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// Gruel Scum & Company 
// Story: The Dark Below 
// by WindigogoGadget 
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Years would go by, and little by little, the town would build itself up from the bones of the earth and make itself known. Buildings slowly became reinforced- sod turned to mudbrick, turned to wood and clay bricks, and stone and masonry. They were rebuilding.

Among them, was a small team of cooks. Initially, there was only one cook, an old shadow by the name of 'Welcome'. This cook was the owner of a small plot of land, that originally had no name until a pony had called it 'Welcomes Respite' and all it was, was a campfire with a great and heavy stew pot, and a table that seated twenty ponies comfortably. They excelled at cooking, and though they could only have so many at the table, they ensured that anyone, griffon, pony, changeling, any citizen that could eat- would eat. They'd always scrounge up something. Gruel, tea, 

So, by the fifth year, there were three. Three splits from the original Welcome. Welcome, the first, then Soup Chef, then Baker. Not everyone could sit at the table, but there were of course changes to that too. More chairs, a basic blanket on the grass, a bigger pot, a great big clay oven, and two fires. 

Fifteen years after that, and the population had boomed. Welcomes Respite turned from an open air kitchen to a massive banquet hall, and the staff had gotten even bigger. Welcome had taken on a surname, Welcome Home, and Soup Chef turned into two, Soup Chef & Stew Chef. Baker's name had likewise undergone a similar split, from Bread Baker & Cake Baker. With more splits, the staff would grow, from Break Cook to Line Cook Three, Pot Tender & Fire Stoker to Hearth Keeper, and so many more, until lastly they had started scraping the very bottom of the main pot.

And from the very bottom of that pot, was made the last member of the culinary crew that operated Welcomes Respite. 

Gruel Scum.

Probably the worlds dumbest shade who ever lived. The culmination of left-over material that couldn't go to waste. 

In spite of that, Gruel Scum was fairly happy. It had gotten the admittedly very short end of the stick, and probably the least flattering name- being the byproduct of boiling, but it wasn't terrible. He wasn't mistreated, and he was happy and content to help. They knew his limits, and he knew what he could and couldn't do. 

Early in the morning, Gruel Scum would clean. He would walk around, or slide around, really it depended on how emotive he could be at any point in time. Most days, it was a shapeless void that took the form of whatever seemed most effective. Ponies for running, griffons for flight, (though this almost never happened) and biped, for cargo and fine work.

The hall never closed, the doors were always open and there was always a patron who was hungry and a cook who would happily (or neutrally) prepare a meal. Hunger never sleeps, but everyone sleeps through it. So it would clean, preparing more pots and pans and urns, for stewing, frying, roasting, toasting, and for the carnivorous, potting. Potted meat. It was cheaper than canning, and such things were used with fruits, on the rare occasion a fruit was out of season.

The late nights was typically the breakfast menu, though if they were to ask politely, they could also get something from the ever elusive dinner menu. The menus were almost never used though, the banquet table- when set and readied, always had something for anyone. 

So once Gruel Scum finished with scrubbing steel pots to a polish and a mirror shine, it would work on preserving the hall itself. It would work around the few tired patrons and the few that had fallen asleep, mopping up dirt and smears with little care or protest. Occasionally, after wiping down the wooden tables and even a few walls, distressed and patinaed from time and the elements, it would pause to stare at a canvas that had been particularly well cared for.

It was a gift, a rendition of blues and greens and cadmium red. Squares upon a hill of green infront of an orange tinted background. It may have been titled home at one point. It didn't know what it was, abstract and stylization was an irrelevant thing to have, but it did know that it liked looking at it, and so it took care of it. It knew, that it was a valuable gift, that while it was literally priceless- made from a day when paints were like gold, and blue was made from crushed gems, it still held value. Just because it was a gift.

Gruel Scum blinked and looked away from the painting, gave an almost sapient rendition of a shrug, and went back to work.

After Gruel Scum finished what most would call a grueling task- the repeating quest of keeping the hall clean, he would wait in the kitchen, be greeted by the occasional volunteer and thus greet them in an equal amount of politeness or cheer, and once more wait for orders. These orders were typically given by Welcome Home themselves, usually appearing in a new iteration every few years. Once they tried to be a griffon, but they weren't fond of molting, so they stopped. 

Today though, Welcome Home was an earth pony of simple brown hues, designed to work well with almost any customer. The face of customer service had to be appealing after all. He'd order Gruel Scum to work in the back, to peel vegetables, set aside potato skins for a crisp snack later in the evening, and of course, scumming, or skimming, the gruel. It was such an unappealing name for such a particularly neutral and yet flexible dish. Gruel was oats, coarse oats, thin and watery or boiled to soft mash, you could spice it, sweeten it, eat it with bacon, it was oatmeal's rough around the edges brother.

And the scum, he would save and set aside to be added to a batch of sourdough, or Stew Chef & Cake Baker's personal stash of barley water as they attempted for yet another time to produce ale, or beer. This would in turn lead with a triumvirate discussion with the drink master-  Fruit Boiler, or simply Fruit depending on the mood, which would then somehow devolve into yet another argument about which nectars would be the best substitute for magically produced honey across the entire staff, until Welcome Home stepped in.

Gruel Scum wasn't designed to fear termination- but a rolling pin put the fear of something close to divine in its core. It considered itself lucky to not get roped into these discussions.

In particular, what it considered the luckiest job, the best job, was cooking. Not peeling or cleaning, but cooking. Being given a recipe, and following it perfectly. The others could do it, Line Cook was more efficient at it,

So it did this, day in day out with a little bit of thought every now in then. It's most important and cherished thought, was that it didn't mind its name. So what if it was literally scum? Scum and skimming was part of the process, an integral part of cooking. And that's what he was. Byproduct he may be, but he was vital, a part of the charm, a part of life.