A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Evening of the thirtieth day of the tenth month, 210.

How does a worried mother of two, soon to be a worried mother of three in a few months, explain to her three-year-old children about the very odd life that their father leads?

She doesn't--not besides a soft, "Poppa's sick. That's why he's sleeping all day."

Alice then puts the two toddlers down to bed for a nap, and she then toddles into the bedroom she shares with her husband. Her clothing is exchanged for a nightgown, the door is locked, the window is shut and barred, and a leftover lamp left glowing feebly is extinguished, putting the room into darkness as she climbs into bed alongside Aloisius.

As she worms close to Tready, she notices a few of things: he's burning up rather hotly under the covers, his breath comes in short grunts, and he's also completely naked, his bright yellow pajamas having been cast aside to the floor at some point.

Despite all this, Alice worms over to her ailing husband, her belly meeting his and her arm going around his body.

"Aloisius," her voice softly breaks the silent darkness, "I don't understand this, or grasp it, or know that I ever will. At least once a month, sometimes twice, you have a night or two like this, and you always say it's Porcus, having babies."

Alice snorts, her free hand going to her own belly under the bedsheets.

"Forgive me for not believing, but I know what a pregnancy is like," she whispers. "The sickness, the eating, the getting fatter, the feeling like you're squeezing a melon out between your legs in agony. . . ." A frown slips over her face as a bump in her belly reminds her that she does indeed know. "I don't see you getting any rounder or toddling about, blowing hard in labor and screaming your head off." The statement is soft, but stern.

"But I guess that's what it is being a god, getting to avoid a few things we mortals have to put up with?" She rolls her eyes up at the darkened ceiling and, closing in tighter to her husband all the same, lets herself drift off to sleep.

[Treadwell]

Afternoon of the thirty-first day of the tenth month, 210.

"Great Tubbius. . . Aloisius. . . Do excuse my saying such, my lord, but you look dreadfully tired."

Such are the words of Dr. Bill Jacobson, physician turned Tubbian. The middle-aged fellow with the red beard and goodly paunch stands near Aloisius in the Tubbian leader's bedroom. Aloisius, however, is where the doctor often finds him: sunk as low as possible into the warmth of his bathtub, close to the fireplace.

"I am, mmph mmph, and with good reason!" Tready yawns at this, his flabby navel jiggling at the action, cresting from the bath water as a white-haired island.

"And what is that? Belly upset?" The doctor reaches to trace a finger around the outer, fleshy ring pooching from Treadwell's skin, setting the ring's owner to shivering and drawing in a breath. Finger is pulled back quickly enough.

"In a manner of speaking, Doctor. Porcus has had a most demanding bit of birthing this week, hmm hmm, and this always takes much out of me."

"Oh. You know, Aloisius, I have always found it a bit distressing that it is Porcus's activities, not those of Tubbius, praise your name, that always exact the worst on your blessed body." With these words, Dr. Jacobson settles into a tubside seat; as with all chairs in the church, it is very sturdily built, wide-bottomed, and plumply cushioned.

"With good reason! Porcus is the form most foreign to me, mmph mmph. The Glutton floats and eats all the while, little more and little less. As the Glutton, I carry on with no extraordinary effort; as long as I don't devour the twins hanging from my bosom, hmm hmm, I'm perfectly fine and happy! As Tubbius, I move not, save for the spread of my roots and the ages long creep of the swell of my fat! But for Porcus?" Aloisius sighs and rubs his belly where he rests.

"The Great Pig leads a life terribly, dreadfully active. As Porcus, I eat, I forage, I dig, I wallow about, I lie mostly still while my babes take nourishment, mmph mmph, and I birth more! Bill, as a sow, I do much more than I typically do as an old man!" Tready grins wide, here. "And Porcus, hmm hmm, she's taken to having company, too!"

"Company, Father?"

"Company! There is a male pig, Hoggum, who's much the same as she: fat and lazy, but just waiting for the moment to unite with his newfound love!"

"Porcus, you mean?"

"Of course! Who else would I mean, mmph mmph?"

At this, the doctor laughs merrily and bends forward a little, bringing fleshy fingers up to take hold of and jiggle Aloisius's jowls. "You complacent, corpulent, greedy god! You're dazzled! You're lovestruck, even as you sit here old and fat and male and mortal! Why, I'd wager that part of you--the part of your memories that keeps Porcus in the back of your head like the others--is just waiting for that moment!"

"And if it is, hmm hmm? Porcus doesn't hold her own organized, devoted faith. She stands as a part of the Tubbians, hmm hmm, who mostly see her as an extension, a note, something to remember but not necessarily to actively revere, mmph mmph!"

"Then I fear for you, my Lord. What if, in years to come, the Tubbians fall out regarding the Mother Pig?"

"And belief in her splits to a church of its own?"

"Yes, Father."

Treadwell smiles. "That still means growth, Bill. The Glutton wants more and more, and he will have it, regardless of what body certain people hold sacred over others! Tubbius will endure--Tubbius is the closest to a human guise, Tubbius ties to the harvest and seasons, Tubbius most encourages stuffing one's self for pleasure! The Glutton may be forgotten in time, mmph mmph, as an active, watchful deity, as The Glutton doesn't concern himself with followers, either way. He will exist, mmph mmph, and he will age and fatten and continue on. He is already above and removed from worship as we know it, able to feed of raw emotion and action and thought! For who would worship a monstrosity?"

"But what of Porcus, my Lord? What of, ahem, your maternal side?"

Treadwell chuckles and gently rubs his lunch-engrossed stomach.

"When Hoggum and Porcus unite, their faithful will know. There will be exchanges of stories, revelations of each other's existence among their believers, and, thus, faith in Porcus will spread like the rippling, rough flesh of her belly! Believers of that faith won't always know of the Mother Pig's connection to Tubbius and to the Glutton as a form of the others, mmph mmph; thus, there will be slight, slight degrees of separation between them, but, should the Tubbians in an area decline, hmm hmm, I will still have a foothold there as long as there are believers in Porcus!"

The doctor sits there, taking this in. "You really have considered all of this, haven't you?"

"Of course I have! The Glutton will always have his will, as the Creator decreed, mmph mmph, regardless of what body he takes or of whom he influences! Monster, man, plant-man, pig, or whatever else comes, the Glutton will endure! I will! I must!"

[Treadwell]

Late night of the first day of the eleventh month, 210.

The Glutton will always have his will. These words, spoken by Aloisius Treadwell yesterday afternoon, have stuck in the old man's head since then. Has he really been getting his will lately? Well, for the biggest portion, yes. For everything but Porcus's relationship with Hoggum, yes. The lazy boar, who clearly revels misty-eyed in the lovemaking conquests of his earthly children, simply doesn't seem to care at all about engaging in such of his own! It has left the great-wombed sow grumpy and frustrated, leading her to keep her distance from him for now while she cares for her new litter and feeds her belly.

As for right now, Aloisius wants pampering of a sort. He wants to be at his Church.

Excusing himself after supper at home, Aloisius plods sleepily out to the stable, demanding Arnold be hitched up to the carriage and he be driven out to the Church. It's a peculiar request, one that sees him there after some decent stretch, and it is well into the middle of the night when the Tubbian arrives. The carriage is sent to the church's stables for the night, and the driver is given a room, but Aloisius Treadwell ambles into the Church, letting himself in with his own key and starting to waddle the halls to the sanctuary. With the numerous snores and snuffs resounding from the many bedrooms where the others rest, all is rather peaceful.

And then? A hoarse, quiet, "Aloisius!" breaks the silence from a side room.

Beady eyes peek around the corner, blinking into the room through its open door. Treadwell has been toddling along with the only light source being the gently glowing Rings of Tubbius in his belly, dimly illuminating the hallway through the fabric of his yellow clothing. He squints past the lantern glowing on a hook opposite the door and sees, "Langley!"

Across the floor the younger Treadwell brother toddles, his belly still aglow, to take the elder Treadwell in his arms.

"I see you've been given a robe, mmph mmph," fat fingers pinch a little at the fabric, testing the layers of clothing. Vest, shirt, trousers. . . and there's the long sleeve of the pajamas! "And everything else! So you've thought to commit yourself to my service, Lang?"

Aloisius stands there beaming, both in face and belly. The Rings of Tubbius take on an almost daylight brightness as he stands there jiggling and grinning merrily. Langley puts up a hand to cover his eyes and nods.

"I've eaten like a pig for the last two weeks, Aloisius! I rarely have eaten much in the past, but now, if I but think of supper, I can't help salivating!" The former judge pauses, looking down at himself, blushing and ashamed. "I've put on some weight, too. All my clothes at home are a bit too tight, now, especially my trousers. I needed something I could wear!"

"Wonderful! Keep at it, mmph mmph! A few pounds here and there haven't been the death of you, brother, nor will they be. Now, it's late. Get yourself out of your vestments and down to your pajamas, and go to bed!"

"You know I can't sleep well on a full stomach, Aloisius. Besides, now that you're here, there's something I can show you."

Aloisius, nearly having put his hand to Langley's belly to give it a jovial pat, withdraws it. "Show me?"

"Yes! You spoke once in a letter of a fondness for a hot spring you stumbled into at another church. . . ."

"Yes, mmph mmph! Lovely!"

"Well, a bit of dowsing was done three days ago with the purpose of finding some water--one of the wells here is nearly empty--and you won't believe what we found! The cave system behind the church, the ones right in the edge of the woods, go down and back under the church proper if you follow them out. We had one of the children search ahead. . . . Now, it's a little tight getting to it, but the boy came back with word of a hot spring under the church that, we learned, connects to where else but your first floor bedchamber! Not the second floor one near your office, but the other."

"How fortunate!"

"Indeed, Aloisius! We promptly worked very hard, very busily, as busily as a bunch of fat, elderly men--and, well, me--can work!"

The mortal Tubbius chuckles at his elder brother. "You'll catch up to 'em soon enough. Inside one year, Langley, you will sport a wondrous tummy, behind, and all else, and you'll have a deeeelightful set of fluffy whiskers to match." Now Aloisius pats his brother's stomach, chuckling.

"We were able to fashion you a door that leads into a closet that leads down as smooth a stairs as the carpenters here could fashion. You'll find it splendid and quite enjoyable, I think."

"But what about the well you mentioned, mmph mmph?"

"Oh. That. Well, we've enough beer and ale for the moment. We'll be busy looking again starting tomorrow."

Aloisius nods and grins, embracing Langley one more time before he turns to toddle out with a, "Good night, brother!" He has a single destination, now, and he arrives there in very short order. Within a few minutes, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell casts aside his Tubbian garments, leaving them on hooks fashioned next to the sturdy stairs newly made, and thus. . . .

"Ahhhhhhh. . . ." slips forth as the now naked, rotund fellow eases into his new tub. He'd locked the door from the closet behind him, and a look tells him that the Tubbians sealed off the entrance from the cave, so this is where Aloisius spends his night, relaxing, snoring, and enjoying the gentle bubbling of warm waters soothing him to sleep.

[Treadwell]

Late night of the fourth day of the eleventh month, 210.

"Aloisius, love, I've hardly even seen you the last three days. Where have you been? And why is it you've pulled me to the Church at this hour of night? You said something about a hot spring under your church, but I'm sleepy, darling, and I feel terrible!"

Such are the words of Alice Treadwell, standing next to her husband's bed as Aloisius locks the bedroom door and busies himself removing his layers of Tubbian vestments down to his sunny yellow pajamas. The old tub grins merrily.

"I've been right here, mmph mmph, indulging myself, love!"

"Eating? You're always a right pig at the table, you know."

Aloisius smiles gently. "In a manner of speaking, dearest! I was thoroughly and completely enjoying the worshipful reverence of my faithful flock!" With that said, he moves to help Alice remove her dress as he gives her a few towels for their impending use.

"All the same, I like to see my husband once in a while."

Treadwell chortles merrily, pausing from undoing a sash around her belly from behind and reaching around to rest his hands on said roly-poly cradle. "I know you do, mmph mmph. By the way, love, you're, hmm hmm, seven months into it all, you know!" Gentle rubbing there earns a sigh from both husband and wife.

"I know right well how long I have to go, dearest. I'm counting the days!"

"Good! I'm hoping this will make you feel a little better, hmm hmm. Now, let's go, love. Careful!" Tready takes her hand and eases onward, lighting the way as before not with a lamp but with the gentle golden light from the Rings of Tubbius in his middle. "There are stairs through here. Slowly, darling!"

The trip from bedroom through closet to spring is short, and the tiny cavern is certainly warm enough. Setting a fresh pair of nightgowns and their towels aside, Aloisius helps Alice out of the last of her clothing (and she out of the last of his), and into the water they ease. As the singing of Tubbians above continues on, faintly audible, the pair sink into comfy warmth together, side by side, he leaning into her. Alice finds herself giggling merrily, being tickled by the bubbly waters. Aloisius happily joins in and lovingly takes to rubbing the mother-to-be at her precious middle under the surface.

"See, darling, mmph mmmph? Almost divine! We ought to come here quite often!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-seventh day of the ninth month, 211.

Sometimes people are just lucky.

For Aloisius Horatio Treadwell, "lucky" translates into going nearly an entire year with only minimal numbers of major events.

First, of course, was the birth of his third child with Alice, in January: Frederick Augustine Treadwell. Being awoken one afternoon at the toy shop from a nap found Treadwell scurrying about, moving to find a midwife for the incoming infant. Soon enough, though, there was another mouth to feed in the Treadwell house--which, given their status and their excesses, ended up not proving a problem.

The truth be known, a greatly kept secret about the babe has been that it was born with, oddly enough, the teensiest, tiniest, pinkest little nub of a pig tail at his behind. Alice was terribly frightened at the fact. The midwife passed out. The baby's siblings, Egbert and Gwendolyn, were enthralled and giggly, wanting to play even more with their funny little brother. Aloisius merely accepted it as a fact of his particularly queer existence, knowing that the long-reaching implication of such--his newborn's eventual destiny--would be something that his beloved wife would have no hope of understanding.

Second, months later, was the reasonably publicized kidnapping of Treadwell by a thief and that thief's companions. Treadwell, after a flu-burdened time in a cave with a manacle on his leg, was freed and taken home to rest. The investigation is now ongoing regarding who his kidnapper truly was.

This morning, though, the present day, finds Aloisius at rest, soaking once more in the warm bubbliness of the hot spring under his church in Myrken Wood. For once, he isn't terribly stressed over tax collecting or toymaking or parenting. He simply reclines in the smooth, muddy surface under the water, naked and alone and comfy. . . and full! With the last few days has come a slow focus on events not pertaining to Myrken Wood, a mystical awareness of the lives of Tubbius, Porcus, and the Glutton that has urged him into alternating, exorbitant, multi-person portioned feasts for just himself at meal times. . . and quiet solitude away from everything and everyone else after.

Within the hour after breakfast, Councilor Treadwell has already nodded off in his hot spring under the Church of Tubbius, there to soak and sleep until he is disturbed just before lunch by one of his followers informing him that his clothes are suitably, finally let out just a little more with alterations for his own comfort's sake--and asking him what His Great Rotundity would care for lunch.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the first day of the tenth month, 211.

Aloisius Treadwell had a tiring night, day, and previous morning all in one--mostly due to the previous morning and day. Today, he merely putters about, having had to oversee a funeral already at dawn, and he thinks over the last day and a few hours.

He was awoken around three in the morning yesterday by a frantic urging in the pit of his stomach, an awareness that one of his Tubbian faithful was about to pass from this mortal frame. The Councilor threw on the first thing he could--a pink robe with a skullcap to match--before waking his drowsy, comparably-girthed horse Arnold for a ride to the house of one Hiram Wattlin. Hiram--a quiet, portly, generally sleepy fellow with no wife left and no children to his name--lived alone in a small farm only a short distance from the Church of Tubbius he spent most of his waking hours attending.

Treadwell arrived with enough time to quietly put the man at rest regarding fears of passing, to be there with him at the final close. Before that final moment, though, Mr. Wattlin gave the Tubbian head his will, painstakingly written out (and even witnessed by another fellow in town, one of Hiram's neighbors). The announcement was simple: after Hiram's death, all of his possessions would pass into the ownership of Aloisius Treadwell.

Cataloging everything after the last wheezing rattles of breath were taken and the body was cleaned and left where it rested--at least 'til the morning, when Treadwell could get some help burying it--was a necessary, if poorly timed, event. So, lighting up a lamp and toddling about, Treadwell began to take note of his new belongings.

Items of interest started with the keys to the house and barn and continued with two pigs (male and female, and she, like many others in Myrken after Treadwell had encouraged his Tubbians to mate them in Porcus's name over the summer, about to have a litter of piglets) and the half acre of land outside with crops a month or so from harvest. The barn, small and tidy, standing near the house eagerly awaited its income. The house itself was neatly kept. Basic, simple, sturdy furniture stood in the various rooms, with nothing being very plush or comfy at all. The kitchen had its share of food and drink enough in it for a few meals, with a small collection of plates, mugs, and utensils.

The bedroom? Hiram's body lay in the bed, the one source of plump and plush comfort in the house. The mattress bulged with feathery fluffiness. To one side was a bedpan, unused, on a nightstand, and to the other was a wardrobe. Of course, to Treadwell's grim frowning, none of the clothes could hope to fit him as they were: Hiram was merely a little portly, hardly half the tax collector's weight. However, the old gent did indeed like the style of the clothes, in particular focusing on one new suit of basic, brown coveralls amid the shirts and trousers and undergarments. Pulling out the contents of the wardrobe saw a bright moment in all this gloom, literally, as Treadwell's stomach glowed golden in the lamplit room, setting forth magical energies to allow the clothing to swell and grow to fit its new owner. It was a simple little trick, rarely used, but it at least brought a smile to the Tubbian's face.

So, packing up the new clothing and the will in Arnold's saddlebags, and making a note to return to oversee the funeral in the morning, Aloisius Treadwell rode sluggishly home, there to sink back into the fluffy comfort of his own bed and, as Tubbius, to welcome Hiram Wattlin home into a fold at his side.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the thirteenth day of the tenth month, 211.

After an enormous supper--enough to feed several Tubbian-sized fellows!--last night, the bloated and baggy Treadwell toddled into his toy shop's main room, opened the buttons on his pajamas from the waist up to give his belly space to swell and settle, and promptly nodded off in his rocking chair before the warmth of his fireplace.

It's a cold, dreary, wet morning in Myrken Wood that Aloisius Treadwell wakes to, a morning that leaves him shivering and shuddering.

He has a vague recollection of a memory of Tubbius watching Lessa and one of her children come in the store late at night to investigate the front door having been blown open by wind. They had kept quiet on seeing the snoring, rumbling, elderly gent; the mother had seen to cleaning up Tready's dishes in the kitchen while the daughter scurried off to find a big blanket to cover the old fellow up where he sat. A brief attempt was made to wake him, but he was already long since out for the night.

But now, it is morning, and with the overcast, rainy coverage outside, it is cold, and it is dark. The fire, left glowing warmly last night, has burned itself to barely smoldering coals and embers.

Thus it is that Aloisius gets to his feet, loosely wrapped in his blanket, and shuffles through the store, wincing and shuddering as fat, flat feet make contact with a frigid, wooden floor. His first business is to lock his front door and bar it. His second is to rub his still achey, swollen tummy with loving fingers.

Being the mortal embodiment of gluttony and sloth, or so he teaches his followers, means that he is, despite his visibly engorged gut, Aloisius barely feels as if he's eaten at all. Even his Tubbian doctor has had cautionary words for him on the subject as of late. "Dearest lord Tubbius," the round-bodied physician admonished but two days past, "you have feasted immensely at all meals and moments these recent weeks. You're letting yourself go much more than your usual, and it's showing! Your great girth expands faster than your tailors can keep up. This stiff achiness you speak of in your back and your joints. . . . This great soul in this mortal body of yours wants to live in a house as large as it can have, but you're putting yourself in a dreadful situation! If you allow yourself to eat incessantly, you will grow, and you will grow well beyond your ability to care for yourself!"

There had been a pause in the lecture and a gentle frown at the Councilor's gut, followed by a nearly sheepish, pained command and question. "Dearest Tubbius. . . I beg you to exercise a little control. Just because you can eat what ten or twenty might at a sitting doesn't mean you must, does it?"

So, with those words in his ears, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell shuffles not to his kitchen at first, lighting his way with the fleshy rings in his belly gleaming gold through the blanket wrapped around him, but to his bedroom. Before the dull slab of a mirror there, he casts aside the blanket, buttons what he can of his pajamas, and chuckles as he walks to the kitchen to make his breakfast.

Exercise a little control? "Exercise" is a word hardly in his vocabulary, and "control" only makes the occasional appearance there.

"But," Tready squeaks to himself as he starts finding something to eat in the barrels and buckets in his kitchen, "just to make the doctor happy, I'll only have a little!"

Of course, to this old Tubbian, "a little" just means he eats "a little" more than what a man his size normally would. Soon enough, fighting off drowsiness from a tummy too full, Tready extinguishes the light from his middle in favor of reigniting the fire in his fireplace. He has to stay warm and see what he's doing somehow!

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-ninth day of the tenth month, 211.

Last night, on leaving the Dagger, Aloisius Treadwell rode in his carriage toward his toy shop. He was ready to go home and go to bed. In fact, the old gentleman was already nodding off, slipping from waking consciousness to awareness of what The Glutton, Tubbius, and Porcus were doing. The Glutton was, of course, gorging on his unending food supply while trying to feed his unending hunger. Tubbius was languishing, feeling rather ill with the infection to the lands and the lake of Myrken Wood. Porcus?

Porcus was in the middle of starting labor pains to see a new litter delivered--a new litter in Myrken Wood. In truth, it was the new litter about to be born to the two male and female pigs that Treadwell had inherited recently.

With a whumpf to Porcus's belly as she settled into some muddy mess, Treadwell jerked awake, feeling phantom-like effects of the same impact to his own middle. "Turn this around, now!" he barked to his driver. "Take me to my new farm!"

Arrival was reasonably quick, given the poor, old, bloated horse pulling the carriage could only move so fast. Soon, though, Treadwell was in the farmhouse, changing clothes to his inherited, resized, brown coveralls--and being caught in body-shuddering aches every little while. For the past month or so, as Tubbius has grown ill from the damage to the lake and the land, Aloisius has unconsciously grown more connected to Porcus; a one-time distant awareness of her birthing has grown to having more physically debilitating effects.

The night was spent with his carriage driver--a roly-poly Tubbian in his own right--and the new mother, overseeing delivery of eight plump piggies. As the night went on, the sympathetic Treadwell felt the aches and agonies less with each new baby, and, come morning, he and his helper shuffled into the farmhouse, there to remove their muddied clothes and sink into separate beds in separate rooms so they might sleep part of the day away.

[Treadwell]

Early morning of the nineteenth day of the eleventh month, 211.

Aloisius Treadwell, overstuffed from his gorging on the food in the toy shop yesterday, wakes this dawn with a grunt, a groan, and a warbly yawwawwwwn.

He needs to get a handle on himself.

In recent weeks, he's been in a maddening flutter of emotions and feelings, being caught up in the affairs of divinity, and it's been driving the old gent a bit batty.

Quiet, somber, sobering meditation is the order of the day: a recentering on who and what he is, on how he lives, and on where he is, most importantly.

Thoughts of Porcus's attempts to deal with overbearing litters and an uninterested mate, of the Glutton's endless shoveling of food and ale, and of Tubbius's roots spreading lazily long and deep in the grass are all gently nudged aside, tucked away into darkened corners here and there in his head.

For now, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell needs to focus on what it means to be himself again: toymaker, tax collector, priest, father, husband, and plain normal old man.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the third day of the twelfth month, 211.

Aloisius Treadwell has lived a nice and normal life for the last week and some days. No sympathetic labor pains have racked his round body as Porcus goes about her life; no drowsy daydreams of floating belly deep in ale and stuffing himself on food have held him in their sway; no funny little desires to spend his days gardening to better gain touch with his Tubbian self have taken root.

This morning, though, as Tready snores mightily before dawn, in the time he still dreams and searches other planes as his trinity of divine beings, he receives a delightful surprise.

Tubbius, sitting in his endless plain, enjoying a wonderfully gentle rainfall that has been going there for weeks and leaving the grass green and fluffy and the soil wonderfully rich for his roots to feed from, has a pair of visitors.

One is his son Libri, the scholar, big of belly, bushy of white beard, and black of robe. The Scholar hails his father with a merry wave and a jolly, "Hullo, Father!" as he toddles into view from a point a few yards ahead.

The other is a man about Libri's height and girth, looking very much the Tubbian himself as he waddles along. He, too, has a flowing and bushy beard over his bosom, though his is red. This man wears brown, hefty coveralls with no other garments--coveralls stained at the legs with something familiar, something being washed clean by the rain.

Pig manure?

"Father, this fellow here, whom I feel you need to get to meet, is Biggenbottom! He is in dire, desperate need of our assistance!"

"How so, dear Libri? And hello, Biggenbottom! I am Tubbius!"

Biggenbottom grunts a greeting, bowing just a little as he stops at a point he can stare up, up, up at the bloated mountain of a god's belly.

"Biggenbottom is a god with his final follower on his deathbed, Father, as we speak, so we must be brief and quick! As I am the Scholar, and you are the Glutton, this man before you is the Swineherd! He lives to take care of pigs, Father, in all their pursuits, from watching after them to feeding them to overseeing their farrowing!"

An internal stirring of curiosity and, admittedly, a touch of greed stirs within the Great Belly.

"Then, my dear Biggenbottom, I hereby adopt you into my family, to help care for Porcus, the Pig Mother, and Hoggum, her lazy, useless mate--should you wish the position, of course!" Tubbius smiles. What deity, even one quite minor (Biggenbottom only being known at his peak to a handful of villagers in southwest Amasynia!) would voluntarily choose to fade away with the passing of his final hope for faithful mortals?

The Swineherd gives another nod and another grunt.

"If you'll pardon him, Father, he doesn't speak much. Spend all your days with pigs, and you start to sound and talk like them, you know."

"Well do I know that indeed! Show him to Porcus, dear boy. I will encourage my children in their studies. Biggenbottom will take his place in this family, this pantheon, alongside her!"

Libri nods. He wraps an arm around the hefty pigman, and Treadwell lets his awareness swimmily shift locations.

From rainfall in an open landscape to joyous, cool mud in a rounded wallow, Porcus lies on her side, letting her most recent litter born to her earthly children take its final suckling before they disappear to fully join their earthly mother and their companions. As Libri and Biggenbottom appear beside, the young pull away, gently fading into misty vapor before vanishing. . . and Porcus begins to weep silently.

"And this is Porcus, dear Big! She's the source of all the piglets and sows and boars you've been tending to in your time, and here you'll get to serve her--and Hoggum there, up the hill--in person!"

A warm, fleshy, red-haired hand reaches out to pat-pat and rub soothingly the still swollen, still milky teats on the mother-to-be.

"She's always expecting, you see, or nearly always. Generally speaking, there's usually a pig somewhere who's enjoying an upcoming motherhood! But she has a wish, a fond wish, too, though she, of course, hasn't said anything about it to me. Porcus, I read you well!"

The Pig Mother stirs briefly, lifting her head for a curious grunt at the Scholar, then settles back into enjoying her belly rub.

Libri's black sleeve flits toward the obese, languid, oblivious boar only a few yards way.

"He's been here for over a year now and hasn't paid her a bit of attention! It's hurting both of their faiths; people are forgetting him almost completely, and it's up to the Tubbian faithful to remember her, as she and Tubbius are two forms of the Glutton, and. . . well. . . ."

Two flabby hands flit at the lazy hogs.

"Do something about them?"

With that, Treadwell wakes in his bed, yawwwning as he stretches his pudgy arms out and proceeds to flop heftily from right side to left under his covers. His shnozz works around, sniffing.

"I smell breakfast!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-second day of the twelfth month, 211.

It is a late morning of sleeping in for Aloisius Treadwell. The night had been long and emotional, with the stress of someone stealing his couch from the inn before his beady eyes and the joy of talking to--and magically blessing!--the visiting Trudgeill after getting a glowing report of the great-bellied expansion of Tubbians in Trudgeill's native Treadwellington.

Thus, no simple night's rest was this for the Councilor. There was divine snooping about involved!

Treadwell's first dreamy attentions were turned to the bloated body of Tubbius. There he sat for a short while, taking in the comforting nourishment brought about through realization of his great, fleshy roots wrapping about and gently connecting to the souls of the most recent Tubbians. The connection is symbiotic, of sorts; they would find their faiths and their urges to eat and to please Tubbius in doing so multiplied, while He would be fed and would continue to grow, even one little ripple of flesh at a time.

However, there was a small, minor concern. Some of the most elderly in the town, according to Trudgeill, were accepting of the situation, but they felt they were too old, themselves, to change any at all to match. Horrors! Thus, the roots twirling about the families and friends of these eldest would start tender, wiggly offshoots, plugging their tips into the spiritual belly buttons of these generally frail elders. His method was simple: a gentle, unconscious urging from Tubbius Himself would start the process, while the support and devotion of the younger, rounder relatives would push it onward!

Does the spoiled, fat, lazy Glutton not always get what He wants?

That accomplished, swimmy, shifty haziness would ease the aged Tubbius into the awareness and body of Porcus, the pig mother. She has been busily birthing and nursing as of late, with more growing inside, but now, with word that the women of Treadwellington particularly venerate the aged sow alongside their farmers, tonight She gave herself the time to refocus on that particular grouping and any pigs owned in that particular town. There, Porcus learned of more children due soon, and with that awareness would harmlessly, seamlessly come round-tummied growth on her part as these children of hers would take their rightful, prayer-supported places in her eternally ready womb.

Slow, breathy snorting and snuffling would find the Great Pig flumping lazily to her side again after a brief wobbling about, there to rest for the remainder of the night.

Thus, when Treadwell wakes this morning, refreshed and energetic, near lunch, he is, oddly, not terribly hungry, for once. And with good reason! He's spent the entire night feeding merrily with the spiritual energies of a new town's devotions!

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth month, 211.

Aloisius Treadwell had a very late night, being awakened early in the morning hours by a visiting Lessa. He'd nodded off by his fire in his toy shop again, and a good gust of wind had opened his door for visitors. She, helpfully, came in to set the situation right and see how Treadwell was.

He was quite well, immensely overfed and having burst a second button on his pajamas in as many nights.

Waking up shortly before lunch saw two things necessary: lunch was the first, and it was seen to quickly, and sewing back on the two missing buttons was the second. The sewing took a bit longer for the old tub with the fleshy fingers and the poochy belly. He's eaten like a pig for the better part of the last two weeks, and it's long since started to show in the ever-tightening of his clothing; a good deep breath or burp or flop into a chair would be likely to send those two buttons and maybe more flitting away again.

Thus, it was imperative that he see that didn't happen. He would have to either get bigger clothes, have his current ones let out a bit, or simply go about naked.

"But Aloisius, mmph mmph, it's snowing out there!"

No matter.

Bundling up into his Tubbian robes, Councilor Treadwell set out into the snow after filling his belly, extinguishing his fireplace, and locking up his shop. Hurried toddling along saw him at the Church of Tubbius soon enough, exhausted, tired, and ready for something else to eat!

The Tubbians were, of course, more than ready to oblige with leftovers from lunch.

So it was that soon after his second lunch in as many hours, give or take, Treadwell found himself sinking sleepily into the warmth of his hot spring under the Church of Tubbius, his robes and pajamas cast aside so that he could get in a good nap in one of the warmest spots in Myrken Wood at the moment. Bubbly, popping, steaming heat and water eased Tready off to bed again, his snores rolling upward and his tummy swelling outward with its food-gorged abundance.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, 211.

Having a foot of snow outside is bad enough.

Being a few inches over five feet and being about as round (or more than) as one is tall means there's a lot of body to be in or near that snow. This morning, after dawn, Tready had to be out in that snow, stopping by his recently inherited farm to take care of his pair of pigs and their piglets. They enjoyed his company, oinking and grunting in greeting as they thanked him for their slop and their water, even if they didn't come out of their barn to do so.

Luckily, Councilor Treadwell does have a hot spring under the Church of Tubbius that he calls his own. The deed to the church and surrounding land is in his name, just like his mansion estate, his toy shop, and his farmland.

However, just as Aloisius Treadwell is just about to step down into the warm, bubbly comfort of the hot spring under his Church of Tubbius, a great yellow towel about his middle, he receives a tap-tap to a shoulder with the head of his own cane. Standing there beside him, one hand on his own big belly, is Dr. Jacobson, Tready's physician, and he frowns.

"I've been watching you these past weeks with the visiting Tubbians, holy Tubbius! I've been watching your clothes, too!" The cane gets set down, and out is pulled a long, long rope, several feet long and tied into knots every so often. "It's time for your monthly measurements since I missed them two weeks ago!"

"Oh, pooh! I'm doing myself no harm by eating all I want, Bill! How many times do I have to say that, mmph mmph?"

"I know well enough that you don't seem to suffer any ill effects from it all, and that's what confounds me, even after all this time, Great Tubbius!" Up comes the rope with a thwap as he draws it taut.

"Then why do you, mmph mmph, continue to bother me about it?"

"I do it because I want to stay sure of such, Father!"

"Have you no faith, hmm hmm?" Treadwell reaches out to the rope, gently nudging it, and Bill's hands, downward.

The hands bring the rope right back up. "Plenty, my Fat and Holy One! Humor me this one more time, and we'll. . . we'll go to every two months, instead, if it pleases you!"

Treadwell looses his grip on the rope, his other hand still holding his towel around his gut. With that towel starting to slip, he brings his grip back firmly on both sides of the fluffy shield.

"You might as well just drop the towel, you know. It's just you and me down here, and I've seen your blessedly big body naked many times for these inspections, after all! I have measurements to take, and I can't do that with a towel in the way!"

Fwump goes the towel as requested, and the doctor busily gets to measuring, comparing current readings with his notes in a book nearby.

"As I suspected, My Lord."

"Hmm, mmph mmph?"

"Your, ahem, incessant dining habits have only led to your putting on more and more flesh this month. Why, without taking you to the scales we use upstairs for weighing the hogs, I'd guess you've put on another thirty pounds or so in the last three weeks."

"That's only ten a week, lad, mmph mmph!"

"But you're nearly bursting your clothes, Holy Tubbius!"

"And I've two tailors keeping me suited, mmph mmph! One here, and dear Mr. Trudgeill from Treadwellington, mmph!"

"I just don't want this mortal body catching cold or worse, My Lord."

"It won't, hmm hmm, as long as you don't have me standing naked forever in a cave when I've a hot spring a few yards away!" Fluffy eyebrows scrunch up, and Treadwell reaches out a fat pointer to jab into the doctor's navel, leaving the fleshy finger up to the halfway point.

"You're about to pop your buttons, myself, Doctor, hmm hmm. You've eaten almost as heartily these three weeks as I!"

"I'm a tad younger, My Lord. I don't gain flesh as quickly."

"That could be, hmm hmm, adjusted easily enough!"

The doctor blushes at the half-suggestion, half-threat.

"As I said, mmph mmph, pray don't worry about my girth. I grow blessedly large with festivities, feasts, normal meals, and all else! It's, hmm hmm, destined to happen! It's perfectly normal! Now, shoo, and let me get to soaking in this spring here!"

The doctor chuckles quietly, wiggling himself loose from the Tubbian leader's finger. "As you wish, Holy One! May your tiny, mortal body ever increase as much as you desire!" He gives Aloisius's bare belly a slap, rubbing it in a circle for a moment. "You have to admit, though, that most of my patients--the rest of this church--must be quite careful about their sizes. Many can't handle sweets right, some gain weight like the pigs we reverence on Porcus's behalf, and the youngest--the ones still teenaged--bloat and swell even faster than that! We can't be helpful and productive to Myrken if we're not careful, My Lord, regardless of how much you are protected from such concerns!"

[Treadwell]

Night of the twentieth day of the first month, going into the morning of the twenty-first, 212.

The night around Tready's Toys is disturbed by the sounds of a mother pig, newly imported to a recently installed pen (with eight feet high walls surrounding the muddy interior), lost in the labor of delivering a dozen fat, healthy piglets. Treadwell, however, proves absent during the night, away from his pet sow, Pinky; the new mother will spend the next day resting in her pen, nursing her new young. Before dawn, after the Councilor's quiet arrival through his back door, the toy shop's sign will flip to read that it is closed, with all entrances locked and windows shuttered as Tready works in the back to care for the new litter and mother.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-eighth day of the first month, 212.

It's a messy, busy morning for the Tubbians. Tready, busy with affairs of his own, left a note in the early hours for his faithful to carefully relocate the many piggies from their temporary pen behind his toy shop to the ever-growing pig farm behind the Church of Tubbius. Pinky, his exorbitantly massive pet sow, goes along quite well with being lifted into the wagon out front (given that they provide her with a bucket of tasty slops first!); her dozen babies, though, are much happier staying where they are! It's a maddening frenzy of big-bellied elderly men and big-bellied baby piglets scurrying about for the better part of a half hour before all parties involved collapse rump-first into the mud, short of breath and worn out. Only then do the Tubbians manage to recover first, scooping up armloads of porcine babies and carrying them to their mother, who lies on her side in the wagon on a bed of straw, waiting. The piglets, exhausted and unwilling to fight any more, change their minds about the whole business and begin enjoying suckling from their mother as the wagon slowly sets off for the Church.