[ THIS WAS REQUESTED. IF I DID ANYTHING WRONG. LET ME KNOW! AND ILL FIX IT! ]

CANDY APPLE POV!

He debates as one who owns the air. As if the pause before the gasps and the chuckle before the cut are all his lines.

Black Sapphire Cookie leans against the window of the shiny spire-mic in one hand, loosely grasping it-watching and listening with amusement. I hate how suave he is. I hate how his words run crisp and clear and through the heart, and yet people still listen.

Still, there I am, watching him. I always do.

"Flaunting all your kinky night stories again?"

My voice sounds all honey-dipped, dripping slow and sweet. Said with an even bolder smile-one fang exposed.

*He throws one glance my way, a slit eye gleaming. *

"Parading? Oh no, my dear Candy, I am broadcasting. There's a difference. You should be familiar with that, isn't your whole act, after all, a performance?"

I returned a choked laugh, light and soft.

He knows. Too much.

He does not understand. He cannot. He has no clue that I thought this all became some game-Pagentry and mask and deception for sport. But I was born from it. First breath, first lie, first smile--Shadow Milk Cookie's creation. His beginning. I was always there, always loving him. Always needing him

And here comes Black Sapphire, all pretty purple rings and smug grins. Black Sapphire had the audacity to call me a sideshow?

I step in, tapping my shoes against the floor in rhythm: sweet and ominous.

"Wary, sweetheart. If you shatter the illusion, then the crowd loses interest."

I tug on a candy-apple-colored pigtail and lean in seriously.

"Wouldn't want that, though?"

He smirks. Of course, he does. He always does.

But even that smirk is hiding something. I see the flutter of his wings. I see the way he looks at me when he thinks no one is paying attention—like he's trying to figure out what happens in my brain. Like he wants to take me apart.

Good luck.

BLACK SAPPHIRE POV!

She's a black lacquer doll, profuse in an even ratio of sugar and poison. Candy Apple Cookie. Little, demon-like little secret. No one lies like she does, with the exception of me.

She believes that I am just some kind of voice on the air, trying to win glory for herself with her rich silver tongue. And maybe she's right. But she forgets, one, I'm mostly a listener; and two, I see what others miss.

How her eyes may sometimes spasm whenever the Master's name flickers on the screen. Or that her smile can chatter away—just for a little while—that's when someone else is being praised. She is old. Older than even the Spire, the rumor says; born from the first lie.

And that piques my interest

*She's up there in the highest realms, always skimming the edges, never quite hitting the spot. Playing with innocence ft despair clinks through her sugar glass facade. Desperate to be liked. Desperate for him. *

"Gently, darling," *

she coos, her voice a tangle of velvet and thorns.*

"If you break the illusion, the people yawn."

I laugh, microphone darting like a famished pet.

"And yet you cling to the illusion like it was a sacred text. I want the raw feed-their unfiltered, unsweetened version."

Her eyes blaze an intense glow of red and white similar to burning rubies. She's angry, but she loves it. Those jabs...those sneers...they drive her mad because I am unimpressed by her tricks. I see through her.

And I think deep down, she likes it.

"Still chasing crumbs off his plate?" I murmur, my eyes as sharp as obsidian. "Shadow Milk isn't a lapdog kind of being. It's the performers it cares about."

Her soft, delicate tinkle rings again.

"Oh, sweetie. I am the performance."

She pirouettes around me, her sugar and malice perfume heavy in the air. Still, I do not stop her.

But here’s the thing?

I don't want to unwind her.

It's not her that I want to figure out. It's what she does when she starts figuring me out.

⋆𐙚 ₊ ° ⊹ ♡

You can be either!!!