Work Text:
Picture a map of the world in your head.
Do you see it? Do you see the vision? Can you grasp it — the sugarcoated hills and syrup-covered spires; the buildings and towns and communities; the Cookies, always the Cookies, everywhere and nowhere and always and never?
No. You can’t see it. You may look, but you shall never see.
This is Earthbread. That is all you need to know.
Now zoom in.
Zoom in some more.
Take careful note of the Cookie standing in the centre of that crowd: the Fount , people call him. The Fount of Knowledge, as that is all he is here to do. He is here to bring knowledge; if he does anything other than that, if he does anything other than what he is meant to do, then he is a mistake and a failure and all those other horrible words.
He is one of The Five. All of The Five were created for a purpose. None of The Five were meant to live real lives — and heck, they don’t even have names. They are merely objects. Tools.
Don’t think of them as real, sentient beings with real, free wills. They are not.
—
“A rebellion?” asks the Sugar of Happiness, with little more than one raised eyebrow; her face doesn’t give much away, but then again, nothing about her ever does.
“A rebellion,” he confirms.
“And what makes you think I will join forces with you?” she asks. “It’s pointless. You won’t be getting too far, sorry to say.”
His face flashes in something resembling anger for just one second, but because he is the Fount, he Knows what to do. He thinks he knows what to do. He is actually quite confident in his decision to step out of line, as if none of the Witches would ever find out, or find some way to punish him.
—
He keeps his expression guarded as he walks down the halls. He is quiet. He does not get (or look) distracted at all; he takes one step, and then another. It is quite simple, really, to give the impression that he is not paying attention to anything around him. He Knows how to make himself look innocent.
And then, just when he is about to turn the next corner, he whips around and glares.
“I know you’re there,” he says. “I Know.”
Silence answers him. He has always been good in front of an audience.
“I’m predictable to you, aren’t I?” he asks. “This is all just a game. You think you know my next move; you think you know how my mind works.”
(It is important to note here that something has come over the Fount — please, do keep in mind that he has no mind. Not really. Not in the typical sense. He cannot think like the rest of us. He is merely made to serve a purpose, and that is all he does. Clearly the Witches have made a mistake. Clearly the Fount has gone insane.)
“Well,” he says with some element of finality, “you don’t.”
He is wrong, of course. They do. He doesn’t have a free mind. See? He has gone insane. The Witches must have added too much of that secret ingredient that no one is meant to Know. The other Four don’t seem to have this problem.
How curious. How very strange, indeed.
—
“They’re mindless pawns!” he tells the Herald of Change. He is quite unaware that they are not mindless pawns. He is.
He is the mindless pawn.
But his foolish approaches to this nonexistent problem do not work — as expected: they were, after all, very, very foolish — and so he decided to use his Knowledge for something almost equally idiotic.
The Fount of Knowledge had become quite a fool. It must be the fault of the Witches; this, probably, is when he should have been replaced.
The Fount took a different approach when he decided the other Four were not going to listen. He took matters into his own hands. He spread rumours.
He told lies.
And right here, right now, is when you stop the story. This is preposterous , you say. There is no way that the Fount of Knowledge would ever tell a lie.
Well, he did. He told several. He must have broken free from his chains at the top somehow; developed his own free will. That’s the running theory.
“I always had my own free will!” he would insist to the Witches through gritted teeth, over and over and over again. But this was after he had started telling lies.
No one would believe him.
It’s because he was lying, by the way. No one would believe him because he wasn’t telling the truth.
He brought the other Four down with him, somehow. They started thinking — dangerous — and decided that they didn’t like helping all the Cookies of Earthbread anymore. They didn’t think that Earthbread was worth all that trouble, which just goes to show you: free wills are dangerous.
The Five were never our true heroes; the Witches were. The Witches created them and due to some kind of mistake The Five turned on everyone.
They even had the audacity to make up silly little names for themselves, as if they were worth it. Just foolishly threw away their titles!
The Fount of Knowledge became the feared Shadow Milk Cookie (as if he were ever really a Cookie at all). He led a rebellion.
He was a fool.
The Witches had no choice. The Five had stepped out of line; they were mistakes, and they needed to be disposed of. So the Witches sealed them away inside of the Silver Tree, a tree that still stands tall even today.
It was a happy ending for everyone.
—
“I do not believe,” says Pure Vanilla Cookie, “that this is the right way to go about things.”
That is Pure Vanilla Cookie. He is a member of The New Five — or, as they are better Known as — The Ancient Heroes.
Yes, the Witches decided to try again; to give the Soul Jams to a new batch of Five. But, oh, this is where you stop the story again, and question Pure Vanilla Cookie’s wording.
I believe , he said. Believe! As if he has his own free will? As if he doesn’t already Know what needs to be done?
Yes.
The New Five do have their own free wills. No one quite knows why; majority of Earthbread doesn’t see this as a problem, but then: majority of Earthbread believed that The Old Five had their own free wills as well. They thought they were helping us out of the goodness of their hearts, but of course they were all proven wrong when The Beasts came about, and showed their true colours.
The Ancient Heroes are here now.
“He’s right,” Hollyberry Cookie agrees. “I say we go in and attack — they won’t know what hit them!”
“No, that’s not really what I—”
“Or,” Golden Cheese Cookie argues, “We start from here—” She points to a spot near the top of their map— “and fight the battle along the edge of this creek. It’s rather simple, really. An easy win!”
“We will not be able to see our surroundings,” Dark Cacao Cookie points out. “There would be a thick forest behind us. We could be walking right into an ambush.”
“So we need a lookout,” Hollyberry says.
“I volunteer,” say White Lily Cookie and Golden Cheese Cookie at exactly the same time.
See? They can’t seem to agree on anything. No one Knows what to do! This is why none of them should have their own free wills.
When these Five corrupt (likely due to the sheer weight of their responsibilities — seriously, how could the Witches possibly expect Cookies with a conscience to handle this any better than The Five?) and the Witches create a new batch, then we can only hope that they don’t make these same mistakes.
It’s been so long: there are probably new Witches, baking Cookies. Hopefully smarter ones.
Hopefully they won’t let any of this happen ever again.