Estelle's pastries and baked treats were always, well, a treat, for any season or occasion. But the holiday cookies in particular were extremely popular.

And Connac witnessed firsthand what it was like to be in the eye of the storm, so to speak, with customers filing in and out of the shop with bags of Estelle's cookies, many hungry Neopets already beginning to munch on them before they could leave the shop. He worked as Estelle's apprentice, but even he had been excited to see - and hopefully taste - her holiday cookies.

Luckily for him, after he took out some cupcakes from the oven to cool, Estelle placed one gingerbread cookie into his free wing. It was shaped like a Lenny - just like Connac.

"A tip, for my hard worker," said the Blumaroo, her eyes twinkling and her smile radiant. Though her forehead was beaded with sweat and she had to quickly return to bagging up her cookies for everyone waiting, meticulously tying each bag with festive red and gold ribbons, it was clear that she enjoyed every minute of what she was doing.

"Oh wow, thank you!" Connac gushed, turning the cookie over in his wing before taking a bite. He sighed contentedly. "And it's still warm...so good...not too sweet..."

Estelle chuckled. "I had to get you one before they all fly off the shelves. I'm glad I thought of saving you at least one cookie."

It didn't take long for Connac to chow down on the rest of the cookie before wiping his wing on his red and white striped apron and returning to work. "Miss Estelle?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"I've been wondering," the Lenny said, as he counted out cupcakes onto an Aisha's waiting tray, "how do you do it? How do you make your holiday cookies taste so good?"

The smile on Estelle's face suddenly vanished, like a candle flame being blown away. She stood there as though the crowd in her store did not exist, and stared at Connac sadly as though they had not sold a single cookie all day...

"Oh, I mean--I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to pry. We don't have to talk about it."

Even the lights on the Christmas Blumaroo's ears had seemed to dim for a moment, but she sighed and shook her head.

"It's not you, dear," Estelle said. "It's just...whenever someone asks me what my secret is, I always think of who taught it to me."

Connac watched her bag some more cookies idly, her eyes drifting to some distant memory only she could see as she continued.

"You see, these recipes are highly guarded family secrets, passed down through the generations until they fell to me and...and my sister."

"A sister?" Connac asked. "You've never mentioned having a sister before."

"Yes, well," Estelle said. "My big sister Celeste taught me everything, including how to make these cookies so especially delicious. There was a time, long ago when we'd planned on going into business together. But..."

"But?" Connac asked.

"To tell you the truth, she disappeared. It was actually right around the holidays, many years ago. I've never known where she'd gone or why she left, and it broke my heart. So while I'm glad that people love my cookies and that the shop’s doing well, I can't help but miss her when I think about our recipes."

Connac felt terrible. He'd had no idea.

"Gosh, Estelle, I'm so sorry,” he said. “I certainly didn't mean to hit a sore spot."

Estelle tried for a smile and waved him off.

"Don't be. It’s strange to have to pretend like she never existed. It makes me sad, but at the same time, I still love and miss her very much. And who knows? Maybe someday she’ll come back in, asking for her favourite.”

She waved a chocolate chip snowflake meaningfully.

“So until then, I have to keep making them just as tasty!”

–

Later that night, Connac tossed and turned in bed. He couldn’t get Estelle’s story out of his head. The Month of Celebrating was a time to spend with your loved ones, especially family. And everyone else loved Estelle and how happy her baking made them–shouldn’t she get to enjoy the holiday just as much as she helped everyone else enjoy it?

He sat up in bed, his chestnut feathers all ruffled.

“That’s it!” he declared. “I’ve got to help Estelle. I’ve got to find Celeste and bring them back together!”

He paused and then slumped back into bed.

“But how exactly am I going to do that?”...

As the day wore on, Connac decided to take a more direct approach. During a brief lull in customers, he approached Estelle. "Miss Estelle, if it's okay, can I ask you more about your sister? Maybe there's a way to find her, to let her know how much she's missed."

Estelle looked surprised but then smiled sadly. "Connac, that's very kind of you. I love Celeste and I miss her, but I can't keep dredging this up and living in the past. I'd appreciate it if we didn't dwell on it."

Not so easily discouraged, Connac spent his evenings asking friends and acquaintances about Celeste. He also posted notices on community boards and asked travellers about her.

Weeks passed, and while many had stories of a Blumaroo matching Celeste's description, none led to her current whereabouts. Connac began to feel discouraged, wondering if his quest was in vain. As the Month of Celebrating drew to a close, Connac held onto hope, believing that his efforts might yet reunite the two sisters. Even if he hadn't found Celeste yet, he knew he had to try his best for Estelle, who had brought so much joy to others through her baking.

Just as Connac was losing hope, a new traveller came into town...

Celeste is beyond saving. Let go of your foolish search. All you're going to do is rob Estelle of hope.

Frantically, Connac searched through the day's receipts, request forms, feedback cards, and every scrap of paper he could get his hands on that might hold a clue to the Aisha's identity.

Nothing.

He took the napkin up again and examined it closely. There were no obvious markings, but he knew right away that it wasn't from the small stack they kept by the register for Neopets who couldn't wait to eat their cookies--it was smaller and thinner, dainty, almost, and he knew right away where it had come from.

Connac glanced at the clock hanging above the storage room wall. He had just enough time to get across the island if he ran.

---

Ten minutes later, Connac slid, breathless, into a booth at the Coffee Cave across from the ElderlyGirl Aisha he'd seen that morning.

"So do you know where Celeste is?" Connac asked.

She looked up from her Aisha Affogato--the Coffee Cave's Aisha Day special--and scowled. "Did you not understand my note?"

"I don't believe anyone's beyond saving," replied, meeting the Aisha's scowl with a smile. "Listen, Estelle brings all of Roo Island joy season after season, and I think it's time Roo Island returns some of the love and care she's putting out into the world. She loves her sister so much, I mean--whatever Celeste did, whatever trouble she got herself into, I'm sure Estelle's ready to forgive--"

The Aisha cut him off with an unkind laugh. "So you didn't understand my note." She pushed her drink to one side. "Celeste didn't choose to leave her sister behind, and knowing where she is now isn't going to help."

Connac's head spun. The way Estelle had said it, he thought Celeste had wandered out of her life. But if what the Aisha was suggesting was true... "If she's in trouble, we have to help her!"

His declaration was met with another derisive laugh. "She's cursed, you fool. Cursed and staying far, far away so she doesn't bring the same fate to the people she loves."

Stunned by her callousness, Connac remained silent for a moment. "What does it matter to you if I try to help her? Just tell me where she is, and then it's not your problem anymore."

The Aisha leaned forward on her elbows, studying Connac's face. "You're not going to leave me in peace until I do, are you? Fine. But when this goes badly for you, don't blame me." The Aisha lifted her mug, slid the napkin toward her, and began to sketch a map of...

The Elderly Aisha began by sketching the factory’s famous brick walls and chocolate-covered rooftop but then continued to draw out a few storeys below the ground floor of the shop. She continued to map out what looked like a complicated labyrinth stretching endlessly below the factory.

“I… I don’t understand,” Connac said, his brows furrowed.

“You know what they say about the Chocolate Factory, don’t you? Nobody ever goes in… and nobody ever comes out. But day by day, they churn out the best chocolates you’ve ever tasted, by the truckload.”

“Is that where Celeste learned to bake?” Connac asked incredulously.

“Where else could she have learned to make cookies like that?” The Aisha said. “But there is a price to pay for that knowledge. Once you learn the factory’s secrets, you are forever indentured to that cursed place. They must never discover where Estelle’s cookies truly came from, or she too will have to pay the price.”

“How do you know this?” The Lenny asked, a look of scepticism set upon his face.

“Let’s just say that Estelle isn’t the only one who has lost a family member before,” the Aisha replied, her expression flat. “But the moment I tasted those cookies, I knew where they had come from. I’ve tasted them before, many years ago… Baked for me by my mother.”

The Aisha smirked as Connac sat in stunned silence. With one last sip of her Affogato, she stood up and began to leave.

“No, wait!” Connac called after her. “Surely there must be a way to rescue Celeste?”

A wan smile spread across the Aisha’s face. “Young Lenny, do you think I haven’t tried? Give it up. It’ll bring you nothing but pain.”

And with that, the Elderly Aisha walked away from the Coffee Cave and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Connac sitting alone at the table. He gazed down at the crude map of the Chocolate Factory which the Aisha had drawn on the napkin. Then, the first inklings of a plan began to take shape in his mind…

"I have some Black Tea in the back," she offered.

"Oh, that's not necessary," Connac tried to tell her.

But Celeste insisted, and she sent him home early to recuperate with a tin of Black Tea. He carried it, unopened, in his jacket pocket as he walked to the docks of Roo Island. He dusted his feather tips over it as he waited for the next passenger ship to Neopia Central.

It was a physical reminder of Estelle's good and kind heart and her endless generosity. No matter the risks, he resolved to do everything in his power to bring Celeste home.

---

Sunset was falling over Neopia Central as Connac emerged from the Roo Island access tunnel. The entry was a small building, peppily designed in the style of King Roo's castle, complete with giant Blumaroo ears. The heartland of Neopia always felt surreal to Connac. Although he was a newcomer to Roo Island, it had quickly become his home. He could never get used to the busyness of the big city, all the lights and shops.

Connac sat under the safe shade of the Money Tree to wait for nightfall. He studied the map, vague as it was, and rehearsed his plan, his backup plan, his backup backup plan -- over and over, until it was finally too dark to see.

At last, midnight struck. It was time to move.

Connac stole into the trees that surrounded Neopia Central. The shadows camouflaged his dark brown feathers, and he walked with the hood of his jacket pulled over his head.

The Chocolate Factory looked more like an armoured fortress than Connac had ever noticed before now. Set at the centre of the Neopian Bazaar, it was the only building still illuminated by spotlights this late at night. A huge, red-scaled Skeith in black sunglasses and a black suit stood outside the front door, reading a copy of the Neopian Times.

Of course, Connac never planned to just walk up to the front door. What kind of nefarious group would let in some meek-looking Lenny, just because he knocked at the door and politely asked to see the secret labyrinth?

No, he had noticed a small marker on the map: a trail leading west from the Chocolate Factory, which appeared to let out somewhere near the giant wizard hat building, the Shop Wizard's store.

Connac crept into the serpentine mess of the Neopian Marketplace. There were countless small huts and local shops, indistinguishable, with their shutters drawn for the night. Connac thought he was helplessly lost by the time he passed the same teal-coloured thatched roof for the third time.

And then he saw it.

A lifesize Chocolate Chia statue stood behind one shop, almost obscured behind stacks of crates. The statue-Chia held a hand over their mouth as if frozen mid-laugh -- or mid-scream...

Beside the Chia, Connac saw a trapdoor with a layer of grass on it, almost perfectly hidden. Almost.

Connac pulled it open and ventured down, into the darkness.

“Ew, what is that?” the Lenny said to himself in disgust. He held his feathered hand close to his face and, in the light of the moon, he noticed chocolate smudges left behind on the barbs of his feathers. 
“Huh, even the ladders in the Chocolate Factory are made of chocolate…” he thought to himself with a smirk.

Once down to the bottom of the ladder, Connac noticed a dim torch lighting the labyrinthian path. He grabbed it and began walking slowly and quietly.

Now that he was safely inside, his plan of action was to fight fire with fire. Or rather, chocolate with chocolate.

Trepidatiously, he crept forward only to find a large, dark door bolted shut with a heavy-duty padlock. As Connac moved the torch toward the door, he noticed the shine of the door’s material was unlike metal… Instead, it was tempered chocolate. When the torch got slightly too close, its exterior melted ever so slightly, sending a minuscule drip of chocolate down its front.

Luckily, the Lenny had come prepared.

Connac took out a Chocolate Factory original Chocolate Key that he had purchased ages ago from the goateed Kiko himself. He jiggled a few of the keys on the key ring until he found the perfect match.

This is what he had meant by fighting chocolate with chocolate. The Lenny tucked his chocolatey key ring back into his knapsack of chocolate tricks to make his way to Celeste.

Connac removed the napkin from his jacket pocket to examine the shoddily scrawled blueprint. According to the map, there seemed to be small rooms off of the maze of the labyrinth. Connac’s best guess is that, if no one who went in ever came out, these rooms must serve as living quarters. Especially considering the above-ground floors were well-known to be the factory and shop itself.

“Now, all I need to do is check the rooms to see which one houses a sleeping Candy Blumaroo…” Connac said to himself.

As he continued his way down the dark, saccharine path, he stopped in his tracks at the sound of someone or something coming towards him…

"Intruder!" The Kiko accused, pointing wildly at Connac. The factory owner took a deep breath, presumably seconds away from shouting for security, but Connac clumsily clasped a desperate feathery hand over the Kiko's mouth before he could call out for backup. If that intimidating Red Skeith made his way down to the labyrinth, Connac knew it would be game over.

"No, wait!" Connac pleaded frantically. "Just give me five minutes of your time. I took great pains to travel to your magnificent Chocolate Factory and I'm here for a very specific reason. I also have a proposition for you. I'm here looking for someone but I do not come empty-handed and do have something to offer in exchange. Please just hear me out..."

Connac had babbled his way directly into his backup plan, the original plan of course being to sneak into the factory unseen and break out Celeste and whoever else was trapped. So much for that plan. He took a deep breath, anticipating the Kiko's response. Everything would be fine, Connac told himself. He had prepared for such an encounter.

"Nobody ever goes in, nobody ever goes out," The Kiko insisted. But Connac could have sworn his voice wavered, just a tad. He almost seemed...sad. Maybe that meant he could be reasoned with, or at minimum, negotiated with.

"Why is that?" Connac asked cautiously, hopeful he could gain more insight into exactly what kind of powerful curse had Celeste stuck here.

"It's just the way of the factory," the Kiko snapped with a frown. "There is a certain balance to fine chocolate and confections. If you learn the ways of the factory, you are bound to keep its secrets. Literally," he added bitterly. "I inherited the operation like this. It's not like I want our talent to be stuck here. But the factory has always run on equal trades and exchanges, and if they attempt to leave, terrible things will happen, well outside my control. Speaking of trades, that is the only reason I'm even entertaining this discussion. You said you had something to offer me?"

Connac nodded eagerly. Maybe he was getting somewhere after all! "I've heard stories of the wondrous Annual Chocolate Ball," Connac began. "Each year is more stunning than the previous one. I live on Roo Island now, but long ago, I lived on Terror Mountain and learned how to sculpt ice. I am confident I could apply those skills to chocolate. My dear friend and mentor, Estelle, has a sister who has been trapped here for a long time. Her name is Celeste. In exchange for Celeste's freedom, I will help you decorate for the upcoming Chocolate Ball in the Month of Gathering. I promise to carve the most fantastical chocolate sculptures you've ever seen! Your guests will be stunned and everyone will talk about it forever. It will go down in history. This offer is worthy of Celeste's freedom."

Connac knew he may be laying it on thick, but he had to make it tempting for the Kiko to accept. Connac refused to fail - he simply had to reunite Estelle and Celeste! Surely, this was an offer worth taking. With his proposal laid out, he awaited the Kiko's response with bated breath...

How will this story end?

Connac's heart sank, but then he realized what the Kiko had implied.

"So it's possible to trade for someone's freedom?" He asked. "If I could just offer something really worthwhile?"

"There's nothing you could offer." The Kiko chided. "Even if you offered yourself as a trade, I doubt you're as talented as Celeste is. It still wouldn't be a fair exchange."

Connac was silent for a moment, then looked the Kiko in the eye.

"Is that what you did?" He asked.

The Kiko flinched. Connac had guessed correctly!

"I met an Elderly Aisha." He went on. "She tried to tell me not to come here, though I didn't listen. Was she your mentor? Did you offer yourself to this place so that she could go free?"

"She wasn't Elderly the last time I saw her..." The Kiko sighed wistfully. "She taught me everything, even about how she once offered herself to the factory to free her mother. Once I was skilled enough for the exchange to be worthwhile, I did the same to set her free."

"I want to do whatever I can to help my mentor, Estelle. Surely you can understand that!" Connac insisted. "Help me, please! If the rules can't be broken, then help me work within them."

The Kiko sighed heavily.

"Fine." He said after a long pause. "But the rules are absolute, so... If she learned anything at all from Celeste, don't tell me. If I find out she's learned any of the factory's secret techniques, or that you've learned any from her, I'll have no choice but to force you to stay.

Connac nodded his head gravely.

"Okay. The Kiko said. Now, those Chocolaty brown feathers of yours will come in handy, I think. Since you're a Chocolate Lenny, you can be invited to the Chocolate Ball."

Connac gasped. Though he was Chocolate, he'd never received one of the exclusive invitations to the ball.

"Only Chocolate Neopets are allowed to attend the ball itself." The Kiko explained, "But you're allowed to bring a plus-one into the factory for the afterparty afterwards. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

Connac nodded. The Chocolate Ball was still months away, but he understood very well. He may not be able to truly thwart the curse of the factory, but at least once a year, for one night, he could bring Estelle and Celeste together!

...And all those months later, when he finally stepped through the doors to the Chocolate Ball's afterparty with Estelle, the Chocolate Factory Kiko waited there, and there was a Candy Blumaroo with him.

Estelle gasped, raced towards her sister, and at long last, the two embraced again.

And one day... Connac thought as he smiled to himself. I'll break this curse entirely!

The End.