Expandable

Chapter 1

In a quiet village nestled in a faraway valley lives a full-bodied woman named Nayla, who is considered a living legend. She’s not just wise and a powerful witch, she specializes in a strange and mystical craft: She can fatten up people in no time. She can enlarge clothes to fit a body that has grown rounder, fills objects with air or enchanted fat according to emotional need, and on rare occasions… she expands people. For a price, she can make someone feel full, in body or in spirit.

But when a young wandering artist named Kaeren arrives seeking her help, the rules begin to change…

Nayla wasn’t born fat. But she grew that way, as most things do, slowly, quietly, until one day she no longer fit the world around her. Not the school chairs, not the dresses sewn for her, not the expectations. But she discovered that even if she didn’t fit into the world, she could make the world fit her.

She studied magic with a hermit-witch in the forest, but her real discovery she made on her own is how to inflate things, not just with air, but with meaning. To make a small table feel like a royal feast. To turn a simple dress into a cocoon of compassion. Or give a hungry person the sensation of having feasted on three rich courses. And so her craft was born: expander for hire.

Kaeren, a traveling painter who has repeatedly failed to sell his art, arrives at the village after hearing rumors of a witch who can “inflate self-confidence.” He doesn’t believe it, of course. But he’s broken. Poor, tired, hungry, and small. Not physically, but in spirit.

He meets Nayla at a round house on the edge of the village. She is proud, full-bodied, wrapped in flowing fabrics, heavy earrings, wild curls and laughing eyes. She offers him a simple proposal: “Give me three days, and I’ll make you feel… big.”

Nayla begins by inflating his studio, not a physical space, but a mental one. She transforms a small room into a spacious tent with breathing walls and the scent of fresh paint in the air. Kaeren feels like he breathes differently. His art flows more freely, passionately. She hasn’t touched his body, only his sense of place.

She sews him a new coat, not for warmth, but for containment. The coat adjusts to his emotions. When he’s confident, it’s light and flowing. When he’s afraid, it’s thick and shielding. When he asks how it works, she simply says: “Clothes aren’t meant to fit the body. They’re meant to understand it.”

And then, on the third night, as he lies on the studio floor, she touches him gently. She doesn’t ask permission because he’s already given it. She whispers a spell, and her touch melts into him like warm butter.

He feels himself expand. Not as illness or excess, but as space.
His belly stretches, thighs thicken, skin becomes hypersensitive. He feels every new curve born in pleasure. When he looks at her, she smiles. “I’m not fattening you,” she says. “I’m merely bringing out what was already there.”

As Kaeren transforms, so does Nayla. She discovers that she’s not just giving, she’s also receiving.
Suddenly, she realizes someone is truly looking at her. Not just seeing her size, but admiring it. She begins to show him other magics: how to expand sound, scent, emotion. How to turn a small painting into a window to another world.

And Kaeren, in turn, begins to paint her. Not once, but dozens of times. Different forms, sizes, moods.

One day, another client arrives, a wealthy woman from the city who asks Nayla to “inflate” her to make her husband jealous. Nayla refuses.
“I don’t make people bigger to hurt others.”

But the woman is furious, and sends a rival sorcerer to shrink Nayla in the night.

Kaeren wakes when he hears her moan, not in pain, but in a strange mix of pleasure and weakness. The spell is taking effect. She’s shrinking. Not just her body, her spirit too. She looks small, almost transparent.

Here Kaeren realizes he has learned more from her than he thought.
He repeats her spells, and reinflates her. Not just to her original form—but to something larger, more powerful, more sure of herself than ever before.

From that moment, Nayla no longer takes clients. She sets out on a journey with Kaeren, not to expand others, but to teach them to expand themselves.

In villages and cities, they hold workshops: “How to feel big, even when there’s no space.”

And people come. Fat, thin, lonely, in love, hopeless. They don’t leave skinny or bloated, they leave spacious…