Dissemination of Information

[Treadwell]

"Scholar, you forget that your father drowned and ate me."

The divine realm known as The Cook's Kitchen is a plane containing seemingly endless rooms with stoves and storage, with outdoor plots for growing and more than a few pots and pans for cooking.

And in it at the moment are two men, both very round of belly and very white of what hair remains on their heads. The current speaker wears a great, white apron over a simple, sleeveless, brown tunic and loosely tied, loosely fitting trousers. The current listener sweats in the kitchen heat, wearing a puffy, black scholar's cap and a heavy, black professor's gown over layers of clothes underneath that match the usual vestments of a mortal Tubbian.

"I, the Cook, and my brother, the Toymaker, are only here again because of the graces of our great Creator. Your father, the Slug, had nothing to do with it, curse his bulbous frame, and you and he are of a kind, wrapped around each other. Why ought I give you anything of mine to read, knowing full well it will only go to the mortals who follow the Mountainous One, unaware of his true self?"

Fleshy, sweaty hands flutter and flap against the sides of Libri the Scholar's great, gurgling stomach. Being in the middle of a god's kitchen, with all of its sights and smells, has long since set his middle to rumbling.

"We must help each other, Uncle! You can sit here and fashion such wonderful things forever--" and here, the portly professor leans in to whip a fleshy finger through a creamy concoction, taking a hearty suck at it after to his host's frowning chagrin. "But what good is aught of it if I do not read your recipes and share them with the mortal folks somehow?"

"Hands off the food, Nephew. You take after your father too well. You look like his mortal body. You dress like it. You act like it. You even sound like it." Here, one of the Cook's own fleshy fingers digs deep into the Scholar's stomach. "I trust neither of you. You will have no recipe books from me."

"Oh, pooh!" comes a cry from Libri as he toddles and spirals away, arms sweeping wide in a flustered show. "Father's little Tubbians love to grow and to eat! They love to cook! You would be venerated!"

A pause, here.

"Or would you have them praising Tubbius, that Mountain you despise, for teaching them of wonderful new things to eat?"

"Away! Out! I have--" The Cook freezes in place, staring and sniffing to the right a moment before taking off at a wheezing jog. "I have something burning because of you!"

Libri smiles as his Uncle runs, feet pounding on floorboards. With a giggle and a belly-quivering chortle, he takes another finger full of creamy stuff and quietly slips a massive volume from one of the back rows of a multi-stacked library of cookbooks, tucking it into his robe and stepping away the other direction. Waddled steps carry him safely away and to his own study. The book will go unmissed, of course, and within what mortals would call hours, the Scholar sits in a chair, licking his lips and patting his stomach.

"But first!"

The Scholar shuts his eyes and begins to reflect on his readings. Starting with Gregory, the butler at the Treadwell household, he starts willing the knowledge of some of the recipes out to the multitude of Tubbian faithful with gentle nudges this way and that based on preferences and the availability of ingredients. Learn, he thinks, and eat! Try these new things! Praise Tubbius! Praise Tubbius!