A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Lunch of the eleventh day of the third month.

New Hibera.

Over the course of a few months, culminating in December of two years past in A. R. 207 by bigling reckoning, Dr. Orin Barrin had allowed himself to follow his tubby brother's lead, resulting in his growing to be nearly as round as his brother at the time Richard had sent him to secretly scout regarding the conception of Alice Treadwell with her twin children.

Between then and barely half a week ago, Orin had slimmed down remarkably well. A mix of diet and daily stress saw him quickly back to his normally wispy self.

Now, in the space of only four days, with Richard's insistence on preaching to him from The Folds of Tubbius and similar insistence on stuffing him silly--something he can't help but agree to, as his appetite seems bigger than even Myrken's Councilor Treadwell's at the moment!--Dr. Barrin is quickly beginning to plump back out, and very jovially, too. The plump fleshiness of a tummy too full is visibly sticking around, with cute little quaking ripples forming at his sides--ripples that Richard gleefully tickles at regularly as Orin feeds with few intermissions.

It is more than a bodily change. The grumpy sourpuss of a fairy is shifting to a more jovial, happier man, and with that happiness seems to come even more desire to chomp and gobble and drink and, yes, take nice, loooong sleepy-time naps after every meal.

Why, in maybe a month, he's likely to match his brother all over again, and he'd worked so hard to stay so slim! If the truth were told, though, he certainly isn't seeming to mind. He stopped being so fussy about his condition and growth after the first day or so. So, now, with Tubbius secretly and happily watching the paired feasting of the two brothers who are to be the priests to the New Hiberan fairies, Dr. Barrin happily settles into a very new, very pleasant, very enlarging way of life.

[Treadwell]

Dawn of the fifteenth day of the third month.

These have been a tiring few days for Tobias. It started with the waves of farmers of various sorts who came his way after the series of pig blessings. All of the remaining pig farmers in town, it seemed, made their ways to the Church of Tubbius, all wanting blessings just as potent and fertile for their pets. After that, the few farmers who live on the outskirts of town with cattle of their own--mostly cows--came forth asking the same.

Between sermons and meals and naps and visits and prayers and blessings all over town, the old tub managed to find time to sleep. Dreams of life as Porcus and as Tubbius seemed to alternate as the days went by. At one point, Marta even noted that with all the making of piggy babies around town there would have to come a time of birthing for the mother pig in months to come, to reflect all of what her earthly babies felt. Of course, as the pregnant Porcus, Tobias merely soaked that in as the most natural thing to need to happen. When he awoke, though, it led to a very jittery, bamboozled Tobias for a day. He knew he wouldn't have to experience such in his waking hours, but to have to live through it in his dreams after a time, even in the shape of a mother pig? Frightening!

Maybe it has been the emphasis of babies and birthing in the last few days and nights that led to the latest of revelations. However, on the morning of the fifteenth, Tobias awoke to a simple, divinely inspired understanding: the fifteenth day of the third month was the birthday of Tobias nearly three centuries earlier, something he'd been unaware of in times previous.

When this fact was announced to the church, festivities commenced! Cakes and pies and sweet breads were purchased from the bakers in town. Committing himself to a toasty and happy seat in the bubbly, warm water of the hot spring below the church as he feasted incessantly, Tobias put aside any thoughts of Porcus and upcoming deliveries in dreams so that he could enjoy his two hundred seventy-sixth birthday all day long!

[Treadwell]

Morning of the sixteenth day of the third month.

"Holy Father Tubbius!"

The yellow-garbed Tobias pauses in his shlurping of soup for breakfast to blink up at the incoming row of waddling bellies: five in all, all dressed in their official burgundy velvet robes and gold medallions as members of Westenford's council.

"Hmm hmm?"

"During the early morning hours, our guards at the cliff reported a shipwreck!"

"Hmm HMM. Westenford's a town on a cliff looking out over the sea below. I should think the lot of you know how to handle such?"

"We do, of course! It's just. . . the occupants of the boat. . . they're dwarves, Holy Father. Traveling, seafaring, merchant dwarves."

"Are they well? What of their cargo?"

"They're all alive and are mostly quite asleep in the spare bedrooms here. We couldn't think of any other place that would house them on such short notice. We've stored their cargo--what we could have gathered of it--in the library, for now."

"Very well. What of their captain?"

"He's in your office chambers, waiting for you to finish your breakfast." Red-faced flushing warms the already ruddy visages of the five councilors.

"Then you go get him out here! Show him true Tubbian hospitality! You other four, get busy fixing him some food and beer! Go! Shoo!"

As these novice Tubbians scatter to their chores, Tobias slumps in his pillowy sofa of a seat, absently sucking lazily at his thumb while he waits. He doesn't have to wait long, though. The food and beer comes quickly, and shortly after, in shuffles a huffing, puffing, exhausted, white-bearded ball of a dwarf looking nearly as round as he is tall and wearing a similarly yellow robe with a red sash around his gut.

"Hullo and good morning, Captain!"

"Good? What's good about it?"

"You and all your men are safe and sound, hmm hmm? Apparently, the town officials were able to bring your cargo here."

"And where is 'here,' precisely?" The dwarf grins wide as he toddles past, giving his host a poke to his side. "I know it's Westenford, but who are you, and what is this building I'm in?" He then settles himself into a chair to Tobias's right--one specially equipped with a cushion just for the little fellow. "It's clearly a place for men who know how to eat!"

"It is! I am Tobias, and you are in the Church of Tubbius!"

"Tubbius?" A pause to tuck his fluffy beard into his sash and to wiggle closer to the table. "Ploav Tubbius?"

"Mmhmm. The very same."

"I've not heard that name in a long time--around two centuries! I wouldn't have thought he still had followers."

"Followers, sir, hmm hmm, tend to gather swiftly when the right man unites them."

"Quite true!" Thus the dwarf begins to dig into his meal, and Tobias resumes his doing so--with a minor jest played on the Tubbian's part. A wiggle of his pudgy snout at the dwarf's plate sets forth a minor magic: one to keep the plate and mug mostly full, restoring themselves whenever the dwarf turns his attention to his great-girthed host.

"You're welcome to whatever you like and as much as you like, sir. I should hope the food and beer are suitable?"

"They're close enough to home cooking for me, Tobe! I'm Griffum! I'm captain of the ship that's scattered all over your beach at the moment."

"Hmm hmm! Indeed! Well, Captain Griffum, I should trust that you'll need a place to stay with your men while you rebuild?"

"That I will, but these folks. . . they don't take too kindly to us, Tobias. I've heard it said we remind them too much of their Council members!" A hearty laugh erupts from the dwarf, who still hasn't seemed to notice the reappearing food and drink.

"Well, in miniature, perhaps! I'd say you and your fellows are all quite handsome, Captain!" He gives a happy slap to his own belly and rubs at the visible, fleshy Rings of Tubbius there.

"Huff! You're clearly a man who knows about the finest in life, Tobe, m'boy! I'd reckon you don't do anything much but sit here and eat all the time and enjoy it!"

"That's about the summation of my activities, yes, when I'm not preaching to my flock or taking the occasional stroll or ride in town." A warm smile lights up Tobias's face.

"Your flock? So you're over these Ploavians?"

"Tubbians, but yes. They think me rather important, for some reason!"

"And what reason might that be, good Toby?"

"Why, I'm their good holy father Tubbius in the flesh, of course!"

And that sets forth an uproarious, rolling laughter from the dwarf, which leads to the same from his host.

"Surely not! Why would a god, a god used to sitting on his arse and eating all day, want to come here and live?" He reaches out to poke a fat finger at the belly beside him again, and then he stops short. "What's this?"

He points at the outermost of the Rings of Tubbius, hesitantly poking it after a moment. In reply, both rings gleam golden light under their robe, bringing a smile to their owner's face again.

"Proof, Griffum. Proof."

"You. . . Are you serious?" The dwarf captain quakingly looks up to Tobias's face, then down to his mug of beer. "And what magic is this? I've been eating and drinking with you about an hour, and it looks like I haven't touched my plate!"

"It, too, is proof, Captain!" Having been sitting closer to the table the last few moments to munch at the last of his meal, Tobias eases again into his couch with a mostly restrained burrrrrp. "Would you care to know more?"

A pause stretches out the moments. In the end, Captain Griffum skewers a hunk of meat with his fork and takes a big bite, following it all with a nod. "Yes! But first--"

An ear-splitting whistle that lasts a good twenty seconds shakes the dwarf and leaves him winded and red-faced. In a couple of minutes, twenty-five dwarves, all similarly dressed to their captain and all similarly rotund, are piling into the room and lining up around the table.

"Boys, this man sittin' here before you claims to be Ploav Tubbius himself! I've seen enough to want to know some more, so you lot are going to be in here with me when I do!"

Tobias smiles, his beady eyes studying the mass of dwarves. . . and the mostly empty table. "Some chairs and pillows? I'll take care of their lunch and mine!" is all he has to say to the green-robed Tubbian shaking by one of the doors, and that man is on his way out.

A chorus of rumbling bellies follows from all in the room.

"It sounds like I ought to teach you about myself and my children in something more than just a sermon, good sailors! Watch!"

A wriggle of shnozz and a raising of arms later sees the room glowing a brilliant gold. When the light fades, Tobias is sweatier and puffier than before, but the table is piled high and deep with plates of all manner of dwarven delights. . . and mugs of beer. . . and more beer. A hearty roar of merriment comes forth from all, and the feasting resumes as Tobias relaxes for the time being, a splendidly happy smile on his face.

[Treadwell]

Night of the eighteenth day of the third month.

The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth were three belly-swelling, tummy-plumping days as a Tobias-dictated, ongoing feast and time of rest was held for men and dwarves alike. Responsibilities were happily shoved aside in favor of delightful food and drink and bubbly hot spring water. The occasional short sermon was given 'tween meals and after naps, and some of the dwarves were loaned copies of The Folds of Tubbius for their sharing and reading.

Old Tobias even felt the tightening constriction of his Tubbian clothing as he ate and drank perhaps a bit too much.

Now, it is night in Westenford. Tubbians and dwarves alike all snore soundly and roundly wherever they can. Tobias, in particular, has shed his clothes, locked his door, and taken to his bed.

He comes to his senses grown large and massy as Tubbius in his holy field that is home. He feels a bit different, though: there is visibly extra roly-poly flabbiness around his stomach, folding over itself at first but flopping and pooching forth as he wiggles a little where he sits to be comfy. His floofy white beard, unseen to most mortal beings far below who might visit the Great Glutton in their dreams when beckoned forth, feels even fluffier, even more like a great pillow on his bosom. The roots that his legs changed into long ago and grew out feel fleshier and wider and stronger, spreading further out and down into the cool, damp soil. Laziness warms his immense, naked body, and his elderly pipe of a voice roooooolls out over his plain with a happy, but sleepy, "Deeeeeareeeest?"

Who is Dearest, of course, to Tubbius but his beloved Marta, grown quite round herself with babies and motherhood? Standing to be the same size as her Tubbius, she appears a short distance away, wearing a white gown, and eases forward to place her hands on his rippling, still jiggling middle.

"My love. . . You look as if you yourself have fed quite well! Are you quite sure you're not carrying some of the world's children in you?" A rub of her fingers into his belly button sets the jolly glutton to quivering and giggling.

"Of course not! But I have fed quite well, my love, and I have new faithful in my fold!"

"Folds, dear one." Fingers pause to poke deeply into the newly grown middle.

"Indeed! These days have been days of celebration, of merriment, of absolute joy! And, most importantly, my love, these dwarves all believe--and I've set it in their minds already, through their dreams, to simply be fully eager to tell all about me when they return home!"

"Self-serving rascal!" A smile lights up Marta's wrinkle-lined, slightly baggy jowls; she still looks the same aged self that she has for some time, now. "Between your, mmmmm, experimenting as Porcus and your rejoicing as Tubbius, I should think you'll be a perfect, immovable mountain of flesh soon enough."

She smiles and tickles at that massive navel again. As Tubbius laughs, she smiles wider. "Though I shan't mind. It means you're quite established among your faithful. You've no chance to simply wither away to so very little as you did briefly when you were known as Ploav."

"A horrid fate, that!"

"Sleep and eat and grow here, Tubbius, Old One. But remember: you have a mortal wife who awaits you at home, and she awaits a man who is. . . somewhat less rotund."

"Oh, bother." A happy laugh shakes the planted, rooted deity, though, and he glances down at his midsection. "I'll be just fine, my darling. Just fine!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the nineteenth day of the third month.

Tobias opens his squinty eyes to a cold and dark morning. Rain beats and washes Westenford quite thoroughly. His head is pounding with new fierceness. He had been told by Libri, the scholar born of Tubbius and Marta, that he would have a nicely splitting headache for about the next month as he took in everything about his role as the Glutton, in all his forms. This morning finds that throbbing--until now in the background--brought to the front, quite literally. All the old tub can do to try to ease the pain in his eyes and temples is to shut those aching, wet eyes themselves. Soon enough, the steady rain outside lulls him right back to sleep.

What he experiences is something new: there he sits as Tubbius, again, still naked and obscenely large and rooted in his grassy plain. Now, though, perhaps in a mirror of the area around the snoring Tobias, or perhaps with some deeper spiritual significance, it is raining steadily all around for as far as the Tubbian eyes can see. From head to belly, the exposed surface of the Great God gets a good, steady washing for hours on end.

His most interesting feeling, though, is getting to use those roots that his legs transformed into. Usually, he has felt nourished through them, as they have seemed to act as a physical conduit for purely spiritual matters--prayers, devotions, and so forth. Now, they work as a normal root system should: as water soaks the soil, these fleshy, thick, fatty tentacles gladly wriggle a little in place, taking in this new liquid freshness.

While the gluttonous one "drinks," he becomes aware of a wonderful truth of which he had been ignorant until now thanks to the pressure of the headache keeping him distracted. The church in Myrken Wood has sent more followers out to the village of Wane, and in the last week, this village has taken quite well to the teachings there, founding a newly combined church of the existing followers of Marta and the new followers of Tubbius.

"My love?" comes the familiar call of Marta's voice through the rain as she takes form. Marta is clearly pained. She toddles over to Tubbius and carefully lies down, settling against his rain-soaked belly with her head resting back on his bosom.

"Marta? What are you doing, Dearest?" The cool, cleansing rain cannot bring a stop to the aching in his head. A grouchy, puzzled Tubbius has a head that throbs nearly to the point of physical blindness, but he puts his hands out and onto his wife's swollen middle.

"Close your eyes and think on this rain, and what it means, Old One. It is a symbol of change for us." Heavy, slow breaths force a pause. "Our faithful have been in long debate these last days. Libri visited them in secret and told them of our marriage and our children. He will be punished. But, now that they have studied, they know."

"They know what?"

"About this." She says, taking his hand and touching it to her side. "As of the dawn, they hold as truth the knowledge of a union between us. It is holy doctrine that will spread to our other churches, which we must accept--and you must enforce among them, as it is truth!"

"Why is this a problem, Dearest?" Both of the Glutton's resting, fleshy hands begin to rub up and down Marta's abdomen.

"Is it not obvious? Men expect a child of us centuries before they were supposed to know anything about it at all!" Marta winces and gives a moan of agony. "Our baby grows, Love, and quickly!"

Tubbius frowns sadly, reaching out to carress his aching beloved's slowly, but visibly, growing belly. As she lies there aching with her increasing midsection, the Great Glutton bellows out a single word.

"LIBRI!"

[Treadwell]

"Hmmmmmm, Father?" comes the playful squeak of an elderly voice from behind the mountain of flesh that is Tubbius. Hearty tickling to the roly-poly squooshiness ensues, prompting sudden--though undesired, given the situation--hoo-hahs of laughter from the Great Glutton. In a few moments, though, the tickling stops, and Libri the Scholar, that plump, elderly academic in black, toddles around Tubbius in the rain.

"Father. Mother."

"Don't you 'father' and 'mother' us, you ungrateful, bothersome, meddling wretch!" With that roared, Tubbius jerks an arm out to grab Libri's robe and tug him closer. He misses, simply because the Scholar backs up a few paces, giggling all the while.

"Meddling? Why, I'm merely carrying on my mother's mission!" A glance turns to the laboriously puffing mother in question, still leaned back against Tubbius's belly as her own middle very slowly continues to spread. "She is bound to tell the truth in all things! I am a man of knowledge! Why should I not tell your followers of your love for each other and the infants you two can produce?" He smiles, waggling a fat finger at his fat father's grass-buried waist. "You rowdy, randy devil! And the both of you say that you can't give her any children! Hee hee! Besides. . . what are you going to do about it? If I just stand right here, your fat, stumpy arms cannot reach me, so what is left? You fatten yourself even more grossly and expand over here? You change forms to the great pig mother and forget about me while you wallow in your own labor pains?"

Another frustrated lurch of an arm falls short. "You show no respect! Your meddling is altering plans centuries in the making!"

"And again, Old Father," Libri chuckles as he toddles closer, still wagging a finger at the overgrown Tubbius, "just what are you going to do about me?"

A smile slips over Tubbius's face. "This." A third grab finally puts hands on his scholarly offspring, and with a growled, "Home!" the scene changes for the two of them.

They are immediately no longer in the rainswept, grassy plain. Marta is not lying against her husband's stomach. They are floating in the Glutton's sea of intermingled ale and food, and the Glutton is grown immense, dwarfing the Scholar by many, many times.

The Scholar splashes and flounders about in the ale, his arms and legs flailing as he sputters. His inability to swim soon sees him sinking with a glub and a gulp.

"No respect," comes the bellow of the Glutton's voice through the ale and food--ale and food he has instinctively taken to feasting on with the mouth at his stomach, with its teeth and its multiple, fleshy, snakelike tongues from within, each tongue shoveling food into its own waiting stomach as he swishes and swooshes in place with his sluglike foot of a tail.

"You interrupted my fellowship with my faithful, and your mother's with hers. They learn of things they were not to know for centuries yet! You taunt me. You mock me. One does not mock the eldest of our line of gods, child. Here, what I want. . . is what I get."

The Scholar Libri splooshes to the surface of the ale with a gasp, his arms floundering about until he grabs hold of one of the Glutton's layers of slippery fat. There he wheezes for breath.

"What I want is vengeance! What I demand is your respect, your obedience, and your being out of the way! I have just the place for you!"

"Where?" Libri chokes. "What will you do? Eat me?"

He is answered with a roar of, "Creator! Our Father! You know my plans for this insolent babe! This babe is unfinished and half-witted! He must grow more! He must respect his father and his mother, but Holy Marta is not able to mete out justice now! Thus, I demand the changes of which I think, so that my son will be taught his lesson!"

With that, he jerks his sluglike tail up, wrapping it around the Scholar's feet and snapping him back down into the food and drink. At the same time, another part of the Glutton comes forth: one of his many tongues, which wraps itself around the helpless Scholar with a shluck, and in moments, the Scholar is tugged within the giant monstrosity of a deity. Struggling at first gives way as Libri realizes he is held securely with food and drink flooding in around him. The former Scholar is very much like an infant again, curled up, this time, in the gut of an angry Glutton.

"You are thus out of the way, Libri, at least until your mother delivers your sibling, when you will be free. For now, you will stay here, and you will be fed, just like the child you truly are, and thus, you will do nothing more against me!"

Tobias wakes with a jerk upright and a very upset stomach, wincing and huffing for breath.

It is noon of the nineteenth day of the third month. Cold rain still soaks Westenford outside.

[Treadwell]

Early afternoon of the nineteenth day of the third month.

An upset stomach and a cold, dreary day do little to encourage Tobias to eat much. He puts away some lunch alongside Dwarven Captain Griffum, then finds his way back to bed, there to snore the afternoon away in his yellow pajama jumper. As usually happens, his dreams turn to one of his states of divinity: this time, a return to his place where he sits rooted as Tubbius.

Marta again stands beside him, an arm around his shoulders and her belly swollen to near delivery already. What surprises Tubbius, though, is considerable growth in his own stomach and breasts, prompting slow rubs up and down the flabbier regions and a puzzled look up at his beloved goddess.

"Old One, you have been unable to listen to our faithful in Wane these few hours of mortal time. They have been long at debate and scholarly discourse. The entire town believes in us both, now, and word is rampant and feverish as they talk about our respective sizes and abilities."

"I'm fine with being fatter and plumper, Dearest! You know this! But what of our baby?" Out goes one of the baggy arms that lurchingly snapped out to grab Libri earlier, though this time it is gentle, carressing the swollen belly with its excessively fleshy, corpulence-ringed fingers.

"Babies, Dearest. The Creator opened my eyes. There are two."

"Babies, then! When are they due?"

"Soon, Darling, and very soon. When they come, truth of their shapes and lives will be divinely inspired in the hearts and minds of the faithful, starting in Wane and spreading to our other lands."

"Oho! And what of them? What do you know thus far, Mother?"

Marta smiles, toddling even closer, so that her middle presses heavily into his. "I know that you, in your true shape of the Glutton, will be seeing to the upbringing of our three children for ages to come."

"I will?" Eyes widen in their doughy sockets.

"It is not the Creator's will that you set Libri free from your stomach yet. You demanded he learn a lesson; it will take a long time for him to shed his pride, to have it weathered away by the flood of food and drink into your gut enough for him to understand the life you lead and to respect the pregnancies I carry. Thus, you must carry him, in an odd fashion, until he learns humility."

"Hmph hmph! I didn't intend it to be for so long! And these others? You worry me, Marta!"

"They are your children, through and through, Old One. I can barely feed them. Only one of us feeds enough to keep them satisfied."

"So they must instead suck at my breast, eh?" He reaches his hand from her belly to his swollen bosom. "Is that why I'm getting bigger?"

Marta smiles sweetly and nods. "Preparation. Your followers are believing you certainly capable of such, since word of your being Porcus is beginning to trickle through their ranks, in secret."

"Good heavens! And here I thought you the mother in this marriage!"

Merry laughter ripples from Marta's lips. "I am, Old One, and so I will stay! You have no womb in which you hold Libri; you have no cord to sink into his belly and feed him through. You will give these new children not milk but blood. But you must play your part, too, in all of this!"

"Blood! My part is supposed to be that of fat, lazy, elderly father who sits rooted on his behind!"

"And so it is, Darling! And so it is also more! Gods live very unusual, fluctuating, changing lives! If you wish normality, Old One, seek it in your waking, mortal time!"

[Treadwell]

Normality. What is normal for a man who's lived such an odd life as Aloisius Treadwell?

It is well into the night of the nineteenth of the third month when Tobias awakens in his bedroom. Rain still drizzles outside, meaning that Westenford is thoroughly drenched by this point. It is a shivering, head-pounding Tobias in yellow pajamas who wobbles huffily from bed and to his window to peek squintily into the rain. There he stands with one hand on the wooden window shutter and one on his emptily complaining tummy.

"Allie, old boy, mmph mmph, you're hungry. You ought to go get yourself something to eat." A winded sigh escapes the big-bodied old gentleman. "But first, I'm a little tired of not being my own proper shape! The men here in Westenford ought to know the truth! What with babies on the way for Marta, and Porcus, and Libri, and my getting bigger all around in every body I live in. . . I do so love Tobias's old skin and body, yes yes, as it's rightly mine, though, hmm hmm, not presently so, in a manner of speaking. . . ." A huff-puff of breath sees him stopping as he wheezes and tries to take all of this in. "To be quite honest about it all, I do just want to feel. . . like myself again!"

A nod of his head later, it is a pajama-wearing Tobias who waddles down the halls of the church, knocking with his walking cane on the numerous bedroom doors and sending someone off to wake the other Tubbians. Even Jon Lincoln is sent for and roused from his bed, to be dragged out to the church even in this cold, wet night.

They are gathered soon enough in the sanctuary of the church, all sleepy-eyed, all empty-bellied, and all jumper-clothed in their appropriate colors. "My Tubbian children!" Tobias pipes forth to the nodding and yawning of the others, "I bring to you rather important news tonight, mmph mmph!" Blank stares fill the space between the hearers and the speaker. "I'll have you know a simple fact, one and all! The lot of you know me much better by another name and another body, hmm hmm! I have come to you looking as this that you see here for some time now simply as a test of your devotion, and now, hmm hmm--" A pause.

"Do all of you believe that the Great Tubbius can change his shape at will, as he pleases? Do you wish to see what your Tubbius truly looks like--in this life as a mortal man, and not in his former life as your beloved Tobias?" There are cold and stern questions, and they see nods bouncing up and down around the sanctuary with cries akin to, "Yes, Father!" and "Of course!" These signs of agreement bring a smile to Tobias's jowly face. "Then, witness!"

Golden light floods the sanctuary of the church, blinding all startled viewers present for some moments and leaving them seeing spots for the following--but there, as a sign of their belief in his ability to change, Tobias stands revealed before them as one Aloisius H. Treadwell. . . in his natural flesh and face and voice. . . and, though a little more rotund than he was when he left home in Myrken Wood thanks to his devoted gorging, not nearly so fat enough to prevent the loose flopping about of the pajamas sized for a man a few dozen pounds heavier!

Gasps erupt throughout the room--some of "Praise Tubbius!" and others of "Old Tready's Tubbius?" and others of "Find Tubbius his proper clothes! He's shameful right now!" However, even with all these outbursts, it is a woozy, quivery Tready who stands there tottering on his cane for a few moments before he quite promptly faints away where he stands.

Morning of the twenty-first day of the third month.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight concerned jowly heads stare down at the opening eyes of Aloisius Treadwell, who is in the bed he's come to love and who is wearing his original pajamas that, sadly, are more than a little too snug right now.

"Holy Father Tubbius? Are you well?"

"What do you mean turning into Mr. Treadwell?"

"Allie, when did you ever figure out you were a god, and a right holy and good and just one, too?" The last, of course, being the now suitably jealous Jon Lincoln--jealous because he can't suddenly shed his own admittedly excessive girth as he saw happen hours ago to Treadwell.

"I mean," Treadwell manages with a squeaky yawn, "that it's the mortal shape I'm in for this round, my children! Tobias was the body I lived in for some time ages ago, and I returned to my faithful in this!" He weakly slaps his gurgly stomach under his bed's covers. "And I am entirely tuckered out from this, mmph mmph, terribly draining transformation!"

"Food!"

"Water!"

"Ale!"

"LUNNNNNNCH!"

And thus Tubbians scatter toward the kitchen, leaving their bodily-righted Holy Tubbius lying in his bed with a chortle shaking his belly and a smile growing on his face.

"Seek normality in your waking life, hmm hmm, old boy? Very well! Mmph mmph!"

But, for Aloisius Horatio Treadwell, normality is not yet the order of the day, nor might it ever be again totally. The final grunting of breath--a habit of his for most of his life--slips immediately into a newer habit adopted since his visit to the church Tobias and Jim Wilde hailed from: a fat, pudgy thumb slips into his mouth, and gentle, lazy, peaceful suck-sucking at the digit ensues. . . though only until his lunch arrives!

[Treadwell]

Afternoon of the twenty-first day of the third month.

At lunch, Captain Griffum and his men were fairly perplexed by the bodily alteration seen in their Ploav Tubbius. However, in the words of the Captain, "A god's a god, and a god can look however he pleases without argument from me!" With this announced, heads and beards wagged and bounced all around the dining room, and Tubbians human and dwarven practically piled onto their food as pigs at a trough.

The natural rhythms of old men with great, warm bellies led to all in the church lying down for a nap after lunch. Tready found himself taking his in the bubbly warmth of the hot spring below the sanctuary.

So, as snores roll up to the floor above, Treadwell drifts off as is usual for him nowadays to a higher state. This time, though, it comes with a slight shock that said state is that of the Glutton in his ale and food, stuffing himself--and, in turn, forcing the Scholar in one of his numerous stomachs to eat and drink or be smothered. The ancient mass of flesh and hunger meets little resistance from his rebellious offspring, and the shift in food and drink not going toward his own nourishment means he gorges even more intently.

Or he does until his beloved Marta comes slowly toddling up, walking atop the waves and morsels, being her normal babe-swollen, plump-tummied size, and carrying two infant babes. Marta's wearied face, usually stretched with laughter to some semblance of life and youth, appears aged and wrinkled and tired. The young in her arms--obviously already little more than butterballs of flesh--wriggle about.

And the Glutton pauses in his feasting to offer a smile, with half-gobbled delights dripping oozily from the sides of his mouth. A shlurpy suckle slobbers the stuff back into position for continued chewing that, in moments, is interrupted by a hearty, quiver-inducing belch.

"Beloved!" comes the warm roll afterward. "Our new babes, my love?"

"Of course, Old One, and certainly your children." She gently smiles and bends to extend the infants to her mismatch of a husband; at first, the two babies look human enough. . . and then the sluglike Glutton can only smile wider on seeing their heads and the sucker-like tips of their fingers and toes. Their heads resemble in their entirety those of "Leeches, love! Fat little sucklers, these!"

"Only you, Dearest, would be pleased to see children like these--and, truth be known, you are partial to them because of this being your true form." She shifts the weight of the one baby boy--like Treadwell's mortal infants in Myrken Wood, one is male, and one female--to pat a hand on the Glutton's slimy, smushy stomach. She then circles the Glutton, still walking atop his quicksand-like delights, to brush his slug's tail--fat and goopy--with a foot, prompting a euphoric shudder up the ancient monstrosity.

"My Dearest! You tempt me! Youuuuu tempt me! With the Creator's blessing, I could ravish you now and--"

"And do very little, Old One. It takes more than a simple blessing for you to sire children. It takes much from the Creator to oversee the process. He will only allow such at appropriate times, when the need is great!"

The Glutton's tail droops, causing the Old One in question to sink slightly in the tasty sludge he still stuffs himself with.

"Besides, as I said, you have a job newly appointed to you. You set yourself as a volunteer, a willing host, to our eldest, who now tries to fathom your eternal hunger and feast. You hold him there in your belly, putting him in a most unusual cell. These infants?" Marta extends the baby girl to one of her father's slick, wet, bloated breasts. "As I said before, my love, only you feed enough to support the four of you all without effort. I must care for all of my young in differing parts--some growing large, some small. I cannot eat as you do, as the children demand, without affecting all I carry."

The Glutton halfheartedly listens, slipping back into his feasting and revelry, edging toward oblivious ignorance--until the baby girl, and then the baby boy in short order, pinch tightly around his immense nipples. Pain fades almost immediately, and vigorous sucking begins that prompts an "Oh!" from the sluggish deity, who pauses even in his dining to glance down. Meanwhile, tiny suckers on fingers and feet prick the skin, holding the infants dangling in place as their father floats.

"Dearest Marta?"

"Yes, Love?"

"This is how they will feed? Hanging here from my chest, taking of my own sustenance and life's blood?"

"It is the way of mortals to have many men hang, metaphorically, on the sides of a true glutton who supplies their needs from his own. Your children are the exemplification of that."

A few moments of perusal about this later, the Glutton merely rolls his shoulders, setting the ale and food to sloshing about. . . and, soon enough, hardly noticing the extra weight or extra tugs at his chest, he turns his attention from wife and infants to his own unsatiable hunger. Marta quietly disappears, chuckling merrily to herself. Babies or no babies, some things never, ever change for the sullen, sulky, greedy Glutton!

When Treadwell wakes in time for supper, though, he is invigorated and lively. Uncharacteristically and excessively merry and jolly, the old tub practically dances into his newly tight clothing, singing and humming (between pursy wheezes) his way upstairs to the dining hall, there to settle into his supper with happy wiggles. When asked about such, his answer his simple. "My children, I, Tubbius, am a new and happy father again, at my old age!" This prompts, at first, a cheer from the gathered Tubbians--and then, puzzled reverence, as they listen to the ecstatic Treadwell recount his newest meditation.

[Treadwell]

Twenty-fifth day of the third month. Mid-morning.

Reclaiming his natural body and shedding most of an extra hundred pounds (keeping somewhere around an extra twenty for himself, it seems) has been an invigorating experience for old Treadwell. For the last four days, he's been visibly and merrily bouncing along as he waddles about in the church. It hasn't helped him shed any of the excess flesh he picked up from his time living as Tobias, but he has been a jollier, happier man overall, trying to remember to restrain his eating habits just a little.

Such restraint is exceptionally difficult when one is the living embodiment of gluttony.

This morning, at dawn, Tready woke to a roaring, rumbling belly that demanded satisfaction. He tried to roll back over in bed and nod back off with a snort. When that failed, and he found himself dreaming of wobbling through a mansion with walls made of food, he woke up and dressed in his sunny, yellow Tubbian miter and robes. Taking up his ceremonial walking staff obtained from the church where he met Jim Wilde, Aloisius Treadwell toddled out into the streets of Westenford and went for a stroll. . .

. . . right to the bakery a few doors from the church. Luckily for him, that bakery was owned by one of his Tubbian faithful, who had promised him free service as a gesture of devotion. Unluckily for that Tubbian, it was a ravenous Tready who started at the countertop and simply shuffled around the building--with permission, of course--stuffing himself silly on every variety of sweets in reach of his short, pudgy arms.

The aftermath of this impromptu feast saw Aloisius returning to the church, sucking chocolate from his fingertips and lazily easing downstairs to sink into "his" hot spring, there to enjoy the warm, bubbly water and to nod back off until time for lunch. What's just one morning's excess? What's just a little more pudginess about the tummy and rump?

[Treadwell]

The first day of the fourth month. Mid-afternoon.

"Did you see that?" It is a hushed whisper from a round-bellied, bald-headed Tubbian, a man whose hands flutter flappily at the snoring, naked Treadwell sunk into his hot spring under the church.

"His lunch, you mean?" Another follower replies in an equally hushed tone.

"A whole pig! By himself!" A third interjects.

"I wonder what he's dreaming about," the first asks quietly.

"Do you think it has to do with the piggie he ate?" questions the third.

"It might. He said Tubbius and Porcus were both forms of the Glutton. They're all one and the same, so I'd say it just might." A nod from the plumpest of the three, the second man who spoke.

The three men disperse to let their leader sleep, unaware of his simple dreams.

This afternoon, the dreaming Treadwell finds himself again in the shape of the maternal Porcus wallowing belly up in a pit of mud, covered in the cooling, wet stuff all around after a good rolling about. Her belly has grown significantly since Treadwell's last attentive moments to this shape, a sign of the continued pregnancies of the swine in Westenford, and her endlessly milky middle is, as usual, ripe for the suckling by the dozen piglets fighting for space as they climb and wobble about on the outside of their porcine mother, unaware of their siblings growing inside her. All is well!

But, eventually, even this must give away; attentions must turn to other things. With a brief swimmy swirling of vision and a moment to reorient in a different body, Porcus fades into the background of Tubbius's awareness, and the great glutton sleepily nods where he sits above his plain. Like the baby-bearing Porcus and like the fattening Treadwell, he, too, is growing from feasting; his growing, of course, comes from the spreading faith and flabbiness of his followers old and new, human, dwarven, and fairy. A lazy, easy smile slips onto Tubbius's face, and for the first time in a long while, the contented god of growth and harvest can be heard taking the time to relax and let forth a rumbling snore.

[Treadwell]

A few rumbling snores later sees Tubbius opening his beady, squinty eyes again, feeling refreshed and hungry. All it takes for the great glutton to feed is for him to focus for a few moments on his faithful Tubbians. For others watching, they might find such odd; Tubbius sees all of his Tubbians lined up before him, all naked and round, and his roots buried in the earth below him send a spiritual flow of energies straight into his enormous stomach. It invariably leads to a sensation of being overly fed for the lazy, rotund god, and it usually leads to his being wonderfully pleased with all of his followers.

This time is a little different. A second or two of study draws Tubbius's attention to one Tubbian in particular who hasn't grown very much; in fact, his usual busy lifestyle is actually seeing this newest of Tubbians starting to shed a little of his recently fleshed potbelly. Horror of horrors! A wave of a hand sees all of the other Tubbian spirits fading, leaving that of Jack Alldale floating before the great Tubbius, who gently frowns.

"Jack, Jack, Jack. . . . You disappoint me, my child. You, the newest of my family, are still but a baby, but you simply aren't letting yourself grow. All is well, though. To feed, one must have a body to accept it! Let me show you what you soon will be!"

An enormously fat finger is stretched forth, soon to wiggle and jiggle at the sides and front of the paunch that Jack's spirit has; at Tubbius's touch, the ghostly representation's belly painlessly streaks and sags, being tugged gently outward by the tip of Tubbius's finger. The ghost is turned all the way around in place, with the nudging at his skin having the same effect all around: a bit of looseness here, some sagging there, as his flesh seems to make extra room. When all is finished, Tubbius gently scoops the foggily dazed Alldale up, bringing him to the bloated deity's lips. Tubbius thus gently puffs a breath into the saggily skinned ghost.

It only lasts a moment. After what feels like a mere second--a couple of hungry, starving gulps of air for Jack's spirit--the newest Tubbian is pulled away. . . and Tubbius smiles, glowing. Jack appears much older--white haired, wrinkled, but looking every bit the jelly-bellied butterball that most other Tubbians appear. "Jack, this is your destiny. You will not see it for nearly thirty of your years, but this is what you will embrace!"

Thus, with a kiss to the ghost's head and a poke to Jack's newly exorbitant stomach, Tubbius sets Jack back to rights, leaving him looking just as he currently does as he shuffles out of his town crier's tower in Myrken Wood, sporting a little of a paunch. . . and starting to feel oddly very hungry as his mouth waters for a free, stomach-filling meal at the Church of Tubbius.

All this done, Treadwell wakes with a yawwwwwn. He is still full-bellied and sprawled out in his hot spring under the church. One of his elder Tubbian followers smiles and reaches out to rub the old man's shoulder. "You were about to miss supper, my lord! You stay right here; I'll have one of the boys bring it down to you!"

In the hot spring, Aloisius smiles and sinks a little lower. He's perfectly willing to wait where he is.

[Treadwell]

The first day of the fourth month. Night.

Supper was warm and tasty, but given Aloisius Treadwell's special case, while it swelled his belly and left him drowsy, it did not fill him up or stop his hunger. This mortal incarnation of The Glutton nodded right back off in the warmth of his hot spring, still feeling as empty-tummied as before his supper.

What he now experiences is something very different.

His senses are shocked into the state that is his enormous, sluglike shape of The Glutton. Still nearly blind with eyes gummed shut by ale and food sludge and flabby folds, still wheezily huffy of breath for the same reason, he finds himself afloat near the top of his peculiar sea.

His leechlike children still hang and bounce from his fleshy breasts, still sucking endlessly at the blood within, but this time, he feels something else that disturbs him more. For once, one of his many stomachs absolutely aches. It only takes a few moments to learn what the problem is; it is his son, Libri, rolling slothfully about in the squishy wall of his gut, still held in place by the slobbering, slathering tongue that waggles about in the mix of mouth and stomach--the same sort of combination that happens many other times around the middle of this monstrous god of self-serving gluttony.

A shove of slimy tail in the gloopy waste and gooey mishmash sends the starving deity to the surface, and it is there that he expels, with a sudden and deafening belch from the scholar-containing gut, his son from his middle, still holding him fast with the fleshy tongue.

It wakes the scholar quite easily. He splutters and flails about. By this point, the constant feeding and drinking just to survive the endless wave into his father's stomach have left him considerably plumper than when he entered; he had been a right roly-poly chap before, but now, his academic's robe is split at every seam, and he himself is immensely overgrown, quite well resembling Treadwell's mortal friend in Westenford, Magistrate Jon Lincoln.

A flick of the Glutton's tongue sees the overfed, still sleepy scholar floating midway out of the mess of food and ale. Libri can't seem to help himself, though, as he still frantically scrambles to scoop everything he can within reach of his flabby arms into his waiting mouth. He seems to have taken quite well after his enormous father, after all.

The Glutton smiles, still maintaining his feast with his other mouths and tongues as this one holds Libri tight.

"It looks to me, dear boy, that you've rightly learned your lesson and can now understand, mmph mmph, what your father is about! Now, I wonder," he asks as he tightens his tongue around the fatly grown, exhausted scholar's waist, "if you understand a thing yet about what your mother goes through routinely with her infants!"

"He does not, my love," come the words of a silently arrived Marta, who walks lightly atop the sludge of drink and slop. "He must learn, if he is to respect both of us, but look at him. I cannot carry him in my womb with him grown to such corpulence!"

"I certainly don't have a womb to carry him in, myself! I'm already feeding him, our two babes, and myself, and I'm staying ravenous!"

Melodious laughter shakes the mother goddess. "We are gods, my love; anything can be changed as we wish and see the need!"

"Well, I will change nothing! You'll not see me growing a baby belly in this body! Hmph!"

"Then release him and let him flounder a moment. He will be spirited away, and perhaps he will focus anew on what is important."

That is all that the Old One needs to hear. His tongue uncurls itself from his son and sends the newly bloated academic floating away, floundering and splashing and still trying to eat all the while. In moments, though, Libri disappears, spirited away by an unseen source.

"Can I rest, now, Love? I'm starving!" Sulky and sour, much like an overgrown babe, himself.

The mother goddess smiles, strolling over and patting a hand atop the mouth that Libri has been held in for some time. "You don't notice anything other than the endless rumbling of your many stomachs! Endless food and ale surround you at all times, and you have been feasting the whole time I have been here thanks to all of your other mouths!" She reaches out again to stroke his middle, lovingly, and to give it a playful poke that sinks her hand in to the wrist.

"Yes, my Love, you may rest. For you, that means eating with eight of your mouths instead of ten!"

She disappears with her laughter singing through the steamy, slimy, sludgy mess of food and ale, prompting a merry chortling from the Glutton himself--a rare happening!--before he resumes gorging on everything he can reach. . . and then waking up in his mortal guise.

In his hot spring below the church, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell wakes with much spluttering and fussing in the water, finally setting himself aright with a groan. With that, Treadwell hauls himself from his long bath, dries himself just a little, and changes into his pajamas and a robe. He means to eat something else before he finally goes to bed upstairs in the warmth of his room--hopefully not to dream of the latest round of madness amid gods!

[Treadwell]

Night of the fourth day of the fourth month.

Sunlight failed to warm the enormous belly of Mr. Treadwell this morning; instead, Westenford found another rainy and wet and gloomy day dawning. It was with a grumpy whuff of breath, thus, that this mortal Tubbian merely rolled sluggishly onto his side, feet shivering coldly under the bedsheets and the socklike ends of his yellow pajama jumper. He drew up a little tighter and tugged the covers in over his floofy white beard and fleshy jowls. A few moments later, in a dreamless fog, Aloisius let himself nod right back off until lunch.

At noon, this corpulent cleric found himself waking up not out of being ready to from oversleeping but from a grumpy grumbling of his tummy, now empty several hours past its usual meals. "But it's cold out, and wet," Aloisius mumbled at his gurgling guts, "and I don't want to leave this bed!" Fatty fingers lazily rubbed up and down the butterball belly, finally resting on the fleshy poochiness of the Rings of Tubbius. A few moments of concentration and a golden light warming his stomach and lighting his room for a few seconds later, all was well; his belly felt fuller (though never satisfied--never!) and stretched to obscenely packed proportions under his pajamas, threatening to burst buttons down the front of his nightclothes. It was a simple matter for him to spirit food straight from pantry shelves to where it more properly belongs in his tummy, but, truth be known, perhaps he'd "eaten" too much! It was thus with a full-bellied drowsiness and a sleepy sucking at a fat thumb that Treadwell nodded back off through the afternoon hours. . . .

A god in human flesh, though, cannot simply sleep dreamlessly when it knows of its true state of affairs. Those affairs, right now, involve Tubbius being washed in a gentle, warm rainfall in the middle of his plain, letting his attention drift through the dreams of the Tubbian faithful, as it is night now. Simple, Tubbius-pleasing dreams of endless tasty delights keep many Tubbian priests occupied in their sleep. Attention is soon paid to the Tubbian faithful to the east, in Myrken Wood--and that is where the Great Old One pauses.

"Alice?"

There is a person awake in the church in Myrken Wood: an old woman who has just put her two infants to sleep in cribs in her room and who is praying to Tubbius. That old woman is Alice Treadwell of Myrken Wood, wife to Aloisius Treadwell, mother of his latest two children.

Her requests are twofold and simple: the safe return of her husband--a sensible request, as she prays to him this moment, something that she has slowly been urged to accept as a very recently new Tubbian, it seems!--and, soon, despite her old age, despite the need for miraculous and divine intervention to ensure such a basic human process, a most unusual yearning.

"Another baby, and at our age?" Tubbius's voice, usually booming, is low and quiet. The rotund deity listens; Alice's prayer is fervent, quiet, and emotional. It asks such mercy of both Tubbius and his beloved Marta--acknowledging first, with an attached plea of forgiveness for not truly having believed Treadwell's claims of being Tubbius before he left to Westenford, the former's role as father, and acknowledging second the need for Marta's intervention in this development, given the ages of the Treadwells and their likely infertility in old age.

"She is exactly what we need, Old One," comes Marta's voice, quiet and soothing, from behind Tubbius's broad back. "She has been with your faithful in Myrken Wood these months of your absence, and she has been convinced of their rightness. However, she yearns for a child, a third and final for your married union, and that is not a request you can grant alone." Marta's hand comes to rest on Tubbius's back, sliding slowly around Tubbius's fleshy side.

"I'm listening, Marta, Dearest!"

"She is nearly asleep, Tubbius, exhausted in the pew, there. Go to her when she rests." Her hand stops on the rooted god's middle. "A certainly miraculous pregnancy in her old age, in your church, would be more than enough to help our faiths grow."

Tubbius smiles and nods his head. "Good, good!"

"But Tubbius, my love," Marta's voice sternly commands, "it will be a normal, mortal baby."

A chuckle shakes the gelatinous deity. "She sleeps, Dearest."

That night, Alice Treadwell dreams of being at home again, of being in a nightgown and still yearning for a new child from her absent Aloisius. It is that elderly Aloisius who waddles up happily to her in her dream, easing toward their bedroom at their home. Warm, vitality-inducing pleasure revives the old mother as she settles on the bed, but when the two of them come to rest together, the scene shifts away.

The still-dreaming Alice comes to, next, sitting in a rocking chair beside her husband in his toy shop. She wears a loose velvet gown, similar in design to a Tubbian robe, and her belly and breasts are much, much rounder; her breathing comes in labored, short huffs. "It's that time, love!" comes a gleeful, jovial note from Treadwell beside her, wearing his toymaking belt at his stomach.

A sharp, internal bump sees her waking with a cry in the pew she fell asleep in at the church in Myrken Wood. A hand goes immediately to her stomach, which is, of course, its normally plump self. At that time, Alice gets shakily to her feet. It is a warm, sunny morning in Myrken.

In the middle of his plain, a drained Tubbius slumps; Marta laughs merrily beside him, turning to walk slowly away with a hand patting her midsection. "That will be one more, Great One!" she calls back to her drowsy, devoted darling, who aimlessly drifts in and out of full awareness, nodding off as an exhausted Aloisius Treadwell wakes in time for his breakfast on the still rain-soaked morning of the fifth.

[Treadwell]

Noon of the tenth day of the fourth month.

Some days, people just want to give in to the oddest desires. Treadwell woke this morning to breakfast with the one usual thing on his mind: growth and girth! Normally, this demand is kept subdued as well as it can be; he has followers to allow to feed and drink, and gorging on everything in the church would not be beneficial to the priesthood or to his own image. This morning, though, was an abnormality. Giving in to this urge to just eat, eat, eat, he stuffed himself on enough food for a half a dozen men his size, much to the hurrying and scurrying about of his faithful. Afterward, leaving stern directions not to be disturbed, he let himself nod off at his table with his robe open and his clothes unbuttoned to sleep everything off. . . at least until time for supper!