A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-second of the sixth month, 213.

Treadwell arrived home to his toy shop last night after a brief visit to the Broken Dagger.

He did not stay Treadwell long.

A magical transformation that he simply would not deny set his body back to rights as The Glutton, healing his injuries to hand and jaw and absorbing and dissolving the stitches in Treadwell's belly. He had not fed very well at all in the hospital, and the Great Slug had to rectify that situation. He was empty. He was hungry.

This morning, The Glutton wakes, sitting up on his slug's tail in a heavy slouch, having spent the night snoozing amid his kitchen carnage. Everything that resembled food had been eaten. Food stores, both fresh and nearly spoiled from his absence, were picked clean. All manner of drink--wine, ale, water, and anything else around--was gone. His familiar, goopy trail of ooze tracked his minimal progress: the bloated monster couldn't move much in the room, a room sized for his mortal form that is admittedly considerably smaller, but he at least wormed about enough to empty everything into one of his many mouths.

For the briefest moment as he stirs awake, there is contentment.

And then his bellies rumble again. Pudgy hands clap and slap to his roly-poly gut. . . .

But he stops.

To continue would mean to eat himself out of house and home, very literally. Tables, countertops, and walls are, to Gluttony, just as edible as fruits and meats.

Thus, it is with a deflated huff of breath that he lets his divine body melt away roll by roll, leaving a naked Aloisius Treadwell standing in his toy shop's kitchen, looking quite well fed and sleepy.

The ooze staining the floorboards might be cleaned later. . . but most likely, Treadwell will simply let it absorb. Him, get on his hands and knees to scrub it? Preposterous!

So it is that, with tummy a-rumbly, the unclothed toymaker giggles happily at his overnight feast, toddling to the adjacent bathroom with his newly restored hand and jaw and stomach, and plumping into the barely lukewarm bath water in the Treadwell-sized tub--bath water drawn some time in the night just before the feasting slug's having dozed off. There he settles, soon snoring quite soundly over the gurgles of his stomach that looks far too full but feels as empty as Treadwell's kitchen.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-second of the sixth month, 213.

Meanwhile, in New Hibera. . . .

"Four days, Richard. Four days will be exactly six months from your conception. Honestly, most of our mothers go six months and a little over--usually a few days, up to a week. We always round off to six months when we talk about it, though. It's easier that way."

"So you're telling me, dear brother, that I really have. . . another week and a half, perhaps?"

"Most likely. Quite likely, in fact. And, given what we've seen of other, ahem, portly mothers, hee hee, since we started worshipping Tubbius so well, you're likely to go another couple of days past that or so! Fairies weren't meant to be little butterballs, Richard. It throws everything off."

"So. . . possibly up to two more weeks, then?"

"I would certainly bet on it! And a likely long and painful delivery to top it off, what with two fat daughters in your womb! Besides, with Marta Herself involved in this pregnancy, I would wager, too, that She wishes you to stay a merry little baby nest as long as you physically can."

The doctor reaches over to pat a few times on Richard's exposed belly; the Queen Mother of the fairies--for the title of King has long since been given over to the doctor!--lies in bed, with nightgown rolled up and sheets rolled down.

"And I see that you've already soaked up a goodly amount of baby's light. You're not in labor yet, so I assume that this means that, since yesterday morning, you have eaten far more than even your usual, Richard?"

He pokes a pudgy fingertip into his brother's exposed navel, then rubs a hand over the warmly glowing gut.

"I can't say that I blame you, to be honest. I should think that if I were carrying an infant in my middle that I would do the same. It's a wonderful time to complete the bond 'tween mother and baby, and with your carrying two? Why, your belly and womb and, well, down there will be quite aglow within this final stretch of it all."

"Will it be so bright as to shine through my clothes, Orin?"

"It shouldn't, but we've never seen such a voracious glutton other than your mother, the king, and she--ahem, he--was only carrying you. Here you are, blessed by the maternal form of the Glutton and a priest of another form (which reminds me you have a sermon to rehearse for next week!), and you're carrying two babies, and you live and love to eat."

A snort. A chuckle. And then both parties erupt into merry, belly-quivering laughter.

"My guess, Richard?" the doctor pipes out between jolly hoohahs. "You're going to be the brightest glowing fairy yet, possibly twice your normal light, because you'll just keep eating and eating until you feel the big 'Uh-oh!'"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-sixth of the sixth month, 213.

"Richard, you're certain you don't feel any different today?"

"Well, Orin, I just woke up and stepped to my bathroom a few moments ago. I haven't had enough time to really see yet!"

"Oh, shush, you old blob. There have been no surprises yet? No water breaking, no sharper bumps in the middle than you've grown used to, none of that?"

"Ummm?" The pink fairy looks down to his heavily swollen belly, his hands cupped under it. "I can't say I have yet. They're still swimming and bumping about like their usual, though."

"Hmph. Very well. Now, let's lift up your gown. I need to see the progress of your mother's light."

The doctor waddles over to his half-brother's bedroom door, locking it, as said gown is raised, revealing his suspicions about the royal belly. With a nod of his head, he smiles and chuckles, reaching out to rub smoothly over and around a gut far too large. He then circles the Queen Mother, inspecting sides and back before coming around to the front with a wiggle of finger into ticklish belly button.

"As I thought, Richard, you've done it. In five days--well, four, really, as today doesn't count for much yet--you've managed to stuff yourself to stupidly foolish amounts, and your Lora and Lara have quite enjoyed it. You have a lovely, beautiful, and totally complete belt of brighter pink than your usual all the way around. Step to the mirror, there."

The doctor takes the mother-to-be by a hand, leading the way over to the corner mirror in question. That same poking finger comes up, slowly tracing the edge of the permanent, gently glowing stain of light around the fat fairy's front and sides.

Much giggling ensues at the touch.

"It's all the way around, Richard, from just below your shoulder blades, where your wings sprout, to the topmost folds of your behind."

More giggles. Pink hands come up to rub at the exposed middle.

"And to what you can see in the mirror, here. It's practically halfway up your sides to. . . well. Pardon me."

"What is it? Oh! Orin!"

The doctor's warm, sweaty hands lift up the maternal fairy's breasts, and Orin nods, satisfied.

"Terribly sorry. All the way up to where they rest, and even their undersides, Richard, not to mention the entirety of your front. Why, Richard, you gluttonous little pig of a fairy, you've done it. Again, it's quite beautiful, and I may note that this is the first time any fairy has ever managed such."

"It is?"

"It is."

"Wonderful! But, umm, I'm getting chilly, Orin. May I, umm. . . ."

"Let down your nightgown, yes, yes. Now, let's see you back to bed. I'll summon for breakfast, and I'll be staying with you almost every waking moment from now until your delivery. Don't expect a bit of privacy."

"Oooohhhhh, come now!"

"Not a bit, Richard! You could begin your labor at any time between now and, very possibly, even the sixth of next month."

"That long?"

"Yes, that long. As I said, our kind aren't made for being such round little balls. It throws off something about our bodies' natural rhythms when it comes to birthing. They get slow and lazy."

"Well, I suppose that's only normal."

"Whatever do you mean? Oomph! Careful there, dear girl! You're much too heavy for me to help you get settled like that!"

There the doctor stands rubbing his back; a few seconds of trying to help Richard heft himself into the bed have left him more than a little achey.

"I mean that I've been slow and lazy in everything else my entire life because of this big body of mine. Why should this be any different?"

The fairy doctor smiles as he folds his sibling's sheets over the royal womb, tucking Richard in.

"I guess you do have a point, there. Now, let me go fetch the four of us some proper breakfast, hmm?"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-eighth day of the sixth month, 213.

"Do stop pacing about and fluttering your wings, Orin. You're making me nervous! You act as if you're the expectant father here!"

So speaks Richard Aengus, wearing a loose pink dressing gown and being as comfily settled on a couch by his bed as anyone in his swollen condition might be. He munches happily at a tray of creamy puffs and that spongy, tasty fungus the fairies call mungus.

So does a flustered Orin Barrin waddle to a stop, his hands on his belly.

"Well, I'm not! No one is. There is simply you being a virgin womb, hosting two babies divinely put there by the Mother Goddess, and you, might I remind, are in danger of being ready to deliver at any point in the next week and some days."

"Quite right, dear brother!"

"So, until that point, you are forbidden to wear anything more restricting than that gown you're wearing right now. No trousers and vests, no dresses, no pajamas, not even your Tubbian robes. In fact, you're not to leave this wing of the palace where all the bedrooms are. I'm not having you putting on one of your maternity dresses and toddling out into the street for a big showing of your current state and suddenly going whoopsie daisy out there!"

By the time the doctor finishes, he's wheezing for air and wagging a fat pointer at the Queen Mother, who bursts into happy burbles of laughter.

"I understand, hee hee! And no company either?"

"Not a soul except for family or midwives or nurses."

"That means you and just a few of the whitewings in the palace."

"Mmhmm."

"Have a creamy puff, Orin. You look peckish and troubled."

"I'm not peck--ooooooooo!" Creamy puff is plucked from plate and munched upon.

"Now, dear brother, there's still one thing I've never took time to learn or explore."

"What's that, Richard? And give me another, will you?"

The plate is offered; the food upon it, still fresh and crisp, still blessed by Tubbius, dwindles not as the two big bellies munch away.

"Just how, precisely, we're only half-brothers. If my mother, the king, wasn't so blessed as I was, then what fairy was talked into filling the father role, and if you're my half-brother. . . well, that means that your mother. . . ?"

The munching on creamy puffs slows. The doctor shrugs his shoulders.

"The king's physician's journals detail everything, of course. Granted, I'm the only one with access to them. Your mother, the late King Richard, and I do say mother since the woman you thought bore you had absolutely nothing to do with the whole affair, needed a fairy he could trust intimately and keep perfectly quiet. The color of the, ahem, donor didn't matter, of course, as color is passed down through the mother, as we both know."

"Welllll? Give me a bite of mungus, hmm?"

"The only fairy that close to the king was his physician, my adopted father."

"Adopted?"

"Oh, must I spell it all out for you, Richard?"

"I'm afraid so. Milk?"

"Milk."

Milk is poured for both--a tasty treat that was acquired months ago from a poke of fairy guardsman spear into cow udder at great risk. But, as with all else, it has remained fresh and constant since, with that one little prick to an upset Bessie the cow offering many times over what was taken.

"Richard the First was brash and foolish and hasty. His wife the queen was completely infertile and a whitewing on top of it all. He took the hard way first, trying to have an heir with, ahem, assistance from his doctor. Within a couple of weeks, before any of the usual morning sickness, dimming of the glow sack, or else had time to settle in, he demanded the doctor offer up his own wife as a surrogate mother since the queen was sadly of no use in that regard."

"Very peculiar! And rude!"

"Quite peculiar and quite rude, Richard. She became pregnant, too, unknown at the time. . . but then a week or so later, the king's morning sickness hit him viciously hard and kept doing such for the better part of his second month. That's when my mother apparently understood that she, too, was carrying a little one."

"Ooooooo!"

"Either way, the king and queen couldn't go through with having an illegitimate child on the throne, not when it was painfully obvious that they were going to have one of their own, whether the king truly wanted to carry it or not! Thus, the people of New Hibera believed that the queen had finally been granted a sort of double miracle: a baby at long last, for one, who broke the factual evidence of all fairy mothers by birthing a baby that matched the father's coloration instead!"

"Me!" Pride wells up in the pink fairy on the couch.

"And so I, being born to a whitewing mother, was adopted by the court physician despite sharing the same half-royal lineage."

"It's all a terrible pity, you know. I can just picture my father--err, mother, as you say--running about the palace bossing folks around, horribly sick at one moment, begging for funny cravings of food the next!"

"Of course you can, Richard. You went through the same."

"Welllll. . . ." Richard blushes, giggling. A bump at the top of his belly takes his breath for a moment, prompting another worried frown from the doctor. "Not time. Not time."

"The only difference, dear girl, was that your mother felt unable to tell a soul. Richard was a great deal more secretive and haughty, and he secretly despised being so baggy fat."

"I can't understand why. I love it!"

"Well, dear girl, you are an odd little fairy."

"And you, Orin, have been calling me 'dear girl' for weeks now."

"Why should I not? It suits you just as much as, if not more than, 'dear boy.' Physically, you're just as much boy as you are girl, of course; however, by traditions and customs, you are totally and wholly a girl, from how you are expected to dress to how you must comport yourself in social settings."

"But I'm the king!"

"No, Richard, you're not. Do remember you gave that title over to me, even if I haven't done much with it and likely won't ever need to do so."

"Oh. That's right."

"But yes, by all rights, every last fairy in Old and New Hibera views you as entirely female, even if that big, pink pillow of a beard and the. . . you know. . . between the front of your legs say otherwise." It's the doctor's turn to blush, turning a warm red almost immediately.

"Orin?"

"You're to wait for doors to be opened, to be dressed and undressed and served and bathed by maids, to dress yourself strictly in an obviously feminine fashion, especially during and after the birth of your children, of which you are expected to have as many as you can physically manage. You are to toddle along first before your husband if you should ever want one but to allow him to serve your needs in all ways, to know the ins and outs of cooking and cleaning for the rarest of moments when maid or butler or husband or children are unable to attend to your needs, to refrain from more masculine pursuits like hunting and fighting and training with the palace guard. . . ."

"Quite a list!"

"To stay well clear of horribly spiritually unclean places like the jail or dungeons entirely for fear that they will corrupt your babes and children, to stay away from graveyards and tombs and the dead as a revered symbol of new life and birth and growth save on important occasions such as funerals and holy days, to be waited on and pampered endlessly by all about your person, especially at any marriage ceremonies or nurseries, and, quite importantly, to commit yourself fully to the institutions of marriage and childbirth and motherhood for the entirety of your days as soon as you are physically able to bear children."

"Again, dear doctor, quite the list!"

"You have only kept up with about half of all that."

"Well, I'm certainly not taking a husband, Doctor!"

"Of course you aren't. It's the rest of it all, though. You still dress and undress yourself, for instance. Stop that."

"And bathing?"

"It might unsettle one or two of the girls at first, but quit being such a ninny about their helping you. You're six months along, and even if you weren't, you're still the fattest fairy in the kingdom. You're hardly mobile. You miss spots that you can't reach, as I do, I admit, and you worry yourself over it all when you shouldn't be."

"But my manhood, Doctor!"

"Richard, every fairy in this kingdom and in Old Hibera knows that Richard Aengus's manhood has never seen its proper use and that it's merely now more of a remnant hanging between his fat legs."

"Well, if you put it like that! Hmph!"

The doctor bursts into belly-shaking laughter. "Richard! You really ought to not take offense at any of this! Mothers are the next thing to priests among our kind, right up there with them in many ways, and they receive every manner of pleasantry and happiness even if they have a very few restrictions placed on them!" He giggles and pat-pats the Queen Mother's stomach. "Think about it in that fashion: a holy priesthood of maternity! That's really what you've gotten yourself into, dear girl."

"Dear girl, hmm?"

"Indeed."

Richard sighs, putting his hands over the doctor's on his belly.

"Well, I might as well start completely acting the part, then, yes, instead of just some of it?"

"Of course. You don't really have a choice, you know. But do keep the beard, if you please? It suits you."

"Of course! But Orin, it's getting mid-day, and I haven't had a bath, yet, and it's nearing lunch."

"Sit right where you are, and for goodness' sake, don't touch one button on that gown. I'll go fetch your maids."

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-ninth day of the sixth month, 213.

"How do you feel today, Richard?"

Richard Aengus, wearing that same loose, pink nightgown from yesterday, merely yawns where he rests in bed.

"Hungry, Orin."

"But you had breakfast a couple of hours ago."

"Hungry!" comes the squeaky snap.

"Well, it will please you to know that lunch is nearly ready."

"Good, good."

"And the babies?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Orin. I would say that they're enjoying their warm, wet, squooshy residence quite well."

The doctor sighs, miserable.

"It won't hurt them to stay in there like this, Richard. It's just that the longer they're in you, the bigger they'll slowly get, and the harder this delivery will be."

"And you can't rush things, hmm?"

"Not a bit. There's no medicine we know of or spell I'm willing to cast that could force them out any sooner."

"So we simply wait."

"We wait. That's something you should be used to by now."

The Queen Mother giggles, rubbing hands on belly.

"I've been thinking, Orin, about something you told me yesterday."

"Oh? What? I said a great deal at the time."

"About my having to have as many children as I could possibly bear."

"Oh, by Tubbius's fat belly! You're over three hundred years old! Yes, fairies can reproduce 'til the day they die, Richard, but you can't seriously mean that you would want to do all this again."

"I might! But Marta said I'd never know a man in all my years, so I suppose these two--"

"Will be the only ones you have. I don't foresee her magically blessing you again, dear girl."

"What if she did? Hmm?" Another loving rub of fat fingers over belly button; inside, a baby's foot bumps the surface.

"If she did, then I would take it as a sign from above that you're meant to be a creature worshipped by all of us, yourself. Your name would be praised even more in the churches and the streets than it currently is."

"Hmph! What would be the harm in that?"

[Treadwell]

Just after midnight, going into the first day of the seventh month, 213.

The doctor and king yawns sleepily while he sits in a cushiony chair next to his half-brother, who is currently resting abed as demanded, wearing a loose, pink gown.

"Nothing, Richard. Nothing at all. Nothing unusual. Nothing!"

"Not a thing, Orin!"

"You're closing in on what will, at the end of this week, be a week and a half since your six months date."

"But you said that wouldn't be unusual. Oh!"

"What?"

"Just a kick, Orin. Just a kick."

"Hmph. You have eaten like a bigling's pet pig through your whole pregnancy. The glow-stain of your mother's light is bright enough to be faintly visible through the purple dress you were wearing today. Those babies are going to come out looking just like their mother: fat little butterballs."

"Now, why are you worrying so much, hmm?"

"I'm worrying because I'm going to be the one overseeing the delivery, you nincompoop!"

At that, Richard bursts into burbly, quivery laughter, his body gently trembling all about in his bed.

"All right, Richard. You win. They'll come out when they're good and ready, not a moment before."

"That's right! If that's a good, long week from now, Orin, so be it! In fact, if it's--OH!"

Richard Aengus jerks upright what little his belly can allow in the bed, wheezing for breath and rubbing his middle.

"Your gown, Richard. Your sheets. Off!"

Flap-flapping of gown and sheets follows, and both doctor and patient go pale.

"Richard. . . your water. . . . Oh, bother!"

Orin scurries to the door.

"Guards! Call the midwives! It's starting!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the first day of the seventh month, 213.

"Doctor, it's time."

"Time! Richard, take a deep breath, and when you're ready, I want you to push. Push!"

The words were simple enough. The delivery, though, was not. Both doctor and patient were awash in sweat, and both were exhausted. The midwives--for there were two, just in case--were equally weary-limbed and drained.

The doctor had warned the mother-to-be that the mother's light would again gleam brightest when the babies would be born, first to stain the belly with one last, brilliant blotch of pink and then to impart its fluorescence again on the babies' way out.

Lora's birthing was a triumph of exertion on the part of her mother. Out the fat baby girl came with monumental effort and a shrill shriek from the fairy in the bed.

Cord was cut. Baby was slapped on the bottom to bring her around, passed to a midwife for drying and cleaning and shushing, and then the remaining doctor and midwife took to attending the newly aglow Richard Aengus.

The next baby would not come so soon.

Lara, just as rotund as her older sister, does not emerge until the first stroke of noon, as the church beside the palace began ringing its bells to tell the hour. She receives the same quick treatment as her sister, but, then, of course, there is the afterbirth.

Soon, though, a few moments after noon, it is an exhausted Richard being attended to by physician and midwives, his overtaxed body being cooled and healed by soothing whitewing magic as he slips in and out of drowsy dozing. However, he isn't allowed to sleep more than just a few moments.

"Richard Aengus? I, your brother and court physician, hereby present to you your lovely daughters, Lora and Lara Aengus! Here, dear girl, caaaaareful. . . there we go!"

Thus, as doctor leans over patient, their baggy bellies bumped against each other, Orin offers his assistance in helping his wearied sibling hold the two tubbiest, pinkest little fairies that New Hibera will ever see.

Richard smiles, kisses his daughters' heads, and then eases asleep, giggling until he nods.

[Treadwell]

Night of the first day of the seventh month, 213.

It's hot in Myrken Wood.

It's hot in the toy shop.

Treadwell spent the day asleep in his bathtub, trying to snore his way through the heat.

That didn't help him very much. Out of the tub the sweaty fellow wobbles, drying himself and emptying the tub through its pipe outside. Opening his wardrobe and dressing anew in clothes not drenched in the morning's sweat means. . . what?

A heavy suit to stick to him and hamper his already sluggish motions? Surely not!

His coveralls and the accompanying pajamas he wears under them? A definite possibility.

A robe meant to be loose and flowing? Another option!

When did that dress of Alice's end up in his wardrobe? That will need returning, of course! It certainly isn't an option!

Nothing at all?

A gut-quivering chuckle sees him striking the last from his list in his head with all due haste.

"The Folds of Tubbius tell your followers to dress in layers, Aloisius, mmph mmph, to supplement their natural padding and make Tubbius happier by the look."

Glancing down at his own flabby frame sees another chortle from his lips.

"Supplement! By your own great gut, old man, if you add much to yourself, you'll fill out the whole room!"

Big, brown coveralls and yellow pajama jumper are retrieved, as well as leather boots. Worming into the jammies, and then the coveralls, and then the boots is simple enough. Thus attired, he takes up a floppy hat to flump onto his shiny head, and out the door the taxman toddles, suitably dressed in rustic fashion, to the Dagger he rides in his carriage, even at this time of night!

[Treadwell]

Morning of the second day of the seventh month, 212.

Today, Richard Aengus sits on a bedside couch, resting, wearing one of his pink nightgowns. It is simple wear, as he isn't planning to make any appearances or do anything for a few days. Instead, there he slumps, smiling down at the infants sleeping in their crib beside him.

To his right, the doctor also smiles.

Both keep their voices quite hushed.

"Well, Richard, there you go. They're asleep, as you ought to be until time for lunch, but I understand your staying awake right now."

"They're my babies, Orin. Marta be praised!" The pink fairy erupts into happy giggles.

"So, carrying them and birthing them was worth it?"

"Worth it!" More giggly mirth. "It was wonderful, Orin. Marta permitting, I could do this again every so often."

"At your age, dear girl, that might not be very wise." That white-bearded head shakes slowly. "Remember that our babies grow slowly. If you keep pushing them out every year or two, you'll be up to your belly in babies, and those big breasts will never know a rest."

Richard glances down at the breasts in question, swollen, ready.

"When should I feed them?"

"Whenever they wake up crying for it. You were taught how to hold them properly, and I will be here with you, or in the next room over, should there be problems. Lora there--we put that purple band on her wrist, see--will likely wake first. She's been asleep longer."

"Thank you, Orin."

"Oh, Richard! As your sole living brother, I am supposed to help watch after you in place of a husband passed or absent. Given that I'm your physician as well?"

It's the doctor's turn to giggle, watching Lara roll sleepily in her sleep amid the pink and purple cushions in the crib.

"You won't ever be rid of me as long as we're both around, I think."

A pause to smile again, this time at the new mother.

"And, dear girl, dear Richard, congratulations!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the fifth day of the seventh month, 213.

Alice, the children, Langley, their driver, and dear old Arnold are on the road toward Westenford as of last night.

That leaves Aloisius very much at home and alone, barring the usual staff working to keep the house tidy and clean.

"But what else to do, old man, hmm hmm?" Treadwell asks the blurry image in the mirror before him as he peers into his open wardrobe, trying to pick out something to wear. "If you're being watched like you think you are, they don't need to be here, mmph mmph, but if you're not, they deserve a time away at the beach."

He frowns. To him, his room, especially his wardrobe, is a muddle of shades of gray. Poor eyesight coupled with total color-blindness means only one thing.

"I knew I should've asked Alice to arrange some outfits for me before she left, mmph mmph."

[Treadwell]

Morning of the tenth day of the seventh month, 213.

Behind the Church of Tubbius, plump Jack Alldale stands near the pig lot, arms crossed atop his belly, staring at the snoozing, snuffling body of Pinky, Treadwell's pet pig. She is slathered in mud from wallowing about before her nap, and her belly once again bulges, nearly fit to burst already.

"Silly pig. Here I'm supposed to get to the middle of town and start crying the news in a bit, but there's not too much to say other than there are fires once in a while around town and that fat, old Pinky Treadwell's almost three months into her next litter."

Pinky grunts in her sleep, oblivious.

"You silly girl! You can't keep the boy pigs off you, can you? You make new babies every little bit, and you keep all of 'em fed until they can eat on their own, but every few months, whoops!"

Jack chuckles and bends over to rub at the sleeping sow's muddy stomach.

"I reckon we'll be transporting you to the lot behind Tready's toy shop, like usual, when you've had these. He likes to be able to keep his squinty eyes on the litter, it seems, and who can blame him? With the wife and children away, he needs someone around to feed and pay attention to--'sides himself, I mean!"

[Treadwell]

Afternoon of the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month, 213.

The Church of Tubbius, at a late lunch, in the dining hall.

"I tell you, mmph mmph, all of you, that should you see the one called Catch, he is not to be allowed anywhere near this sacred home nor near the pig yards behind it. He has had a most unfortunate, mmph mmph, encounter with my dear Pinky, swollen and aged and gravid though she be, and experienced something of a humiliation for it."

Slurrrrrp of warm tea.

"I'll not have him harming her, or us, or this church, or me if I can help it. This sanctuary will not be violated."

"But, Lord Tubbius, you've given us clear rules that Pinky, of all our pigs, is to be given free rein and special attention. She comes and goes as she pleases, here half the time and not the rest. What do we do? I didn't see her this morning, to be quite honest, with the others."

"Pinky, mmph mmph, is quite intelligent and blessed. She can and will manage her own affairs as she needs and as her mother Porcus wishes of her. Merely keep a good watch on her when she is here, mmph mmph, and on all the rest whether she is or isn't."

"Of course, Lord Tubbius."

[Treadwell]

Afternoon of the thirty-first day of the seventh month.

Tready's Toys, specifically the sometimes-used pig lot tucked away behind it, well clear of other businesses and well within the shop's land.

"Now, why're we bringing Pinky out 'ere? Tready's not at his shop right now."

"He said that he would be here shortly, and he said that he would attend to his pet sow himself in this time of her impending labor."

"Well, if waking up in the night to birth some piglets suits him, so be it. She's fenced in proper, at least, and it looks like she's got a good mess of slop and a water trough filled up, too. I reckon she'll be fine."

"She will." A wag of a plump finger directs the gravid mother into the pen. "In you go, Pinky, dear! You're due in about four or five days, but I suppose you know that already." Scratching of hand to porcine head follows, prompting happy grunts from the pig mother-to-be before she waddles off in front of the food trough and begins digging about, pushing her nose this way and that, rolling about a bit in the mud.

"What's she doin'?"

"Nesting, Jack. She knows. Give her a few days, and that's right where she'll be, squealing and pushing."

"Do y'think Tready's up to it?"

"If he's not, he'll summon one of us to help."

"With a merry 'Mmph mmph!'"

"Indeed! Away we go, Jack. Now, Tready did say we could help ourselves to some of the food in the kitchen before we left as payment."

"Good idea, yup. A right good idea, that."

[Treadwell]

A short note in Treadwell's sloppy, heavy handwriting arrives at the house of Jack Alldale, town crier on the morning of the third day of the eighth month, 213.

= = = = =

Jack,

I do hate to ask this of you, but I need you and James to come by the toy shop and keep your eyes on Pinky. I'm afraid I've fallen a touch ill--likely something I ate, since that's about all that I do--and won't be able to oversee her delivery. She'll be having her piglets today, of that I'm very sure. I just want someone to be there that I trust when she does.

Tready

= = = = =

Thus Jack gives a heavy sigh and, after breakfast, makes his way to the Church of Tubbius to find James Wilde, as requested.

"Why did Tready have t'fall sick right now, Misser Wilde? It's not like he's the fat sow grunting and pushing out the piggies!"

"Well, Jack, he's a very old man, and he's not always in the best of health. Being alone and watching after a pig that's giving birth is a strain; besides, he doesn't want to make the mother sick. He'll be well soon enough, and so will his dear Pinky."

"His dear Pinky's about t'push 'em out any time now, speakin' of her. I looked in on her on the way here; she's swole out with babies an' milk, and she was startin' puttin' up a ruckus of squealing."

"Then faster, Jack, faster! It's a terrible walk there, and we mustn't keep the lady waiting!"

[Treadwell]

Early morning of the twelfth day of the eighth month, 213.

The small, fenced in lot behind the toy shop once again sees life, as it does every few months for a brief time before its occupants are transferred to the Church of Tubbius.

This morning, before dawn barely glows over the land, that life is already up and toddling about--at least part of it. Pinky, Treadwell's prized pet sow, wobbles around her muddy enclosure, alternating between enjoying herself at her two enchanted troughs--one unendingly full of slop, the other the same with water kept pure and clean. However, this portly porker must look after the needs of others. Eight growing piglets are roused from their sleep with a mix of snorts, pushes from a fleshy snout, and an urgent squeeeeeee that might be translated best as, "Wake! Wake! You lot haven't eaten yet!"

Soon enough, the big, pink mother lies on her side in the mud before her troughs, happy and comfortable with her litter all squirming into their proper places for an early breakfast, all while Treadwell still dozes.