Learned helplessness is not a trait you're acquainted with, dear.
Good. Help yourself.
-
Content warning for: Eye trauma
-
Any aspiring doctor and medical practitioner who wanted to truly engage in the business took an oath to do no harm. According to the Hippocratic Oath, a doctor wasn't meant to do any harm—not onto patients, not onto people, and certainly not on purpose.
Of course, the Hippocratic Oath was a mystery unto itself, in its own way. It was an oath of contradiction and hypocrisy. Did 'do no harm' extend to cutting the dough of a cookie open to mend the fragile bits inside a body? One could argue that surgery in itself was harm, even if it was to mend something more severe in the body. A cookie had to spend days, weeks—sometimes even months recovering, often in pain.
And what about something so seemingly innocuous as experimenting with medicine to see which worked best for the patient? Medicine could have a vast variety of unexpected side-effects, ranging from nausea and fatigue to sleeplessness, anemia, and allergic reactions. And yet it was a necessary step to take with treating many patients, a calculated risk where 'do no harm' was disregarded, molded into 'do as little harm as possible'.
As far as Affogato was concerned, the Hippocratic Oath meant nothing when somebody was charging at him with a sword.
Affogato kicked his body forward, pressing the entirety of his body weight into the movement. The spear punctured deep into the fabric protecting the cookie's fragile stomach, aiming blindly for the vague space where the chest cavity failed to protect the vital organs deep inside. The pointed tip of the spear pressed in deep—Affogato was briefly surprised to meet so much resistance.
A scream punctured the air, high, shrill, and filled with agony. It wasn't Affogato's.
A second later, he heard a thud behind him, followed by a heavy voice snapping out a curse. Affogato pulled at the spear, twisting it. The cookie lurched forward, attached at the spear, and Affogato panicked, kicking the cookie away. The spear came loose with a dizzying recoil, and the kick forced the bandit screaming onto the ground, arms wrapped around his stomach.
Affogato turned, lifting both of his hands, raising the shaft of the spear over his shoulder like a club. He blindly swung, aiming for whoever or whatever it was that struck the ground beside him.
It snapped back sharply, rebounding off of the cookie before they—Affogato couldn't tell what any of them were, only that they were wrapped up in layers of black and had black bandannas pulled tight over their faces, a lack of color that made it easy to blend in with the darkness—could pull themself back to their feet. He didn't know why they were down there—perhaps they tried to tackle him? It didn't matter.
What did matter was their shriek—the way that they crumpled back to the ground, arms cradling their head. Affogato's hands shook so horribly that it was hard to keep the spear straight. He could feel the echo of his racing heart pulsing in his fingertips as he lifted the spear again, aiming for the back of the skull, doing his best to ignore the lingering shake of the long pole that still permeated in his arms.
"Go away!" Affogato cried, bringing it down. It whistled and bent in the air, striking down on the cookie with a sharp crack. He wasn't sure where exactly it hit, already lifting it up again. "Go—"
Something large slammed against his side all at once, so suddenly he didn't have any time to react. The spear went flying, his grip lost, and Affogato hit the ground hard, wheezing for breath to fill his empty lungs. The weight was on top of him, grappling with his body to force it into submission, making it impossible for Affogato's fingers to scrape into the ground and crawl away. The attempt failed, Affogato instead opted to roll onto his back before the cookie could settle themself fully.
Once he did, large hands clasped around his throat, the distant firelight casting heavy shadows over their face, masked and hooded in the shadow of their gat. He couldn't make out the eye color, but their eyes were hard and sharp, filled with the familiar intent and lack of hesitation to kill.
Affogato's fingers scrambled for purchase in the fabric of their clothes, nails attempting to dig in deep, but he couldn't pierce the fabric. The cookie leaned in, pressing their body weight firmly against Affogato's neck, and he couldn't breathe no matter how hard he tried to gasp for air. His throat felt so tight that it could be crushed, wheezing attempts at screams dying before they could even manifest.
This cookie's going to kill me, he thought desperately, his vision sparking and fracturing at the edges. I don't want to die! I'm not going to die like this!
Affogato's face twisted into a fierce scowl, abandoning his struggle on the cookie's arms and grasping for their face instead. They twisted their head one way, the other, leaning back just enough to subtly ease the pressure on his throat. Not that it did much of anything, but baby steps—baby steps.
The cookie snarled, twisting their head to bite the palm of Affogato's hand, sending desperate sparks of pain racing its way up his arm and through his body. Affogato couldn't scream even if he wanted to, but through the agony and pain, he reached up to grasp at the cookie's head with his other hand, acting quickly.
He angled his thumb and pressed it into the cookie's eye.
They understood in an instant what he was trying to do—the hands loosened around Affogato's neck and focused instead on holding him down instead of squeezing, drawing in strained, grateful breaths into his starving lungs. They did their best to lean back, but Affogato held on tightly, taking advantage of the surprise to press as hard as he could in his current state before they could escape fully.
He quickly felt a sickening pop beneath his thumb.
The cookie opened their mouth in a soundless scream, freeing Affogato's soiled hand, pulling their own up to their face. They crumbled to the ground at his side, curling into a ball and pressing the palm of their hand tightly against the socket of their seeping, jammy eye. Affogato gulped for breath, the cold air burning his lungs in very much the same way he imagined that air burned a fish's gills, scanning the area and distantly catching the faint glint of the spear in the snow.
He began crawling toward it, one hand cradling his abused throat, his body twitching and writhing in agony. His heart was pounding so hard that his head hurt, so suddenly full of jam after such a brief time of nothing that it made him dizzy.
Someone wrapped their around his neck, coming up from behind him, pulling his body into their chest and squeezing tightly. Affogato choked, digging his nails into the dough at their wrist, twisting and turning until he recognized something wet pressing against his lower back. Something independently in his brain connected the dots—his body acted before he could catch up with his thoughts, lifting his arm and angling it as he twisted his body and slammed his elbow back into their stomach.
The cookie let him go immediately, screaming.
"Fuck you!" they snapped, voice strained and wheezing with the immensity of their pain.
Affogato closed the sparse distance to the spear and grasped it, body screaming with pain that'd only hurt more later. He stumbled to his feet and turned, training his spear on the seeping cookie that glared at him with all of the hate and vitriol of the world, and then toward the half-blind cookie. Affogato trembled, panting, dizzy with exhaustion.
He didn't hear footsteps coming up behind him. He did feel the sharp crack of something hard and stiff slamming against the side of his head, leaving him spinning down to the ground. Sharp cracks of pain splintered through his skull, tingling numbly into his fingertips, scrambling to find purchase in the ground. For a moment, he forgot where he was and what he was doing.
It smacked against his skull again, leaving him limp and boneless for a moment. The third time felt painless.
-
When Affogato awoke, his head was pounding.
It felt like it'd been split open wide and his brain was oozing out in an organic mass. The mere effort of tilting his head to one side or the other felt almost unbearable, creating a soundless sense of agony. It split apart his skull, thundering its way down his spine and throughout the rest of his body, before echoing back to the source. It hurt to think. The back of his head felt moist and sticky, and he was cold.
He was laying on the floor—or the ground, whichever it was. He couldn't tell the difference between dirt, snow, and hardwood at this point. He didn't want to think about which it was, anyway. His brain hurt. His head hurt. Don't think about thinking, he thought, you'll just make it worse. He thought anyway. It was harder not to think than he thought it'd be.
It hurt a lot. It felt like the jam was still seeping. His head felt wet but the wet felt warm and then cold. It felt like it wanted to freeze but the warmth of his body was preventing it from doing so. There was a light behind his eyelids, flickering golden and soft. Gods were bathed in gold, and Fortuna was golden. Oh, Fortuna, help him.
He groaned.
There was a noise. He couldn't make out what it was. Some sort of vague and distant mumble that he couldn't find the energy to parse through. This wasn't good—something was wrong. Something was very wrong and he needed to fix it. He needed to stitch it back together. His leg hurt, but it didn't hurt as bad as his head. His head hurt. His head hurt a lot.
More noise that felt distantly different, in both what it might have been and how it drew closer. It wasn't a mumble. Maybe it'd be crunching if he listened hard enough, but that required thinking, and thinking hurt. The noise was accompanied by a growing shadow, passing over Fortuna's light, concealing it from his perception of existence and only making him a little colder.
Oh, Fortuna had been warming him—how gracious they were. How gracious—and how cruel of him to take it for granted. Now the warmth was gone and he was alone once again.
Something knelt close to him. He could practically sense it moving in the air.
Something mumbled—Affogato didn't listen except to vaguely register that it sounded like a voice. He was instead more focused on trying to move his hand up to cradle his head, met with confusion when he didn't feel the sensation. His heart thudded in his chest as he shifted his body for a moment, struggling to find his arms, his hands—his fingers. Where were they? Were they gone, too? He tried to clench his hands into fists, squeezing tightly. He felt the tendons of each finger stretch and contract—no, they were there. Where were they?
Something mumbled. No, not something—someone. Was he being addressed? Was this shadow descended from the golden light Fortuna, come to punish his ill fortune? Oh, he didn't want to put in the effort to listen, he truly didn't. He felt too tired to do so, far too fatigued in every way that mattered. He wanted to sleep. Sleeping sounded nice.
Something in his mind warned him—sleeping wasn't good. Don't fall asleep. His head felt dizzy and spun in the same way that sleepless nights tended to make one's head begin to spin. It was half-stumbling through a day with exhaustion masked behind a pretty face, following a night of staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. It was overwork. He was so tired.
He couldn't sleep. Sleeping was dangerous. Stay awake. How did one stay awake?
Focus. Work.
Something mumbled. He tried to listen. It was difficult to parse through the words and his brain felt like needles were digging into it.
"...st a mer... tiny guy like... ay again? ...Hey. Hey."
The voice faded in and out between distorted mumbles and concrete syllables. He could only half-guess at what the actual words were. The concept of language raked aggressively at his brain, begging him not to exert this part of his mind at the moment. The voice itself was deep and pleasant, like honey-butter lather. It sounded like a voice that was used to gentle coaxing.
He didn't like it.
Something patted at his face—once, twice in rapid succession. It wasn't painful. The person said something about 'eyes'. Affogato groaned. The voice stressed, harder—"Open your eyes."
He did, hesitantly squinting them open just a sliver.
The shadow hovered over him, a blurry mass that knit itself together into some sort of towering, bulky creature looming over him. He couldn't make out the features: The direction of the light didn't lend itself to help with that, and it was debatable if he would even be able to if it were. The shadow patted at his face a few more times, and it must've been a hand or something, because there wasn't really any other reasonable explanation.
Just this little bit of stimulation alone hurt. He felt tight in his head and swollen all at once, like something was trying to burst its way out of his skull. He clenched his eyes shut, groaning, doing his best to bury the side of his face into the ground. He bit at the inside of his cheek and soon felt sweetness blossom inside of his mouth, too. He tasted his own jam and felt a little more grounded.
The shadow reached over him. He felt it stirring in the air and felt the bristles of its fur tickle against his wrists. Something frigid and cold slipped by his wrist, and in an instant of sheer panic, Affogato twisted his body, lifting up his leg to kick the creature away. The heel of his foot hit something firm, and the someone gave a distantly satisfying grunt before grabbing his ankle and pressing their body weight into the ground.
The knife left his wrists but not without a pull that gave after a moment, and Affogato's hands swung around to scramble at the earth beneath him.
Was he... tied up? Was that where his hands were?
Despite his best efforts, Affogato pulled one of his arms beneath him, bracing himself unsteadily on the ground and turning his head. He opened his eyes to squint at the someone who might very well have been the cause of his disorientation, panting.
He regretted it instantly. The golden light was strong, pulling against the space behind his eyes and threatening to tear them to pieces. It was impossible to look at with impunity, the consequences of doing so rattling in his brain with the distinctive agony of serrated blades with every flicker of the golden light—of the fire. He only knew it was fire because fire flickered, though the conclusion wouldn't be drawn until later.
His body jerked away from the light, scrambling back against the ground and twisting to face away. Several feet ahead, he saw nothing but the reflections of the faint light flickering against some sort of uneven wall. He found it easier to look at, but the damage had been done already, leaving splinters lingering in his head. There was no way to leave from here, but it was the only place he could flee to.
He scrambled towards it, pressing his side up against the wall, craggy texture pressing against his arm. For some reason, his leg felt hot and wailed with agony as he kicked himself away. He reached into the sleeves of his hanbok, searching eagerly for something to soothe himself, and he found it in the handle of the knife.
There was a noise—a distant but present hum resonating from somewhere behind him. It was something Affogato wasn't able to recognize despite its distant familiarity. And yet the pieces of his mind that still failed to fracture away from each other were still somehow able to cobble together an explanation, though the pain worsened with each syllable he tried to focus on. They were talking, but his brain was filled with so many splinters it was impossible to understand what they were saying.
Instead he tried to focus on something else, wading his way through the murky fog. What'd even happened to cause this? He could barely remember his name, let alone those specific events.
Nothing seemed to happen to him. All he could hear was the crackling of the distant fire and the droning of senseless words. The adrenaline left his body, leaving it aching and empty, throbbing in his skull and twisting in his leg, knotting in his shoulder. Oh, it felt like everything hurt. How was he supposed to get himself back home like this?
The thought felt surprisingly hollow, empty, and distant. In the wake of growing fatigue, aches, and pains, his heart twisted, too. He knew it as if it were instinct.
There was no home for him. Not anymore. Home was dead.
The proof was cradled in his hand.
-
There was only one word that could describe the following days, and that word was 'vague'.
In all actuality, fading in and out of consciousness was more exhausting than it initially seemed. It felt almost like an echo of when he first entered Snowfall Village, in a way—except instead of an unfortunate fever, he was burdened with a horrible concussion. And instead of being tended to by a doctor who knew his craft, he was the only one educated enough to know how to properly treat himself.
It proved difficult to do so when consciousness was so fleeting, and sometimes it was so bright that he found it difficult to think. He woke up, dizzy and uncoordinated, first in the maw of what must have once been an abandoned building, and then to the chill of snow fluttering down upon his face. Each time, he tried to pull himself up to his feet only for his leg to give way beneath him with a shocking agony.
The third time, he remembered—distantly—the cuts and splinters he got from the broken floorboards.
Trying to mind himself in his feverish daze, he reached down slowly, hiking up the hem of his chima bit by bit. The underskirt and undergarment was next—he rolled the leg up to his knee, peering down bear witness to the situation.
He found himself met with the horrid stench of infection.
Affogato hadn't eaten anything since he found the child's corpse, but despite that, nausea climbed its way up his throat.
The cookie watching him moved, stepping toward the one who was working on pitching a tent for the night. They spoke among each other in hushed tones, voices so droning it was impossible to decipher. Affogato slumped back with a weary huff, breathing plumes of frosty breath that lifted into the sky. Exhaustion was already trying to drag him back down again.
The questions buzzing listlessly in his head may have had the same answer: Why wasn't he dead, and why were they taking him with them?
He considered it for a while—the fact that despite him fighting ruthlessly against them in his desperation to remain in one piece, he managed to cause a significant degree of injury. They came to him for the goods, not for him. Why, then, did they opt to keep him alive?
Affogato had awoken, tied and incapacitated—a prisoner.
That left him with two possible conclusions—either they were keeping him alive to bring him somewhere worse to die, or he was a hostage.
The Minister of Treasury and Trade had his face posted across half of the kingdom. Doubtless, the reward for bringing him back alive was much higher than dead.
So he was a hostage.
Good.
"Hey," Affogato called, his voice hoarse, "one of you. Fetch me a—erm. The red—the red pack in the cart."
"Why?" one of them spit out. "You better learn your place, asshole."
"I don't think I'm much... use to you," Affogato called back, trying not to slur his words, "if I die of... you know. An infection."
"We'll just amputate the leg, then," the other answered.
Affogato's heart thudded loudly in his chest, jolting him to perch on his elbows and glance toward the two hazy figures. One of them was already walking toward him, drawing out something that shimmered in the fog.
Oh.
Affogato swallowed. "I don't think you will."
"Boss just said, 'take him there alive,'" they grunted, perching the blade over their shoulder. Affogato's eyes flickered toward it, heart seizing when he realized the blade wasn't a sword at all, but an axe. Now it was all in focus. His eyes flickered back toward the hulking figure, lingering over the jammy bandage wrapped around their head, seeping from their hollow eye socket.
"He never said in how many pieces."
Oh.
"You don't want to do that," Affogato stuttered out, shrinking back. "You really don't. Not if you do want me alive."
"And why shouldn't I?" They adjusted their axe, holding it by the handle of one hand and caressing the side with another. A finger ran, gingerly, down the edge of it, as if examining how sharp it was. He couldn't tell how sharp it was from here. If it were blunt, that'd be worse—it'd probably require multiple swings where a clean cut was much preferred.
Knowing that Affogato had stolen their eye, he didn't think it mattered to them.
The world swam in his vision, knocking his brain rattling from one side to the other. Dizzy, empty nausea passed over him, knocking his world off-kilter. The cookie was next to him now, looming over him. They moved the blade, easing it down to hover over Affogato's leg, measuring his body proportions. When they finally lifted it up, Affogato shrieked.
"You don't know how to tie a tourniquet!" he cried, arm shooting up in a helpless bid to protect himself. "You might think you do but you don't! Do you want me to bleed out, then? Is that what you want?! What use am I to you dead?"
Affogato's heart thundered in his chest, twisting in his stomach, and he braced himself for the pain. It didn't come.
"...And I'm also of no use to you if I die from in—from infection," he continued. He loathed the stutter. He knew the words he wanted to say, but they stuttered on his tongue, making him look weak, scared and fragile. And while he might have been scared, weak, and fragile in this moment, he'd sooner die before he let it be seen.
"And I know how to deal with that. ...With infection. The medicine is in the... in—in the red pack."
The cookie turned their head to the side. Affogato didn't dare follow their gaze for fear that they were simply waiting for him not to pay enough attention to him. His heart thudded in his chest, running circles around his brain until it became a hazy slurry. He wanted to fumble for his knife—the knife that he kept safely in the pocket of his sleeve at all times—but they stole it from him days ago, their suspicion drawn when they realized his repetitive motion.
He wanted to kill them just for that.
"I'm a doctor, you know," Affogato added after a time, softening his voice. The cookie turned their head back to regard him. "I can tend to that... that socket of yours, too."
For a moment, he hoped that this was enough to curry at least enough favor to win them over. While he was loathe to do such a thing for a cookie who very nearly killed him—who was so willing to cut his leg off—Affogato still wanted to live, despite everything. The irony of it all was that this wasn't even the worst situation he'd ever been in before, but it was certainly one of the ones that made him feel the most powerless.
The hope diminished when they brandished their axe, hoisting it over their shoulder. "You're a doctor?" they scoffed. "So you know how to tie a tourniquet."
"How am I supposed to heal your eye if I'm too busy trying not to bleed to death?" Affogato scoffed, swallowing down the bile in his throat. It was important not to panic. That was what they wanted. They wanted vengeance for their eye, after all. They wanted an excuse to maim him, too.
"I'm sure it hurts—that eye—quite a lot more than you'd want it to. I'm sure it hasn't been properly cleaned or the socket fully emptied. I'm sure that there aren't any doctors around who know how to deal with such an injury. It'll hurt a lot more if it gets infected, too. If isn't already. And even if it is tended to, it might simply get infected again."
Gingerly, Affogato pressed his fingertips against the corner of his eye, pressing against it. He knew what those injuries looked like, and the memory of it twisted in his stomach, making him want to gag. His eyes already felt tight as it was: Recounting how traumatic eye injuries could be was only making him more hyper-aware of that.
"Your eye is so close to your brain," he added thoughtfully. "And infection can travel quickly when left unchecked."
Infection had already traveled quickly, left unchecked. It left his leg swollen and raw, splinters that'd been rotting away in that house for who-knows-how-long still embedded in his crust, cradled in puffy pockets of abscesses that needed to be drained. His body felt feverish and hot, leaving him lethargic—and as the days passed, he started to realize that the burden of his fatigue was only partly caused by his lingering concussion. His body was tired and worn.
The large cookie considered this, not without prejudice. Affogato could hazard a guess at what their posture desired: They still wanted to maim him in some way. But they were still silent about it, leather gloves clenching and unclenching audibly around the handle of the weapon. Perhaps he'd painted a gruesome enough picture. Perhaps their eye was hurting much more than they let on.
Affogato tilted his head to the side, toward where they were looking before. "The medicine is in the red pack."
-
There were three cookies that attacked Affogato across from the house with the ghost. There were only two now.
The realization didn't hit him until the following day, when he was addressing his wounds before seeing to the one-eyed cookie. It was hard to think about that instance—he blamed the concussion, but it felt disconnected from him and vague, difficult to focus on. It made him dizzy to even consider. He still did, though, forcing himself to focus. His brain tightened.
He remembered the cookie with the eye, of course. It was difficult to forget how it... popped. He remembered that part most vividly. He remembered the scream. But everything else was such a chaotic mess that it was impossible to attribute. All he really remembered was panicking, trying to use half-remembered 'training' from a lifetime ago that he never had to use until then.
Perhaps it didn't matter. Whatever happened to that third cookie, they were gone now. That only left two to deal with.
The second cookie glared at him with honey eyes, hand cradling the back of her head. Her blackjack tapped against the soles of her boots in rhythmic patience, ticking like Fortuna's death watch.
-
Five days of exhausting travel. Affogato hadn't eaten much.
They took turns watching him, alternating every twelve hours or so. They actively avoided the main road unless it was absolutely necessary, which Affogato figured would probably only draw more suspicion to them if someone were to see. Perhaps they didn't want to risk Affogato trying to find help if they happened to pass by somebody backtracking. They didn't want to get in trouble with any Watchers who may have been out escorting.
Five days of exhausting travel, and they were drawing steadily closer to the edge of The Silver Platter. Affogato could see the exhaustion weighing heavily on their faces, slumped shoulder-to-shoulder. Even when they weren't watching him, they had to watch the horizon, keep their eyes and ears peeled for wild animals or intersecting travelers. There hadn't been any up until this point. They were bound to lower their guard.
They lowered their guard on the fifth night.
They tied Affogato's wrists behind his back and bound his ankles tightly, but this time, they didn't bother to secure him to anything stable. Not to the cart after taking off one of the wheels, nor in the middle of a circle of cans or anything of the like. They were tired of all this travel—maybe the extra person in their group would've made it easier. Maybe they weren't used to being without an extra set of hands.
His goodnight kiss manifested as a whack against his shoulder that'd surely leave a bruise later. Pumpkin Spice spat at him. "Move from this spot, I'm breaking your legs."
Affogato winced—more at the pain than at the threat. It hurt less than the blow she delivered to the back of his head a week or so ago: Her limbs were tired, too, fingers sluggish and blackjack practically dragging behind her. She was starting to get dark circles under her eyes. Affogato's fingers curled and itched, but he exposed his metaphorical underbelly.
"I understand," he said, accepting his reality.
She scoffed at him, standing over him uncertainly from where he half-lay on the ground. There was hate and malice in the way she treated him, some kind of satisfaction of how much power her aggressiveness earned her over him. He let her believe that she had that power in the first place. Lowering their guard was more important than his own pride at this point.
And lowering their guard was the very reason why his captors were both sleeping tonight.
In spite of his initial fight, Affogato made every believable effort he could to come across as limp and pliant, like he was willing to do whatever he could to appease them. As long as he seemed otherwise harmless—he thought—as long as he seemed to show no motivation to escape or fight back, they could get the impression that it was okay to lower their guard a little bit. Grow a little bit more lax. That day would come, surely.
That night was here.
Pumpkin Spice turned sharply, half-hurrying to the hoisted tent that her fellow bandit set up, eager to have a lie-down. The most Affogato was left with was a few of the blankets from the cart, half-tossed on him and half made into a bed for him to sleep on.
Affogato laid there and waited. He didn't count the hours or the minutes or the seconds—all he did was wait, pretending to sleep whenever one of them peeked out of the tent, until a long, long while passed where neither of them did.
Then he moved.
His arms were tied behind his back at the wrist by some spare bit of cloth. Affogato strained and wriggled, huffing quietly, pulling his knees up to his chest and stretching his arms out. The tightness in his shoulder followed through, making it a bit difficult—but once the bindings passed beneath the soles of his feet, that pain alleviated significantly, and his shoulders could relax. He lay like that for a moment, simply breathing, listening.
He heard nothing.
Tentatively, Affogato wriggled his way from beneath the blankets. The cold hit his body all at once, the uncomfortable bed begging for him to stay wrapped up in its warmth. He ignored it—a massive feat of self-control—instead opting to inch his way to the wagon twelve or so feet away. He saw it only because—by the grace of Fortuna—the clouds were thinner than usual today, finally lightened by the aftermath of a blizzard in the far-off east horizon. The aftermath promised safe passage toward the path that led to Dark Cacao Kingdom proper.
The cold permeated through his bones. It made his joints ache and creak, growing stiff with moisture and damp. He felt it the most in his ankle—in the way it hurt to gather his legs up beneath himself to stand. He ended up perching his elbows on one of the spokes of the wagon wheel, twisting his body and pulling himself as upright as he could.
He left tracks in the snow, he knew—but it wouldn't matter once his goal was accomplished. It'd be too late for his captors by then.
He wrestled with himself to climb on board the wagon, which seemed sparser now than it had been before his capture. He wondered passingly if they'd collaborated with somebody else who'd taken some of the stock and transported it elsewhere—the sheer audacity that Affogato had allowed such a thing to happen in the first place! Carefully, Affogato rifled through the furs and the fabric down to the bottom, gathering some beneath his knees. Then he began pressing his frigid fingertips, one by one, against the planks of wood.
He found the loose plank quickly, with the help of several months' worth of antsy fingers clawing between the cracks and pulling them up. He was well-practiced in finding the emergency cache by now. The shallow belly of the wagon wasn't large enough to store massive amounts of food, nor wide enough for medical supplies. All that it had, in that little pocket, was a couple of fireworks.
He grabbed the stick in his bound hands and climbed off the rear of the wagon, easing himself to his feet and then to his knees. He held onto it as tightly as he could as he crawled his way, worm-like and wretched, to the pitiful remains of the fire. It was just embers by now, it seemed—difficult to find a smoldering coal hot enough to light it. He could barely feel the heat cupped in his hands, and he saw the ghost of his breath more than he saw the light of the heat as he breathed onto it.
Affogato's heart raced in his chest, mind fumbling for solutions. The fire wasn't hot enough to burn. It'd be hot to the touch, but it wouldn't light the wick. He couldn't throw his clothes onto the fire because wool didn't easily burn. And besides—both of his hands were tied, and he had nothing to cut the fabric with anyway.
Not anymore, at least, he thought with a spark of resentment in his chest—oh, if only he could wrench that hatred out of himself and mold it into a flame!
Affogato swallowed it down, taking a moment to breathe the bitter air in and then out, nice and slow. The action hurt his nose and it hurt his lungs, but he did it regardless, eyes flickering over the camp in search of answers.
He saw the tent that his captors had hoisted and closed: If he listened hard enough, he could hear one of them gently snoring inside. If he felt daring enough, he could struggle his way over, peek inside, and try to find their tinderbox—but he wasn't sure if that was a viable option. It was impossible for him to tell how light they were at sleeping: Though neither of them stirred at the sound of rustling fabric and creaking wood outside, he'd also been putting in a great effort to stay silent, too. He'd rather risk as little as possible.
His eyes drifted through the dim moonlight over to the oxen, flickering over their forms. There were still two, and it was difficult to tell from this distance—his vision was still flickering in and out of haziness—but they might have been thinner. Oh, when they got back to Choco Bark Cookie, what would he think? At least neither of them thusfar had been slain. That'd upset that poor kid so dearly.
Affogato shook his head of the thought. Focus. There was plenty of time for regret once he was either saved or dead—whichever resulted from this.
From the oxen, his gaze drifted back toward the wagon again. He ran through the list of the useful stock that was on there—the woolen yarn and fabric, the couple of bags of food he brought with him on the journey, the medical supplies he brought along—the food. Affogato's mouth began to water, distracted for a moment by the temptation of something sweet, filling and delicious—a rare commodity that he shouldn't be taking advantage of, let alone thinking right now.
But he hadn't eaten much for days, the bitterness of the food they gave him turning his stomach unpleasant. He was hungry.
He'd been hungry before. He'd been more hungry, even. He'd survive.
Still, he swallowed thickly, struggling to think past the food with how dizzy his head became for a moment. There was food, and... and medical supplies—some of those medical supplies were alcoholic in nature. Alcohol helped fire catch and burn. Food, medical supplies, and fabric, both woolen and cotton. Come to think of it, most of the supply that was missing was cotton. Had they been using it as tinder and fuel?
Cotton was plant-based, after all.
...Cotton was flammable.
Alcohol and cotton it was, then.
But first, before he wasted his time struggling back to the coach—gauze was made of cotton, and his leg was itching. He extended his legs and rolled up the hem of his chima to examine the wrappings. There were spots of jam, but feeling them overall, they seemed more or less dry. He hiked it up to above his knees, shivering with the cold, taking a moment to breathe into his hands.
He found where he tucked away the end of the gauze and began unraveling. Unlike full cloth, gauze bandages were much looser in its composition and easier to tear—this was important particularly in cases of emergency and for use on the field. Bandages also tended to spoil quickly, needing to be replaced on a semi-frequent basis before the wound scabbed against the fabric: If they were removed incorrectly, the scabs threatened to tear away again, exposing the sensitive flesh beneath to the risk of infection.
He didn't have the time for that at the moment, though. He grit his teeth as he unraveled the bandage wrapped around his leg, the smell of lingering medicine and jam wafting coldly up his nose. At least he was mindful to replace these bandages twice a day—though this did require dipping into the supply he was supposed to be delivering.
At least the frequent changes helped mitigate the risk of improper removal. Looking at it now, with the bandages slowly unraveling completely, gingerly feeling his leg with his hands, it seemed safe enough—for now—to tentatively abandon them.
Now that the bandages were removed, he took one corner of them in his teeth and reached up to pull against it. The dense ripping sound permeated sharply in the air, making him stiffen, gauze clenched in his teeth, listening to the shuffling in the tent. If he stayed silent, perhaps—silent and motionless—perhaps they'd think it was some odd sound of the wind.
His heart hammered so hard in his chest, he could swear the moon could hear it. His teeth were clenched as tight as they could to prevent them from chattering. His fingertips were going numb and his body was shivering.
He waited a very, very long time.
The snoring resumed.
More carefully now, Affogato tore the bandages into scraps—only this time, instead of long pieces, it was in scraps. And it was only a few of them—as much as needed to kick off this experiment. The embers were nearly cinders now, only a few spots still holding any semblance of orange that barely gave off any kind of light. Affogato carefully leaned in, nudging the cotton into place, gently blowing into the pit.
The edges caught fire.
Affogato scrambled quickly, grabbing the firework stick he retrieved from his side and pushing it into that flame, wick-side up. He waited for a moment before blowing into the fire.
When he was greeted with the hiss, he almost dropped it right then and there.
He didn't, though. Instead, he laughed, quiet and breathy as he lifted it skyward, imagining himself as a soldier lifting their sword to the peaks of the mountains—venomous, vicious, victorious.
The boom it made almost seemed to deafen the silence: The brightest light Affogato had seen in all his life—brighter even than staring into the fire of a well-tended hearth—ascended like an angel into the sky lifting a beacon of hope. It lifted itself slowly, without much weight or haste, begging to be noticed—a call, a beacon, a flare.
Sanctuary, it called: Sanctuary.
"What the fuck are you doing?!"
Affogato turned his head back to the tent, failing to meet the bewildered and panicked eyes of Pumpkin Spice's gazing skyward. Behind her, the other was stirring, as well.
Affogato laughed. "Oh, darling," he cooed, loud and victorious, "if you're so bold to take me to the Watchers for money, then it will be on my terms."
There was no way to describe the overwhelmingly giddy sensation fluttering in his stomach when she snapped her gaze away from the sky and scowled at him instead. She'd thought him weak and pliable, and yet here he was—calling every Watcher who could see the light to congregate directly onto this very spot. He fooled her, and he fooled her friend into thinking that this would be easy and simple.
He was sure he was smiling now: His face hurt with the effort of it, entrenched in the sheer joy as she realized that she'd been deceived into her complacency.
Even though his stomach was empty, he tasted victory. And it tasted vitriolic and delicious.
It was a shame he couldn't say the same when she lurched forward and smacked him against the head.
-
His ears were humming. His head was pounding. It was hard to stay awake. He tasted sulfur. Somehow this was familiar.
But unlike last time, he didn't lose consciousness. And unlike what she promised, Pumpkin Spice Cookie didn't end up breaking his legs. She had more important things to worry about at that point, Affogato would later figure—mostly the fact that the Watchers of the area were now aware that there was an emergency.
Perhaps she and her fellow bandit did what they could to pack up quickly and leave. They'd pile up the rest of the supplies onto the back of the wagon, snuff out the remainder of the fire, dismantle the tent, and urge the oxen to leave. The oxen were stubborn animals: They took a lot of convincing, especially when they were tired and hungry. The two of them couldn't have known that, of course. How could they?
He could only guess as to what happened in the next few hours, though. All he did know was that nausea was clawing in his empty stomach, and that the world was dark, hot and stuffy. He felt nauseous and uncoordinated, like the world was jerking back and forth beneath him, yet could only feel it and not see it. He smelt the musk of animals all around him, clinging to his clothes, his dough—he didn't want to smell like this forever. He would smell like this forever if he surely stayed there a moment longer.
But his body was sluggish and he couldn't move. He couldn't make out the sounds, but what he could hear sounded like panic. He knew enough to take pride.
He didn't have any estimate of time, but eventually the world stopped shaking. Something about it stirred him from his half-slumber, something about the change in the noises drawing him to attention. He didn't know what it was about the voices, but something told him to be alarmed, and he wasn't sure why until he realized one of them sounded—faintly—familiar.
He tried to listen: He really did. He could hear footsteps circling somewhere distantly around him, crunching in the snow like a familiar echo. And he heard that familiar voice again. And he heard less familiar voices answer, and then the familiar voice said something and then it said his name.
It said his name, and Affogato shuddered. He didn't know why.
But he was in the dark under a world of animals and musk, and he didn't want to smell like furry animals for the rest of his life. He liked animals well enough—just not anywhere near him, and certainly not on him. A familiar voice was better than an unfamiliar voice, and the one that said his name felt like one he knew very well. It felt like he'd heard that voice for years, so why wouldn't he trust it? Ignore the knot twisting in his stomach.
The important thing was that it said his name, and Affogato felt spurred to answer. He cried out, "Here!", and then tried to say something about drowning beneath the animals, but he wasn't sure how much of that translated.
The voices went hushed; the world went silent.
Then it became louder. Like a distant clash between swords and blades was happening, and Affogato was immune to it. He struggled beneath the furs and the fabric, bound wrists doing what they could to push them from off of himself. He tried to chase the fresh air to safety, where the light promised salvation. He gulped it down with greedy lungs, and then—dazed—pushed himself up laboriously to peer over the side of the wagon.
It was the end of a clash, he realized quickly, horror wrenching in his stomach. There were seven cookies dressed in dark clothes, and all of them were on two; four on one and three on the other. It could hardly be called a clash, actually: That'd imply that there was some equality to be found there, that there were any chance of a fight at all. They were tying them up and binding them, arms behind their backs. There were horses.
He knew which of the nine people the familiar voice belonged to. He knew before she even turned back to the wagon to face him.
He knew what the knot in his stomach was now.
Affogato ducked, falling back onto the floor of the wagon, rolling onto his back and panting. He'd rather smell like animals than face that person again. He'd rather be an animal himself, slip into the skin of a sheep and become the cookie in sheep's clothing. He tried to pull the fabric back over himself, but could only cover himself halfway before the king's loyal guard dog peered over the edge of the wagon, staring down at him with dark brown eyes.
"Affogato Cookie?" she asked, her voice piercing so sharply through the haze in his skull that it was painful beyond measure.
Caramel Arrow Cookie, he wanted to say. His heart beat so hard in his chest that he could feel it in his brain. All he did was nod, choking down a swallow.
And then she said something else. Affogato should have focused to listen. He wanted to focus to listen, but his brain was so scrambled—so rushed—that it didn't want to function to that capacity. All that mattered right now was that Caramel Arrow was here, and he was going to die—surely, he was going to die, because why else would she be here other than to kill him? Why was she still talking to him? Why didn't she simply end his life where he lay? His heart was pounding. His head spun. He was looking Death in the eye.
Dark Cacao.
"What?" he choked out, his voice quivering.
She looked like pity and apology. Oh, she must have thought herself so above him—looking down upon him like little more than a worm, some poor creature who needed that pity. Surely she was reveling in the state she found him in, deep in her heart. She held her weapons in her hands, he was sure—her bow wasn't slung over her back. The dual blades were in her hands.
"I said it's lucky that we found you when we did," she said with far more sympathy than he was due. "You seem awfully rattled up... we'll get that taken care of before I escort you to the Black Citadel."
"What?" Affogato slurred out, furrowing his brows in a scowl. Get his injuries taken care of before—? She was simply toying with him, playing with her food. He expected her to drag him by the back of his clothes to the Black Citadel with no haste whatsoever—what benefit did 'taking care' of his 'being rattled up' do for her? "Why?"
"You... are Affogato, right?" she asked. "King Dark Cacao read the letter that you sent. He wants to speak with you personally."
Author's Note
This chapter was kind of difficult for me to write because I had a hard time capturing the image of what I wanted to have done. I still unfortunately didn't get there in the end, but an attempt was made.
To clear up some confusion, the person telling Affogato to open his eyes is not one of the cookies Affogato was fighting earlier. He also isn't present elsewhere in the chapter. I have a design concept in mind for him, but I'll probably post it when/if he comes back. He's neat.
Questions for the chapter:
1. What was your favorite part of the chapter?
2. What are you expecting now that Caramel Arrow is in the story?
3. How would you have handled being in Affogato's position in this chapter?
Remember to VOTE on this chapter if you want to see more!
Thank you for reading! Have a lovely day!