Tumblr, for some reason, isn't letting me respond to the asks.
So this part of the SageRecluse divorce arc is brought to you by
These asks
Enjoy
"THAT," something shattered.
Dusk of Silence could hear Truthless Recluse screaming from his room down the hall. He kept his eyes closed, focused on his meditation. Whether he was in the same room as her or not, it wouldn't stop her from feeling her feelings.
"BASTARD!"
Something crashed.
Dusk sighed.
He should at least be sure she didn't hurt herself. He opened his eyes and stood from his meditative position. By the time he made it down the hall, he could hear that Truthless Recluse wasn't screaming anymore.
She was sobbing.
Some distant, locked away part of him ached upon hearing her cries.
He knocked twice, "I'm coming in." He warned her before entering.
Truthless Recluse was curled up on her bed, clutching a pillow to her abdomen and sobbing. Her whole body was trembling, and she took great heaving breaths that looked as though they hurt.
The last time he'd seen her like this was...that night. The night she kicked him out. He'd run out into a storm to follow their son, and come back with jam on his hands. Back then, Pure Vanilla had punched him, hit him, screamed and cursed at him, and collapsed into sobs while the maids and ladies of the court tried to get their queen somewhere more private than the entrance hall.
He hadn't known back then how to make things better, and in all their years alive — growing older, growing back together after the grief had scabbed over their wounds, being sealed within the tree, their escape and return to the world — he still didn't know how to comfort her.
He walked around the bed and sat on the edge. He laid a gentle hand on Truthless Recluse's back and let her cry.
Slowly, her loud sobs died down to gasping breaths, and then finally to tiny whimpers.
"Is it me..?"
Dusk blinked, "What?"
"Are my," Truthless Recluse swallowed, her voice raw from all her screaming and sobbing, "Are my wants so...ugly, so horrible, that they push...everyone away?"
Dusk frowned.
Before he could answer, she continued, "I thought if I left him, the...the want would go away. I could go back to what I had always vowed to do. But then I discovered I was pregnant." She sounded so hopeful, "A-And I knew the right thing to do was tell him." She sniffled and buried her nose in the pillow, "So why do I care so much that he left? I left him!"
Dusk frowned. Having wants was exactly what had corrupted him. He'd wanted, more than anything (but especially after their son crumbled) to protect the cookies of his kingdom. When all of his efforts proved futile, he'd succumbed to apathy. Morning Dew had shown him the peace of mind that apathy brings.
But...he didn't think telling Truthless Recluse these teachings would comfort her. "It is," he said slowly, "Not ugly to have wants. It is not horrible to love."
"What is the point when it all leads to pain??" Truthless Recluse turned and looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot and face tearstained.
Dusk thought for a moment, "Do you recall Dark Choco's first words?" He asked.
Truthless Recluse fully committed to rolling over and facing him. She nodded, her lips pressed in a wobbly line.
Dusk smiled fondly at the memory, "You were so concerned he wouldn't talk at all."
"He was four and hadn't made a peep." Truthless Recluse grumbled.
"But what happened?" Dusk asked.
Truthless Recluse frowned.
She'd been looking over meeting notes in her office. Dark Cacao had just gotten back from a long trip to his kingdom to check on construction for the wall protecting the coast from the licorice sea and was taking a nap on the couch in her office. And Dark Choco was playing with his toy soldiers on the carpet.
Pure Vanilla was going cross-eyed from the meeting notes and she sat back with a heavy sigh.
Dark Choco pushed himself to stand and ran around the desk to climb up onto her lap.
"Hello, my little choc bean." She'd nuzzled him and kissed his forehead.
Dark Choco beamed up at her and squished his hands to her cheeks, "Love you, mama."
Pure Vanilla gasped so hard she started to cough.
Dark Cacao woke with a start, "What is it?? What's wrong??" But he found his wife cradling and smothering their giggling son with kisses.
Truthless Recluse sighed and nodded.
"Do you remember what you told me that night, after we put him to bed?" Dusk asked.
She sighed, "Yes."
Dusk looked at her expectantly.
"Nine months of Earthbread's most unstable pregnancy, twelve hours of painful labor, six months postpartum depression and bedrest, four years of silence...all of that...was worth it. Three words."
"And how did I respond?" Dusk asked.
Truthless Recluse began to cry again, "Love makes everything worth it." She answered.
"Do you love your twins?" Dusk of Silence asked.
"Of course!" Truthless Recluse allowed more tears to fall.
"And, do you love Sage?"
That was harder for her to answer. She snuggled her pillow closer to her and hid her nod behind it.
"Then," Dusk of Silence tilted her head back so she had to look at him, "One day...maybe not tomorrow, but one day," he tucked some of her hair back behind her head, "This love will make the pain worth it."
Truthless Recluse began to hiccup and heave heavily, "Please, don't leave." She whispered, her voice broken from pain.
What a stark contrast from a lifetime ago, when she'd screamed at him to get out.
The love made the pain worth it.
He laid down beside her, "I'm not going anywhere."
Truthless Recluse snuggled up to his side and he wrapped his arms around her.
---
Even in dreams, Truthless Recluse was plagued by her pain.
Trapped within a blizzard with no escape, she kept thinking she was hearing a baby screaming.
A baby?? Alone in a blizzard?? What kind of fool had done that??
She needed to find them.
Every few seconds, the scream would change directions.
She felt herself growing dizzy and cold.
And then, just as suddenly as she'd found herself in the storm, it stopped.
"Mama?"
She gasped and turned around, "Dark Choco??"
He looked the way he had when he'd stormed out of the castle that night. His hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, the small chunk of white hair he'd inherited from his father loose and in his face. His royal events suit was perfectly tailored and neat.
"Mama...why did you replace father?"
"What..?" Truthless Recluse's eyes widened.
"Why did you replace me?"
A strong wind whipped by and Truthless Recluse bent over and covered her head with her hands.
When it died down, she looked up and saw her son, four years old, fat tears streaming down his face, "Didn't you love me, mama?"
"O-of course I did! I still do!" Truthless Recluse clutched her heart. "You are my heart, Dark Choco!" She tried to reach out to him, but another wind blew by that forced her to pull her hands back to herself and squeeze her eyes shut.
When she opened them, Dark Choco appeared before her as he had when the guards had brought his crumbled body back to the castle. His face was slashed open, jam frozen over the wound across his eye. A beating red gem was pressed into his chest, which was exposed from the slash that ran from his shoulder, diagonally across his body, to his hips. His body already beginning to show the signs of rot, and bits of his dough missing from already being consumed by vultures.
"Then why didn't you save me?" His voice echoed in her head as the visage before her had no control of its mouth. "Why did you replace me?"
"Stop! No! I-I tried to stop your father! I tried!" Truthless Recluse was able to reach Dark Choco this time, "H-He said he was just going to remove the stone," she glared at the throbbing red gem in his chest, "H-He said he was going to save you!" She looked up at him, but he was already crumbling away.
"No...No, no, no!!" She scrambled to catch as many of his crumbs as she could, falling to her knees on the stone floor that suddenly appeared under her, "I — I will not falter!" She shouted. A golden light burst from her hands, but the crumbs did not out themselves back together. The golden light faded, leaving her covered in crumbs.
"I will not falter!" The light exploded around her again and faded, doing nothing.
"I WILL NOT FALTER!" She kept screaming, forcing the light to consume the crumbs until her hands were covered in a fine layer of crumb dust.
"NO! STOP! I WILL NOT," She panted, "I WILL NOT FALTER! I...I will not..."
"For a cookie who vowed to never shield cookies from the brutal truth,"
She gasped and looked up. Through her tears, she could make out The Sage of Truth.
He looked down at her, indifferent, "You lied so much."
Fluffuary 2026: Day 3. Love at First Sight- TruthlessDusk/DuskRecluse
He was beautiful.
That should not have been Truthless Recluse's first thought. He should've been horrified or at least heartbroken. The sight of one of his dearest friends, no longer the resolute warrior he had been, his colors of purple and black taken from him, should have hurt.
Instead, Truthless Recluse met his eye as the new Dusk Cacao walked in, and his first thought was He's beautiful.
Only once had he seen Dark Cacao in light clothes, and the look had been unsettling; he was always used to seeing him in dark colors. This? The colors of the dusk, even stretching to his long, formerly dark, hair?
It looked lovely. It looked right.
He was too tired, too numb, to say any of this. Who knew if his old friend would even hear what he intended? Instead, he stood, and Dusk Cacao's eye met him.
A fling with Dark Cacao ended poorly, resulting in a tension between them and Recluse pregnant. The Sage of Truth realizes this when she first approaches him to tell him to stop spreading the truth and, both curious about his other half and a bit concerned, starts... helping out.
(She refuses to admit, for a long time, that she's charmed by him. Not until their first time, when she needs someone to help with her libido.)
Which is totally fine when Dark Cacao starts poking around again. Totally fine. He's not jealous and neither is the Sage.
Anon, you've read my mind 🙏
Dawn brought with it, a kind of hope.
A new day, a new beginning, a fresh start.
But today, the dawn also brought The Dusk of Silence.
He'd received Truthless Recluse's letter a little over a month ago and, despite knowing his presence would not change anything, he had decided to leave the Ivory Pagoda to offer comfort to his ex-wife.
The former Vanilla Castle was in a state of ruin and decay, its opulence a mere blip in its existence. What use was such beauty when all of it faded?
Dusk approached the familiar waffle cone doors. Despite the stoic expression on his face, he did have some stirrings of emotions.
He laid a hand on the door and remembered the cold and dark night their son had been born. He had gone to oversee a construction project in his own kingdom and was on his way back when one of his most loyal soldiers met him at the border and spoke of his wife's labor.
He remembered pushing these doors open with all his strength, shouting at the nearest maid for the status of his wife.
He remembered running to the birthing chamber and collapsing to his knees at his wife's bedside, reassuring her that he hadn't missed this and wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Pure Vanilla, sweating and crying, had smiled at him. And when a contraction hit, she squeezed the life out of his hand and screamed.
Seconds later (though it had felt like hours at the time) their son had been born. Their beautiful Dark Choco.
...
But that had been years ago.
Lifetimes ago.
Their son had grown, lived, and crumbled under the curse of the Strawberry Jam Sword.
The banishment and subsequent death of their son had torn them apart.
So they'd divorced.
He returned to his kingdom.
She stayed in hers.
Now Truthless Recluse was divorced and pregnant again. She felt she had no one to turn to and so she'd turned to him. She gave him every opportunity and chance to say 'no', to stay away.
But he hadn't.
So he pushed the doors open.
Immediately he heard a problem.
"P-l-e-e-eaaaaase," The Sage of Truth's whiny voice begged, "Just one more?"
"No, Sage." Truthless Recluse's voice was as sharp as ever.
"One more, and I promise, I will go to work today. Scout's honor!"
"You were never even a Scout, you liar."
"Then, one more and I will go, Virtue's honor!"
Dusk of Silence followed their voices through familiar halls until he came to the visitor sitting room. He breezed by the piles of still wrapped gifts without a second glance and invited himself in.
The Sage of Truth was kneeling before Truthless Recluse, his hands outstretched but not touching her. Truthless Recluse was seated on a couch and had one foot pressed against The Sage's shoulder to keep him away from her.
"Pure Vanilla Cookie." His voice was deep, and hoarse from disuse.
Truthless Recluse looked up and looked relieved, "Dark Cacao Cookie."
"What??" Sage whipped his head around, eyes sharp.
Truthless Recluse stood and walked over to him, "Thank you for coming." She smiled and hugged him.
They were a natural fit together, and Dusk wrapped his arms around her. The comfort would be meaningless as soon as he let go, but if it reassured his ex-wife, he'd do it.
...
Perhaps he had not entirely succumbed to apathy, as he felt a small twinge of satisfaction upon seeing The Sage of Truth glare at him.
He forced himself to smile when she eventually pulled back and turned his eyes to focus on her entirely, "You look radiant." He inadvertently said.
Truthless Recluse smiled, "Thank you, friend."
"Uhh, excuse me," Sage stood, "What is he doing here?"
"I asked him to come, Sage." Truthless Recluse answered deadpanned, then she smiled at him again and Dusk felt another twinge of emotion he didn't want to name or give power to. "You must've traveled far, would you like something to drink?"
"The temporary reprieve of pain is meaningless in the face of the inevitable." Dusk answered honestly.
"Oh, great." Sage rolled his eyes.
"Pain. So water, got it." Truthless Recluse still saw through him like an open book, "Well, here, sit." She guided him to one of the few chairs that wasn't covered in baby gifts and pushed him to sit.
"I'll be right back." She called as she left.
Dusk and Sage were left alone.
"So, she asked YOU to be here. Why?" Sage demanded, crossing his arms.
"I owe you no explanation." Dusk answered flatly.
Sage growled, then said, "This is MY child. MY wife and you —,"
"As I recall from Pure Vanilla's letter," Dusk cut him off, "She is your EX-wife."
Sage's eye twitched in anger, "We'll see about that." He seethed.
Truthless Recluse came back with a glass of water for him. He remembered his manners and nodded his thanks.
Dusk, perhaps unable to control his former-self, grabbed Truthless Recluse by her waist and pulled her onto his lap. She let out a tiny undignified squeak and burned a brilliant shade of strawberry.
"Dark Cacao, what're you—??" Truthless Recluse paused when she felt Dark Cacao's warm, firm hand rest on her belly.
Dusk looked at the small bump, lost in thought. They'd always planned on having more children. But at the time, Dark Choco was their whole world, and it was hard splitting time between kingdoms and raising a headstrong son like him.
Truthless Recluse must've been thinking the same thing, because she laid her hands over his and relaxed in his arms. Her head landed on his shoulder and he was reminded of her early pregnancy days from before when they would cuddle like this and whisper about their hopes and dreams for their little one.
Sage stood still and watched in rage as his wife snuggled up to her ex-husband.
That should've been HIM holding her.
Then, Truthless Recluse said something that made his jam boil and plot the many ways he could dispose of The Dusk over the edge of the Peak.
