Undertaker33
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Growing Soft 11 (SFW Edit)
🕑 Added 2020-02-22 00:07:37 +0000 UTCMiia’s hand was trapped. Even now, she couldn’t see the web, but she’d grown familiar with it over the years. It was heavier than her sweater, even still a bit sticky and fresh.
Amber eyes glared into six crimson ones. Across the table, Rachnera held her hand up, cradling unseen strings.
“Let me go,” Miia whispered roughly.
Rachnera’s tone was soft, almost pleading. “Miia…”
“Let. Me. Go.”
The fire was rising in her belly, anger twisting round and round. A great movement of scales and flesh as her long, long tail tightened.
“Miia, they’re not going t-”
Miia’s eyes darkened, looking at the empty wheelchair next to her, then up to the fairies now twirling round and round a giggling Mero, who was a lifting second tankard and gulping it down. “They cheated.”
“They’re fae! Their whole history is cheating mortals, it’s what they do!”
Cerea coughed. “Umm, e-excuse me… what’s happening?” she asked.
“Your mistress is intending to join Mero. Voluntarily.”
“I know what I’m doing!”
“I don’t think you do! She drank the stuff from their world tree, she’s not even really conscious right now! Look at her!”
Miia did. The Mermaid princess was being cheered on as she lifted a sausage to her mouth with her bare hands, wolfing it down. But what caught her, what made her fury bubble, was seeing the fairy who’d tricked her being praised as she danced in the center to a resounding cheer.
“She’ll come to when they hand her the bill, it’s no-”
Miia turned to her constrained hand, feeling the lamia bracelet held tight by the web. She clasped her hand around the cold glass, irately tugging on it.
“Miia! Hey!” Rachnera twisted her hand. The pressure on Miia’s arm increased, pinching her biceps. She could see the web now.
“When did you even put this up?!” she demanded.
Rachnera pursed her lips. “I figured you’d make a mistake and I’d need to stop you. Which is what I’m doing, right now. What are you even going to do?”
Miia glared. “You said they’d keep her till close, didn’t you? I can make them close early.”
“And how are you gonna do that?!”
“Why are they celebrating so much?”
The feuding girls halted, looking over at Cerea and then to the center. The dancers had seemed to multiply, dancing round and round their cherry blossom tree to the cheers of the onlookers. A growing swell of music was coming from somewhere, and it took Miia a moment to realize it was the fairies themselves. Most were humming some bright tune, but several girls were singing in some language she couldn’t understand.
The members of the table, even with mouths full, began singing drunkenly with them. Swaying from side to side on their stool, shouting in a foreign tongue. Several alraune descended from the tree wearing a multitude of bright colored leaves as their dresses, joining a darker colored server in pouring more drinks.
Fairies were rushing back and forth, pulling food out of what seemed like their own glittering cyclone. The circular table cheered. The dancing slowed, and most of the sprites vanished up into the dark. Those that remained glittered spectacularly in the moonlight.
“What the hell was that…?” Rachnera asked.
“Did they… change out? A new shift? You’re the expert.” Cerea suggested.
“It’s not like I’ve studied them! I just know what Lala’s told me. You live with her too, I don’t… hey!”
She looked back at Miia as the scarlet lamia’s tail tightened around the web. She yanked on it hard, pulling Rachnera into the table and knocking it into her tummy.
Miia drank from her glass of water and a joyous cheer went up from the center. Rachnera scowled at her as she placed it back on the table. “Trust me?” Miia asked, rising up from her seat.
Rachnera folded her arms over her waist. “I don’t really have a choice anymore,” she rumbled. Her voice took on a sharper edge. “Remember this, alright? Fairies can’t lie. At all. And they have to do what you tell them, it’s some hostess thing. Don’t give them anything other than your time for their food. Got it? And don’t tell Lala I told you that, cause she’ll get mad if you try to use it on her!”
“Lala is a fairy??” Cerea balked.
“… She’s the Dullahan! Where have you been?!?”
Miia smirked. She took her folded up sweater and tossed it to Cerea as a blue-haired fairy, which Miia recognized as the one who had placed the water on their table in the first place, arrived. “I knew it!” the little woman exclaimed giddily. “I just knew a girl as fat as you wouldn’t be able to resist joining us! Oh gosh, sorry! It’s my first time someone’s accepted my gift and I’m so excited!” she squeed, shaking tiny fists. “Allow me to get the powder!”
The girl reached into her pocket, only to be startled as the tip of a tail twice as thick as her body circled around her and pulled her forward. Still fluttering, her face blanched as the great serpent spun round and round, scales loudly shuffling over as it raised up to its full height and bore dripping wet fangs.
“Touch me with any of your garbage, and you will be the first thing I eat,” the serpent hissed.
The fairy’s pale face became ash, her braided blue hair fading into a similar bleached gray. She hurriedly looked around, saw none of her sisters moving forward to help her. “B-b-b-b-but t-t-the-” she stared at the fangs.
Miia released her, unfurling from her chunky tail back down to her usual height. “I can get there just fine by myself,” she said, moving past the fairy with an indignant “hmph!”
It had been a bluff, but Miia sold it well enough that even Rachnera had chills. The young woman slithered purposefully, knowing that more than a few people were watching her now. She moved her tail with an exaggerated rippling motion, a move that the priestesses claimed would make her look larger and more intimidating. A sharp movement at her round hips turned into a snap twenty feet away. She slithered around the table to Mero’s tree stump shaped stool.
“Meroune?” she asked.
Mero looked up, a giant hot meat bun still lodged in her teeth. It fell free and onto her lap while she looked at Miia for a moment with foggy blue eyes. “M-Mama?” she asked before her eyes rapidly sharpened. “Miia! Oh, hello Miia!”
Miia frowned, making a noise of discomfort as a fairy dipped to the table and left another meat bun. She turned and found herself underneath a huge set of buttercup-colored eyes.
That the small stump could even handle the minotaur’s large backside was amazing. Miia couldn’t really tell, but she hazarded a guess that the woman was around nine feet in height. With dirty white skin, dirtier white hair, and only a skin-tight black and blue suit that left her muscular arms exposed, she looked as if she’d spent most of the day wrestling in a dust pit. The only part of her that was well cleaned were her tan horns, sharp and pointing straight up into the sky.
She was looking Miia over as well, her eyes settling on the wedding band on Miia’s left finger. She reached up, touching two of her fingers to her horn in a mock salute. “Evenin’ Missus,” she nodded before lifting a slab of meat the size of a human man’s torso. “Looking for a chair?”
Miia nodded, feeling smaller still as the minotaur’s hooves clacked on the floor and she rose up out of her seat. She stretched up to her full height, suddenly making a couple of fairies scatter with alarm.
“Take this one,” she spoke with a heavy rural accent, smirking in what felt like a vaguely dangerous way. “And welcome to the party.”
Miia glanced from the chair back to her friend. “Thank you,” she murmured.
The minotaur nodded. She turned around and cast the next seat into complete darkness. The teenage boy who was sitting there blanched, blinking rapidly as adrenaline suddenly rushed him down.
“Move,” she told him.
He looked at her eyes, then down to her muscular middle, and then all the way up to the tips of her horns before nodding. “Yes, Mistress,” he replied numbly, raising from his seat and walking towards an empty chair after a fairy dipped onto his head and guided him around the table.
Miia plopped down in her chair. It was made for someone far smaller than her. The minotaur’s knees were nearly at the countertop, and even for the humans it was a squat little thing. Miia hardly had room for her body between her stump and the table.
“Ahhhh, Meroune. It’s so good to see you again…”
Miia looked up to see an extremely small woman with extraordinarily dark green hair leaning over the counter. The woman was as pale as the moon, and nearly twice as round, with a huge chest that spilled over the counter and thick hips that wiggled from side to side beneath a deep green dress. Her emerald hair came down to her thighs, with braids and vines spun through it in a pattern that looked so unbelievably random that it had to be intentional.
She was refilling Mero’s tankard with another drink, this one even brighter than the nectar had been. Liquid gold.
“It’s so good to have royalty stopping by. The girls claimed they had to be quite mischievous to get you here.”
Meroune hiccupped, giggled, hiccupped again, before chiming out “Hi Mama.”
The short woman guffawed. “Not quite, little princess. I see your tolerance is even lower than last time. Tell me, how is your-”
“Hey! Can I get some service here, or what?!?”
Miia sat back, both her arms resting on top of her tummy. The woman turned to her with a petulant eye before looking up into the fluttering girls above.
A pair of fairies were awkwardly wavering inside of the cyclone, very obviously getting in the way of the others’ flight pattern. One held a plate while another held a tankard, and neither seemed capable of doing more than gawking at Miia. Another fairy, resembling what could only be described as a fae drill sergeant, flew up to them. “Would you two get over yourselves! She is not gonna eat you! Do you want this job, or not?!”
“I heard this place was all you can eat! Hello?! I’m gonna leave you people a one-star review!” she threatened.
Behind the short woman, large black and green butterfly wings suddenly took shape. They flapped strikingly, glittering in the summer night lighting as she strode over to Miia, causing an approaching alraune to back off. “May I have your name, Miss?” she asked.
There was something more to this woman. Something dark, almost terrifying behind her glowing green eyes. Miia tried to picture her out in the daylight… and simply, couldn’t. A radiant glow bent off of her, reminding Miia of the lamia temples, reminding her of tall marble statues basked in the firepit’s glow.
And then, Miia felt her resolve solidify as it reminded her someone in particular. Her mother, standing in the grand central chamber, telling her to listen to the priestesses until she could betray their trust.
“Hungry.” Miia firmly replied.
“Ooo, that’s a good one,” she cooed with eyes that fell to Miia’s stomach. “And not incorrect, given your look.”
Miia’s tongue flickered. “Thanks. Is your name Lusting?”
A spew of golden liquor sprayed over an autumn alraune. The orange woman glared up at the minotaur, who was now desperately trying not to laugh. She shook her wet leaves. “Ahem. Err, sorry.”
“Is something funny?” the plump emerald woman asked. “Or should you be keeping to your business, Miss Coinín?”
A spiteful laugh came from the large woman. “Funniest thing here is the strength of your drinks. You fairies must be as light as most of you look.” She lifted her drink between her thumb and forefinger, kicking it back as if it were a shot glass.
“That, is pure, Avalonian Nectar-” she started.
“Yeah, alright, but there’s no kick! Where’s the spice?”
The woman scowled from the minotaur then to Miia and finally to Mero, who was making hungry chirps of delight as she lowered an empty soup bowl and moaned before licking at the remaining resin of white cream.
And then, in a sudden flurry of leaves, she was gone.
The minotaur winked at Miia. “I come here all the time,” she offered. “The old woman gets testy when you insult her cooking.”
“Get down there and serve her!!”
Two pairs of fluttering wings descended before her, bringing a plate of diced pork and a mug of glowing, amber colored drink. Remembering what Rachnera had told her, Miia raised a hand toward the fairy who’d met her back at the table.
The tiny woman screamed, falling onto the counter and ducking inside of her hands.
Miia frowned, lowering her hand. “Not this,” she demanded, nodding toward the pint. “Bring me a soda.”
“Y-yes, great serpent!” She spun and rushed through another crowd, past the protesting older fairy and into the darkness of the restaurant.
It suddenly occurred to Miia to wonder if this place actually had a kitchen or not. She hoped it did. Her plan wouldn’t work if they were using magic to prep their food.
“Not gonna drink it?” the Minotaur called over.
Miia looked up. She looked at Mero, who now looked to be trying to count the scales on her tail. “No,” she replied.
“Well, don’t waste it! Give it here.”
“Give it here!”
“Give it here!”
Several of the drunk men were calling out, causing the fairies to fly by with new drinks. All the while, their light humming didn’t stop.
Miia passed her drink down the way. It nearly careened off the side, but the minotaur’s reach was long enough that she was able to catch it. When it thunked against her meaty paw, the whole mug only came partially to her index finger. “Thank ya!” she obliged, before opening her mouth and dunking back her fresh shot.
Miia glanced around. “Was that… the…?” She shook her head, reluctant to say the title. as if the emerald woman could hear her even now. “And what did she call you?”
The minotaur’s cheerful grin dipped into a scowl. “Coinín …” she muttered, putting her face in her palm.
Miia felt her mouth trying to wrap around the odd syllables. “Co-neen??”
“My name’s #%&$@, but I went and gave that up, so now I’m Coinín till close. They keep naming me after tiny animals.”
Miia blinked. She stuck a finger in her ear, not sure what she had heard but certain that it had been something. Several fairies spun over Coinín’s horns, laughing childishly. One of them swooped behind her and held up a pair of bunny ears.
The giant minotaur swatted at her, missing though obviously not expecting to hit. “And that there was the Fairy Queen. She’s the cook who makes all this happen.”
Miia reached down and poked at her plate cautiously.
Coinín laughed. “I don’t think she’s about to poison you. It’s beneath someone like her to serve food that ain’t prime.”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Mero asked aloud. She was patting her tummy as another helping of fried fish was placed in front of her. She sipped on her golden drink, a glowing beacon in the late-night shine, coloring her pale face from its pint. When she pulled it away, her pink blush was even brighter than her hair. “I-I have, I -hic-!” her body trembled.
The minotaur roared with laughter, eliciting several of the others at the table to shout and raise their glasses.
Miia cleared her throat, turning back to her plate. She realized that they hadn’t given her a fork or a knife. Nose pridefully upturned, she gingerly took one of the cubes and popped it into her throat.
It was… okay… not as… not as good as Darling’s cooking… nowhere near as good, in fact. Actually, it was vile. It was super gross. She hated it. She hated it so much that she was now taking the second cube, and then the third, popping them into her mouth at the same time and feeling the delicious juice of fresh meat overflowing her taste buds.
It was cooked perfectly rare, hardly even seared. The pink belly of the pig, one of the tasty parts, mixed in a pan that had been greased with a mountain of butter. And Miia could feel herself melting, her protective attitude unwinding, as she polished off the wooden plate.
Instantly, another filled its place, dominated by a giant turkey leg. Her soda arrived too, dark fizzy cola that tasted unlike any drink Miia had ever tasted. She drank deeply, clearing her palate, and feeling the bubbling mixing into her hungry belly.
The leg was so big that she had to stretch her mouth until it hurt to sink her fangs in, ripping and tearing only to discover that the flesh was so tender she could just use her fingers. She tasted every string of poultry, perfectly aware of the pace she was setting. In just two minutes she’d eaten maybe three pounds of meat. She wanted to eat fast, needed to eat fast. The faster they ate, the faster they could go home. But it was important that she kept her wits.
When she finished the plate, it sat empty for a minute before her blue-haired fairy returned with another, this one with several breadless bratwurst sausages. “Hey, you!” she called to it before it could take off.
The tiny girl froze like a statue, held tight under her amber eyes.
“I want you to be faster than that. Bring me everything you’ve got back there. Don’t wait for me to be done, understand?!”
“W-what? Everything?”
“All of it,” Miia repeated. “And I don’t want any of your tree sap! I want to be aware of every bite!”
“I-it’s actually Avalonian Nec-”
“I don’t care what it is! Soda, or water. Got it?”
“G-got it!”
She took off.
Miia tore through the sausages, feeling almost as if she was barely chewing.
Next came a T-bone steak.
After that, a slab of gamey venison that she had to pull apart between her hands and teeth.
She knocked down each as quickly as the fairy could keep up, pushing herself to eat more and more, trying to make room by bubbling her gut with soda.
It was when a loud cough came on the other side of the table that she realized that the singing had transformed. It was no longer humming, but a calm and easy tune, as the Queen of the Fairies leaned over her counter. “Just who, exactly, are you?” she asked.
Miia blinked. A mist had formed around them, which hid all but the tree in brightened shadows.
“In three years I have yet to have a girl like you at this table. And it’s been centuries since I’ve seen any lamia like you at all.”
Miia felt her finger slide over her wedding band. “You’ve never seen one like me,” she promised.
“Hmm… perhaps not,” she sounded amused.
The mist around them swirled, revealing more of the restaurant. Abruptly Miia had both Mero and the minotaur, Coinín, almost at her elbows. But something was wrong, they looked washed out, frozen and gray. The seating had changed, pushed closer together.
“And who is the mermaid princess to you, stranger?”
Miia glanced at Mero, her usually calm eyes filled with determination as she tried to fit her mouth around a triple decked burger. She frowned at how undignified the fine girl looked, before forcing herself to relent that there really was no way to eat a triple cheeseburger without looking like a pudgy creampuff. She noticed the pink jewel dangling on her silver bracelet.
“She’s my sister,” Miia said simply, turning back to the Fairy Queen.
“Ohhhhh?” the Fairy Queen smiled. She took a step back, revealing her chef’s apron, and moving with an elegance that didn’t match her short-stacked form. “You couldn’t possibly be, and yet, I see your truth as plainly as I see stars above.” She lifted into the air, pudgy body impossibly taking flight, and began laughing, rising up to her tree. “A mermaid and a lamia, bonded by sisterhood! It has been a time, hasn’t it, dear girl? The world changes more with each passing day, and somehow it returns to how it has always been.”
Miia had no idea what the lady was talking about. She sat straight, feeling uncomfortable beneath the Fairy Queen’s height.
“Unity brings strength. That was one of those pillars, wasn’t it?”
Miia blinked. She’d heard that phrase before, but now found herself recoiling as jeweled eyes flashed, flying down towards her.
“I can see it on you. See her coming.” The Fairy Queen’s smile was just like her hips, impossibly wide. “Make a contract with me,” she demanded. “I can offer you anything, and only ask one thing in return. Gold? Power? I can grant any wish, fulfill any desire.”
In this place outside time, in the circle of mist beneath her blossomed cherry tree, the Fairy Queen was caught quite unaware as her world was sliced open. She looked down with wide eyes at the scythe that had suddenly materialized around her throat.
Miia looked from the blade, up the handle, and into shadow. A flicker of topaz, the outline of a long strand of hair. “Enough,” the Dullahan whispered from the world beyond shadow. “She desires none you could offer, Queen of Elphame.”
“L-Lala?”
“You shall keep your child-seeking hands away from my sister. Or I will bring you true night.”
The Fairy Queen didn’t take her eyes off the scythe. “Sister to the mermaid princess, and to the Dullahan.” She looked back up to Miia. “What else have you to offer?”
The scythe moved, ripping into the air and tearing it apart. Fairies twirled, singing and dancing around the world tree. People were laughing, were cheering, clinking alcohol together and indulging in the feast. Enjoying themselves.
The Fairy Queen and Lala were gone.
Miia uncomfortably hugged her middle. She looked up at her food, at the soda next to it, knew she wouldn’t be able to eat. Her skin was covered in goosebumps despite the warmth of the restaurant.
Child-seeking. The phrase whispered again and again in her head, and Miia could only guess to what it meant.
“H-hey, errm, Missus. Are you feeling alright?”
She wished Darling where here. She felt the need to be with him, to tell him what happened. Her hands felt numb, her tummy felt tight.
An alraune approached her, wearing a calm and pleasant expression. She set down a drink, glowing gold appearing over the top of the tankard. “The Mistress sends this for you. She claims the right of keeper has been violated on our terms, for both you and Miss Meroune Lorelei.”
“Hiiii that’s me,” Mero leaned on Miia’s elbow, giggling. “Oooh, you’re warm…” she wrapped herself around Miia’s arm, nuzzling it with untampered affection.
The alraune was unaffected by this. “She offers Royal Avalonian Nectar as a gift, and your bills for today are paid by the garden. You may leave now, or stay as you wish.”
Miia eyed the drink suspiciously. She looked back up to the alraune. “Can you lie?” she asked.
“I can,” the alraune continued to smile. “But I don’t get paid enough to.”
Miia snorted. She took the cup of golden liquid and looked inside. Twinkling starlight winked back to her.
In perhaps a staggering moment of noble clarity, Mero raised her cup. “To food!” she quoted, flashing Miia back to her toast at Christmas. There was a resounding cheer from the table, thumping and chugging. But Mero was waiting, smiling patiently at Miia.
Miia took her mug and touched it to Mero’s. “To family.”
And they both drank.
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“Just look at them!” Rachnera complained. “I can’t believe this. We were supposed to go dancing, and now we’re supposed to… to watch?”
Miia’s mouth stretched wide, fangs shining before plunging into the flank of a roasted duck. Mero worked from the other end, shredding the meat from bone like nuts before nibbling from the pile. Miia didn’t even bother, tearing off bones and munching meat free.
The little blue haired fairy was getting exhausted. She’d apparently inherited Mero too, and was running double duty as the two girls stuffed themselves full. Unlike anyone else at the table, Miia and Mero ate without hinderance.
They hardly even seemed to slow down, flinging from a bowl of fried catfish, their platter of duck, and now an entire roasted chicken. And, as Miia’s blue babydoll top began riding up and her tummy began sagging out, the effects were taking hold.
“You could still go dancing,” Centorea offered. “I’m alright waiting. Somebody needs to watch over her.”
Neither one of them noticed the blue-skinned girl sitting in the dark rafters above, watching over them all. Lala’s face was briefly lit as she drank from a mug of golden nectar. Her yellow eyes were looking at something very far away. She covered the top and, very quietly, began to hum along with the fairies.
Beneath her, Rachnera moaned. “You’re the one that needs to go out the most! That’s the whole point! I’ve gone on several dates since Honey. I don’t think you even know other men exist.”
Centorea gave a very horse-like snort. “I know they exist. None just hold up to my exceptional standards is all.”
“What, do you have twenty times the taste buds when it comes to men too? Or is this like the basic chocolate bars thing.”
Cerea’s tail swished, brushing Rachnera’s thorax. She didn’t say anything, just frowned at the two eaters.
Rachnera sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it so far…”
But it seemed as if Centorea hadn’t heard her. “I don’t understand. How is that attractive?” she gestured at Miia, messily dunking crab meat into a bowl of butter using only her tongue. It splashed on her lips. Even from here they could hear her pleasure filled hiss.
“Well, like I said before, a lot of couples eat more after they get married. It’s a thing with humans, where the wife usually puts on something they call ‘Wedding Weight.’”
“‘Wedding weight’?” Centorea repeated.
“Mhmm. And it looks like that holds true for liminal species as well.”
They both watched Miia’s tummy jiggle, her tight top rising another inch as she slammed into another pie. Her tight black skirt clung to her hips, spilling bits of scarlet scales and fluffy white sides over the top.
“Look, she’s starting to get love handles,” Rachnera pointed.
“It’s completely shameless!” Cerea huffed, “Without any consideration for her future! She’s going to be fat!”
“I don’t think that’s bothering her…”
Fangs skated over Miia’s lips, poking into her mouth as she squeezed her own fluff. A supple handful of belly sausaged between her fingers.
“… Do you remember when we talked with Honey about… erm..” Rachnera coughed. “His… preferences?”
“Hmm? Ah… yes, I do remember that… unfortunately.”
“It’s only unfortunate because he didn’t swoon over your chest…”
“Master is free to swoon over what he pleases!”
“Hmmhmm~” Rachnera hummed. “Well, looking at her, I’ve begun wondering if there was more to that than we were told.”
“… You don’t think…?”
“I think that I might. It’s odd, isn’t it? All the stuff here would have you believe men only were attracted to slim and fit bodies. Yet Miia’s become…”
“Unnnnngh. More sausages!”
“R-right away, Mistress!”
“Well…”
Cerea’s tail was swooshing back and forth quicker now, watching Miia without really seeing her. In her place she saw herself, savaging multiple plates of butter cream carrots. She glanced up at the fairies’ recreation of the full moon, hanging in a sparkling night sky over the tree, and wondered back to a night where she’d let herself loose.
How good it had felt to stuff herself silly. To eat Master’s cooking until she could hardly move. The house was warm, the food was lovely, and the company…
Her hoof dug at the floorboards, irrationally on edge.
Miia had what Cerea wanted. She had it and was…
She tried to believe that she was squandering it, but the happy little swish in her tail, the patting of her belly, it pointed in the exact opposite direction. Miia was relishing her married life.
Rachnera was apparently having similar thoughts. “I mean, think about it, right? All the humans we’ve come across, how many marvel at our chests? Or Miia’s waist, or Papi’s hips? Maybe one of the reasons liminal species are so popular is that we’re just more curvaceo- what are you doing?”
Cerea swirled her glass of water around in her hand. “D-do you think they… they have vegetarian options?” she blushed.
“… You’re not serious, are you?”
Miia and Mero leaned on each other in a bonded hug, laughing as their server dropped a pile of sauce covered wings in front of their rumbling tummies before collapsing on the countertop in a tired heap of tiny wings.
“You are serious, aren’t you?”
The centaur’s tail swooshed. “I…” she turned away from them, blushing. “I think I just want to relax tonight. And I don’t think I may if I just sit here and… watch them move on.”
Rachnera groaned, her lips tugging into a frown. “Did you have to put it like that?” her neck sagged.
Centorea swirled her cup of water again. She wasn’t all to surprised when another was raised to its side, the glass tinkling off as Rachnera tapped hers, and lifted back to drink.
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Miia wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She believed her plan was working, deep down in her belly had faith that she was having at least an effect, but was starting to feel like she was tapering out.
Even sharing the golden drink with Cerea and Rachnera, watching them turn ravenous with their own plates and filling their bellies with piles of food, the fairies kept up their speed and Miia felt herself becoming simply too heavy.
How much had she eaten?
She tried to remember, to place some sort of number next to the question. But all that flashed by her mind were images of meat after meat after cheese covered meat.
Her belly gurgled, not from hunger but from digestion. Even her tail was feeling lethargic, movements slow and heavy. She wished her stool had a back so she could sag against it, felt a fresh poke of jealousy at Mero for her wheelchair.
The princess’s face was covered in sauce. Sticky with a combination of tartar sauce from some smashed fish dish, spicy garlic from the huge pile of boneless wings, drips had fallen onto her swollen stomach, which she rubbed lazily now, unable to eat any more than she had.
Cerea and Rachnera were pouring over a chocolate fountain that had been brought out for them. A pile of all types of berries had been set on a leaf, and with chocolate stained hands Cerea was munching handfuls at a time, while Rachnera flipped between that and a fat hunk of what appeared to be mutton.
Cerea had moved Mero to her wheelchair when she’d arrived, squeezing her carriage between the two stumps and then awkwardly settling on top of the seat. She’d been lucid when she arrived, eating slower than usual. But, as fat drops of chocolate now marked her wobbling chest, that reserved nature had given way, leaving the girl to glut herself on butter-soaked and cheese covered veggies and delicious looking chocolate desserts.
Miia panted, her throbbing stomach tight beneath her fingers. She wished she could have chocolate. Maybe it’d help strengthen her appetite, and she could eat on. She had to be getting close, there was no way that she wasn’t.
If only she could eat more. She’d promised, had believed she could do it, but a hunk of beef that resembled the flank of a cow rather than anything as simple as a steak was dropped in front of her by six different fairies, and she’d begun having doubts.
Eat, she prompted herself. Eat until they have nothing left. They’ll have to close early, have to send everyone home. How much more could it be?
The carnivore found a second wind, slicing meat from bone with only her fingers, covering her hands in greasy fat and from thick cuts. Again, the meat had been prepared perfectly to her tastes, and she tried her best to enjoy it despite the platter quite obviously having nowhere to go.
Even a lamia, even a pudgy lamia, could only stomach so much. Her belly stretched beneath her top, her hips were puffing over her pants. This outfit was supposed to be loose, but now just hung over her like a tarp over a hippo, trying and failing to obscure her body.
The second wind died as quick as it’d come, leaving her groaning, belly pushed over and resting onto her lap. She couldn’t eat anymore.
She fumbled for her cup of nectar when someone nearby cleared their throat and tapped on her shoulder. She turned awkwardly, blinking through hazy eyes, not prepared for what she would see.
A girl wearing large golden Ds in a long mop of sandy blonde hair waved awkwardly at her. Her hair was spikey, shorter than Miia’s, but her body was just as long. A pattern of black swirls were woven into sand-brown scales, a pattern which also covered her forrarms. Miia recognized the echidna, a subspecies of lamia that was everything Miia had been trying to imitate when she’d intimidated the fairies.
These girls were known for being aggressively blunt, brutish and strong. Fangs that dripped not with water, but actual venom. A viper from the desert, wearing a tube top and a cardigan.
“Err, hi.” The echidna greeted. “Sorry to interrupt your… uhh…” she very obviously tried not to look at Miia’s stomach. “Eating.”
“Hello,” Miia nodded, she sighed, resting both of her hands on her tummy, trying to tug her shirt back down. It didn’t budge. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah… yeah!” the echidna’s tongue flipped over her lips, finally looking down. “Are, uhh, sorry. You’re Miia Kurusu?”
Miia blinked. She looked down and saw that what the girl was looking at wasn’t her sloshy full belly. It was her wedding ring. “Oh, umm, yes I am.”
“Oho,” the girl nodded. “Cool. Cool.”
She stood there for a few moments, just looking at Miia.
“Cool,” she repeated.
Miia began giggling, but it hurt her tummy and she coughed. “Umm, yes, so, is there something I can-”
“How do you get married?!?” The girl fired off suddenly, girlishly fawning and clapping her hands together. A bright pink blushed washed over her face, tossing out any concept of a hardened personality as she gushed. “What’s it like? Is your husband nice to you? Where do you live? Is it warm there? Do you guys have heaters? Do you take baths, or showers?”
A wave of movement washed up at the girl's sides. Two other lamias suddenly appeared, gripping the echidna by the arms. “S-sorry!” one of them stammered. She was a lamia that resembled Miia enough that she questioned if she was from the same tribe, but with long blue hair and blue and black scales. “She’s, uhh, kinda a romantic.”
“I am not, you shut up! She was about to tell me how to kidnap a man forever!”
“She didn’t kidnap him, you idiot! He proposed to her, didn’t you read the story?”
“Miiiiiiss Miia,” the third girl rasped, a smaller snake with short bobbed hair. “Iiiis it true that you hipnotizzzed your husband with only your eyes?”
“She couldn’t! I’ve tried! She had to have used her waist!”
“Of course she didn’t! They’re bonded by love!” The echidna broke free of their arms, knocking each of her companions away. She looked almost fanatical. “Taking a thrall is not the same as taking a husband. It’s an unbreakable bond!”
Dribbles of sweat fell off Miia’s temple. She might have gotten up to move away from this conversation, if she wasn’t weighed down by far too much meat in her belly. Mero and Centorea had both noticed the other girls now, watching Miia fending off the conversation. “I-it’s not like… I mean, it was just natural! Darling and I were made for each other!”
“That’s right!” the echidna nodded, her tomboy hair quivering along with her spine. “And me and Kazuhira were destined as well! I-I should go propose to him! It’s fate!”
“Oh my Goddess, would you stop bringing him up! Everywhere we go! He’s in love with that werewolf girl.”
“Don’t talk about my Kazi like that! They just live together! She’s like his pet!”
“Ssssssorry, Misssss Miia.”
“I-it’s no problem!” Miia blushed. “It sounds like you might want to, uhh, consider things a bit first. Before proposing, is what I-”
She drifted off as Mero drooped onto her elbow. She blinked up with ocean blue eyes.
From the other side of the chair, Cerea was trying and failing to appear as if she wasn’t paying attention. She looked straight ahead at their alraune server as she asked her friend, “Isn’t love worth fighting for?” before taking a very loudly crunch on a fat carrot.
“W-well yes…” Miia remembered Darling. How her love had her literally burst through doors for him, how she’d felt like she’d fought and clawed at times just to get his attention. She turned back to the girls. “Of course! Love is worth fighting for! It’s about making things work, even when the things seem rough!”
The girls each were hanging on her word. It gave her strength to rise from her seat, her passion filling her more than food could. What she failed to notice was how all of their eyes then lowered to her tummy, flopping out of her lap and down toward the Earth. Tight and round, the potbelly wavered as Miia moved, eyes waggling with it.
“Love is the most important thing in the world! And your husband will be the most important person in your life!! If you can’t give that everything you have, give that person everything you are, then you’ll never truly be united as partners!”
The girls fawned over her impassioned speech. Mero sat up in her seat, reaching for another helping of cod, while Cerea’s appetite slowed. “You okay?” Rachnera asked her.
“Hmm? Yeah… just… just thinking, is all.”
From nearby, the minotaur snorted. “Jesus, lady. I just wanna get my tits milked.”
Rachnera spewed her drink over an autumn colored alraune and Cerea nearly choked on her carrot.
The alraune’s normally calm expression dissipated, replaced with abject disbelief. She stomped her feet, orange pollen spraying out of the flowers in her hair. “Again?!” she demanded.
“Wow, Missus Miia!” the echidna proclaimed. “I can’t believe there’s a lamia like you that knows all about love!”
“My mom told us we should try kidnapping him.”
“The werewolf didn’t like that…”
Miia tucked her hands into her fluffy sides, attempting to puff out her chest but instead puffing out her tummy with pride. “If you ever need advice, I’d be happy to help! I know everything there is to know about love!”
“We will!” the girls turned around cheerfully…
… Straight into an awaiting swarm of hungry looking fairies. One of them held a piece of parchment in her hand, unfurling it and gesturing towards the sheet. Printed at the top, in a calligraphic script was printed ‘Da Rules’.
“Rule number eight,” the fairy woman squeaked. “The undersigned vows not to disturb the center table for any reason, acknowledging it may cut into the Garden’s profits for guests not to be celebrating. Any who do disturb the center table hereby agree to join the party.”
“Ahh.. ahah, ummm,” one of the lamias began.
“Not this time!” Miia saw her blue-haired fairy dash forward, forcefully throwing a handful of glitter that smacked right into the echidna’s nose that would have sent her toppling onto her back had she not begun to lift into the air. She flailed as a pair of fairies dunked a shot glass of nectar over her face.
As the trio was brought to the far side of the table, giggling fairies already setting their countertop with dishes of meat, Miia turned to her friend.
“Rachnera?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
“This place is weird.”
Rachnera considered this. “Yeah,” she decided. “The food’s good though.”
Miia’s tummy reminded her how full it was as it settled back onto her lap, and a pair of pixies brought out a fat-covered steak. Miia looked at it before turning up to a very irritated looking alraune. “Do you guys have anything stronger than royal nectar? I don’t know if I can eat any more.”
******************************************************************************
It turns out, they did. The alraune wouldn’t tell Miia what it was, but given the reverence with which she carried to mug, she’d asked for something quite special.
She couldn’t remember what the drink tasted like. Couldn’t remember eating anymore. The next thing she knew, she was being handed a receipt that was nearly as long as her body, at the bottom of which bolded letters spelled out *Complimentary Dinner*.
Her charge was zero yen.
Her belly rumbled, squelching with digestion.
She looked down at herself, at the fat girl squeezed into a too tiny top. Her hands rested atop of her smooth pale dome, stuffed to the point of overwhelming tightness. She winced, hissing with tension from the feeding she’d incurred. She’d eaten too much. And yet she could perfectly imagine his fingers, his touch, wrapped around from behind. Lifting her belly and letting it plop onto the counter. She was only half-surprised to find she was doing it to herself, her tongue skating over her fangs.
Mero looked as if she could hardly sit in her chair, head dipping up and down, belching and messily covered with food. She drooped, slidding forward till her own packed belly flubbed over her tail, before reaching webbed hands beneath and popping a hidden button on the band of her skirt. It burst open, her stomach sagging over. “Ahhhh,” she moaned. “Much better…”
“I am so mad at you…” Rachnera muttered to Cerea, a claw over her tummy while another covered her mouth.
Cerea was licking her chocolate covered fingers before the last scraps of dessert were taken away. “We didn’t even get to have all that much,” she said, the only person at the table not tucking over their tummy. She sounded disappointed.
“Maybe you didn’t… I had plenty…”
“Hmm. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising. You’re much more light weight than Miia and I.”
“What does that mean?” Rachnera growled. “Yo-you’re not even in the same weight class as her.”
Cerea reached up into the air, her back legs straightening out. “I’ve more room to store it all,” she grunted matter-of-factly before finishing her stretch and tapping her flank. “It’s not a competition.”
“If it was, I’d win,” Miia grinned devilishly, attempting to tease.
Cerea didn’t look at her. “We’ll see about that, Mistress,” was all that she said.
Across the way, Miia watched as three lamia women with tiny pot bellies sobbed, pooling their money down as a gaggle of fairies counted through each little coin. She felt a little responsible for their plight, but only a little. There might have been something she could do for them… if only she had the strength to stand up.
Her fingers bunched up over her tight belly, again trying to fix her shirt, again failing. She was only now realizing just how swollen her stomach was, and what a slug she must look like. Squeezed tight by her outfit, looking like she could just burst out of it.
In her memory, buttons were ripped apart as strong hands gripped either side, pinging across her room. She’d been much smaller then, and he’d handled her so well back then… She’d been horny last night, but tonight Miia felt almost ravenous.
“Come on you two,” Cerea’s arm appeared beneath across her back, gripping her side. “Let’s get going. I have no idea what time it is.”
Miia whined, at both times turned on and in discomfort from her tummy. Food had become such a playful thing to her, had brought her and Darling so much closer in unforeseen ways. She felt hot as darkness came over her head, Cerea’s hands mashing her body beneath her stretchy sweater to cover her up. “At least that still fits you…” Cerea grumbled. “You ready to head back?”
“Unnngh… what time is it?” Meroune asked. “What hap- *urrrp* oooooohh… My belly…”
“Do you want to take her home, and I’ll drop Miia off?” Cerea asked.
“Alright, fine. Come on, Mero. Let’s go get you a bath.”
“Unggh… what’s on my face?”
Cerea pressed Miia’s sides in, her hooves clopping against the hard wood as they moved to the door.
Behind them the Fairy Queen sang, “Come back anytime~”
