Chapter 7 - lesson 007: dealing

“Oh, mlady this is simply too generous” the woman exclaimed, and I reiterated by pressing the overflowing coin purse back into her hands. “I’m not a noble, though your reverence is appreciated” I insisted. “Consider the extra an apology for any lost product over the past couple of days” I informed her as I glanced to the cooling pastries on her counter. There was no way of knowing how many of them had suddenly gone missing due to my apprentice's greed. She hadn’t even eaten them either, just used them to sate her hunger. Which I couldn’t help but feel was somehow a deeper insult to the culinary arts. Though this baker wasn’t the sort to care about such things. I could tell by the state of her store. It was clear the place was short on coin. There was a reason Emmerith and I had been the places lone patrons. “Though...I must say I’m hesitant to take a deal with a witch, with no offence meant” the baker said after a moment of deliberation, a slight tremble to her voice. I couldn’t help but smirk broadly in relief. This was how it was supposed to go when a commoner was dealing with a dark and mysterious witch.

“Well as with all things, there is an added stipulation, a price if you will” I told her adding a slight seductive purr to my voice. It had been a while since I had got to play the role of my profession so well. I mused that perhaps there was some truth to Emerith’s claims that I had become too much of a bookworm in my old age. “What price is that?” she asked me with little hesitation, though fear hung in her voice. She was desperate. Commoners usually were with coin on the line. “This Is enough money that you shall never need to work again” I told her trailing off. “So, you won’t, no more baking, no more bakery, renovate it into a manor estate or something" I told her with a dismissive wave to the building itself. I watched in mild surprise as a wave of relaxation almost akin to bliss washed through the baker's body. “You mean no more doughy sugary slop?” she asked me desperately. I tentatively nodded my head. “Finally...” she said, and her knees almost seemed to go weak. “I’ll hire a private chef and sample all the meals of the world, instead of the just the same old doughy family recipes” she practically purred. I was almost annoyed at how much the deal worked out in her favour. But who was I to complain really. “Pleasure doing business with you” I told her with a wink and thrust the coin purse into her hand with finality.

Emerith rose from her chair as I stepped out of the bakery exuding a trepidatious sort of aura. “It’s hardly worth closing down the bakery, just over some mild indulgence, surely?” she asked, though her heart wasn't truly in it. “Honestly I have no clue” I told her truthfully and stopped in front of her. It was clear from the bulging additional girth of her figure her recent indulgences had been anything but mild. My whole perception of my once little apprentice was starting to shift with her new figure. I had offered her a method by which she could reclaim her figure. A means to be the slender proper witch I had trained her to be. But she had intentionally subverted that in the name of sating her baser appetites. A witch beaten at every turn by her own greed and hunger. It was hardly the woman I had trained her to be. Yet as I begun to examine her up close it was becoming clear, that it might well have been the woman she was. The binge drinking, tab walking out on, cake thieving witch almost unworthy of the title.

There was no question she was looking the part. Her thighs once long slender and shapely had become pudgy soft, and broad enough that they clearly touched one another. Her hips marked the widest part of her body, though that had always been the case they had become exaggeratedly wide. Broad enough to fill out and almost spill slightly over a patrician chair. Complimenting a butt, that rather than tight and round, had cheeks that were thick broad and pillowy. Yet it was above those well-fed hips, and unexercised tush, the real damning evidence was situated. A belly hang. A layer of pudge so dense it thrust out from her midriff prominently enough to sag downward slightly. A noticeable, though small gut. Something belonging on the porkiest of pigs, not the most experienced of apprentices. The only saving grace was that her tits were taking some of the brunt. But even then, they were becoming dramatically plump. Hefty and incorrigible, they almost looked like they’d soon be able to compete with the size of her head. From her cherubic cheeks to her soft shins, a real glutton was what she become in my absence. A greedy girl.

“So, what do we do now, my teacher?” she asked me, quietly in a soft tone I hadn’t heard in centuries. In the face of that, all those truths become miniature. I was her teacher. Her mentor figure. If she had gone off the beaten tracks, it was my job to get her back on them. If she had become a glutton, it was my job to put her on a diet. If she had become greedy it was my responsibility to rectify it. Yet it was also clear my methods weren’t going to work. Just telling her to be reasonable and make do with my cooking hadn’t worked. I needed something else. The only problem was that I didn't know any other way to do it. I found myself, in the face of the issue, rather limited. “Well, give me time, until then, just go do whatever it is you’d like to be doing the most right now” I told her with a dismissive handwave. “Ah yes, we should be heading back to research” she insisted. It was a simple and easy toss up, an easy method from which she could earn brownie points and put herself back on the right track. Yet as she turned her stomach growled, and I saw in her eyes the exact moment her plans changed.

It should’ve been so easy. But there we were in the local tavern again shortly after. Usurpingly Emerith had begun drinking immediately upon her arrival. I considered telling the bar keep not to serve her, seeing as she was still drinking off the tab I had paid for. But if nothing else the teleportation incident had illuminated that trying to stop her was going to be pointless. Yet that hardly made the sight any easier. Even though it had been a week or two since her last drink she took to the stuff like a fish to water. Glugging down flagon after flagon of the cheap substance and filling out her middle with every ounce of it. “I swear I’ll start the diet for real tomorrow, give your apprentice a chance to mourn a little” she insisted with a dismissive handwave. It seemed my disapproving glances would hold no power over her. She was content to continue drinking herself stupid, and engorged on the cheap beer.

Her intensity began to ramp up as she became progressively drunker, and her gut inflated with heady booze. Her flagon refilled so regularly the vapors in the air almost had me a little dizzy. It would’ve been fascinating if it wasn’t so frustrating. She could seemingly talk while she was in the middle of drinking. Though she had very little to say, beyond continued insistences that she would surely start her diet by the next dawn. Though I was nearly certain that she wouldn’t. Her ballooned out and sloshing middle was a testament to how far her greed had taken her. Eventually even those insistences became too slurred to be fully intelligible, interrupted by hiccups as well as the occasional unsightly belch. It was amazing how much class she seemed to shed when she was filled with alcohol. I could almost hear hints of the old commoner accent I had trained out of her literal centuries prior. It was beginning to frustrate me how utterly natural her state of drunken debauchery seemed for her.

Yet I also knew my old plans weren’t going to work. The only issue was that I didn't have any new ones. This sort of problem was an entirely new one, for me. I had gotten the occasional pudgy apprentice, but they had all followed the diets I had put them on. They all cared enough about becoming witches that they were willing to stick it out. Yet even with the rapidly approaching Witch’s Ball she was a total slave to her worser habits. I wasn’t aware of any magical solution, it’s not like it was a common issue. I felt rather stuck and the sound of my apprentice sloshing herself stupid a few inches to my right hardly helped. I settled myself in for an evening of boringly watching her booze herself spherical. Followed by a late evening of propping up all her extra blubber and taking her home. I thought it would take me much longer to come up with a solution. But then a crisp sound cut through the noisy tavern. A familiar sound.

The sound of teleportation. I glanced towards the tavern entrance and saw a familiar face. A rather beautiful one at that. Her hair was black and long, luxurious and curly, flopped to her left side where it trailed onto her high yet unsubstantial chest. In spite of their lacklustre size her posture seemed to almost highlight and present them. Yet most eye catching, were her eyes themselves, a piercing shade of green. Her feature spoke of a prominent lineage, high cheek bones full lips, and vibrant eye lashes. She was all clad in black with a certain luxurious and mysterious style that incorporated vast amounts of grey fur on the trimmings to an otherwise simplistic minimalistic black silk design. Her face was adorned with a confident smirk. As our eyes met across the tavern, her green eyes softened significantly, and her smirk broadened into a wind brimming grin. “My Teacher!” she exclaimed in an immediate break from character.