chapter 5

The next week passed in a blur. A few small things happened – a system for laundry was established, Maya’s requests for reading material to distract them were granted, Sylvia began marking the amount of time they’d been there in tiny scratches on the wall. Overall, however, little changed.

The large meals became a thrice-daily thing, breakfast and lunch no longer exempted from Greldedor’s obsessive feeding of her captives. Maya no longer minded so much; as Sylvia had said, was it really such a big deal if she enjoyed it? Besides, after the night with the invisible hand, she was never force-fed again, and she was never expected to eat as much as Sylvia, whose appetite had if anything increased since the start of their captivity.

At dinner, Maya found herself once again watching Sylvia eat. She’d gotten quite good at it, if eating copious quantities of food could be called a skill. Dish by dish she made her way around the table as Maya took in the spectacle.

By the time she’d finished the last thing on the table – a rich custard pie topped with thin slices of pear – Maya was looking with strange fascination at the guard’s belly. It had grown large enough that Sylvia’s shirt had ridden up, exposing a stripe of pale pink flesh, and it was resting in the woman’s lap. It looked round and taut – it was really as if she was close to full-term with a pregnancy.

How on Earth was that possible? Certainly she’d eaten what seemed like an impossible amount of food during their captivity, but why would it result in such noticeable changes after just over a week?

Maya glanced at the knight’s face and noticed that it, too, looked somewhat rounder and fuller. Her breasts strained against the thin fabric of her shirt, and the fabric of her pants was stretched taut over her thighs. Those garments, if Maya remembered correctly, had been too big for Sylvia at the beginning of the journey, probably owing to the fact that they were standard-issue for castle guards and meant to fit the large men usually hired for the job.

Maya felt a thrill of fear. What was happening here? And more importantly, how could it be happening?

The meal finished, Greldedor once again herded the two women off to their room. Maya heard Sylvia panting slightly as she ascended the stairs. The guard had been in top fighting shape only a week ago and now she was struggling with a flight of steps?

As the wall closed behind the two women, Maya turned to Sylvia. “Sylvia, do you feel… different?”

“Different?” Sylvia echoed as she sat heavily on the edge of the bed and began undressing for the night. “Different how?”

“Physically.” In the flickering torchlight, Maya could see the full extent of the changes to the other woman’s body. How had she not noticed? What was previously toned muscle was now covered in a layer of jiggling, blubbery fat. Pert, small breasts had swollen outward into a rounded, shapely bosom. The strong thighs had taken on a softer, appealing shape.

Sylvia shrugged. “Not that I’ve noticed, other than getting a little stiff from being cooped up all the time. Why?”

Maya shook her head. “This isn’t normal.”

“What’s not?” Sylvia cocked her head, concerned. “Maya, what’s not normal?”

“It’s not normal to,” Maya started but couldn’t finish the statement.

“Would you spit it out?”

“It’s not normal to gain,” she started again. Gods, how much heavier did Sylvia have to be? Sixty pounds? Seventy pounds? And how had she not noticed? “You’ve gained a lot of weight since we’ve been here, and even with all the food you’ve been eating, that doesn’t seem possible.”

Sylvia looked down at herself and back at Maya, her expression one of mild offense. “It’s not that bad.”

Maya sputtered. “Sylvia, it’s – even if I could get into the basement to get your armor, you wouldn’t be able to fit into it! Look at yourself!” Maya strode over to the other woman and slapped her thigh. “Hell, you barely fit into these clothes now.”

“They’re fine!” Sylvia shied away from the rough handling with a frown, but as if on cue, there was a loud rip as the leg of her pants suddenly split along the seam. The knight gasped.

Proven right, Maya folded her arms in satisfaction. “You see?”

“Well,” Sylvia started, angrily, “it wouldn’t be this bad if you’d helped more. Besides,” she said, lunging over to grab a handful of Maya’s own belly, “you’re not much better than I am anyway!”

Maya gasped, offended, but when she looked down at herself, she realized that Sylvia was right. She’d always been scrawny, with narrow hips and a flat stomach, but now that was all gone. Her gain hadn’t been as significant as Sylvia’s, but she could see, now that she bothered to look, that her new belly formed a neat roll over the waistband of her pants. Her breasts – which had always been large for her size – now rested lower on her body, no longer able to hold up their own weight. She let her hands roam over herself, discovering newly-soft arms and suddenly thickened hips.

“How could this happen?”

“Overeating,” Sylvia answered plainly.

“No,” Maya snapped, a little too harshly. “You don’t gain this much weight in a week just from overeating.” She sighed and ran both hands over her round belly. “And you don’t gain this much without noticing it.” She pinched at the soft flesh. At least she didn’t look as verifiably pregnant as Sylvia, but this was still undeniably annoying. “There has to be something in the food. Some magical property.”

Sylvia shrugged. “So what now?”

Maya shook her head. “I don’t know.” She’d thought they had infinite time to plan a better escape, but now she wasn’t so sure. If Greldedor kept feeding them like this, how much longer did they have before there was really no way for them to escape?

Maya glanced at Sylvia again. If her guess was right and the knight had put on around seventy pounds – that was almost ten pounds a day. Maya wasn’t even sure how much good Sylvia would be in a fight now at around two hundred pounds – there was no way the woman’s formidable muscle had kept up with the growth in fat. How much good would she be in ten days at around three hundred? At four hundred?

And as for Maya herself – she had a vision of herself waddling through the forest, trying to outrun the literal dragon guarding the witch’s tower. Or, worse yet, entering the court and being forced to explain to the queen what had happened to her on her quest. The humiliation would be too great.

But then there was that same strange warmth at the idea of it – of just letting it happen, just continuing to watch as both she and Sylvia fattened, outgrowing their clothes and any sense of dignity they had left – Maya shook her head to clear it of the strange imaginings.

There definitely had to be something about the food.