A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:58 pm

Night of the fifth day of the second month, 214.

Old Hibera.

The same borrowed castle bedroom as the night before.


The first fashionings of wedding gown and undergarments were, sadly, too small and much too tight in all the wrong places. Since the skinny fae folk of Old Hibera know nothing of properly fitting their well-fattened cousins, Marian sent a hasty order through the portal to her own palace to summon her tailors, all of whom came bobbling-wobbling through merrily as directed.

She also made one peculiar request in this second attempt: leave the very front of the belly open and exposed to reveal the Mother's Light beginning to glow so well at her navel.

Thus did a dozen fairies, working in unison, create a second gown with all other necessary articles to be worn beneath it, with Marian's own tailors proudly bringing the new clothing to the Queen Mother.

The many, many layers of white fabric and the multiple undergarments are met with astonishment; for a woman who is slowly becoming used to dressing as a woman over these past few weeks, the complexity of the dress and other pieces--with their folds and lace and subtle ripples all around--is a joyful delight! Having the help of her four ladies-in-waiting for her attiring proves a wonderful experience with each new item wiggled and wormed into carefully, but in the end, in white bonnet, dress, slippers, and all else, with her pink wings lightly a-flap behind her back and her great tummy exposed at the front, Marian Ora Aengus stands by her borrowed bed, radiant of face and of pink light as her half-brother finally manages his first smile of the day from his place in a chair beside the Queen Mother.

"Well, Marian, it all fits. Now, I suppose you ought to remove it all so as not to damage it before the day of your wedding."

"Remove it? Presposterous! Orin! You are here, and we have carefully drawn up details of how to handle the joining of the kingdoms, and Oswald could be summoned easily enough! Why ought we not have the ceremony tonight?"

"Because, my dear sister, this is a royal wedding. There must be a veritable crowd of witnesses for it! A feast that only our Tubbian blessings in New Hibera can provide! A chance for me to write vows for the two of you to recite!"

Marian slumps a little, her belly flabbily pooching through the opening in her gown.

"Pooh. I suppose you're right."

"Perhaps tomorrow night, or. . . ooooh. The first of next week, if you might wait so long! After the morning's sermon at the Tubbian church, we make final preparations, and we host your wedding here at Oswald's courtyard."

The slumping queen wriggles back upright!

"That would be delightful, Orin! Delightful!"

A giggle sets her shivering and her wings flittering.

"What is it, Marian?"

"It's just. . . well. . . people say that the wedding day truly belongs to the bride, Orin." Another jelly-tummy-quivering burst of ripply laughter. "I finally can see what they mean by that, in just a few days!"

"Mmhmm! You can. Praise Tubbius!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Fri Feb 07, 2014 5:24 am

Just after an early lunch on the seventh day of the second month, 214.

Old Hibera.

The royal dining hall.


At the Queen Mother's command, a lavish excess of food brought from New Hibera has just provided a very welcome feast for all. Fairies sit around the dining table, stuffed beyond pleasure, especially the round little Tubbian fae folks.

Even gaunt, slim Oswald has a little overfed food-pooch to his belly as he sits beside his future wife.

"Mary, I think there is something to be said for your Tubbius, after all! That was certainly a great, wondrous amount of delicious food spread on this table."

"There is, love!" She giggles, her chair quaking under her girth. "Now, how are your preparations for our night coming along, hmm?"

"They're quite finished, should you want the truth of the matter. My clothes are ready. We agreed on the traditional service that our kind have always held. And you said that your dress fits you beautifully, so all we are missing--" a turn of the head to the Doctor, so nearly dozing with a bloated sack of a gut--"is our minister and our vows!"

"Hmph? What?" Tiny white lights gleam back to life as the drowsy fellow wakes. "Oh! All that's quite ready, yes. I finished the scripting of it this morning after the first breakfast."

"You didn't tell me, Orin!"

"We agreed on the first of the week, Marian," he offers with a yawn.

"But if everything is ready, and all we must do is gather a crowd, then why ought we wait? Tonight! Twelve hours from now, at midnight! The lights of all the fairies of both kingdoms, glowing on this courtyard and through the portal, would be gorgeous!"

"Mary?"

"Oh, Oz, why shouldn't we? Something could so easily happen in two days; one of us could end up hurt, or lost, or eaten, or worse, and then where would we be?" A stern shaking of the head; an accompanying jiggling of the heavy pink jowls. "Tonight! I would be wed before another day passes."

King blinks back to Doctor. "Well, Doctor Barrin?"

"Tonight it is, then. Send out your bluewings in both kingdoms; we'll have all of Hibera together for this!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Fri Feb 07, 2014 6:54 pm

Shortly after midnight, going into the eighth day of the second month, 214.

Old Hibera.

The castle courtyard.


Approximately two thousand fairies are gathered, scattered across the courtyard, the immediate airspace above it, and the base of New Hibera, watching and flowing through the magical portal between the two kingdoms. All are mystically shielded from "bigling" intrusion. A royal wedding of two pinkwings is not to be missed or interrupted; it is as much spectacle as it is a triumphant moment meant for rejoicing. It's the sort of event that only happens every few centuries, give or take some decades.

This wedding is, however, perhaps a little disappointing for those expecting a grand affair to last the entire night. Given the advanced ages of the priest and the two parties being married, they all quite simply wish to see this to a rather short and simple conclusion. Besides that simple desire, there is a monumental feast set up from the combined food stores of both lands; with a Lady Tubbian being wed and her half-brother Lord Tubbian officiating the ceremony, food is very much in order.

Vows are simple. An exchange of "Do you, Marian Ora Aengus, take Oswald Horace Grimley as your husband from now until one of you shall pass to return home to Holy Tubbius and Marta, as dictated in Great Tubbius's scriptural Folds?", the requisite zealous and merry answer in the affirmative, and a similar question posed to the King of Old Hibera, save with names reordered and title switched from "husband" to "wife," and similar answer given, of course, all takes but a few moments. A kiss that sets both pinkwing royalty gleaming in their own bubble of light follows, and then they are promptly dismissed amid musical fanfare and pomp, with king guiding queen to their bedchamber at their now joint castle in what is officially now the Western Reach of Hibera, while the rest of their multi-colored kin throw themselves into the night's revelry across both halves of the newly reunited fairy kingdom.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:10 pm

Morning of the twelfth day of the second month, 214.

The Western Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom suite.

Just after breakfast.


"Well, Marian?"

So squeaks the Queen Mother's physician as he leads her back to the royal bedroom suite, alone, her arm in one of his. A click of the door follows behind them.

"The king is still at breakfast. You, however, look exhausted, and I certainly know why."

"Oho? You do?" A light blush warms her jowls.

"Mmhmm!" A nod as brother helps sister onto the edge of her bed. "Marian, my dear, you forget quite easily that my bedchamber is right through that door opposite. I'm quite well aware that your beloved husband made you a very happy woman last night, what with all the moans and cries of joy that came through the wall!"

The Queen Mother's face here flushes from pink to a toasty red.

"It's quite natural!"

"But Orin?" Even redder, if it is possible! "I loved it!" A hushing of voice to a whisper, a flit of eyes. "My first time!"

"What?" A snort from the white fairy as he settles onto the bed beside his sibling. "At all? Are you telling me you never once consummated either of your marriages before this one?"

A slight nod of wimpled head comes with an enormous smile. "But, Orin, what about the baby? Or babies, however many. . . . Are they. . . ?"

"Oh, pooh! They're all perfectly fine, even if you have a half a dozen of 'em growing in there! There's nothing he could do to ruin what's already begun, and making love to him now won't keep piling them on!"

A wag of a fat, white finger sees that pudgy fingertip tapping up and down on the exposed, lavender-lit belly, prompting giggles from the ticklish mother-to-be.

"Marian, after the noise and merriment last night, I can say with great assurance, hee hee, that if you weren't already carrying any babies in your belly before then, you surely would be, now! Now, off to bed with both of us, and Oswald, too, so we can all get some proper sleep!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:30 am

Afternoon of the twentieth day of the second month, 214.

The Western Reach of Hibera.

Dr. Barrin's Office.


A comfy, cushioned couch. Bookshelves of books containing a spread of spells and medicines. Two fairies: one portly and white, one slim and pink. One pitcher, seemingly bottomless, of milk brought from Eastern Hibera, with two mugs. And one plate, equally endless, between them of butter-laden pastries from the same location.

"What's the matter with her, Doctor?" The first question from a fitful, worried husband in a pink dressing gown; at no point in the day had the fairy king Oswald Aengus even bothered dressing in his efforts to ensure his beloved Marian's good health.

It took his new brother-in-law's insistence to sit down and enjoy a light meal to get him to finally stop fretting about.

"The nausea, Your Majesty? The sleepiness?"

"Please, Doctor. Just 'Oswald' or 'Oz.'"

"Then merely call me 'Orin,' if that's how it's to be, sir. The nausea, though, is quite normal. Your Marian's precisely a month along of her six, a month to the day. Her body is starting to get the message that there is a baby--or, yes, there are babies. We can't be sure yet. Given the intensity of the Mother's Light already there at her belly, I'd wager there are several. She's unusually radiant already."

"What ought I do, then? I know nothing about women in her state!"

"You do whatever a loving, doting husband should do around his wife and coming children! Yes, they're yours, Oswald, by birth and marriage if not by blood." A wag of hand to the mugs of milk. "Now, don't worry a bit. I can tell you that if you want to make Marian truly happy, then it's about time for you to start taking her devotions to Tubbius and Marta very seriously."

"But they're bigling gods, Orin!"

"They're bigling gods that have fed your wife's subjects to the point of corpulence. They have seen them never lack for food, drink, or, for that matter, children. Oswald, if you want the truth, none of the fairies in Eastern Hibera should be having so easy a time conceiving children, your wife especially. The excessive weight isn't something that nature intended for any of us to have. It leads to bodily aches and deficiencies. It hurts our walking and our flying, it hurts our spellcasting, and it hurts even our lovemaking."

A snort from the doctor.

"Yet there you have it, Oswald. Despite the tubbiness, there isn't a fairy in Eastern Hibera who's completely immobile or ill. They're all in at least passably fair health, and some of them wonderfully good health, to boot! Marian, with her girth and her age, seems to be in the peak of physical shape, all things considered! Is that obvious enough that there's something to this Tubbius and Marta business?"

"And this milk and those. . . what did you call them?"

"Butterfluff pastries, Oz."

"They're delicious! We have drunk much of this milk, and we have eaten many of these delightful things, yet every time I barely look away and back, it is as if we haven't touched a bit of it!"

"Tubbius gave His blessing upon Hiberan food stores, just as Marta has apparently given Hers upon Hiberan mothers. We will not starve in the slightest. We will not see the end of our family lines, natural births permitting."

"But the fairies I rule. . . ."

"The fairies you and your wife rule, Oswald. Things are different now."

"You truly think they would accept divine mandates to. . . to. . . to grow fat and fertile? To feast incessantly, to procreate in like fashion, and to treat that as the way life ought to be?"

"Why should they not? This land is protected from biglings. Their kin in Eastern Hibera are so obviously blessed beyond measure. Simply allow my sister--your queen--and I to establish a suitable church here and oversee its growth."

"Its growth in many ways, numerically and physically, you mean."

A white, plump finger reaches over to poke the king's stomach, slim-bodied but lightly pooching with a glut of pastries and milk.

"You must set the pace, My Lord. You must be the example."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"I mean to say that, starting this very evening, you're coming to the table every time either I or your beloved Mary sit at it, and, by Tubbius's roots, you're going to eat, old man!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:50 am

Morning of the seventh day of the third month, 214.

The Western Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom suite.

Just after breakfast.


"One month and fifteen days, Marian," says Dr. Barrin as he sits in a chair pulled up to the royal bed. Marian herself rests mostly comfortably under her covers, a bit warm and flushed and sweaty and only wearing her pink undergarments. "A very short time with a decent amount left to go, and your belly glows exceptionally bright already. Now, as you might have suspected, and as I told your husband the king a couple of weeks ago, I would guess that you're carrying at least two children, possibly more."

"Possibly more, Orin?" Her face breaks into a great smile at the thought.

"Possibly. We won't know until they start moving about a bit and are big enough to feel."

"But you knew exactly where Squeaky was and what she was, Orin. Why can't you tell anything about these?"

"Squeaky didn't put off magic of her own, Marian. She was a magical void in your chest when I examined you while you were asleep. As for her being a girl, boy rock rodents usually come to rest a little lower in the belly, pressing more on the stomach and the guts than the lungs and heart."

"And the babies?"

"They put off magic of their own, yes, so I can tell where they are with a little mystical study, but our baby boys and girls emit no different glows or such. In short, Richard--err, Marian--we can eventually look and feel around to learn how many you have in you, but we won't know what colors to decorate the nursery in 'til they're born."

"Oh." She blushes a little. "That's the first you've called me 'Richard' in some time."

"Welllll. . . three hundred years of it versus some mere months of this, you know. Now, there's another thing."

"What's that?" Pudgy fingers lace together to rest atop the maternal middle.

"Your body, Marian. You've already put on a phenomenal amount of flesh for a woman only this far along. Of course, the breasts are growing, and with fairies our sizes, a few more rolls and pouches here and there don't seem like much, and it's quite natural for the mother to eat more, instinctively, to feed her young. . . ."

"But, Orin?"

"But look at what you're wearing right now, Marian. You already need your tailors and seamstresses to let those pieces out or fashion new ones. Based on all that, and guessing based on just how much more voracious than usual that you've been lately. . . . Well, I would say with almost absolute certainty that you're feeding three very happily growing babies in there, at the least. You're simply plumping out a little too fast compared to most mothers."

"Wonderful, Orin! Wonderful!"

A fat doctor's finger wags at the patient's face.

"Watch yourself, Marian. Tubbius wants you to grow, and Marta wants healthy babies, but you won't be allowed to eat yourself into a funeral in the name of eating for two or three or however many you have."
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:27 am

Morning of the thirteenth day of the third month, 214.

The Western Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom suite.

Just after second breakfast.


"One month and three weeks, Oz, love! And three weeks since Orin talked you into following Tubbius."

The fairy king reclines with his wife in bed after a truly exorbitant pair of breakfasts that somehow merged into one large, unending meal. He is slowly getting used to this endless feast that the days seem to be turning into; the initial sluggishness and illness from being too full has eased off as he has gradually grown, admittedly, a little plump, with the slightest bulges coming to his belly and behind and little flabby ripples starting to appear elsewhere. His cheeks are even taking on the tiniest little hints of jowls.

One of these cheeks is in the process of getting gently jiggled, prompting the king to open his mouth as Marian teases his tongue with the tip of what has fast become his favorite snack: those delicious butterfluff pastries. Playful munching follows.

"We will need to build a proper church for the faith here, won't we, Mary?" he adds after a sweet mouthful is swallowed.

"Of course, dearest, but not until we're both suitable for leading it."

"Both?"

"Well, you have a round body to grow into, and it simply would not do for me to oversee the start of a new church and faithful following here when I will be about to birth children in a few months."

"So you say," he takes the pastry from her pudgy fingers to finish it, "that we wait until after the babies are born."

"We ought to. If others see the blessings you are gaining," a hand goes to his tiny, but growing, paunch, "and wish to know, so be it! But for now, this should simply be between you, me, and Orin, I think."

"Very well, love. I trust that you know best."
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Fri Apr 18, 2014 3:21 am

Morning of the eighteenth day of the fourth month, 214.

Myrken Wood.

The Treadwell master bedroom.

A very slow and lazy morning.


Some mornings, Councilor Treadwell would be up with the son that pours brightly through a window off to the right of his bed that he and his wife share. He would be puttering about the house in a dressing gown or in his pajamas, playing with his young children, smoking, and awaiting breakfast.

This morning is considerably different. Eyes creep halfway open, settling on the blurry face of his sleeping wife. Belly rummmmbles at his slightest rousing, making its incessant pleas for food and drink despite his barely being awake. It wants what it cannot have in this fleshy, mortal body: the Glutton's endless supply of food--well, in truth, the Glutton's endless supply of slop--to match its hunger. To shift his thoughts from that gurgling and burbling, for a moment, Aloisius brings a sweaty hand up to rest on Alice's middle, some six and a half months swollen with an infant son who's unconsciously been placing terrible demands for more, more, more.

The touch half wakes the tired Alice.

"Good morning, Mother."

"Allie. . . Take your hand from my belly, so we can both go back to sleep."

"Hmph."

A few moments pass, and then a casting aside of sheets and an awkward shove, wobble, and heft.

"Help me, Aloisius. I'm getting too big for this."

"No larger than I, my love!"

Equally uncertain shove and huffs and puffs later, and a grab of walking cane, the Councilor is around to his wife's side of the bed, offering pudgy arms and a back hardly suited to lifting in assistance.

In fact, the back in question makes it quite known of its uselessness in this situation, for, as Alice is helped to her feet, the Councilor squeaks in pain and surprise--something in there pulled, something stretched, something tugged horribly out of place!

"Allie!"

"Oh--I'll--" a flap of flabby fingers toward the bedroom door "go on to the privy or the kitchen or--!" Back onto the bed he drops--whumpf--with more frenzied finger-flapping.

"And send Gregory to fetch Bill Jacobson."

"Why? What is the matter?"

"My back, love! I've just hurt it."

A frown. A glare down at Aloisius's lower back where the old man sits, stooped, rubbing it.

"Just stay right here, and I'll send someone to find Bill. But not right yet, Aloisius, not right yet."

"Oh?"

"Well, surely you don't expect me to hold my bladder until the doctor arrives?"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Thu Apr 24, 2014 4:31 pm

Night of the twenty-fourth of the fourth month, going into the twenty-fifth.

Myrken Wood.

Councilor Treadwell's warmly lit first floor lounge and smoking room.


"I do thank you for staying with me these last few days, Bill."

"Observation is most important when a man your age injures himself, My Lord Tubbius. It's been almost a week, though, and you're hardly getting around much better for it."

"Well?" asks the great-bellied elder spread out on a couch, wearing a loose, pink nightgown, cap, and pair of slippers.

"Well, what?" A plump finger pokes deep into the belly so great. "You're but a few months from being sixty-nine years of age, My Lord, and you've done considerable harm to your back. You ought to be in bed at all hours until this heals, not. . . not gallivanting merrily about in town!"

"I have things to do, Bill!"

"You can do them from here, and you will! We'll take care of your Pinky, Three-Hooves, and the others--well, Three-Hooves at least, since Pinky comes around so infrequently."

"She's bearing another litter. She has good reason to not want to be around folks, mmph mmph."

"I worry for her, and I worry for you." A deeper push of finger into gut prompts a squeak from Aloisius. "I've measured you twice all around these last days, and there's no denying that you must be the only man alive who has somehow gotten bigger in the months of a famine. A famine, My Lord!"

Finger is gently slapped away. "Tubbius will not wither to nothing, Bill, even in this small body, mmph."

"Small! Look at you, My Lord! Bountiful and round and blessed, indeed!"

"You've said time and again, hm hm, how you wouldn't badger me about it all, you know."

"And I'm not! I'm not! But. . . well. . . you've a child on the way. I'd have you live to see it grow up."

Here Treadwell pokes his own pudgy pointer deep into the doctor's own paunch.

"Bill, mmph mmph, you forget that my blessing is why James Wilde is the age he is: centuries old and still around, mmph mmph! If I want this body to keep slugging about, it shall, dear fellow."

A snort from the doctor.

"Then slug about you will, either in that wheeled seat beside your couch or in your bed upstairs. Holy Tubbius, I'll not have you do yourself further ill just because you think you have to do everything yourself. You have assistants. You have helpers. You have your whole Tubbian flock, willing to do what you wish."

"Good! Then help me into that chair, mmph, call Gregory to see me to my room, and find yourself a good night's sleep in your borrowed bed, yourself, mmph mmph! You're not going home tonight, old boy; you're staying for breakfast!"

"And lunch, and whatever else until I see you up and toddling about as normal as you might, Great One."

A frown.

"My Lord, I won't see you crippled because you strained something in your back. This is for the best."
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Fri Apr 25, 2014 3:21 am

Morning of the twenty-fifth of the fourth month, 214.

Eastern Hibera.

The royal bedroom.


"Marian, your ladies will be bringing your lunch to you soon enough," the white fairy doctor begins on entering the Queen Mother's bedroom. "I merely wish to see how you feel today."

Marian Aengus's reply is a mooooaaaaan from her bed. Her hands rest on her belly under the bedsheets; she still wears her nightgown.

"That well, hmm? Well, I suppose that I should help you ready yourself for eating. I've never known you to pass up a meal, even in the worst of health. Now, carefully, girl, take my hands. Sit up. Sloooowly."

"I feel dreadful, Orin."

"That much is obvious."

"I had most peculiar dreams in the night."

"Oh? Do tell me. There. You're up. Steady. Rest. Breathe gently."

"I dreamt I was about to give birth, but I was some ten babies big!"

"Marta forbid that much blessing happening in one place, Marian! You're just worried. That's all. It's been three months and nearly a week since your conception. You're, basically, halfway there. Do remember that new mothers tend to carry their babies a little longer than six months, so, yes, basically halfway. Now, do you need help going to the privy? getting dressed?"

A nod, and a nod again. "If you please."

"I don't mind it a bit. Oswald would be here, himself, but he's laid up in bed, himself."

"Oh! Is he ill?"

Pat-pat to the doctor's belly. "Full! Too full! He ate and ate and ate at supper, and he woke in the night to have more. He'll be a right round Tubbian yet."

"Splendid!" Pink eyes widen frightfully. "Now, Orin, faster? Please?"

"Of course. Up! Up!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed May 21, 2014 3:40 am

Morning of the twenty-first of the fifth month, 214.

Myrken Wood's Meetinghouse.

Councilor Treadwell's office.


Sometimes, work just has to be done.

Treadwell has spent the morning in his office, examining maps and studying charts in an attempt to learn just how much to charge Baron Surdemer and the Lady Egris for the ongoing use of the land south of town where they host their fair. It's an opportunity to add quite a few coins to Myrken's coffers, to say the least.

So, with the final tally jotted onto a page left to dry on his desk, a warm and sweaty Tready huffs and hefts to his feet. He loosens the white sash around his middle, worms out of his big, black robe, hangs it on a nearby hook behind him, and sinks back into his chair, resting there in his vest, shirt sleeves, and trousers. Up goes a handkerchief to mop his face, and down go eyelids.

Soon enough, evidence of his presence in his office can be heard rolling and rumbling through the meetinghouse. Sometimes, a man just has to take a midday nap.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed May 28, 2014 5:18 am

Night. The early morning hours of the twenty-eighth day of the fifth month, 214.

The Eastern Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom.


"Oswald!" comes out a gasp, a fitful outburst of breath pained and strangled, from the Hiberan queen. She sits up just a little, propped up on a mound of pillows already, her hands going immediately to her middle. Beside her, the king jerks awake at the cry, rolling onto his side and blinking as their naturally glowing bodies gently brighten as they awake, illuminating the bed.

"What is it, Love? What's wrong?"

Moments pass before the Queen Mother can squeak out a reply, her face and body flushing in sweat and trembling.

"My babies, Oz. I dreamed. . . . I dreamed that I was naked, walking to my bathtub, rubbing my belly--and they were gone! Gone! I called for you, for Orin, and the two of you never came, but I heard you talking outside the door."

"What were we saying?" The fairy king's pink mustache wriggles at his lip.

"Your voices were low. You were saying that I was senile, a lunatic, just a fat, old woman who had never had children and never could, but that I was to be fed and fed and fed and looked after like I was bearing children--that I was to be humored and played along with!"

"Oh, come now, darling!" The king's hands--his fingers slowly getting a little pudgier with his continued gluttony--unbutton the queen's nightgown and slip smoothly within, resting on the exposed stomach, shining pink and warm. "Look here. Feel here, and here, and here! Orin has already agreed that you're carrying three babes, and perhaps even a small fourth, in your belly. You're just over four months along, too, and both you and babies are swelling right out, fat and fed."

The king gives a playful laugh, setting his own body a-jiggle. He has been growing alongside his beloved wife ever since turning his devotions to Tubbius, and his light paunch of a month ago is starting to round out even more, his sides taking on flabby ripples.

"Rest easily, Mary. Those babies in there. . . they're not going anywhere until Marta and nature say it's time for them to, and then they are going out of your body and into your waiting arms, and my arms, and their cribs!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed Jun 18, 2014 12:53 pm

Night of the eighteenth day of the sixth month.

The Eastern Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom.


"Four little lights, Marian."

"Doctor? Orin?"

"A half a month ago, I suspected the possible existence of a fourth child, Marian, based solely on how much weight you've put on during this pregnancy. I discounted it, pooh-poohed it, saying that you were simply fat, and that you were eating so much, and that no fairy in all Hibera had ever had more than two children at once, and that you were already the first ever known to mother three."

"Well?" The mother-to-be wriggles in her mass of pillows in bed. Her belly is exposed, her nightgown drawn upward under her breasts to reveal in the flesh a newly glowing--but dimly glowing!--fourth radiance of Mother's Light, right of center. "What does it mean?"

"It means you have a child in there who's certainly not growing as much as its siblings. It means you have a child in there that must be fed more to make up the difference, or it will surely come out weak, small, and, well. . . ."

The doctor frowns as he traces a white-gleaming finger around the tiny blob of pink barely showing from under the flesh.

"Doctor?"

Not Orin. Not now. A shudder from the doctor. A nervous flit of his white wings behind him.

"That infant deserves as much a chance to be healthy, to survive, as its companions, Marian. I can't force it to grow. Babies are a mystery; we don't know half of what goes on inside a mother's stomach for the woman's six months."

A giggle from the mother in bed.

"But we can feed it--and, well, perhaps overfeed it--anyway. We can give that child every chance it can have to come out whole and healthy in the, oh, about month and a half it has left--"

"Month and a half? You said 'six.'"

"I've told you before, Marian, that most Hiberan mothers, especially new ones and especially plump ones, often carry an extra week or so. As I said, babies are a mystery. Either way, it seems the babies need the extra time, and they relish in it."

"Very well, Doctor."

"Now, as I was saying, starting tonight, you will be fed as frequently as you can manage without becoming ill--at a minimum every two hours, except when you sleep, even if it's only something light. You are not to exert yourself. You will be completely in this bed until your delivery, barring trips to the privy or the bathtub or short bouts to stretch your legs and prevent bedsores."

A waggle of white finger before Doctor Barrin gently tugs the pink nightgown down over the Queen Mother again.

"But wouldn't that mean I'll put on a great deal of flesh from just lying in bed and eating all the day, Doctor?"

"Oh, for Tubbius's sake! Marian! When has that ever been a concern of yours, dear girl?"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed Jul 02, 2014 7:05 am

Afternoon of the second day of the seventh month, 214.

Myrken Wood.

Treadwell's sitting room at home, near the front entrance.


Everything is quiet at the Treadwell house. Alice still rests from her delivery of Harvell "Harvey" Urias Treadwell yesterday afternoon. All of the other children--save Gideon, at work learning baking in town under two Tubbians--have been shushed and sent off to their rooms.

Round, little Harvey is in his father's arms, though, sleeping against a pillowy chest, while Tready himself is sprawled on a comfy couch in a brown robe. The old man has a wonderfully silly, merry smile as he simply sits there. The toy shop is closed for the day--at least!--although he will need to stop by at some point to check on Pinky and her newly delivered dozen.

These have been an exhausting three days.

"Aloisius."

A familiar iciness from the door to the lounge. A glance up: the bony, haggard frame of Elizia Treadwell, elder sister, somewhere in her seventies (though Aloisius can never quite remember where), in a dark green dress.

"That's rather bright a garment for you, Liza. You might want to change it for fear of being too happy and gay, mmph mmph."

"Shush, Aloisius." The door clicks closed. The visitor's voice drops and softens. "There's a baby on your breast. Take care not to wake him."

Hesitant steps forward. A dress hem held carefully from the floor.

"Might I join you, Allie?"

Allie. A pet name he's been subjected to since childhood. A word he's despised his entire life, and--

Allie? From her mouth? A brief tremble of lips in surprise, a light raise of cloud-fluffy brows.

The Councilor worms over just a little, nodding at the couch. His spoken answer is a whispered, "Of course."

Light swishing of skirts and creaking of joints as Elizia settles beside her much larger baby brother.

"He's beautiful, Allie."

"He is, yes."

Breath.

"Might you care to hold him?"

"If you please?"

Very gentle easing of infant from one pair of arms to another.

"You've only had the one daughter, Elizia--your Liza Rose. She's grown, now, though. It's been years since you've held an infant."

"Langley had John by Susan, and their daughters are long since married off. And you, Allie? You're the only one still fathering babies among us."

"Four wives, in sequence. Blanche, Violet, Raylan, and Alice. Ten children. Babette and Gideon to Blanche. Nicholas and Arella to Raylan." A wince. Tears in the eyes. "Egbert, Gwendolyn, Frederick, Gabriel, Gertrude, and Harvey all to Alice."

A nod from Elizia.

"By the Creator's graces, Aloisius, Babette is the only one who's grown. She's a grown woman. The rest?" Another nod from Elizia, down to Harvey. "He's the youngest, Allie. Not even a day old. Gideon, the boy Pastor Took raised, he's coming of age as a young man."

"What are you saying, mmph?"

"Shush your throat, Allie. The baby."

A softer mmph. Barely a whisper from the lady in reply.

"I'm saying that you're nine-and-sixty, and you have two children you'll never see again, nine years old. You have a boy newly home who's ten, eleven this winter. All the others? Allie, Eggie and Gwen turn six in two months. Only six. All the others are younger than that."

Both fall silent, watching little Harvell sleep.

"Allie, I don't know by what magic you keep fathering children with Alice, but Harvey has to be your last."

"Hm?"

"You and Alice are of the same age, to the day, Allie. She can't have any more without it killing her. Harvey about did that. Bill is still up there, watching her."

"Of course."

"Come here, Allie."

"Eh?"

"Your great big behind, Aloisius. Wiggle it this way on the couch."

Huffing, wheezing, hmphing as he nears.

Elizia gently passes his child back to his arms.

"You have a baby son here, Allie, that you might not see grow to Gideon's age."

Dress is again gently lifted; bones creak as the elderly woman stiffly straightens to her feet. And then?

Skeletal arms wrap close around the Councilor in as tight a hug as they can manage without harming the baby.

"I love you, Aloisius, though I don't show it well. You have to take good care of yourself. Please?"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

Postby Treadwell » Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:26 am

Noon of the ninth day of the seventh month, 214.

The Eastern Reach of Hibera.

The royal bedroom.


"Mary, love? Wake again, darling."

The words are followed by a gentle kiss to the lightly snoring Queen Mother's right cheek. Marian's eyes squint open to see merely a pink blob in the dark room only dimly lit by the two fairies' glowing bodies.

"Oz. I just fell back to sleep."

"Two hours ago, darling, after your breakfast. Lunch will be ready soon."

The Queen Mother lets a sleepy yawn escape, a squeak.

"Rise, Mary. Let me help you up. You ought to get out of bed for just a few moments. You've barely left it at all the last two days except to visit the privy and to sit up to eat."

"Well, that's what Orin wants. He said," another piping yawn, "I shouldn't exert myself. He said I should lie here and eat, eat, eat."

"And those you have done admirably, Mother. It shows very well." Plump, pink pointer finger comes out to stroke the Queen Mother's jowly cheek. "These are getting a little heavier and droopier, hee hee."

Marian blushes warm and rosy.

"Now, come, come. Merely a few moments out of bed."

Pudgy arms extend, and, with a groan and a grumble, Marian hefts herself somewhat upright, bent back to allow her growing belly room, giving her and her husband a better view of each other as the King notes, "You're naked, darling!"

Giggly moments pass before she offers explanation.

"I was hot. Burning up in bed. The nightgown had to come off, Oz."

A fearful glance of Queen Mother to door.

"Marian, it's locked, and we are alone. Up, carefully?"

A bit of exertion, a little wobble and work, and the two fairy monarchs stand by the bed, smiling.

"I'm still hardly used to the fact my husband is a good half inch taller than I. At least you're filling out quite well. Praise Tubbius!" Plump finger pokes deep, wiggling playfully in his pink-vested, growing belly and setting Oswald to burbling in laughter.

"Now that you are up for a moment, dearest, why should we not stretch your legs a little while we wait for lunch? It can't hurt."

"But to go walking over the palace, disrobed?"

"Shhhhh! No!"

The King reaches to his left, giving a handle on a small music box a series of clicks and releasing it. A gentle waltz begins tinkling and playing in air being lightly stirred by his gently fluttering wings.

"Shall we dance?"

His kiss stops any proper response as the elderly fairy takes his wife's hand and back, thus beginning a slow, careful spin about the bedroom floor.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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