IMPORTANT!! Just in case you missed the note I added at the end of Chapter 21, Tiramisu cookie is a separate cookie from the canon! This cookie is the same age as (Y/N)!!

(Y/N)'s eyes fluttered, the tendrils of sunlight peering through her eyelids to ease her awake. Her limbs stretched out while she let out a large yawn, feeling satisfied after sleeping for a healthy amount of time in a while. The 8 hours felt great, her legs felt so much better as well as the rest of her sickly body, as if nothing had ever happened to her in the first place.

Opening her eyes, she looked around to the familiar bedroom she stayed in for all of this time. The curtains blew silently to the left of her, and the blankets hugged her comfortingly. The flicker of a purple flame next to her bedside danced in triumph as if it were celebrating her arousal from sleep, happy to see that it finally recognized it's hard work of dimly illuminating the room at night. Her chest heaved slowly, taking in the scent of rainbow jellies that sat near the candle, awaiting for her to pop every one of them in her mouth.

"Are you awake dear?" a voice croaked. The door had cracked open to the gaze of Sopapilla cookie peering to see (Y/N).

"Sopapilla cookie?" she responded, dazed but welcoming her inside.

"Did you sleep well? You've been asleep for a while," the elder pulled up a stool, taking a seat in front of the cookie in bed.

"Yeah, but I had this really long and weird dream," (Y/N) rubbed away the sleepiness in her eyes.

"Oh? Tell me more."

"Well, I guess I had gotten jailed up in the kingdom, for some reason I had done something wrong? I don't know what I did."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd never do anything like that, dear," Sopapilla cooed, placing the jellies in her lap to help feed (Y/N).

"Yeah, I'd never do anything to hurt anybody here. Even the prince in my dream believed so," (Y/N) continued. "He saved me from the dungeons and ran away with me."

"Where did you all go?" Sopapilla suddenly averted her attention back to (Y/N).

She was a bit bewildered with how interested she was with her dream once she mentioned she had left, but she blew it off. "I don't really know. We had gone somewhere in the woods. Deep in the woods. We just kind of.. followed the wind, you know?"

Sopapilla shook her head. "Are you sure you don't remember where you went?"

"No... I guess that's just how dreams work, huh? No real sense of direction, everything just kind of happens."

The elderly cookie lifted a spoonful of jelly to (Y/N)'s lips, signaling her to eat. However, (Y/N) lightly pushed away the spoon away from her mouth gently.

"Dear, you really need to eat!"

"But I don't feel very hungry."

"I'm very sure you're absolutely starving, who knows the last time you've eaten?"

(Y/N) still refused, making Sopapilla falter and place the jellies back onto the nightstand. The elderly cookie looked extremely surprised that she didn't want a bite.

"Why don't you want any?" she asked.

"I don't know. I guess my dream made me really full..." (Y/N) wandered off on her words.

"We'll, what did you eat? Surely you must have been feasting if it affected you in reality."

"Well, Dark Cacao is an excellent hunter, and he would, yknow... hunt rabbits and other animals out in the woods."

"Hm," Sopapilla muttered.

(Y/N) shifted uncomfortably, looking around the room to try and find something to say. Her gaze drifted over the paintings, briefly viewing the many strokes on the canvas. Just then she saw some of the strokes drift and mix, like the paint was still wet. It swirled for only a moment, but quickly dried back up.

"What the-?" (Y/N) whispered.

"Can you tell me more of where you went in your dream?" Sopapilla cut her off. (Y/N) whipped her head back around.

"Oh! Uh..." she stuttered. "We stayed in a weird cave we found for a few nights, but it wasn't very long. We had to leave because of something about a werehound brute?"

"Those werehounds are extremely dangerous, especially since they're very territorial. Where did you go after that?" Sopapilla folded her hands together and leaned forward with deep intrigue.

"I'm not very sure about where we went," she responded.

"Surely you must have at least the slightest idea!"

(Y/N) felt extremely uneasy at this point. It didn't sound like Sopapilla was curiously asking about her dream anymore. It felt like she was attempting to withdraw information from her like an interrogation. Either way, her gut feelings were kicking at her to do something.

"Am I still dreaming?" she whispered, her eyes studying Sopapilla's face.

"Don't be silly, now."

"Am I still dreaming?" she repeated, her voice raising.

"Calm down, you're safe here. Are you feeling all right?" Sopapilla reached out to push the hair out of (Y/N)'s face, but it was swiftly slapped away.

"What's happening? I'm supposed to be with Dark Cacao right now, I can't-"

"HUSH." The bed fell away from underneath her in a blink, and she landed on the hard floors with a loud thud. Sopapilla looked down on her, enraged.

(Y/N) rapidly tried to scoot away from her, a cold wall blocking her from moving any farther back. The stench of the dungeons filled her senses like a tsunami, flooding her mind with dizziness. The whole room melted away, just as the paint became wet once more, leaving the same dark and clammy jail walls of when she was underneath the castle. Sopapilla got off the stool she was sitting on, it melting away too.

"Is this real? What are you doing?! UHP-" she exclaimed, heavy shackles merging onto her hands and wrists and dropping them to the ground with their oversized shape.

"I wanted to have a nice little conversation with you, it's a shame that you're so difficult with me," Sopapilla mocked. "We're all worried about you, (Y/N)."

"Who's 'we'?"

"The whole kingdom, did you not know? We forgive you, even the king is hoping that you'll come back soon!"

"No. No, You're lying. Dark Cacao told me about how infuriated the king was with me, not to mention the outbursts the king had right in front of me. He's hate me even if everyone knew it was a wrong accusation," she growled.

"Oh, just as I said. So difficult. Stop messing around and just tell me where you are, I want to make sure you're safe."

"What type of magic is this? How are you in my dream?"

Sopapilla chuckled, shaking her head which allowed little dusts of brown sugar fall from her cream colored hair. "Astral projection. Found it in Marble cookie's little spell book. How else am I supposed to reach you?"

"I'm not ever going to tell you where I am," (Y/N) gritted her teeth, looking around to try to find a way to wake herself up.

"Why are you trying to leave you so soon? Just tell me where you are dear-"

"DON'T CALL ME DEAR!" (Y/N) screamed, hitting her head backwards to strike it against the hard wall behind her. Her vision blurred and she saw a small crack form in the walls in front of her, slowly melting back to seal up.

"STOP IT!" Sopapilla quickly held onto (Y/N)'s cheeks, squeezing hard. "YOU'RE MAKING IT WORSE!"

"JUST LET ME GO!" she screeched, ripping away from her grip and hitting her head again, hissing in pain.

A huge crack formed behind (Y/N), the morning sun of the clearing peering through. Sopapilla stopped, her eyes wide as she stared into the glare, promptly allowing (Y/N) to continue.

She kept hitting her skull against the wall, bashing it more and more while she ignored the unbearable pain, realizing that it was working. Soon the entire room was lit by the warm light of the garden, beaming into the room as if it was reaching out to claim (Y/N) out of this mess.

With a few more strikes, and with blood in her eyes, (Y/N) gave it one final hit, the whole room breaking away into shards of glass. Sopapilla flew backwards, fading somewhere into the sunlight. It all happened in slow motion as her consciousness reunited with her physical body, removing the mental grasp that Sopapilla had on her.

The whole world flickered for a moment in her vision as she felt herself wake up. She sat with with a large gasp, a cold sweat covering her body. She searched around, looking for Dark Cacao, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"CACAO!" she screamed, trying to find him. In an instant she heard footsteps rushing towards her.

Emerging from some foliage was the prince, still nicely dressed in his white suit. He was carrying a large load of jelly berries and other sweets from the bushes in the garden. "What happened?"

(Y/N) slowed her breathing down, relieved. "Nothing, I was just... I don't know. A nightmare, I guess." She brushed the hair out of her face. "What do you have there?"

The prince looked down, then smiled. "Thought you'd be hungry."

Just then her stomach growled. "Yeah, yeah I'm pretty hungry."

———

Sopapilla woke up with a jolt. She fell out of the chair she was sitting in, landing softly on the carpet beneath her. "Ugh..."

Despite her unfortunate fall, and the unsuccessful attempt to get (Y/N) to fess up, she was relieved. Relieved that it all worked out in the end. She didn't want it to go the way it did, but she knew where (Y/N) could be.

Those cracks in the walls were more than enough of what she needed to know. In fact, (Y/N) gave her exact location to the elder in her fit to wake up. But how did she actually find it? She could swear that it was impossible to find.

"(Y/N), what did you do to get to the garden..?"

Word count: 1687