Brave woke up once more with a gasp. He felt that same popping in his ears again, but his head throbbed much less than it did before. From his laying position, the boy gazed around at his surroundings.
He was in a tent. The dark green fabric ceiling was a familiar sight, but he’d never imagined that the sight of it would flood him with such relief.
He was home.
Gingerbrave let out a shaky, heaving sigh and smiled through the tears that began to stream down his face. It was all just a terrible nightmare, wasn’t it? There was no fox, there was no spectre, and there was no scythe.
He turned over in bed and wiped his eyes only to see another familiar sight–
The mask.
“Hello, Gingerbrave,” the spectre greeted softly from the seat beside the other side of the bed.
Gingerbrave sat upright with a yelp. Nightshade Cookie put their hands up a little, their expression one of both surprise and relief.
“I’m glad to see you full of energy again,” they smiled a bit. “I’m sorry to scare you.”
Gingerbrave didn’t know how to feel about the confirmation that his encounters with the fox weren’t just a nightmare he had. The sugar in his gut twisted.
“...I’m alive?” he managed to ask quietly.
“Yes,” Nightshade nodded calmly. “Perhaps moreso than your peers, now.”
The child still didn’t know how to feel about that specific detail, but he still gave the entity a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how to repay you for this…Really.”
“No need. You already did,” Nightshade smiled at the boy. They then sighed a bit. “I’m sorry that fool caused you and your friends so much trouble, dear child… While Death is not known for its mercy, I often find myself moved to acts of charity. He was one of them.”
Gingerbrave nodded silently. While it wasn’t without its perks, this new gift wasn’t without its strings, either.
He found himself asking, “Was I…?”
“No,” Nightshade answered quickly. “You are a necessity to all those around you. You needed to come back.”
This was weighing down on Gingerbrave so much heavier than he thought it would.
“Does anyone else know?” he asked. “About this or that you’re here?”
Nightshade shook their head.
“As far as they know, you’ve been unconscious for at least a week after Gingerbright and the others found you in that foxhole. As for me, I think they’d take my intentions here as something more sinister than what you and I know them to be. After all…”
Nightshade began to sing softly.
"No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold; nothing satisfies me but your soul…"
After a pause, they laughed lightly, “That's what they say about me, at least."
Gingerbrave gulped a bit, then smiled weakly at Nightshade.
“Of course,” he replied.
"Take care, Gingerbrave," they said, standing up. They took a moment to smooth out their robes, then took the mask left behind on the makeshift nightstand. After donning it, they moved to the entryway of the medical tent.
Nightshade looked back at Gingerbrave for just a moment, "Be good."
With that, they had vanished into black smoke.
Gingerbrave was gobsmacked. He had died, come back, was now effectively immortal… And he was gobsmacked by it all. Did that mean he would stay a child forever? Or would he simply stop aging at some point? The implications weighed heavy on his mind.
He could now run forever, but what about his friends?
During his thoughts, the smoke dissipated just quickly enough for one of said friends to enter the tent without noticing a thing.
She dropped her armful of sweet bear jellies to the ground.
“Gingerbrave!”
Gingerbright sprinted to Brave’s bedside, throwing her arms around him. Brave responded in kind, tears burning in his eyes as the two children hugged each other tight, tighter, and tightly.
“I thought you’d never wake up!” Bright sobbed into his shoulder. “It was all my fault! I’m so sorry!”
“But you came back for me though!” Brave cried out. “Only true friends would do that for each other!”
The two of them stayed like that for a while, just weeping from fear and relief. After a few more minutes, Bright finally calmed herself down enough to pull herself away and wipe her eyes on her sleeves.
“I visited you every day and shared jellies with you,” she sniffled.
Brave hiccuped into a smile, “Yeah, I bet.”
“So, what happened?” Bright asked. “That foxhole was horrible! There were crumbs everywhere! And the fox… I can’t even describe it!”
A cold chill ran down Brave’s spine, but he found it in himself to take in a deep breath. He had to tell her what happened. He had to. It was what friends did for each other.
“It’s a long story,” Brave began, “But…”
It took a couple of hours and many more tears to tell it, but Brave had managed to recount his tale to Bright. She sat with her hands tense on her lap as she listened, awestruck and horrified.
“You’re telling me that you met the Grim Reaper?” she asked. “And they let you go?”
“No, and yes,” Brave replied. “I met Nightshade Cookie and they let me go.”
Gringerbright nodded.
“But still! It’s like – It’s like you cheated Death!” Gingerbright gasped.
Gingerbrave shook his head, recalling the monstrous fox, “No…”
He thought hard about the torrent of feelings that overtook him when facing the fox. The downpour of sorrow and anger that overtook him before he blacked out. The child closed his eyes.
‘O Death… Won’t you spare me over another year?
Brave looked to Bright with an uncharacteristically somber look on his face.
“No one can cheat Death.”