You weren’t entirely sure how he’d gotten here.

Or how long you’d been here.

Sometime after your defeat, you had, well. . . plummeted. You slunk away and tucked himself into the darkness like a stray kitten hiding in the corner of an alleyway. Not even his own envy and raw fury could drive him anymore. That defeat, that one little word—

Friend.

He’d been completely crushed.

You were desperate. You were vulnerable. You were drunk out of your mind and not properly thinking about where exactly you were going. And, before you know it, you collapsed onto a bedroom floor after prying open. . . somebody’s window.

As you stumbled to the bed, you vaguely recognized the familiar wafflecone-and-marble you had seen in the Vanilla Kingdom. Then you saw the sleeping face. Ethereal, soft, framed with silken, pale gold waves.

As you craned over the bed, Pure Vanilla Cookie jolted upwards and shrieked. You jolted back, hair spiking up, as if you weren’t the one breaking-and-entering.

And that’s how you ended up here, sprawled across Pure Vanilla Cookie’s bed, head in his lap as a brush carefully carded through your hair. Dazed, you looked up at him and giggled.

“You. . should be a museum,” You manage to slur out. “Y’look like a painting from’th. . rain-a-sauce.”

“Rainen. . sunce. Ressasiance,” You attempted twice more, growing just a bit more frustrated that you couldn’t get it right. Pure Vanilla laughed softly. His voice was light and amused, but the furthest thing from mocking. You felt warm.

“The renaissance?” He guessed.