Apple Lamp
It's the same old story, of course: while Minoth has always enjoyed good, hearty food, being an epicure has never topped his priorities list. Mercenaries' campfire grub always has a pretty good chance of tending towards slop, after all.
The golden country's finest new traveling band isn't like that, though. Jin has had years of experience creating approachably flavorsome meals for a picky, picky, picky Lora expanding her juvenile palate day by day, and Aegaeon is nothing short of a gourmet chef. Cuisine from Mor Ardain's finest (which, admittedly, still isn't saying much) and the Tornan borderlands alike, all at their collectively waggling fingertips. It boggles Minoth that such a ragtag troupe should be so replete with resources, without even dipping a solitary sly finger into the resident prince's deep, deep pockets.
Addam himself? Not much of a hand with the crackling fire. He has a refined enough taste for what a dish is lacking, in this area or that, but he could never tell you which ingredient or combination thereof he actually means, and to top it off he has a positively woeful intolerance for spice.
Oh, spice. Pick a base off the top of his head - say, Bonytongue Shark or Marrin Fishmeat. It's got a certain roughness to it just on its own, one that begs for complement with a sauce of a certain degree of creaminess, but on the meat itself, a bit of char and Deer Wood smoke flavor is a must.
(Not an epicure, but maybe his stomach's been a little upset recently, and he's just now thinking about food again. So oh, how he's thinking.)
A bit like him and the prince, eh? If Minoth's the nasty fishbeast laid down to rest under a spread of milquetoast. Makes him feel alive, if he keeps from fully conforming to bland standards.
"Come on, Prince," Minoth had encouraged him. "Just let it rest on your tongue a spell - there's plenty of water, if you really can't hack it."
After Addam has finished hacking and flushing and scurrying behind a tree, he returns, grouchy, to inquire, "Just what do you get out of torturing me, anyway? Hmm? Is it some personal thrill?"
"Well..." Minoth rolls that one around in his mind a little bit. It's not like he can teach Addam to cook anything. It's not even like he really thinks he's doing something by "teaching" Addam to eat something that doesn't agree with him (but could, with enough patience and tolerance gained little by little; and plenty of water and privacy, of course).
"I won't say it isn't funny, just to see, especially with the contrast between us. But if you haven't the faintest skill for spice, and I'm the only one who ever pushes you on it, then you'll think of me every time, won't you?"
"Not exactly the most pleasant association," Addam notes pointedly. Minoth nods. "Guy like me makes everything better."
And what a wonderful hyperbole that is!
Addam never does acquire a taste for the piquant, no matter how tirelessly Minoth tries to "educate" him. It's not the end of the world, certainly, if he doesn't, but this is something Minoth can share, and it surprises him to no end to find that he does indeed want to.
Of course he wants to. Of course the basic impulse, among people you come to know and trust, is that you have to prove to them: I am smart, I am worthy, I am good, I know from what to eat and I know from how to stay alive and I know from how to give to you what it is that I know, and I do it because I love you, I love you, I love you.
It just so happens that Addam can't love the same thing that Minoth likes, that makes him feel just a bit more alive and like he's working for reciprocal love from the architect of taste buds, who must surely like his subjects who make full use of their tools better than the ones who can't and don't. Right? Because everything must be not a competition but a strivance, in that way. And it's the same whether you're pleasing the forces that made you or the forces that make you, every day. You want to say, yes; be proud of me.
Eventually, however, Minoth comes up with an alternate gesture - not a compromise, but a tenderness wholly separate: even if Addam cannot handle the intensity of all that Minoth is, directly, surely he can at least handle a kiss on the cheek, with those same chapped lips? Nothing, really, about pride, except that maybe Minoth is (of who, we and he won't say).
And it's warm. So very warm.
"So...one last meal, before the final showdown?"
Of course there is. That's how humans work. They eat. They break bread, which is one become two and before the bread it was one it was probably three or four good, whole ingredients, and before that it was thousands of wheat stalks and hundreds of salt rocks and millions of yeast cells and infinite, unmeasurable water, so that's something, isn't it? It certainly means something.
Addam is somber as he tends the fire. They'll save some rations for within Torna's depths, and they intend to find Malos on the other side of the organic, so it won't exactly be inhospitable for rest there, but this stop at the Holy Gate speaks for itself.
"Whatever you want to eat, Aegaeon's making, you know."
"Not really hungry, Minoth."
Minoth swallows. Oh. That would do it, wouldn't it?
"If you don't eat, I can't share with you."
"Well...break it off, and I just won't eat it."
"Might as well not."
Addam looks up. "Truly?"
"Yeah," Minoth answers, tearing leftover sandwich. "Have a bite."
He doesn't say please, and Addam does make him. He takes it, gnaws.
And then he smiles.
"Maybe I do feel like a small bite."
"That's the spirit."