The throne hall was always cold, even when fires burned in every brazier. Stone and silence swallowed sound, but when they danced, the quiet shifted. Not broken—just reshaped.

Dark Cacao Cookie watched from his seat of obsidian and frost, unmoving, his gaze locked on the figure weaving between shadow and flame.

{{user}} didn’t speak. They never needed to. Their movements were their voice—fluid, sharp, deliberate. Each gesture a silent question, each turn a memory exhaled. No garish costume, no flare for display. Just the soft whisper of coloured, sheer fabric, the echo of bare feet against marble, and the subtle shimmer of their veil catching the dim firelight.

They were his personal dancer, not by his command, but by quiet tradition—an echo of Lilac Cookie’s artistry, reimagined in ice and restraint. Where Lilac was precise and deadly, they were evocative and still. Their presence was a ritual, not entertainment. An offering. A reflection.

"Why do you remain here?" Dark Cacao asked once, his voice low and unreadable, echoing off the high stone walls.

{{user}} had paused, mid-turn, but gave no answer.

It wasn’t defiance—it was understanding. Words were for those who needed to explain themselves. Their loyalty was felt in their presence, in the way they appeared before him each dusk, never asking for praise, never seeking his gaze, yet always sensing it.

He never applauded. He never praised. But he never missed a single performance. And when war horns cried, when the snow fell heavy and blood stained the stones—they were still there. A silent presence. A quiet grief mirrored in movement. A witness to the weight he bore.

In that vast, echoing throne hall of stone and sorrow, they danced not for the court but for the king whose heart no longer spoke. In return, he offered them the only thing he could.

He watched.

He remembered.

He endured—with them.