A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Evening of the tenth day of the fifth month, year 210.

Treadwell's insistence on tracking down everything related to the old man's job as Councilor of Administrative Sanctions led him all over Myrken Wood. . . and it took all of the last three days instead of just the one that he wanted it to take.

Tonight, Aloisius and Alice rest in the rocking chairs in Tready's Toys, having decided to spend the night in the bedroom of the long unopened toy shop. They had to spend a few hours cleaning and dusting things off, and now, with Alice rocking gently in her chosen seat, Tready finally has, "An idea, love, a brilliant idea!"

It is thus with renewed vigor that the plaid-pajama-jumpered old tub wobbles, cane-aided, across the room to his broad, leather belt with its many, many toymaking tools hanging from it. Off its hook on the wall it comes, and he extends it out at arms' length as he toddles back to his wife, his cane under his armpit.

"What is this idea, darling?" comes the easily anticipated question from his beloved wife, who sips at a mug of hot tea.

"This!" And so Tready sets his cane down and tugs his belt around his back. . . and sides. . . and he falls well short of coming anywhere near cinching it closed, with the end of the belt ending up uselessly dangling clear away from the belt buckle opposite. "Oh, dear me."

"I could have told you that would happen, Allie. I could tell when you waddled into the house the other day that you had been quite the porker on your trip to Westenford."

Treadwell sloooowly peeks up at his wife, who continues with a smile.

"You haven't tried to put on much of your clothes besides the ones you had with you on the trip, have you, love? It's a wonder you can even get that belt that far around you!"

The belt is thus placed on a table next to a row of stuffed dolls, and Tready slumps into his rocking chair, feeling the pinch of the chair's arms around his middle.

"But dearest," he whines with a wheeze, "I'm supposed to be eating like a pig! A god of gluttony and feasting and harvest isn't meant for anything else!"

A merry twinkle comes to his beady, tiny eyes.

"In fact, I should very well burst from these pajamas henceforth and traipse 'round this shop quite naked, hmm hmm, to give my body room to grow even further!"

"Goodness gracious, Aloisius!" Alice cackles out a laugh, reaching over to slap her husband's overgrown middle. "Have you no shame?"

"Not very much, mmph mmph!" he adds in reply. . . and then he yawwwwwns. . . and within very short order, with nothing else to say, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell dozes off in his rocker for the night, snoring all the while. Alice, however, hefts herself to her feet, takes up her husband's walking cane and a lamp, and makes for the much more comfy bed in the back of the store for the night.

[Treadwell]

Night of the tenth day of the fifth month, 210, going into morning of the eleventh.

Safely back home in the warmth and comfort of his toy shop, Aloisius Treadwell snores soundly into the night, and, as he snores, he passes gently into awareness of his Tubbian body and plain, both spread out before him as is perfectly normal.

Just as his rotund, flabby body always seems to grow, so, too, do the roots below him that hold him in place and reach out in search of new believers. Tonight, they find someone out of the ordinary, far and away: a frail, little, elderly man, a retired schoolmaster, who lives only a door away from the Tubbian church in Colmouth.

With a wiggle of fat fingers, Tubbius brings before him, resting on the curve of his great gut, a vision of the sleeping, snoring fellow. He is a shrivelled prune of a man, pale and wearing a green nightgown and cap, the gown a good many sizes too large. It was inherited when his brother--a right portly gentleman who belonged to the Church of Tubbius next to his house--grew right out of it and felt it was still in passably good condition to give to his wisp of a brother. "It will keep you warm, dear Belly!" was the jolly roar of the Tubbian.

"Belly, hmm hmm! There is irony, little one, that this is the name everyone calls you, yet you have naught a belly to speak of!" Tubbius smiles, putting a hand under Bellerophon Guffin and cupping it around the little man as he lifts the schoolmaster to his lips. "I must fix this!"

A gentle puff of Tubbian breath at Mr. Guffin's face thus equally gently causes the sleeping fellow to swell and plump, growing until he nicely fills out the handed down nightgown. That is when a tap from a Tubbian finger on the sizable belly deflates the little man to normal. With a chuckle that shakes his quivery mass, Tubbius gives a simple command. "Remember, little one! Feel a touch of the endless hunger, mmph, learn of your Tubbian brothers, and grow!"

So, as Belly Guffin fades away, still sound asleep, so does Tubbius slip into his usual lethargy as he slumps in place and enjoys all that he observes.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the eleventh day of the fifth month, 210.

Bellerophon Guffin wakes this fine and sunny morning to a scratchy tickling in his throat and a hungry tickling in his stomach. After getting himself dressed in his old, black, academic's robe and skullcap, he shuffles sleepily into the kitchen where his nearly equally elderly housemaid (and soon to be wife, should they ever decide to go through with the marriage between them!), one Dinah Cook, waits.

"Your usual breakfast, Master Guffin?" she asks, helping her employer to his usual chair stuffed with his usual pillow in its seat at his usual table. The "usual breakfast" in question is a simple one: a few pieces of what fruits are in season, thinly sliced, with a few bites of cheese, a pair of slivers of meat (ham today!), and a mug of fresh milk.

Bellerophon Guffin is and always has been a man not given over to change. This morning, though, as he surveys the plate before him, with his belly audibly rumbling emptily, he makes a most unusual request in his frail and wavery squeak of a voice with a smile slipping onto his face.

"My dear Dinah, darling, I think I should be wanting something sweet to go with all of this. I don't know why! I just fancy such--well, no, need, I suppose!"

"Need, Master Guffin? That's an odd need! Are you well?" A wrinkled hand comes over to rest on his cool, saggy face.

"Need, yes! Need! I'd dare say I crave something sweet, my dear!"

"Well! What is you, ahem, crave so badly, Master Belly?"

"Now, now, Dinah. . . You know I only allow my foolish, fat brother Donald to call me that." He smiles all the same, though, as he wags a bony finger playfully.

"I think it's rather cute and sweet!" A pause as she herself smiles. "Belly."

"Fine, fine!"

"Now what is it you want so much?"

"Mmmmmmm." His stomach gives another impatient grumble. "Something sweet. . . . I think I should like to start with. . . a buttered biscuit!"

And in his drowsy lethargy as he studies this new Tubbian in the making, the Great Belly on the Plain, Tubbius himself, smiles broadly and warmly. "Start small, my little one! But, mmph mmph, leave room for what will be your newest love at every meal and inbetween them, too: dessert!"

[Treadwell]

Afternoon of the eleventh day of the fifth month, 210.

In Myrken Wood, Aloisius Treadwell finds himself awake for only a very short while today: he sleepily gets up long enough to have breakfast and to wobble tiredly up the street to be measured for a new belt for his toymaking tools. Taking the belt triumphantly back to his shop, he and Alice share in lunch there, and then, again, he is snoring with a full tummy in his rocker by the fire. Alice takes then to cleaning the shop, dusting and tidying up from Tready's recent months long absence.

Treadwell isn't the only one tuckered out and dozing after lunch. Dinah Cook of Colmouth is absolutely weary, too. She had gone scurrying to a local baker to obtain the much desired biscuits--getting a good deal on a baker's dozen of them and bringing them home in short order--and on returning to her Master Guffin's house, she found him quite nearly drooling over the food she was bringing him. Butter was quickly applied to the still warm biscuits, and the old schoolmaster fed until his belly was content: four whole biscuits on top of his meal later. Thus leaving the old gent to his reading and resting, Dinah slipped away to her room for a nap.

However, Tubbius has come to a funny little notion: why make only one Tubbian of the pair when he can encourage two? He knows of Dinah's urgings to wed the elderly teacher, and he knows he can use that urging to see both of them along in his ways.

Thus, Tubbius decides to pay Dinah a visit in her dreams, similar to that he paid Alice Treadwell a short while past. Dinah finds herself standing in the kitchen at the Guffin house. She wears an apron over her dress, and she herself is notably plump--not immensely so, but certainly rounder of stomach and body than her currently wafer-thin, wispy self. An array of food in the making spreads out before her. . . and before she has time to wonder the least bit at all of this, she finds herself accepting it for truth as Bellerophon Guffin--her Bellerophon--comes toddling into the room looking a right blubbery, spherical fellow in a green, velvety robe much too tight!

That Bellerophon is, naturally, the shape that Tubbius has let himself slip into for this visit; it's still not rotund enough for him, but it serves its purpose as he gives Dinah a chirpy, cheery, "Hullo, my love!" and shuffles over for a peck of a kiss to her cheek.

"Why. . . Master Guffin!" she starts with a blushing faced gasp. She is stopped by a fat finger to her lips. "Belly, love, hee hee!" "Belly!" Dinah repeats, slipping an arm around this newly portly schoolmaster to pat the far side of the belly of the Belly in question. "Is everything about ready, Dinah dear? I'm starving, and I'm on my way to service at the Church of Tubbius! The way to a man's heart, you know. . . ." He peeks down and rubs his engrossed middle, giggling.

It's at that time that Tubbius merrily slips himself free, allowing the dream to fade away into nothing. It is time for Tready to wake up, mainly due to a dim rummmmbling in his own stomach, and Dinah Cook will wake both curious and thoughtful. As a faint smile slips to her face and she peers on the now dozing, still slim Bellerophon Guffin, Dinah begins to plan. . . and as she plans, she takes a long look at herself in the metal, polished mirror in the scholar's study. Then, in a shushed voice, she picks up the last line from the dream.

"Through his stomach, little missie! And if his stomach's being what it was in that little doozy of a dream is what gets him to marry you, well, it looks like you've got to feed him and your stomach's got to do some growing, too! Now, what was that he said about a Church of. . . Tubbius?"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the thirteenth day of the fifth month, 210.

It is well into the morning hours in Myrken Wood. In the colossal, fluffy bed he shares at home with his beloved Alice, Aloisius snores heftily and noisily. With a cooked breakfast awaiting the two elderly butterballs in the kitchen (with many thanks to the ever-present servants who make it all possible every day!), he still sleeps.

This morning is thoroughly enjoyable for him as he watches over the Plains of Tubbius in the form of a certain Great Belly. As Tubbius, he feels the starved, gluttonous consumption of the morning meal by all of his devoted Tubbians at their churches and homes in a unique fashion; as they feast, he grows, with tiny (for him) pouches and ripples appearing silently and gently on his round frame, from the tip of his head invisible in the clouds to the tips of his roots as they swell and thicken and slowly spread a little more daily.

This morning, though, Aloisius wakes a bit rudely to tearful, pitiful crying accompanied by Alice standing next to his side of his bed, wearing her nightgown and rubbing her hands around on the fatty, fleshy Rings of Tubbius that pooch from his stomach.

"Dearest? Alice?" Tready asks with a sleepy, watery-eyed blink and a subsequent yawwwwwwn.

Her reply is a tear-choked, emotional, "Allie, I can't live with this!"

"Live with what, dearest?" He reaches up his hands to rest them on hers, mainly to stop the kneading and mashing on the Rings. "Careful, darling. My Rings, mmph mmph, they're sensitive, dearest! Quite tender to the touch, hmm hmm!"

Her hands, though held in place, still tighten fingers around the extra pudginess that is Treadwell's stomach. "It's been three whole days, going on four, now, and I can't live like this all the time! Not right now!"

"Like what, love?"

"Like this!" She pulls her hands free and claps them to the sides of her belly. "I don't feel whole! I don't feel like I'm all here! I--I. . . ." Alice falls into quiet sobs, flushing red in sad humiliation, as Treadwell worms huffily to sit up in his mound of pillows.

"I'm getting all of her thoughts and memories in my head, and I don't feel right, Allie."

"Her who?" He winces a little. His Rings of Tubbius are still sore and throbbing to the touch despite Alice's pulling her hands free.

"Lucy!"

"Lucy? So what is it you want of me, darling?"

There's a pause as the distraught Mrs. Treadwell sniffs and snuffs and whimpers. Then, plaintively, she whispers, "I can't help it, Allie. Make me her again. I. . . I feel like I'm missing half again of myself."

Aloisius gives his Alice a little smile, then breathlessly, gruntingly huffs upright. "Then off with our clothes, my dear!" he adds once he is sitting up. "Otherwise, we're likely to rip them to pieces, mmph mmph. And my love?"

"Y-Yes, Allie?"

He doesn't answer her, yet, instead helping her remove her gown before taking off his own pajamas. Aloisius then stands and puts his saggy arms around his wife in a hug, smushing his middle to hers (bringing up another sharp ache in the abused fleshiness circling his stomach!) and filling just the middle of their room with light as their bodies again change shapes to those of Aloisius's ancestors, Tobias and Lucy Treadwell.

They both swell out immensely, instantly taking their breath away and leaving them hugging each other all the more tightly as they wobble in place. With a merry coo to his piping old voice, then, for Tubbius loves to be in this much rounder form every chance he gets, the changed Tobias giggles and says, "My darling Lucy, hmm hmm, you very much were missing half again of yourself, or thereabouts! Hee hee! Now, let's get ourselves dressed. The babies are still sleeping, and we have a breakfast downstairs a-waitin' on us, mmph mmph! Besides. . . an afternoon like this won't hurt either of us a bit, especially if it makes you feel better for it. But only this evening, hmm hmm?"

A plump finger wags at the altered Alice. She slooooowly nods her head.

"Only this evening, Allie." She reaches up to wipe at tears as she looks around for the gown sized to fit this newly more corpulent frame. "I won't bother you about it again after tonight, for at least a few days!"

To this, Tobias gives a sad, gentle smile. He knows, of course, that Alice is having difficulty adjusting to this newfound knowledge, these new bodily changes. He had hoped a few days apart from it all would help matters, but apparently another tactic is needed.

[Treadwell]

Night of the thirteenth day of the fifth month, going into morning of the fourteenth, 210.

For Aloisius and Alice Treadwell, this day spent in enlarged and altered bodies provided a good deal of change for them. Within minutes of his transformation, Aloisius was wobbling merrily about in his new flesh as if he'd lived in it for years--and, truth be known, he had. Alice, instead, found herself again lost in wonder at her newfound girth and the loss of years. Their servants were wary at first but soon came to accept it all with shrugs and chuckles. With Treadwell, they whispered, seemingly everything was possible!

The day was spent indoors, of course, out of sight and away from anyone in Myrken Wood. In fact, the old man in the Tobias shape spent most of his afternoon without his shirt, toddling-plodding about after his babies and playing with them. They weren't even slightly fearful, immediately accepting their changed parents without a question, and thus, as the newly rotund Lucy plopped huffily into a rocker in the nursery, her husband found a new vigor and breathlessly, sweatily played with and chased his fat little toddlers.

Now, though, and true to her word, Alice is back in her own true body, and Tready reassured her he would slip back into his after his bath. . . but for now? For now, it is the much plumper Tobias who spreads out in the bathtub, with little room at all to spare for movement of any sort. All in all, though, the old tub is certainly content as he lets himself doze off exhausted and slip into his usual nightly vigils, watching his Tubbian faithful sleep and dream.

In Colmouth, Bellerophon Guffin dozes, just like the altered Treadwell, in a bathtub by his bed, snoozing and snoring lightly, having been lulled asleep by a tummy made very full on buttered biscuits and morsels of ham and cheese throughout the day. He's not rounding out, yet, but the hunger is certainly taking hold in his bony little frame.

It is Mr. Guffin that Tubbius, smiling, reaches out to pull his dreaming spirit back to the Great Belly. A gentle puff back into the schoolmaster's nostrils sets that spirit to growing out fat and round as it did a few days ago, with greater ease this time. Tubbius stops that growth with a giggle and a nudge to the man's stomach, faintly digging his finger into that swollen stomach in two round circles, one off-center from the other.

"Let this be a sign to you and your soon-to-be brothers in the Church of Tubbius, little Belly! Remember your new loves, my child: sweets, desserts, buttery wonders, pies. . . and pastries! Marvelous, delicious, creamy, gooey-goopy pastries! And those splendid little fluffy, breaded morsels with the creamy filling in them that your brother Donald makes!" Tubbius himself can't help salivating even at his own words, and with a thought, he arranges for a small mountain of such morsels to appear atop the sphere that is his stomach. With a nudge to again deflate the fattened ghost and send it back to its owner with its new desires still hanging in its faintest, foggiest areas reserved for dreams and wants and memories, the Great Belly takes to enjoying the eating of these newly summoned physical delights.

In fact, he keeps this up for the entire night. When Tobias awakes, shivering and cold in his tub with Alice bursting over him in laughter, he'll be quite, quite visibly full and swollen in the middle--though, of course, still quite, quite grumpily hungry.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the fourteenth day of the fifth month, 210.

Alice Treadwell stands over her inflated, aged, bodily replaced husband, who is naked and cold and quite likely stuck in the bathtub made for his usually smaller self. She's thoroughly enjoying herself, laughing merrily and jovially as she sees the predicament her tubby hubby is obviously in.

That tubby hubby's face is rather soured as he endures the laughter.

"Allie! 'Oh, my love, I'll only be this way for a little bit longer, while I'm in my bath!' Hee hee! Now, look at you!" She shuffles over to rub a hand on his immense, gurgly stomach. "You look like you've stuffed yourself silly all night, and you look like you're probably stuck here, to boot!"

"I have, and I am, mmph mmph!" The overly round toymaking priest and taxman shivers there, shaking in the water. "Now, step back and let me change so I can get up!"

The giggling, hee-hawing Alice does just that, wobbling back a few steps with her hands going to rest on her belly. She soon has to cover her eyes as the usual flood of golden light surrounds her husband and the normal Aloisius replaces the swollen Tobias with a huffiness of breath as well as what seems like layers of sweat and a look of exhaustion all over.

"Well, that will get you out of the tub, love, but dear me! All that sweat! You look exhausted." A little toddling about sees her bringing Tready a towel. "Quite honestly, that's probably the sweatiest and weariest you've been in a while. All you do is lie around and eat and get fatter, it seems!"

"Mmph mmph! Alice, if I truly did that, if all of Myrken's resources were available to me, hmm hmm, and all I had to do in this body were to sit here and shovel food into my mouth and never move, never work, hmm hmm, I could easily be two or three times the size of Tobias! In fact, mmph mmph, that is all I do as the Glutton and as Porcus! Well, as Porcus, I have to have my babies once in a while, ahem, but the Glutton? Dear me!" A lazy daze slips over the tired Treadwell's eyes; the old man takes to drooling for a few moments before Alice pokes his belly button to snap him out of it.

"You were saying?"

"Oh! If I could just flop on my arse all day and stuff myself and do nothing else, Alice, my love, you'd have a much plumper hubby in very short order!"

"I mean what were you saying about Porcus?" More giggling as she reaches her arms out to help Aloisius from the tub. "You in a body that was having to have babies! I'd very much love to see what that looks like!"

"Make a trip, mmph mmph, in the carriage down to the nearest pig farmer's house, then, and watch 'em there!" A winded, wheezy Tready soon stands there, dripping and wobbling, by his bathtub. As he dries off, and as Alice makes for the door to give him a little time to himself, she coos back, "It wouldn't be the same!" And out the door she waddles, laughing again all the way to the breakfast table.

[Treadwell]

Evening of the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, 210.

The next month and a half passes largely without incident. The married Treadies spend a considerable amount of time together, with Aloisius working urgently to keep his wife happy and fed and comfy as she begins to feel the early sicknesses that come with being a new mother-to-be again. Of course, given Aloisius Treadwell, the two of them indulge a bit too much together in being happy and fed and comfy. Newfound, extra, but merely gently increased, plumpness appears on both of them and on their children.

Next to a glowing fireplace at his toy shop, Aloisius Treadwell rocks gently in his custom built rocking chair. He spent the morning unmaking the chair and adjusting it, adding a little extra width to its sturdy wooden frame to accommodate his own seemingly ever-widening frame. Now, as he rocks and listens to it squeak against the floorboards, he is absently working on a plump, pink, stuffed pig. On a whim, he finds himself stuffing this little piggie as round as he can make it with the stuffing at hand, but he is drowsy, too. As he sews up the last of the stuffed toy's middle, away he slips into a sleepy doze.

He finds himself drawn again to the muddly, sloppy fields of Porcus, again meant to toddle about on those four, fat, pudgy legs with overgrown stomach sagging through the sludge. Awareness quickly sets in: his blessings of a few months ago at nearly every pig farm in Westenford are soon, very soon, about to bear fruit! With piggy eyes settling on the magically appearing Libri, who waddles over to the Pig Mother's side, Porcus slumps gently onto her stomach, aimlessly munching at the tasty hog slop that makes up most of the terrain in her world.

Thus, as Treadwell snores soundly in his rocking chair with a stuffed pig on his lap, Porcus patiently waits.

[Treadwell]

Noon of the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, 210.

For Treadwell, the entirety of the last night was spent in keeping attention and thoughts focused on the safe delivery of many, many, many Westenfordian piglets, aided alternately by first Libri and then Marta.

He wakes, drowsy and exhausted, to blearily focusing on a round ball of a stomach at eye level and to hearing a worried, squeaky, "Counc'lor Tready? Tready? Father Tubbius? Are ye all right?"

A moment passes before he lets out a warbly yawn and recognizes the speaker. "Jack! I--" and he is cut short by another recognition: that of a persistent, aching throb of agony from his breasts to his middle to (especially) his rump. His breath comes short and swift, prompting the town crier to put a hand on the old man's shoulder.

"Counc'lor?"

Treadwell slowly nods his head and reaches up to straighten his glasses on his nose. "I'm all right, Jack. . . . I've had a rather hard, mmph mmph, night, m'boy! Rather hard!"

"Doing what? You fell asleep in your rocker, it looks to me!"

"Ummm. . . . Well, my child," he winces as he slooooowly worms his way out of his rocking chair to his feet, keeping a hand around his lower stomach, near the groin area, "being a three-fold deity puts much strain, mmph mmph, on me sometimes."

"Eh?" Jack Alldale shifts around to wrap an arm around the ever-expansive Aloisius Treadwell. "Where're you going? There's a bed in the back, right?"

Treadwell nods his head. "Mercy. . . my walking cane, Jack?"

"Here ye go, Tready!" The cane in question is picked up and handed over.

"Thank you. Oooohhhhhh," comes the moan from the old tub. "Dear me! Last night, Jack, I, as Porcus, delivered, hmm hmm, quite a few of my blessedly plump, plentiful children, mmph mmph!"

"Porcus?" He shifts his weight, assisting Treadwell toward the arch leading to the back of the toy shop. "The pig, right?"

"Mmhmm. Study your Folds of Tubbius more! She's one and the same with Tubbius!"

"O'course!"

"So, m'boy, as you can see, doing all of that has taken quite the toll of me!"

"I see! Oh! Y'dropped this!" Jack grins wide and hands Aloisius the fallen pig toy that was resting on his belly until he stood. "Looks to me like one of yer babies came 'long for the trip! Hee hee!"

Treadwell laughs feebly but happily, tucking the stuffed piglet toy under his arm as he leads the way from toy shop to kitchen to bedroom. The toy in question is gently discarded in a basket by the bedroom door as he enters.

"Now, Counc'lor, out of yer clothes and into some proper pajamas! I know ye have some 'round here; I've seen 'em!" So, with a moment to help Treadwell locate a Tubbian pajama romper, and several more moments to help Treadwell out of his clothes and into said outfit, the two men stand there together, both short of breath and florid of face.

"Hmph!"

"What is it, ol' Tubby?"

"You're coming along quite nicely, Jack!" He reaches up to poke the town crier's stomach, playfully wiggling the tip of his finger in the plumping fellow's belly button and setting him laughing. "It pleases me to see you taking your Tubbius worship to heart!"

"Awwwwww!" is all that Jack Alldale can say with a ruddy flush. Soon, though, he's clearing his throat and helping Treadwell to bed. "Now, Tready, y'wife was worried 'bout ye. She sent me over 'ere to see how y'was! I need to get back to 'er and let you get some proper sleep, it looks like!"

This doesn't get any argument from Treadwell as he lets himself be helped into the cushiony comfort of his bed. Normally, he would have a hard time falling asleep at lunch, mid-day, with an empty belly and a bright, sunny outdoors. Today, though, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell is fast asleep before Jack Alldale even has time to reach the door and say, in that squeaky, rustic voice, "G'night, Counc'lor Tready!" He will, at least, wake (still aching and throbbing) in time for supper!

[Treadwell]

Night of the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, 210.

A still-aching Aloisius yawns and streeeetches himself awake, regretting such exertion almost immediately as his portly, elderly body politely reminds him of Porcus's recent ordeal. To a deific pig mother, birthing seemingly endless litters of piglets at the same time as her earthly children is merely a fact of life. To the fat, mortal, human male figure now toddling about his toy shop bedroom, the phantom pains resulting from living just one of a quartet of lives at once leave him grumpy and exhausted.

In short, Aloisius needs to focus again on being himself.

There is a kitchen in the back of the toy shop, with a small table to dine on therein. The food and drink are still good, having been recently replenished after his return home from Westenford. Standing in that kitchen in his bright yellow pajamas, with the pouchy growths of the Rings of Tubbius visible in the fabric at his middle, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell remembers a simple fact as his stomach roars and complains emptily (as it always does, whether he gluts himself or not).

Tready is an excellent cook.

A broad, beaming smile warms his floofily bearded face, and thus Aloisius sets his round frame in motion despite the incessant pain from his breasts down to his behind and all around his middle and back.

By the warbling call from Jack Alldale of "Ten o' th' evenin' and all is wayellllll!", Aloisius settles himself gingerly at his table--a table piled high and creakily full of a feast sized for a hungry family but meant for himself.

He doesn't finish until he faintly hears Alldale's call of "Midniiiiiiight!", dozing off with a bib covering his bosom, the plates and bowls scraped clean and cast aside, and his burbly belly spreading enough to force buttons on his pajamas open as he slumps back in his kitchen chair to snore the night away until nearly lunch of the next day.

[Treadwell]

Night of the fourth day of the eighth month, 210.

The life of Aloisius Treadwell has been an easy one since he returned home from Westenford: eat, sleep, wake up, collect some taxes or make some toys or preach some sermons, and do it all again.

Tonight finds that easy life still an easy one for him. Most of his tax collecting duties are moving smoothly as of the last few days at the start of this month, so now, he sits rocking in his bedroom at the toy shop. The black-gowned butterball, already dressed for a bed a few feet away, dozes, sprawled out in his chair with a mug of lukewarm ale half drained on his nightstand and a book of revenue figures for the toy store neatly summed up and finished.

Tonight sees Aloisius not merely dreaming--for he hasn't properly dreamed as folks would term it since his revelations of Tubbius, the Glutton, and Porcus some time ago at a church that seems so far away, now. He has long since slipped from focusing on Porcus's endless piggish pregnancies, and tonight he doesn't even slip into the contented, corpulent bliss that defines Tubbius.

Tonight, Aloisius Treadwell's sole desire is a simple one: he wants MORE. The half-sluggish, slimy entity known as the Glutton comes to the forefront again tonight to fulfill that desire, and again there is the paradoxical blend of gluttonous joy and ravenous, starving frustration as the multiple mouths that lead immediately to ever-swelling, ever-digesting stomachs in the Glutton's ever-growing middle chomp and gurgle and guzzle in the sea of ale and foodish sludge in which the beast floats and treads. The two round, leechlike infants still hang from the monstrosity's chest, one clinging to each breast and bouncing there with their father's motions. And, through it all, the Glutton feeds, grossly uncaring of decorum and selfishly stuffing himself on everything in reach.

It is a chaotic whirling of emotions and desire for the snoring tax collector, priest, and toymaker.

It is also a breathtaking snort-snuffle-humph that strangles him awake around two in the morning. Aloisius reclines there in his seat, soaked in sweat and shivering. He pushes his glasses up on his face, grabs his cane, and grumpily climbs to his feet.

He is starving, which is his usual state.

However, this time, interrupted from his night's rest and the Glutton's feasting, he looks to do something about that starvation!

Aloisius gets no sleep at all between two in the morning and dawn.

His toy store's kitchen gets no mercy from him during the same hours.

When dawn begins to peek through the kitchen windows of the toy shop, lighting the again snoring--and, admittedly, naked save his unbuttoned nightgown--Aloisius, the sun's rays are also lighting the carnage wrought by the toymaker. Were he awake, he would still feel as if his belly were completely empty, but the visible bloat to said spherical middle coincides with a simple truth: in the course of a few hours, Aloisius ravenously devoured everything edible in his toy shop's kitchen before he nodded back to sleep.

That, to Treadwell, brings pleasure, contentment. . . and one of the longest naps he has had in a long, long time!

[Treadwell]

Morning of the eighth day of the eighth month, 210.

Aloisius Horatio Treadwell wakes before the dawn light peeps through the sealed shutters of his bedroom window. Wearing his yellow, ill-fitting pajamas, he kisses Alice's cheek and blinks and rubs his bleary eyes in the darkness. A streeeeetch of his arms brings his left hand to resting comfily on his wife's slowly growing middle. She has been eating a little more lately, blaming it on the baby therein, which secretly pleases her gluttonously minded husband.

And yet, the last days, Aloisius has alternated between days of gorging himself until he looked as if he might pop open and naps and nights of enduring--and enjoying--the Glutton's endlessly maddening, endlessly futile feasting. Even after only a few days, the excess in his waking hours is fast beginning to show on him, given that the central button on his pajamas now refuses to reach far enough to close safely, prompting him to leave it open with merry giggles.

But, as he rests in the darkness, a devious grin slips over his sweaty, oily face.

He wants more.

At that, Aloisius shuts his eyes and lets himself slip easily into that meditative, complacent state of the Great Belly on the Plain, Tubbius. Tubbius is an entity eternally hungry, like the Glutton, but unlike the overfed slug, he is content to sit in one spot and be fed by and grow with his faithful followers. With the Glutton, there is a frenzied madness of trying to appease unending hunger--an agony for a creature devoted to his multiple bellies. With Tubbius, it is more subtle. When awake, Aloisius encourages the Tubbians to eat heartily and to enjoy themselves as a sign of prosperity and as a sign of the fellowship they have with each other.

What he doesn't bring to light is that with gluttony can come greed and with greed manipulation. The Tubbians know that their devotion to their meals and drinks affects their Tubbius and keeps him happy and round. What Aloisius doesn't--and isn't going to--tell them is that he can and often does. . . adjust their habits with just a little influence.

This morning is one of those moments. Tubbius smiles down at the grassy plain on which he sits, allowing himself to see the spiritual shades of the Tubbian followers in Myrken Wood, his Alice included.

All it takes is a simple urge without even a word--merely the implication of needing to wake early and get something to eat. There is no massive push of starvation throughout the crowd; instead, there is only the urge to wake up and find something for breakfast, and all around Myrken Wood, Tubbian men rise to find food in their kitchens, or they wake their wives to do the same. . . or in the case of Aloisius Horatio Treadwell, one Tubbian simply lies in bed snoring with a faint smile on his face as his wife wriggles out of bed, rubbing her growling belly and toddling off toward the kitchen.

[Treadwell]

Evening of the eighth day of the eighth month, 210.

A dawn of feasting spent by Tubbians all over Myrken Wood led to merriment and more feasting once they gathered together at their church for the morning service. The service was, of course, presided over by a drowsy Aloisius Treadwell giving his usually squeaky, shrill calls about keeping Tubbius fed so that blessings would come for his faithful. A hearty second breakfast during the sermon gave way seamlessly to a lunch that, despite their ongoing dining, still had more than enough food on the tables positioned in their box pews to keep them happy. The majority of them, Treadwell included, dozed off after lunch, happily snoozing and snoring in the sanctuary of the church, with their elderly leader sprawled over his gaudily overstuffed couch at the front beside the pulpit. A few, though, had to lumber away to see about work that was waiting on them at home.

Aloisius, given his particular peculiar status as orchestrator of this Tubbian church and faith, slips once asleep into his role as overseer and lord of these faithful. As Tubbius, he sits surrounded by sleeping, spectral replicas of his followers--replicas resting in very specific spots around him in the grass. The deity's ever-growing roots beneath the grass are tied spiritually to each Tubbian shade snoozing above them, and it is in that way that Tubbius usually draws nourishment. At the moment, the lump of a god sits there lazily basking with a belly that, on rare occasions like these, actually feels contentedly full.

He also has to make good on his promises. Blessings must be given! These are supplied with minimal worry and exertion of divine magic--an incoming present of wealth to some, soon-to-be fatherhood to one in old age who's never known such, a visit from a long-lost cousin for another, and (to Tubbians perhaps the chiefest of blessings) girth that continues to fill out slowly for all. Tubbius has to have something in return, of course. As they grow, so will many of their appetites to match, and, as they grow, so does he!

As for Aloisius Treadwell, snoring soundly until all of this is complete, he awakens earlier than the rest. With a wobbly yawn and a belly emptily complaining as usual, over to the various tables he toddles, helping himself as is allowed by The Folds of Tubbius, wherein a passage notes that a Tubbian must always be willing to sacrifice for the good of his leader! By the time the others begin to wake, their plates are clean, and Aloisius, his tummy swollen even more greatly from this snack atop his meals, is again lying on his couch and snoring to fill the church.

[Treadwell]

Evening of the eighth day of the eighth month, going into night, 210.

A tiny, squeaky, elderly voice pierces the calm stillness that makes up the Plains of Tubbius. Its source is a glowing, pink-tinted dot of lot kneeling in fervent prayer atop one of the Great Belly's gigantic breasts.

Richard Aengus of New Hibera seeks an audience!

Tubbius, his mortal body of Aloisius Treadwell sated and snoring and stuffed, sucks in a small amount of drool hazarding to slip from his lips. He has dined well today, taking in nourishment from his faithful, and here the elder of his two fairy representatives offers more for him. He smiles. . . and he listens.

The fairy's pleas are simple: his attempts to spread the faith of Tubbius are falling on deaf fairy ears. Finding food in excess amounts for lazy gluttony has always been an impossibility for all but Richard and his half brother, Dr. Barrin; in addition, they are the only two with bodies that seem to want to grow any at all, and even the doctor's formerly wispy body has grown to blessedly bloated proportions like those of his royal brother.

Tubbius smiles. He listens to the fairy king's appeal, and then he offers an answer of five words. "I need you, Richard Aengus." Before the fairy king can puzzle out the meaning of this reply, he finds himself falling immensely drowsy, snuggling up to rest in the cozy warmth of the old god's white-haired bosom.

His body awakes in its bed, though it is Tubbius's awareness nudging the king's gently into the back depths of consciousness. It is night in Myrken Wood, and thus night in New Hibera, and it is a gleeful, though drowsy, Tubbius that rises in the rotund shape of the fat, pink, fairy king.

Tiny pink fingers flex and spread, confronted with arthritic popping and cracking of over three centuries of age. With a wince from their current possessor, they come to rest in the gelatinous squooshiness of this fairy's middle, bringing a merry grin to the elderly, borrowed face. "You grow well, my Richard!" comes a whispered huff of breath as hands pat-pat the enormous stomach. A moment of thought sees the wings behind flapping hard enough to lift their owner from the floor a smidgeon, setting his pink nightgown to fluttering lightly as he bobbles forward in the bedroom. The gown and his undergarments are the only items the fairy king wears at the moment; his crown, the thin, silver ring that usually rests on his bald head, sits on a fat, purple pillow on its own stand.

Three different realizations hit this bodily changed Tubbius at once. He is ravenous, per his usual. He thoroughly enjoys this brief fluttering about before he lets his wings rest and he stands there wheezing. He also is missing something. . . . The nightgown gets rolled up in both hands, tucked under the floofy pink beard, freeing the fat, little hands to rest anew on the belly there. With a moment of solemn concentration and a gentle smushing in of his thumbs in two circles, he brings the same Rings of Tubbius--the same fleshy, outward growths from the stomach in the same offset, dual circles as on his belly and on Treadwell's belly--protruding pouchily from Richard's overgrown tummy. They will be permanent additions for the fairy king, a reminder that he has been visited in the flesh by his deity.

That leaves the hunger. Trays of food--final selections left from supper--await, encircling the royal bed in a series of courses. Of course, he helps himself, gobbling and chomping his way through them in short order. It doesn't slack or stop the usual starving hunger, but it puts food in this mortal belly, and that is important.

Getting dressed is important, as well. Nightgown is traded from a regal suit of pink that matches his flesh and his aura; for a god who wears no clothes at all, he has always found a fond fascination with this mortal desire to dress oneself from head to toe. It's, in part, why the priestly costumes of Tubbians are so complex. A walking cane is taken up, and thus the fairy waddles out into the hall with a full-tummied yawn and a smile, bouncing-bobbling his way toward two guards and a messenger.

"An announcement!" he exclaims. "An announcement for all of New Hibera! Gather all fairy folk here and now!" The declaration sends his three listeners scurrying, and within the hour, cries go out from tiny town criers. Within two, an arena outside the castle in New Hibera, specially designed for moments like this, is packed with a rainbow of fairies of all ages. . . and their king stands in the middle of them all, flanked to his left by his elderly, equally portly doctor.

"Good people of New Hibera!" the king squeaks, "I bring you great news from one who has been to this point solely a bigling god!" Fairies gasp all about; many listen intently, staring at the round ball of pink on the center stage. "The great and merry Tubbius wishes us to be able to break of our confining restrictions of food and drink! He wishes for us to be able to enjoy ourselves at our tables and to not know the oppression that comes with ravenous, empty bellies! To that end, He offers us a small test to know if we are His faithful, His holy, fairy children! For this week, starting this very hour, He commands us to not worry of our work, our employment, our jobs, our livelihoods, save those of us in the service of our animals or our families or friends who might need our care! Every waking moment of this week must be given to one of three wonderfully crucial activities: filling our bellies with food, washing out our throats with drink, or resting our bodies in bed!"

A murmur of puzzlement goes through the crowd, a murmur silenced by the brighter glowing of the fairy king's spherical body.

"You will find your pantries and larders and barrels all eternally full during this time of testing! You will find your beds impossibly, miraculously comfortable! And, to the mothers of little ones here, hmm hmm," a nod is given to the one nursing mother the king's myopic eyes can squintily see nearby, "you will find that your breasts will feed your children at any time you wish, and they will be nourished! None will be left out of this celebration!" A pause stops the fairy king long enough for him to wheeze a breath.

"Should we pass this test, we will know unending prosperity and happiness as long as we commit ourselves to Holy Tubbius, god of harvest and growth, the Great Belly on the Plain!"

With those words, he dismisses the crowd; within another hour, this exhausted body winds its way to its bed and begins to nod off, allowing Richard to slip back into its confines and letting Tubbius slip into his much more comfortable, much more expansive, natural frame.

The fairy king will remember the night's events, however, and they will give him cause for meditation and reflection. . . and he will find oddly delightful merriment in his newly grown Rings of Tubbius, soon enough making a habit of running his pudgy fingers along their poochy, round shapes despite their ever-present tenderness. Just as they do for Aloisius Treadwell in his private moments, they will serve him like some bigling faiths have their rosaries and beads.

But from the Great Belly's spot on his plain, until Treadwell wakes again in the morning, Tubbius watches this tiny little speck of land that is New Hibera with deep intent and love. What will these little, challenged, frail fairies do for this next week?

[Treadwell]

Week of the eighth day of the eighth month, going to the fourteenth, 210.

In Treadwell's sleeping moments, and in the back of the Councilor's mind during his waking ones, Tubbius pays merry, joyful attention to the fairies in New Hibera during the week after his announcement by way of "borrowing" their king, Richard Aengus.

Morning of the ninth day of the eighth month, 210.

"Richard," Dr. Barrin squeaks with a yawwwn as he toddles into his half-brother and ruler's bedroom, still wearing his white nightgown and slippers, "what was all that about last night, promising folks wondrous blessings from Tubbius?" The great-bellied doctor comes to a stop in his wheezy waddling, though, as he tilts gently to his left. Richard is standing there by his bed, naked except a pair of very loose, baggy trousers for sleeping. "What's that on your stomach? Are you ill?"

Toddling over to the king follows, and out reach his fleshy fingers to trace the tender rings of fat that have grown out from Richard's middle overnight. At the touch, the king shudders.

"I don't know, Doctor! I remember giving that speech, and these had grown upon my belly before I went out the door. . . but I don't know what brought it on me! I tell you, though, I'm starving! Can we bother with this later?"

"Richard!" comes a shocked yip of surprise. "These are the Rings of Tubbius mentioned in the Folds! They only grow from the most righteous, most faithful of the Tubbian bellies!" He stops a moment. "I think there's quite a lot more to what happened last night than either of us know. Now, get you some clothes--a gown at least!--and let's go get some breakfast."

Noon of the ninth day of the eighth month, 210.

In a small house in the base of New Hibera's multi-tiered structure are two identical twin sisters: Minda and Winda, both redwings of the lowest class, both married to construction working laborers, both five months into the usual six month New Hiberan fairy pregnancy, both great-bellied from such. Minda, older by mere minutes, currently differentiates herself from her sister in an easily noticed way: she is feeding a seven month old baby at her breast as she toddles around her house. Lunch is being put together, and for these redwings, it is the usual mix of nectar and mungus, which is a spongy, breadlike fungus that grows in the damper regions of the New Hiberan caves. The meal is hardly filling usually, but it is reasonably edible (and, were the truth known, highly fattening except for the simple fact that nearly all fairies burn through food at immense rates).

Today, though, a breathless Winda grins wildly as she joins her sister in the living room, a great, round pot held in her arms and rested on her belly.

"What's this, Win? Something to add to lunch?"

"Yes! MILK!"

"Milk!"

"Milk! I went out flying with Foy's old grandfather's spear this morning!"

"Foolish."

"I found me a cow out in a bigling field, I flew up to her udder--"

"Foolish! A swat of its tail would have killed you and your baby both!" The pot is set on the table next to their plates, being opened moments later.

"I flew right up to her udder, and I poked her with the spear! Oh, she mooed great big, thinking it was a bug stinging her, but I filled up my pot and flew right back here."

"Mmph! It looks fresh!"

"That's because it is, Min!"

Laughter rolls from them both, prompting a squeak from the nursing infant at Minda's breast.

"Min. . . I don't think I've ever seen Anille take that much yet. She's eating like a fat, bigling pig--or our dear Richard! They're about the same!"

"Do you think what he said last night was truth?"

"That we're supposed to eat like fat kings and queens? That our food's not going to run out?" Winda snorts with disgust. "I think he's listening to his belly too much instead of his head."

The rest of the meal goes in silence until Win notices a simple thing.

"Min, we're not running out of food."

"And she's still sucking. . . . I think King Richard was right."

"Well, I could still eat!"

"Win, I could use a nap!"

"Why don't we do both? He said our beds would be wonderfully comfy. Why don't we put him to the test for both things?"

Winda gives her twin a great big grin and rubs her belly, gently pulling her infant Anille from her breast and carefully taking to burping the babe.

"Why don't we do just that? Go fetch us more of this!"

Supper of the ninth day of the eighth month, 210.

"Captain, the king told us this morning to allow the men to eat everything they liked."

"The king was waddling about in here looking like he was about to drop a half a dozen babies, and the doctor was, too!"

"But Captain. . . you've seen how the cooks have been today. They haven't had to do anything except keep the pots warm and stirred! Once the men learned they could eat all they liked, and they heard it from Richard's own voice, they've sat right there and done just that!"

"I don't like it. They're supposed to be soldiers, palace guards--not gourmands!"

"Truth be told, Captain. . . we haven't had any threats to New Hibera for years. No one messes with anything of ours. Why don't we let them eat? It won't hurt. Besides. . . you should eat some more, too. It might put you in a better mood."

A wispy finger shoots up in response as the Captain of Richard's Palace Guard opens his mouth in objection. To that response, his fellow beside him grins wide and playfully stuffs a spoon full of mungus and nectar in. The Captain involuntarily shuts his mouth, chews, chews more, and swallows with a nod.

"Fine, fine. . . . We'll listen to him for a week and see how this goes."

"Wonderful, Captain! Men! Three cheers for our generous, blessed King Richard!"

Midnight of the ninth day of the eighth month, 210.

The royal bedroom is lit warmly by the glows of two exceedingly rotund, exceedingly stuffed, roly-poly fairies. Dr. Barrin and King Richard lie side by side on Richard's plushly stuffed bed, hands rubbing their extra-bloated, topless bellies. The doctor gives a strained, "Ooooohhhhh," but his face stills manages a jolly smile.

"Orin, my brother, I do believe Tubbius means very well for us all."

"He does! He wants the best for New Hibera, and by the best, he wants us to be content and a good bit lazier!"

"We work too much! We stress ourselves over every little thing! What is there to gain from all of that?" Fat pink fingers rub gently over the gurgling stomach swollen to squooshy new girth.

"All of us worry too much! All colors of fairies! We really demand too much of all of them, Richard."

"We do."

"I think Tubbius is teaching us--you and me!--a bit of humility in all this."

"I agree!" With this, Richard lets out a wheezed huff-puff for breath, patting at his breast. "I also think something, Doctor!"

"What is it, Richard?"

"I think he wants us all to be as content and lazy and fat and happy as we can be!"

"Fat, Richard? Have you seen all our people? We two are the only fat ones in the bunch!"

"That's because we work all of them too much, like you said! A few days--no, weeks! no, months, yes yes!--of this, and I believe Tubbius will be most pleased!"

"Months, Richard! Think you that He'll allow any of this to go on past this week?"

"I'm quite sure He will! This is a test! Once we pass it, I do believe Tubbius will do everything in His power to see that we--you and I!--help win as many faithful over to Him as is possible!" Richard grins greatly as his belly gives a blurrrrble. "And I know one way to start!"

"What's that, Richard?" The doctor reaches over to pat-pat the king's complaining stomach. "Shush in there!"

"I'm the king, Orin! I just have to make worship of Tubbius compulsory! Once the people see the benefits, they won't have any problems at all with following our lead!"

"You know, Richard. . . . I think you're right!"