[center][h1]Tolamu & Pulam[/h1][/center]

They were cursed. They had to be. Whether the Gods were unhappy with them, or they were besieged by evil spirits, they did not know, but it did not change the fact that the Great Fire no longer warmed them, or that the furnaces and campfires no longer warded off the night’s chill.

It was a cold like they had never known. Heat leached right out from their bones, leaving only shiver and gooseflesh behind. People tried buddling up, grass coats usually only worn during monsoon season to protect from rain worn at all times, beast pelts covering every bit of exposed skin. They ate more warm meals and drank more warm infusions than ever, the cooks working all day long to provide for everyone. But it was never enough, and whatever relief they provided was fleeting.

And then the first one collapsed, delirious, their skin flushed and drenched in sweat. A clear case of heat stroke. And people finally realized that whatever plagued them wasn’t a failure from the world, a failure from the concept of heat itself, but something [i]malicious[/i]. Something that only sought to make them suffer.

It was a relief, in some small way. The cold could not harm them. But it also couldn’t be relieved. They would have to endure, for however long it would take. The children and infants took it the hardest; it was difficult to explain to them the cause of their suffering when even the most well-learned of adults could only guess at the real reason.

The priestess, Ma’otah, prayed day and night for the curse’s dissipation, for warmth to find them again. But nothing changed. The One That Lay Below offered plenty of coal in exchange for their prayers and offerings, but mundane fire could not ward off the supernatural chill. And the One that Stand Above, the Great Fire, did not respond at all to the myriads of food offerings burnt in its name…

Resentment brewed within the population, a grudge slowly forming. Who or what had caused this? What had they done to deserve it? Why couldn’t, or wouldn’t, the Gods help? They prayed, made offerings, gave their devotions, and yet they got nothing in exchange. An unfair trade. What good was worshipping a God that did nothing for them? At least one of them [i]tried[/i] to help.

Life, despite everything, went on…

[hr]

Tolamu had an issue. As the great cook that he was, his work was in high demand. No one could season a soup like him, which made sense, as he was the one to come up with the concept of seasoning in the first place. Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue. He would even be happy that his unrivaled skills were recognized as such!

Unfortunately, the demand was [i]too[/i] high. No one was satisfied by grabbing a few pieces of cold fruit and meat for a quick lunch anymore. All of the cooks had their hands full trying to keep everyone’s bellies full with hot meals, trying, futilely, to keep them warm as well. And it turns out that when you’re busy making pot of soup after pot of soup all day, every day, you don’t really have time to keep innovating, no matter how much you wish that was the case.

He couldn’t keep looking for spices, or keep making food experiments. He was just stuck in front of the cooking fires, and occasionally tending to the partridge coops. His inner fire was sputtering, starved of new challenges. The boredom, the [i]monotomy[/i] of it all, was killing him just as much as the persistent cold that had settled in everyone’s bones.

He wasn’t alone in this feeling. Caught in the same throes of mysterious chills like everyone else, Pulam found himself struggling to keep warm. Not even his passion for the arts was enough of a distraction. He kept himself busy, of course, but nothing beat the feeling of a hot bowl of soup in his palms. His stomach protested drinking yet [i]more[/i] soup, but the rest of him cried in relief from the scant heat. Pulam settled on curling up where he sat on the community grounds, staring at the brilliant orange of his treasure.

One of Tolamu’s specials, this one – though its novelty was wearing out as of late. There was only so many times one could rotate through soup flavours before they all became recognisable. Pulam tilted his bowl round and round. [i]Slosh slosh slosh[/i], went the liquid. It was so watery. So fleeting. So easy to gulp down now, the way they used to gulp down water after a hard day’s work. Pulam thought of fresh paint dripping sluggishly down a surface when it wasn’t spread thin. Maybe if soup was thick too, it’d stick around longer and the warmth would be less fleeting.

Pulam huffed. [color=#87CEEB][i]Look at me, comparing soup with paint. The cold really is driving us all crazy.[/i][/color]

He kept sloshing his soup. Puffs of heat rose from its vivid orange surface and immediately cooled on his skin.

[color=#87CEEB][i]...But Tolamu [/i]did[i] burn water that one time. And that was before everyone got the chills.[/i][/color]

The warmth on his palms was fading now.

[color=#87CEEB][i]Curse it.[/i][/color]

Pulam rose to his feet still clutching at his bowl of soup and made his way to their food stores. The chefs would be busy with soup-making so he wouldn’t bother them with his bout of impulsiveness, but surely there was no harm in him adding an ingredient or two into his little bowl of soup! The absence of anyone in the stores emboldened Pulam and he placed his bowl on a free table, before setting about searching for their stocks of ground starch. 

That's when Tolamu walked in. The old pot of soup was done, a new one was needed, and that meant more ingredients. He was so deeply set in the routine that he didn't even notice the intruder at first. He simply grabbed what he needed, some fresh waterleaf that was starting to wilt, a large yam, small strips of dried salted meat…

Pulam, who had successfully located the starch and was now staring at the chef in wild panic, did the only thing he could think to do: jam his hand straight down into the bag in front of him.

Only once he was about to leave did he really see Pulam, his hand wrist-deep in a starch bag. He paused, and frowned. [b]”Hey!”[/b] he yelled out, [b]”Hands off that stuff! Do you know how much work it is to make it?”[/b] He glanced at the bowl of soup on the table, and grumbled some more. [b]”And that's way too much for a tiny bowl like that, you're gonna end up with a lumpy mess of a meal…”[/b]

“[color=#87CEEB][b]Um[/b][/color],” said Pulam. He removed his hand from the bag, but forgot to open it before he did, and so found himself clutching a fistful of starch. The excess scattered back into the bag, thankfully. He didn’t feel like testing the patience of the person responsible for keeping them all warm at the moment.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]Lumpy would be bad, yes.[/b][/color]” [color=#87CEEB][i]What are you saying, fool?[/i][/color] “[color=#87CEEB][b]I mean, I wasn’t planning on taking more than a pinch! I just... thought that... thicker soup would be nicer?[/b][/color]”

A rush of embarrassment flooded him, which was good because it brought a little warmth to his cheeks, but absolutely [i]terrible[/i] because he was critiquing one of their chefs! The one handling all their soup! 

“[color=#87CEEB][b]Not that the soup isn’t nice[/b][/color],” he babbled. “[color=#87CEEB][b]It’s great, fantastic even, but you know, it’s, uh, really temporary and I thought maybe if it went down a little slower, the warmth might stay a little longer, and, um, so, starch?[/b][/color]”

Standing there with his fistful of starch, Pulam wanted to find the nearest river and throw himself into it.

Tolamu blinked a few times, his frown easing off. He looked down at the ingredients in his hands, deep in thought, then looked back at Pulam. [b]“That's… not an awful idea, actually,“[/b] he mused. [b]“If we can make it feel more filling, like a sauce-soup hybrid maybe… yeah… Yeah!”[/b]

He pointed a finger at Pulam, a determined grin on his face. [b]”Put that starch back in the bag, then bring the whole thing. We're testing your theory right now.”[/b] He turned around and marched right out the food soor and towards his cooking fire, not bothering to check if the other would follow.

Bemused, Pulam shook the starch out of his hand (and clapped it a few times to be thorough). Then he grabbed the neck of the bag and hefted it over his shoulder, before trailing after Tolamu at a slower pace.

The smell of fresh, boiling soup invaded his senses as they closed into the cooking fire. As full as he was, Pulam’s mouth couldn’t help but water still. He set the bag down, trying to distract himself as he watched Tolamu putter around.

Tolamu went to work. He grabbed a nearby jug of water and topped off the nearly empty soup pot, and while the pot worked its way back to boiling, he grabbed his bronze cooking knife and began to peel his yam. Soon, the vegetables were roughly diced and the salted meat strips shredded, and everything was dumped into the pot of soup to simmer for a bit.

Now that he had a moment to breathe, the cook turned back towards Pulam. [b]”Now let me show you how to properly thicken a broth.”[/b]

He grabbed the starch bag with one hand, and took a small empty serving bowl with the other. [b]”First, you don’t need a lot,”[/b] he stated, tone becoming didactic. [b]“It thickens very quickly with heat, so only a spoonful or two is enough for a whole pot. Add too much, and you won’t end up with a liquid.”[/b] He poured about that amount in the bowl. [b]”Second, you don’t pour it right into your pot, or it’ll cook into lumps. You gotta mix it in cool water first, and [i]then[/i] add it in.”[/b]

Pulam, watching intently, nodded.

He poured some water into the bowl, mixed it all up with a spoon, and then went to the soup pot and poured it in slowly, mixing all the while. Gradually, the soup broth, once thin and watery, began thickening up, until it began to lightly coat the ladle whenever it was raised. He raised it to his mouth, giving the broth a quick taste. The texture was odd… but not unpleasant. The flavor was a bit bland though. He’d have to fix that.

Tolamu turned to Pulam, a proud smile on his face. [b]“See? Pretty neat, yeah? Cooking is just as much of an art as anything, with its own special skills and techniques!”[/b] He put the lid on the pot to let the vegetables finish cooking, and sat down on the ground next to the fire. [b]“You can do a lot more with starch too. It basically becomes edible glue as soon as you wet it. I even tried cooking the starch paste alone in a pan, once. It makes something thin and crunchy, but not very filling, so I never really bothered showing others. It’s not worth the starch it requires.”[/b]

[b]”So many more foods like it out there to be discovered…”[/b] he mused dreamily, [b]”...and instead of going out to find them, I’m stuck here freezing my ass off. The gods really have a shit sense of humor.”[/b] His face quickly twisted in a frown, and he threw a resentful glare at the sky.

Pulam, at this point, wasn’t really listening. He had his gaze fixed on the now empty serving bowl, fingers tapping his chin in thought. The soup bubbled away, but with less frivolity now that it had been thickened. It was a different colour from the soup they had doled out that morning – a pale white, broken up by the bits of vegetables and meat floating within.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]Edible glue...[/b][/color]”

Inspiration struck.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]I’ll be right back![/b][/color]” he said, before darting back to the food stores they’d left. His bowl of soup was right where he’d left it, still somewhat warm.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]You[/b][/color],” he said, “[color=#87CEEB][b]are going to be a bit better to look at, my friend.[/b][/color]”

The bowl did not reply. He returned to the cooking pot, set his bowl aside, grabbed a new serving bowl, and then poured a ladleful of thickened soup into it, sans meat and vegetables. With the empty serving bowl, Pulam copied what Tolamu had done minutes ago with the starch and water mixture, but at a smaller quantity. He poured this into his own bowl and then mixed [i]that[/i] together.

At this point, he realised he should probably explain what he was doing.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]I had an idea[/b][/color],” he said, and started spooning the thickened new soup into his old soup. Except he wasn’t spooning it so much as he was drizzling it into his soup, letting the white bleed into the red of his old soup. A white circle came to be, then two dots and a sideways curve, and before long, a smiley face was looking up at him from his own soup. The white soup didn’t dissipate or stray from the initial shape it had taken once poured into the red soup. Curious, he jabbed the spoon into the corner of each ‘eye’ in the face he had drawn. The white soup swooped into the direction he cut in but didn’t move much more than that.

Pulam grinned.

“[color=#87CEEB][b]Tolamu, you’re a [i]genius[/i].[/b][/color]” He lifted his bowl and showed his handiwork to the chef. It was crude, but it worked; if the thickened soup could retain its shape when poured into other soup, then that meant Pulam had a whole new canvas to play with! “[color=#87CEEB][b]Look! I don’t know what we can do about gods, but with soup like this, everyone will cheer up! Well... for a while. But it’s something, you know?[/b][/color]”

Tolamu puffed his chest out a bit at Pulam's praise. He knew he was a genius, but it was always nice to hear others acknowledge it as well. Though, he had to admit Pulam was a master of his craft in his own right. Drawing with food… that wasn't something the cook had ever envisioned before. It was a good idea.

He smiled as he gazed at the bowl of soup. The little doodle floating around the broth was awfully charming. [b]”You're right,”[/b] he said, [b]”that ought to lighten the mood. I have a feeling that the children are going to be especially fond of it.”[/b]

He stood back up with a small groan. He had some more preparations to do before the next meal-time. [b]”Stay around and give me a hand, will you?”[/b] he asked Pulam. [b]”You have to show everyone your new food-drawings, after all.”[/b]

It was a good note to end his breakfast upon. With that, Pulam decided there was no real need to mention the talking... bird-head... monkey thing that was watching them both from atop the roof of the nearby food store. It was bad enough that everyone was slowly losing their minds from the constant chills; they didn’t need confirmation that someone had actually lost his mind as of late. 

So, with good cheer and a wide smile, Pulam said, “[color=#87CEEB][b]Of course![/b][/color]”

[hider=Summary]
The people of Ma'otah’s village are suffering under Liuthe's curse. Though they are not sure of its exact origin, resentment still builds against the gods, who either refuse or are unable to help, especially towards the Great Fire who doesn't seem to do [i]anything[/i] to help despite the prayers. Worship is increasingly seen as a transactional relationship that should be left aside if nothing is given in return.

At the same time, Tolamu and Pulam meet in the food stores when Pulam wished to try and experiment with his soup. Tolamu helps him with it, and they end up creating a very thick soup that Pulam uses to create edible drawings. Food art has been born.[/hider]