A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Noon of the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, 212.

"This way lies madness."

It was a simple observation from a great-bellied god. Tubbius had watched himself, of a sort, as Treadwell puttered about the new tailor shop in Myrken Wood, conflicted and befuddled with two sets of memories and talents warring in one body. That had to be fixed. Thus did Treadwell serve as a focus for divine energies during the night, energies that served to recreate and resurrect the deceased Regis Drivel, bringing him back to his wife Lilah.

Granted, as Regis appeared, Treadwell flopped exhausted into a seat in the back of the tailor shop, there to snore until noon of the next day, having missed suppers, breakfasts, church, and lunch!

And, granted, Regis appeared completely naked where he stood, a stout, round, middle-aged fellow suddenly wrapped up in his wife's love. It was after a few moments that he scurried to his bedroom to wriggle into a nightgown, slippers, and cap, then to shuffle quietly past his snoring Tubbian benefactor to his dining table, there to feast quite happily again.

Eventually, Tready awoke and slipped out of the shop. His toy shop would again be open for business most of the week instead of just the weekends. As for the tailor shop, its sign would need to be changed ("Drivel's Threads" it would proudly say!), and deeds signed to put everything back into the proper names, but all was right with the world for Myrken's newly transplanted Drivels!

[Treadwell]

Just after midnight, going into the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, 212.

"Well, Orin?" comes the squeak of wheezy breath from Richard Aengus, fairy king, as he sprawls out in a warm, bubbly bathtub. "It's been a month. I'm getting no younger. Has anyone found me a new queen yet?"

The fairy king's doctor finds himself shuffling on his feet, hands behind his back, which is currently turned to his slightly older half-brother. The doctor wears a floofy white bathrobe, himself, and has a similar one hung on a rack in pudgy arm's reach for the king. His answer?

"No, Richard. Not a one. There simply aren't any pinkwings left out there at all, not in any of the nearby kingdoms."

"I can't be the last! That's. . . that's foolish! Impossible!"

The doctor turns to face the king--sort of. A half-turn, really, and the man's spherical shape doesn't change for it. Out comes a pudgy-fingered hand to poke the exorbitant pudginess that is the king's belly. "It's not, really. There weren't many to begin with, you know, and the other kingdoms have been ruled by whitewings, barring the birth of a new pinkwing there some day, but. . . well, Richard, we all know how likely that is. It's not. Our colors are passed down through our mothers, a fact every schoolboy knows, and--"

"My mother was a whitewing, Orin."

Doctor Barrin frowns, long and hard.

"Explain me that one, hmm, Doctor? Explain to an old man how he's always been the one example, hmm, of how this bit of good, common, sensible know-how of our people ever went wrong, hmm?"

"Well, Richard, it's rather simple. . . ." The doctor clears his throat, the pasty white skin blushing ruddy. "How is it you've gone all of your three centuries and a little longer without ever asking that simple question, hmm?"

"I--well, it's never mattered 'til now, Orin." The tubby fairy squirms in his bath water, wriggling a little lower and scratching one of the many rolls at his belly.

"Oho? Your grandfather, rest his soul, was the man to establish our system of colors, separating everything so neatly, and you've hardly paid proper attention to your own lineage long enough to ask a simple question as to how you, yourself, broke the natural order of fairies?"

At this question, the doctor pushes up his sleeves of his bathrobe, sighing.

"The truth is simple, Richard, though most peculiar. Your father was in the exact same predicament as you are, now, when he wanted children. And he, just like you, had a most peculiar malady about him."

The fairy doctor's right hand plunges into the water, stabbing between the king's thighs, prompting a startled shriek!

"He was born with, ahem, a woman's parts in addition to his own natural set! It merely took finding a proper, errrm, surrogate father for the situation who could be kept quiet, keeping the queen out of everyone's sight for the full six months of pregnancy and attributing the king's crankiness and bloating and odd cravings to the simple gluttony the Aenguses have always been known for!"

Richard lies there in his tub, quivering gelatinously, listening, jowls slack and mouth droopy.

"When you were born with the same extremities as your father/mother the king--"

"What?!" Richard brings a fat finger up to wag furiously at his half-brother's nose. "I've been alive for 307 years, dear brother, and I know good and well, hmm, that I've nothing of the sort! This is lunacy!"

An equally plump digit wags back at the naked king's face. "Will you be quiet, Richard? My father, the king's doctor just as I have been for you, knew something quite simple! Fairies are magical and malleable folk, given enough sorcery behind it all! Your, ahem, extra parts were sealed up and hidden, but rest assured they're still there. The crotchetiness, the swelling, the occasional passing of blood you've had since you were young?"

A snort emphasizes the fairy doctor's point.

"I can quite easily set you to how you were born to be with a little effort."

"Lunacy."

"Truth, Richard."

Quiet falls over the king's bathroom for long, long moments.

"No other pinkwings--not a one?"

"Not on this continent, Richard."

"So if any children of mine are to be properly colored--"

"They won't, Your Majesty, unless you have them yourself. It's as simple as that. Either break your grandfather's sacred law of the colors and accept it, or--"

"Or have you change my body so I can make a baby, myself. Hmph."

"Not change, Richard. I guess the proper word is to correct."

Another long pause. The bubbly heat of the water, piped in from a hot spring in the next cave over, is the sole noise.

"And if you do? Then what?"

"Then we find you a suitable father-to-be who will keep his mouth shut, or we pray to Marta above for a quite unique sort of miracle! Either way, you carry on the lie your father/mother the king so well orchestrated for his six months of bearing you!"

Grumpy frustration writes across Richard's face.

"I'm 'tween a rock and a hard place, Orin."

"Quite. Die childless, or accept changing one of our most precious orders--a corner of our society, really."

The king worms his way to his feet with a water-spritzing flutter of his wings, still half-submerged in the bathtub.

"Do it."

"I beg your pardon, Richard?"

"Do it! If this is the only way I'm to have a babe, an heir to take my throne when I'm dead in another sixty years, then do it!"

"You'll still have to marry someone, and very quickly, Richard. Preferably, you find someone who can be kept constantly ill abed who won't know any better and can be made to believe she's been through her six months and pushed a babe out herself. The good queen, at least, knew the situation quite well and agreed to it all quite willingly. She always swore you were her fat little baby boy. Not every woman would be so understanding."

"Quite true. A hasty marriage before I'm too ill and round-bellied, an, ahem, arrangement as necessary at the right time? Certainly possible."

"I rather doubt anyone besides your physician will be able to tell any difference regardless of how far along you are when you waddle up the church aisle, Richard."

A somber, sad frown crosses the doctor's face.

"Prepare yourself, then. I suppose this will hurt quite a bit."

With that, the entire bathroom gleams white as the doctor's magic warms and fills its interior. So affected by excruciating pain, Richard Aengus splooshes noisily back into the tub, there to lie passed out until the spellcasting passes and his body has over three hundred years of magical interference undone.

[Treadwell]

Through the night of the twenty-seventh, closing on dawn. 212.

Richard Aengus, unconscious as magic undoes all that magic had caused in him as an infant, reopening and awakening parts long ignored, finds himself in a most unusual situation.

The fat, pink fairy finds himself afloat and still undressed, wings flapping furiously, mere inches above the round belly of an elderly, snowy-haired bigling. She wears a purple gown. The fairy lands on that round middle, bouncing in fluttery-winged surprise as someone within gives a gentle kick.

"Oh! Madam! I do humbly beg your pardon! I'm woefully under dressed, even to speak to a bigling! But, erm, how did I--?"

"I am no mere 'bigling,' Richard Aengus of the Hiberan fae."

The woman in question, seated on a floofy, cloudy couch, rubs a hand down her belly, raising a finger to poke the fairy gently in his own stomach.

"I am Marta, goddess of birth and creation. You have, at long last, come to accept something of yourself."

The fairy king blushes a warm red. "Well. . . I've little choice." He thus sinks into sitting on the mother goddess' middle. "I simply must have children who can take the throne!"

"And to that end, you are willing to become very unusual, as your mother was, to carry and birth them yourself?"

"Great Mother, if that is what it must be, then yes! I will!"

Mirthful merriment of laughter rolls forth, setting the goddess' stomach to quivering. "And who would knowingly father your children?"

"I--I don't know. Someone, I suppose!"

"And if someone does not? Then you resign yourself to the monthly cycles and pains a woman must know, until you pass? For, as you are well aware, fae mothers of your stock can very easily carry children well unto their passing."

"Then yes, until then! It must work! It has to! I've no choice!"

At this, Marta frowns, still stroking the fat fairy's pink, flabby gut. "You will know no man in all your years."

"So this is a waste! I'm doing this for nothing? I--Orin--he has to--!"

"He has to do nothing. Sit." A stern command, it forces the fairy king, who'd so briefly wobbled to his feet in frazzled fury, to plump again to his behind. "Believe you that I can do as I please in this regard?"

"Well. . . My lady. . . If I don't know anyone, I don't--"

"Shhhhhh," comes a shushing of breath as that same plump finger strokes that same plump belly again. "It is done."

"Wh--What is? What is done?"

"Richard Aengus of New Hibera, in this, your final century of mortal life, you will know a great change of your existence. You are to birth, after your six months' time, two daughters who will be the start of a line of pink fairies such as to supply leaders for your people for ages to come. However, with this comes submission."

The fairy king's mouth drops open, setting his beard to jiggling.

"You must surely know that a fairy mother devotes her life to her babes and children, for your manner of fairies age one year for every five of a mortal human's. You remember that you were but fifty at the age you took the throne, and you were still a child. Thus, your brother is to serve as acting regent as you learn what it means to nurture, to mother, to care for, to nurse."

"Orin! But--!"

"And until you truly accept these matters, and until you announce the honest and holy truth to your people of your condition, you shall be unable to speak. Now, dear Mother Aengus. . . wake."

Morning of the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, 212. Just after breakfast.

Richard Aengus wakes in what would be the middle of a shriek of his brother's name, if he could make any sound at all. As fate would have it, though, Dr. Barrin sits to his left in a comfy couch. The king lies naked in bed, having been dried from the tub and put straight under the covers.

"Richard?"

Orin! He attempts to squeak shrill and loud, but he finds no sound, no voice. There the king sits, rubbing at his throat for a moment before trying again. Orin!

"You aren't making any sounds, Richard, not a one. You might as well stop trying to do so, hmm? Lie down and rest a moment. You've a lot to adjust to--bodily organs properly fashioned and reopened to the outside world and the like, you know."

But, Orin! flap the king's flabby lips and jowls. Richard, sitting upright, finally tries getting his message across another way: by pat-pat-patting the roly-poly sides of his belly.

"Hungry? I'd expect, given you missed supper and both of your breakfasts. I can have--"

And he's cut off by the king's beard wagging as he shakes his head side to side. Those same hands pat-pat again, then slowly lift up from the man's belly, as if it were spreading or growing. Then, to finish it all, two fat fingers go up in a "V."

"Two children?"

Furious nodding.

"I don't see how. I certainly didn't father any while you were asleep!"

A stern frown, and then the naked king hefts himself to his feet, scurrying nude across his bedroom floor to retrieve a tiny quill, some ink, and paper. He writes a single word, at first. Marta. This is shown with a flap-flap of the sheet, and then, he jerks it back to write more.

I'm pregnant. Two daughters. I can't talk 'til I tell all of New Hibera the truth.

The doctor studies this hasty scrawling.

"So, you're not going to hurry and marry someone and pretend she's the one, hmm?"

No, no, no shakes the king's head again.

"And the children? How are you to raise them and be the king?"

My little secret. He writes. You will speak for me. Message to read to all of New Hibera, outside. Lunch time.

Orin Barrin smiles and nods. "Very well."

Noon of the twenty-seventh.

Richard Aengus stands outside on his balcony, wearing a most unusual outfit for him: his usual silver crown is on his head, but he wears a woman's pink, long, full-bodied maternity gown with floofy pink slippers. One hand is behind his back and one rests on the upper curve of his stomach, near his flabby old breasts. All of the fairies of New Hibera are gathered around the palace towers, in the air, standing on other balconies, and some even on the ground below.

Doctor Orin Barrin stands beside his half-brother, wearing his normal white, physician's robe with its brilliant red sash around the belly. He holds in his hand a short speech written by Richard and handed to him moments earlier, and now, he reads.

"Dear fairies of New Hibera, my people, my children! My physician and brother speaks for me this fine day, as I am unable to do so until the truth of an especially wonderful event is out, as dictated to me by Marta, mother goddess of birth and life! While my efforts to find a new, beloved wife have been fruitless, I have had the reality of my life revealed to me in that I was born with the ability to bear and carry children of my own, something that has been hidden from me for all of my years."

The doctor pauses in the reading. Quiet gasps and murmurs fall through the crowd, but, as respect and honor demand, all fall silent. The king stands there, rubbing gently still at his corpulent stomach.

"This has been set to rights during the night, and after this occurred, I was blessed. Blessed! Marta, Herself, called me to her as I slept. I now carry two daughters just conceived in this great belly that so hides its tiny womb, two daughters who will inherit my throne and begin a new and uncountable lineage of pink fairies who will rule New Hibera lovingly and generously."

Another pause, this time to breathe, and the doctor resumes.

"However, all mothers assembled here, and many fathers, know that our duties as mothers are not to be discounted or forgotten. I cannot actively rule and be a suitable," Orin stops here, reading ahead quickly in confusion. "I cannot actively rule and be a suitable mother and guardian for my infants, who as such will crawl for years, suck at nurturing breasts for longer, and need to be taught and raised properly. A lesser man would assign all of this to a nursemaid and forget his children. I will do none of the sort."

Beady eyes squintily study the rest of the document behind the doctor's glasses. Dr. Barrin looks over to his brother, tapping his shoulder and wagging a finger at a certain line of text. Richard nods once and returns his attention to his crowd and his middle.

"This will require me to devote much of my remaining years to the care of my daughters, especially much of the next twenty years as they go from babies to toddlers to the youngest of children. My dear, beloved brother and doctor, Orin Barrin, shall serve as Regent in my stead, to inherit the fullness of the kingdom should I see fit and necessary to do so.

"Thus, to my good people and children, I love you all, and I am here to support you still. However, I would do us all a dear and wrong disservice to neglect these new familial--no, maternal--duties put upon me by the beloved wife of our Tubbius whom we so honor and love. Praise Tubbius! Praise Marta!"

With that, the king feels his throat warm briefly. He gives a jolly grin and a sudden and merry hoot of laughter, and then he hazards toddling forward a couple of steps, bringing both hands out to caress under his stomach. "Thank you, dear Regent and Doctor! Good people of New Hibera! Look here, hee hee, look here upon your future rulers!"

Merry laughter breaks and rolls forth over the crowd at the king's gesture. Confusion has given way easily to acceptance; all of the mothers in the audience gathered, though puzzled at first, have certainly been won over (especially those with similarly grown middles who are mothers-to-be!), and the fathers simply smile, chortle, and side with their wives about the king's most unusual condition.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth month, closing on lunch. 212.

"Richard?"

"Hmmmm? Yes, Orin?"

"It's been two days since your announcement. I've studied you with my spells, and you are indeed pregnant with two children. But you're nowhere close to showing it. Why do you persist in wearing that?" Fat fingers belonging to New Hibera's current Regent wiggle at the king's odd choice of attire: the pink, light, maternity gown with its loosely tied sash around the belly and its matching, fluffy, pink slippers at his feet.

"Come now, Orin. You well know it's been custom for ages and ages for a mother-to-be, once she knows she's in the family way for certain, hee hee, to dress solely in such until the date her babes are delivered."

"Well, yes!" Hand lowers, flopping onto the physician's rotund belly and playing with one of the rolls there. "But Richard! You're the king!"

A waggle of a finger that touches the doctor's lips comes with a "Shhhh!" Then, standing there on his tiptoes in addressing his slightly taller sibling, "I'm also practically half a woman, am I not? I have been since I was born, according to you--and to your father's medical records you've shown me about my delivery--and with our traditions, that means I have certain obligations!" Thus does the king ease off his tiptoes, wincing as his fat, flat feet settle back to the floor.

"Richard, what if we're visited by a dignitary or noble from another kingdom? What if you're called to carry on business with the biglings out there?" He flaps a hand upward. "You're the one who signed that treaty with them years ago, so if they have any concerns about it, by all rights, since you're still alive and completely well and healthy, you would be the one to answer them!"

A merry chuckling shakes the jelly-bellied pink fairy, who begins lovingly rubbing the sides of his belly.

"Orin, when is the last time we ever had a visitor to New Hibera at all, and when is the last time we ever had to deal with the Myrken biglings?"

"We. . . haven't."

"Right! So I think it's quite safe for me to indulge and accept wholeheartedly this new portion of my existence! Hmm? Rest assured that you, my dear brother and acting replacement on the throne, will have a very easy and simple next twenty years or more ruling!" The king bursts into giggly laughter again, adding, "How is it you think I got so fat, dear boy? It's the perfect opportunity to flop 'round on your behind and do so very little!"

"And about that?" The doctor reaches out to poke the king in his stomach, a flabby finger sinking far into the rolls. "You'll be eating for three, Richard. You're likely just to plump right out even more. Every fairy mother does, quite a bit. It was just more noticeable before we all took to following Tubbius and rounded out so plump and well!"

"Splendid! Deeeelightful! In fact, dear brother, we're about to miss first lunch, and I certainly don't care to do that! Onward, ho ho, to the dining room!"

Thus Richard Aengus toddles past with a flittery-flappity of his wings, hands resting atop his great belly as a faint smile comes to his face. The doors to his room are immediately held wide, with guards standing silently to either side. Hiberan fairy customs call for mothers, especially pregnant mothers, to be treated with as much respect as royalty or gods, with every whim met and every craving for foods fulfilled. No questions are asked, no demands unmet, and no desires unfilled.

In short, Richard Aengus is going to be treated not just as the king, venerated and respected but subject to questioning: for the rest of his days, he is going to be treated as the queen mother, the most vaunted and beloved position in all of New Hibera, above scrutiny and the basest hints of wrongdoing.

The doctor realizes this at the same time as he watches Richard wobble past. He gives a sigh, shakes his head, and mumbles, as the king leaves the room, "Good, merciful Marta and Tubbius! Richard, you are certainly going to be quite the pampered mommy!"

[Treadwell]

Early morning of the twenty-sixth day of the first month, 213.

The Church of Tubbius is mildly abuzz--at least in the pig lot a short distance from the back of it.

"Looks like Lord Treadwell's old sow's about to have her newest litter."

"That's hardly news! Pinky stays pregnant just about all the time. It seems she's always about to push out more fat little piggies."

"Well, she is allowed free run of the place. 'All the food and slop you can give her, and no watchful eyes except to make sure she's all right!' Tready said."

"You forgot an 'Mmph mmph' in there, bless him!"

"Yes, bless him! Do we go find him and let him know?"

"Boys, boys! Our Holy Lord Tubbius is at home with his mortal wife, asleep, or he's snoring at his toy shop, or he's somewhere else doing the same! I should think we're old enough to handle a mother pig coming close on her time that she's due."

"Especially you, good Mister Wilde! We've heard your story 'bout how old y'are!"

"Shush, now, Jack. I can manage a sow just as good as any of the rest of you."

"Or maybe you can't! It's too cold, James, and you're not going out in it!"

"But Doctor Jacobson--!"

"No 'but!' Jack, you're a bit younger, and if there's a man at this church who knows about delivering babies, I'm it! So Jack Alldale, you and me, we're going out to take care of Pinky. I ain't having Tubbius's favorite mommy piggie put in danger because we're sitting here babbling about who has the right to help her have her youngins!"

And outside, that favorite mommy piggie in question gives a shrill, wheezy squeal. Hurry! Hurry! She calls!

[Treadwell]

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

"Anyone seen Coun'lor Tready today?"

"No, Jack. I merely found a note on his desk upstairs that we was feeling rather ill this week and would need plenty of time to himself with no visitors."

"Well, 'ave ye been by his house to check on him or the missus or their youngins?"

"'No visitors,' dear boy, means just that. He will be well."

"Well, it's a shame we can't tell him we got Pinky delivered of twelve lil' piggies."

"Do remember that he is Porcus, the mother to all pigs, dear Jack. He knows quite well, even if he isn't here."

"That's still odd, James--that whole thing o' Tready bein' a god with all these diff'rent bodies an' such. It makes me won'er if he goes 'round feelin' it when the sows go a-givin' birth or. . . or. . . or a-matin', for that matter!"

"Shush, Jack! That's not for any of us to know or ask. It would be horribly rude! And look! Out the window, here! Just about every hour, sir, and his dear Pinky's lying there nursing yet again. Typical behavior, I'm told."

"Do y'think any of 'em are goin' to end up on the dinner table, or are these goin' to be kept around to make more youngins?"

"That, Jack, is for our dear Tubbius to decide--when he returns from his illness, of course!"

"Poor Tready! Prob'ly lyin' abed somewhere a-moanin' and achin'!"

"Quite likely, dear boy. Quite likely."

[Treadwell]

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

"Ain't ya a good piggie, ain't ya? Hmmmm?"

The ever-plumping Jack Alldale, town crier of Myrken Wood, grins wide and merry as he reaches out a pudgy hand to scritch-scratch under Pinky's chin. She lies on her side on a cart attached to the back of a carriage, her piglets all snuggled in around her, sucking and grunting.

"Got a letter from Coun'lor Tready 'is mornin', Doctor. He says t'bring Pinky and her babies to his toy shop and set 'em up in the pen out back for 'im. Says he wants to watch 'em himself for now, but he can't get out yet to come get 'em."

"Well! He has enough servants at home to call one or two out to manage them, I suppose. And, for that matter, you already have them piled up. Out we go, then!"

Pinky gives an affirmative grunt as one of her children smushes against a teat impatiently and milk begins flowing a little harder.

"Looks like she's ready t'go herself! Well, James and I'll be back soon 'nough!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the sixteenth day of the second month, 213.

"Have y'seen Tready lately, James?" comes an inquisitive wheeze from Jack Alldale, currently at work helping clean up some of the muddy, chilly, walled-in wallow behind the toy shop. James Wilde, Tready's right-hand Tubbian in Myrken Wood, merely shakes his head and stands there scratching his belly. Pinky stands at her trough at the side wall, busily munching-chomping-gobbling at its fetid contents, all while one of her piglets has fought his way between her back legs, nibbling and nipping at her teats for a milky treat.

"I ain't seen him either, James--not today, at least. I reckon he's at home asleep, 'cause we'd hear him snoring or puttering around inside if he was here." Jack pauses in his huffy labor to stop and stare at Pinky. A fat-fingered hand comes down to stroke and scratch her neck as her many other babies worm and wiggle about his feet, grunting and fighting for space.

"Funny."

"What is it, Jack?"

"These piggies ain't got to worry about food none. She's eatin' like a pig--"

"Well, she is one, dear boy."

"You know what I mean! Her belly's gettin' right full, but the stuff in that trough ain't getting any less!"

"I would say that Tubbius, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to bless her trough. It allows her to feast and fatten as she will, so that she's healthy enough to keep her babies very well fed."

"Still, James, it's funny seein' it. But, I reckon she's happy, but she needs t'stop and let her little ones have somethin' to eat, sometimes!"

Pinky picks up her head, slathered in goopy delight, and gives Jack a merry squeeeee! As if she understands his words, she gives her great head a slop-splattering shake and toddles over to the side wall, where her bloated body has already worn a groove into the mud, and flops down heftily to her side. Piglets rush for their lunch, wiggling-squirming into their places at her belly.

"Y'know, James, I think she's smarter than she looks. I think she's a lot smarter! She's 'bout near human!"

"Pigs are rather intelligent, yes, and she is the prized pet of a god in flesh. I would think he's gifted her quite well in many, many ways, dear boy."

"So if Tready loves her so much, why ain't he here takin' care of her right this minute?"

"Oh, I'm sure he has a very good reason."

"Like lunch?"

"Very much so! Let's go back to the church, clean up, and join the others, hmm?"

[Treadwell]

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

It's an especially cool morning in New Hibera, except in the bathroom of Richard Aengus. The portly fairy ruler stands, disrobed, next to a wonderfully warm, gently bubbly bathtub heated by a nearby fireplace. He shivers a little, though, quivering all about as the icy touch of a measuring rope circles his expansive middle.

"Oooooooh! Will you stop jiggling so much, Richard!"

"Orin, I can't help it! I'm naked, and I'm cold, and I'm feeling sick to my tummy, and I just want to get in my bathtub, and you're holding me up out here with these abominable measurements!"

The rope is tugged free and tossed aside to hang on a coatrack nearby. "Then get in the water. I'm still going to sit here and talk, though."

"Fine!"

Thus does the ample-bodied mother-to-be ease forward, wincing while stepping gingerly into the almost too toasty water.

"Slowly, Richard, slowly. This is the first we've had the water heated this warm in a while, you know, and you've, ahem, very sensitive parts down there, now."

"Oho! I think I've quite figured that out by now, dear brother!" Richard eases slowly into the tub with a sigh, resting hands on belly as he settles.

"Now, what I have come in here to confirm, and then I'm leaving you to your bath, is that you're nearing your third month. This is about when our dear mothers start to show, Richard, as they round out more and their babies start growing a little faster."

A pause from the doctor.

"Of course, most of our dear mothers aren't your size, and, while you're already certainly rounder about the middle, I sincerely doubt it's currently any matter of the babies growing bigger just yet!"

"Oooooh, just tell me I'm eating too much, and let me have my time in this good, warm tub!"

"Fine, Richard. You're eating too much, and doing too little, and, while that quite pleases Tubbius and Marta, it's hardly doing your tailors any favors!"

[Treadwell]

The early morning hours of the thirteenth day of the fourth month, 213.

Desperation can make many act recklessly, trying absurd options simply because no others remain. This reasoning applies to people, to animals, and even to gods.

The Glutton lives in isolation from any and all others of His kind, floating alone in his fetid lake of sludge and mush and ale save for two fat-bellied, leech-headed infants eternally growing by drawing blood and life at his saggy, flabby breasts. Visitors are nearly nonexistent, usually limited to the one being who can adoringly put up with the half-slug monstrosity, His son, Libri the Scholar, a plump and gray-bearded fellow in a flowing black robe.

No one else ever interrupts the Glutton's unending meal--no mortals wandering across planes, no beasts slipping through portals to unknown realms, and no other gods, including the Creator, by whose decree the Glutton is given an irrevocable license to do as He will that forces others to act in the slug's best interests, to keep Him happy and fed. Unending voracity is dangerous; the Glutton, if set free of his realm upon other lands of other gods, would surely be disastrous.

This night, focused intently on feasting as always, the Glutton is visited by not one but by two of his divine brethren.

One is haggard, withered, and hoary-white from age, garbed in a burlap apron and a simple tunic and trousers, fingers stiff and knotted. The other is alike in appearance, but slightly different: just as old, if not even more ancient, though possessing of a notable paunch, he wears a white cook's apron and is clearly repulsed by the slime and slush of the lake on which the two newcomers walk.

They are, simply, the Cook and the Toymaker. It is the Cook who speaks for them, voice gravelly and wavering.

"Glutton! Foul slug of endless appetite and mouths! You grow fat and fetid, alone, pampered by our Father the Creator, while we are forbidden to do aught but look upon your bloated sack in envy and disgust! We have come here to correct this gross mistreatment!"

"You have been granted domain over other realms as other gods, something that few of our kind have ever been given." The Toymaker pipes. "You feed and thrive on the attention of mortals, and you alone control their procreation! Their births are tied to their parents' desires, and as their mothers grow fat in the belly with children, they, too, know of your base, instinctual hunger!"

Prattling. Noise. Truth, but still prattling and noise. The Glutton lives His head from the tasty filth and slop that never ends, His beard stringily soaked and twisted. No words are said, but beady eyes glare from their doughy-socketed depths.

"You do this while we starve! No mortals honor us, and we wither away to naught!" The Cook shrieks. "And you control the futures of two of our kind through those fat, hideous babies sucking blood from your chest, being indoctrinated, being fed your greediness and sloth and pride! They give you life through their growth, expanding, swelling, bloating as their divine, infant magicks nourish you and your elderly divinity them!"

There is a pause in the bombastic rhetoric.

"The Toymaker and I will have them. We will raise them as we see fit, and they will rejuvenate us, and we will know our former health and glory. We will have them now."

Two tottering, toddling elders thus shuffle forward in a frenzy, their legs free of the lake of ale as they painfully scurry forth on its surface. The Toymaker, who is not as healthy as the Cook but is a good bit lighter on his feet by virtue of not having a bobbling belly, reaches the Glutton first. An ancient, knotted hand comes out, laying bony fingers around a plump thigh of one of the two babes clamped into the Glutton's breast and drawing blood with their leeches' heads. Another hand comes next--the Cook's--touching on back and belly of the other child.

The Glutton is known for many qualities: His girth, His age, His stench, His voracity. He is also known for His noise, sounds usually restricted to gnashing of teeth and burbling of belly and swooshing of slug's tail below in the lake.

Now, the Glutton roars, his cry shaking ripples through the lake's boglike consistency. Flabby, pudgy arms jolt forward from where his hands rest on his gelatinous middle; one hand tightens around the Toymaker's throat, squeezing into a crushing grip in fury, and the other clamps onto the Cook's meaty shoulder.

Both force the weakened would-be thieves down, holding them below the reeking surface of the slime and ale only long enough for tongues to divert from their places in his middle, latching onto limbs and slathering and slurping over soaked cloth and wrinkled flesh. Sword-like teeth do the rest, stabbing into the bodies and limbs of the offenders like sharpened fork tines into meat on a plate.

The Glutton feeds.

And then the Glutton sleeps, His great body taking in the remaining magical energies that made up Cook and Toymaker and reshaping them. Per the Creator's design, any god that perishes at the hands of another is to be replaced by the killer; the numbers of divinities must remain constant. Thus, the Glutton, kept isolated for that very reason--to prevent Him from ultimately devouring all that is and becoming a new Creator--now indulges in gaining two more facets to his bloated, fattened figure.

As with the Mother, the Sow, and the Harvest before them, so does the Glutton take on two more sets of responsibilities. . . all from desperation.

[Treadwell]

Morning of the third day of the fifth month, A. R. 212.

Richard Aengus lies in his bed, even so near to lunch time, wearing what has become his usual pink nightgown, giggling and happily stroking his ever-growing belly while he waits on his food to be delivered from the kitchen.

"Orin! They--they're moving again, hee hee, all fluttering about!"

The doctor snorts and turns away from his brother's wardrobe, so full of maternity dresses and garments meant to make nursing the babies when they're born much easier. Pudgy fingers close the door to it, and a rounded bottom sinks into a chair by the bed.

"They ought to, Richard. You're four months and a week or so along of your six. In these last two months, you'll find they're going to be fluttering and wiggling quite a bit, and you'll be swelling right out with babies and belly. It's good that all of your clothing was meant to be loose and free anyway, you fat fae!"

"Well, that's good! I--!"

"And you'll need to get up and waddle about a little more than you do. Your feet and such will be swelling a bit, more than they do usually, and we both know your wings can barely take you aloft for more than a moment, now. A morning walk about the library, perhaps, will do you well."

"The library?" Richard frowns briefly, sulking at the mention of walking. "At least it's on the way to the dining room."

"And the lounge beside it. You'll want a good nap after, I'm certain. Expect to be rather tired and. . . well, saggy between now and the end."

"Hmph! Orin, look at me!" Fat hands clap and pat-pat both sides of the growing womb and tummy. "I sag enough as it is!"

[Treadwell]

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

There is a very minor concern, though a very real concern, of a mortal body being the human representation of the Glutton in all his forms. Knowledge and desire keep Aloisius Treadwell merry and active and aware--and downright tuckered out.

As he plods busily about his toy shop, experimenting with a new clockwork design for, of course, a clock large enough for even his fat fingers to set gears in place and gently test the turning of cogs, his plump nose wriggles and sniffs about, indulging in the wonderful aromas of a delightfully varied meal cooking in his kitchen.

For most folks, this would be the end of their limited experiences; however, for Tready, toddling about in his brown coveralls and belt of toymaking tools, there is awareness of many other things. His roles as Marta and Porcus, mother goddesses of very different sorts, keep a slow, dull, rhythmic, invisible thumping in his bosom and belly with a phantom feeling of the same in his lower regions as children human and porcine grow inside their mothers throughout Myrken Wood and Amasynia. He keeps a similar sense about him of a slight itchiness just barely under the skin all over as he feels plants growing around the continent and seeds gradually working their ways toward full bloom and life, due to his state as Tubbius. New recipes and flavors to try tick and zip happily through his head, setting his belly to its eternal burbling, and fingers itch and fidget with the need to create, to sew, to cut, to whittle at some new pleasure for a child--these last two sensations being the newest additions, brought on by the Glutton's devouring of his two colleague-siblings the Cook and the Toymaker.

Behind it all, though, is The Hunger--the Glutton's sole contribution, an endless voracity and rumbliness of stomach that can never be sated or settled or even remotely appeased. The roaring of quivering, jelly tummy is both taskmaster and lover, urging Aloisius to do one thing above all else, to pay attention to first before babies or piglets or pots of food or childish delights. That one thing is to eat, to stuff himself until bloated and swollen and nearly delirious with sleep and blobby sloth.

So it is that, as his lunch continues cooking along in his kitchen, Treadwell finally wriggles out of his belt of tools, sets the clock in progress down on a table, and plumps heftily into one of his fireside rocking chairs. Hands immediately fall to rest on his bulgy, baggy belly, the center of his being and focus of all of his magical, divine powers, and Aloisius gently smiles and closes his eyes.

For a man who seems to do so little, he is really and truly doing much, much more than he could ever say.

[Treadwell]

Evening of the fifth day of the sixth month, 213.

"Bed rest, Richard, and lots of it. A mother your age hasn't been seen in some time, and never one carrying two babies at once."

Orin Barrin, current ruler of New Hibera, half-brother to its proper king, uncle to two growing royal infants, and doctor to their mother, stands by the bedside of a bare-bellied Richard Aengus.

Richard hasn't left his room much this past month, despite his doctor's orders to be a bit more active. Now, the mother-to-be has put on weight and more weight, swelling quite a lot quite quickly. Hands rest atop a tummy gently bumping and wriggling.

"But you told me to be more active!"

"And you haven't done much of that at all this last month, have you, hmm? Now, you're paying for it, fattening up more than you ought and being a tubby little ball of a mommy. Bad Richard!" The doctor's own pudgy pointer jabs into the king's belly, being rejected with a bop from one of his nieces.

"At least you'll be more than ready to nurse them properly. Three weeks, Richard, almost to the day. Should you enter labor even the slightest bit early, I will be here, and we'll have those babies out. Otherwise, well, three weeks. Then, you take on the joys and habits of proper motherhood for the rest of your days, dear fellow!"

"Now," the doctor frowns, "I've a most important visit to make with my healers and some guards. Our good lord Treadwell was attacked in the woods, it seems; he's laid up in the hospital in Myrken Wood. We're going to go in there, whether they want us or not, to help him as best as we can. You, dear mother, are staying here lying on your fat little behind and enjoying those little nieces of mine wiggling about, swimming in your womb. Is that clear?"

Richard nods a few times, hands resting and rubbing that ballooned sphere of a belly.

"You're sure I can't go, Orin?"

"I'm quite sure! Fancy the biglings seeing you about in such a state! It would be ludicrous!"

[Treadwell]

Morning of the thirteenth day of the sixth month, 213.

Three weeks.

And that was a week and a day ago.

And now? A bare-stomached Richard Aengus lies in his bed, snoring soundly, his hands resting atop his belly, only to be awoken by a patting hand to his shoulder and his brother's command of, "Wake up, Richard, and let's get you dressed. You've unexpected company here to visit."

"Company?" comes a little winded and grumpy.

"Yes, company. Now, caaaaareful, up! Up!" An arm is offered around the extra-portly ruler's back to help him up from the bed. "You may go use the bathroom, of course, and freshen yourself up a bit while I get out your clothes--and, yes, of course they will be your usual motherhood dresses you've taken to wearing. I think you look quite silly in them, but, well, we do have our customs for mothers, hmm? You basically forfeited your manhood when we set your body to rights and Marta blessed you with twin daughters."

"We do! And I did!" Richard grunts as he gets to his feet, a hand on his lower back and the other on his middle.

"So, as you'll be wearing them 'til your dying day, whenever that might be, I'll fetch you one."

"Thank you, Orin."

Thus, as Richard toddles away to take care of his morning affairs, the doctor searches out a lavender maternity gown with its matching undergarments from his brother's wardrobe, spreading them out on the bed. Out comes the naked king turned queen-mommy-to-be, his pajama trousers left behind in the bathroom, and into the undergarments and dress he wiggles quite comfortably.

"Now, off to your rocker, here, and I'll help you up out of it when they leave."

"Orin? Who's coming?"

"A pregnant schoolmarm and her young children."

"Oooooooh!"

Therefore, with Richard settled and given a bit of a drink and a light snack from a side cabinet, the doctor leaves to fetch the visitors: a middle-aged mother-to-be, right plump herself, wearing a blue dress similar to the one Richard wears at the moment, and six children, all six girls, obviously stairstepped in ages by pairs.

"Well, madam! Three sets of twins, hee hee, and another babe on the way?"

"Indeed, Queen Mother."

"Ooooooh, 'Richard' will do! What brings you by for the visit?"

The schoolmarm manages a very slight curtsey before, as Richard waves a pudgy hand, sinking into place in a cushiony chair. Children flutter up onto the bed beside them, their wings abuzz.

"I was teaching my class about babies and mothers, and my children found my notes I'd written, and they knew of your state from your announcement. . . ." She blushes, her blue-tinted cheeks turning a faint purple. "And they saw my state, and they wondered if they could meet you. I never thought it would be permitted! The doctor said you were meant to be in bed these last weeks, so if we need to go--"

"No, no, no, madam! I can certainly sit here and entertain a guest. . ." a sharp bump within sets Richard to rubbing his side "for a few moments, I think?" Then, turning his head to grin at the youngsters, "Well, fly over here, children! You're more than welcome to rub my tum-tum and feel my little daughters bumping about!"

The invitation sets six faces to grinning happily and bodies to glowing brightly. Over their little wings flap, and a dozen hands take to rubbing and stroking the immense belly, with room for maybe a couple more.

One tiny voice, though, pipes up the question. "Mommy says you're both a boy and a girl. . . . Where did you get babies from, Queen Mommy?"

The mother's blush only grows as she stammers and starts.

Richard, though, can't help a jelly-bellied hoo-hawing of laughter that shakes his stomach and takes his breath. Once recovered, he chuckles and grins. "All babies are blessings from Marta, the Great Mother, little one--even your mommy's over there in her! That's how!"

And then, an observation, from the girl to her left. "Boys don't wear dresses."

This only prompts another happy chortle. "But like your mommy said, hee hee, I am both boy and girl, and rules say that girls do!" A fat finger waggles at the child's nose. "In fact, when you grow up and have a baby fairy in your tummy, you'll be wearing a gown like mine and like hers, too!"

A cheerful burbling of laughter from the fairy girl poked at.

And then, the other question, from one of the two youngest! "How do you go to the bathroooooom?"

"Quite well, thank you, hee hee! I sit down, just like any other mommy and girl. It's better that way."

"Queen Mother!"

"'Richard,' lovey."

"Richard. . . we're taking so much of your time already. . . ."

"It's quite fine, madam!" Then, back to the children, with a merry, jolly grin, "What else would you care to know?"

Puzzlement spreads over tiny faces, faces aged from fifteen years to twenty-five, but looking like human children of three to five years old. And then, with a little burst of light from her body, "When do you have your babies? Mommy has hers next month! Daddy says so!"

Another whump of a tiny foot takes the monarch's breath again, leaving him wheezing. "A week and six days!" comes the gasp of breath. "Or thereabouts!" Another giggle as he rubs his belly along with the mass of tiny hands. "I'll show them off to all the people when they're ready."

Gleeful tee-hees of laughter and happiness ripple through the children as a wave, infectious and pleasing, setting the Queen Mother to joining them in their joy. Soon, though, as laughter begins to ease away?

"Thank you, Queen Mother, for your time. We won't keep you from taking your next meal." Richard's multiple meals in a day, nearly doubled in the last three months, are certainly well-known in New Hibera. "Come, children! We must away home!"

Thus, after six fairy children cover the fairy ruler's face in feathery kisses and offer gentle hugs around what flabbiness they can reach, the seven visitors file out of the room, leaving doctor and patient alone again.

"Well done, Richard, ho ho! 'It's better that way?' You kept it all about as simple as could be!"

"Of course I did, Orin! They. . . well. I might be the only person like me they'll ever meet. They don't need to know everything! Now. . . ."

"Yes, Richard?"

"I'm starving, and so are the babies! Help get us all out of this rocker, and please!"

[Treadwell]

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

"Orrrriiiiiiin!"

"Richard!" peeps the elderly doctor from the Queen Mother's bedroom, adjacent to the bathroom. "What is it? You--you're not going into labor, are you? It's early yet, by almost a week!"

"N-n-no. . . I don't think. My--my tummy just lit up! Come see, and better still, come explain!"

Into the bathroom the doctor waddles, peering down at the tub in the tub. Richard lies on his back in his bathtub, his greatly grown belly exposed from the warm, bubbly water and glowing more than its usual, as two warm balls of light radiate from within his middle.

"Come explain. Well, Richard, it's quite simple, really. Your babies have just had their glow sacks light up for the first time, ever. It signals that, in around a week or so, they'll be ready for the outside world."

"Ooooooooo! It--it tickles, Orin!" A giggle can't be resisted. "It's like it's rippling about in my tummy."

"It is, in a manner of speaking. You're absorbing it permanently, Richard; your body will soak up all of the glowing that your babies do between now and their delivery: the interior of your womb, the exterior of your belly, and, well--." The doctor frowns and waggles a hand between Richard's thighs. "Down there."

"What causes it?"

"Well, depending on whom you ask, dear girl," now, the doctor's turn to giggle, his fingers drumming on his round gut, "it is called 'mother's light' or 'baby's light.' It's all the same business. They will glow all the time from now until they die, as we do as adults, but as long as they are within you, your daughters will gleam brightest--and leave a stronger residual stain, as it is, whenever Mommy feeds them and during Mommy's, err. . . shall we say 'maternal exertions?'"

"Whatever do you mean, Orin?" Richard chuckles, rubbing the newly illuminated spots at his belly, slowly glowing as the daughters within roll lazily about and bump against the surface.

"Labor, Richard. Delivery. Whenever you start feeling contractions and, eventually, the urge to push, those babies will be glowing much, much brighter than normal."

"Did, umm, my mother experience such?"

"The king? Of course. It's why the queen was never allowed to go about undressed--the story was that you were delivered prematurely, before the baby's light occurred--and why the king was never allowed to do the same. It would have been horribly obvious just who the mommy really was in that marriage, hmm?"

"Ahhhh. And Lora and Lara will glow brightest whenever I am in labor or whenever I feed them, you say?"

"Yes."

"And I am on bed rest with all our kitchen staff at my disposal."

"Yeeeeesssssss."

Richard grins immense and merry.

"Orin, has there ever been a mother permanently and completely soaked all around in baby's light?"

"There hasn't, yet, but why do I have the feeling that you're about to try to change all that, dear girl? Now, bathe as you like, and eat all you will, but be ready this afternoon. Your midwife, who's just recently had a baby of her own, has about a week to teach you how to nurse properly."

Afternoon of the twenty-first of the sixth month, 213.

Richard stands in one of his nightgowns in his bedroom, its upper buttons undone to reveal his swollen breasts. As merrily threatened earlier, he has eaten almost nonstop since his discovery this morning; his belly is swollen and warmly aglow on both sides, the lights nearly meeting at his protruding belly button.

To his right, a portly, white-winged, white-gleaming midwife, cradling her own plump infant and offering him. "You hold him like this, Your Majesty, just as I am--very carefully, tucked into your pudgy little arms, his mouth held gently toward your nipple. Nudge him sloooowly close, and he'll take care of the rest."

"You're quite sure?"

"Quite sure. I've been doing this for all of three weeks! And oh! You'll need a little blanket here--" softly resting a towel over the rotund mother-to-be's shoulder--"for when he's done and needs burping. Babies get a little messy."

"He's not doing anything y--oh! Th-there we go. . . ." After a moment of standing there, lightly rocking on fat feet, Richard can't help a chuckle. "It's this easy? This is all?"

"Well, you have to watch him so he doesn't spit up all over you--that's what the cloth's for--but soon enough, he'll be tugging and sucking about in time with your heartbeat. It's how they bond."

"Oh! Then, umm, shouldn't I give him back?" Richard gives in a hoarse shush of a whisper, fearful.

"Come now, Queen Mother. It won't hurt to let him sample one other woman's milk for a sup! And if you ask me, you're doing quite fine with it all."