This story was written by Wanderer, based on characters created by Bob Drake, Al Jones, and Jacob Schmidt. The illustrations are by Bob Drake and Al Jones.
"You want me to WHAT!?!", Ashentaine roared.
"Make me bigger", Huskee replied simply.
Ashentaine, daemon extraordinaire, currently incarnated as a weasel as big as a house, looked at the comparatively tiny dog-morph named, like his breed, Huskee. Husk was rather ordinary by Ashentaine's admittedly unusual standards. He stood somewhere in the neighborhood of six standard linear feet tall, a figure made uncertain by the fact that he spent most of his time sitting and eating. His most prominent feature certainly bore witness to that fact; his belly hung out a good one-and-a-half feet over his hindpaws, while his rump sagged almost to his knees. The grey, furry tail that was his species' birthright was almost lost in the folds of fat that surrounded it as a result. At the moment, though, Huskee was seated on the ground in front of Ashentaine, his hindlimbs splayed out before him on either side of his swollen gut, while his forelimbs braced him tenuously into a sitting position.
"Huskee", said Ashentaine in a disbelieving voice, "did I or did I not enlarge you to this size?"
"Well, yeah, but ... "
"And didn't you say it was just what you wanted?"
"We- ... "
"And you want me to do it again?"
Huskee looked upward for a moment, considering.
"Yeah", he said at last.
Ashentaine wiped a forepaw down his muzzle in disbelief. The canine was never satisfied, he knew that. But did it have to get proven so blasted often?
"All right", he said at last. "But this is the last time for a while, Huskee. I want to do something different".
"Oh, all right", said Huskee as he risked his sitting position long enough to rub his belly in anticipation. "If you insist".
Ashentaine muttered under his breath for a moment ... then cocked his head to one side. "Hmmm", he said softly. "Hmmm ... "
"What?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing", said the daemon hastily, a smile tugging at the corners of his muzzle. "Just thinking aloud".
"Oh".
"Shall we begin?"
Before Huskee could say yes, Ashentaine slammed him flat on his back with one huge forepaw and fell silent.
For several long moments, Huskee didn't feel anything but the weight of Ash's enormous paw on his chest and gut, holding him in place. Then he felt an odd tingle begin somewhere in his stomach, quickly spreading to the rest of him.
A moment later, he watched smilingly as his belly began to swell. Like a filling balloon, it expanded smoothly, even as he felt his arms and legs being splayed out from his sides under pressure from the new insulation that was enfolding them by the moment. His head was forced outwards too, and he lost sight of Ashentaine as his head was pushed slowly back against his shoulders by the fat accumulating beneath his chin, like a soft, swaddling muffler.
It was wonderful. As he swelled, he could feel the fat settling around him like a warm blanket, snuggling tight along his flanks and lying atop him like an expanding pillow. He felt his cheeks wobble as his face grew rounder and fuller than any moon in the skies. He reached to scratch an itch, and felt his arm strain against the collar of fat that slowed its movement. He could even feel his thighs leave the ground as his rump swelled with calories, only to return as they, too, expanded under Ashentaine's influence. Looking down along his side, he could just catch sight of his flanks as they reached the ground and spread like softening ice cream. Then, they vanished from view as his belly's new extensions rolled in like evening fog.
For several minutes, Huskee reveled in his growth, rubbing his paws along his chest and as much of his belly as he could, feeling the mass and weight of himself shift and move beneath his paws. He embraced his growing belly and chuckled as it outgrew his thickening arms. In a movement that grew more difficult by the moment, he trailed his claws along the stretched surface of his fur, feeling the tingling touch as they traced furrows along the growing hills of fat that encompassed him.
Finally, though, he began to have trouble craning his neck far enough to see
down to his chest. He noticed that it was getting harder and harder to lift his head from
the ground, more and more difficult to move his arms and legs.
"Okay, Ash", he said regretfully. "That's enough for now".
No response. He watched from the lower edge of his vision as his belly continued to swell, having lost what little maneuvering room he'd had left for his neck.
"Ash?"
"Yes?", said the daemon's voice from somewhere beyond the growing curve of Huskee's belly, a territory that had passed beyond his sight almost immediately.
"You can stop now. I think I've got enough for right now", Huskee gurgled as his growing chest and neck threatened to close his mouth for good.
"Stop what?"
"Thith", Huskee lisped, since he couldn't force his jaws far enough apart now to make an 's' sound. " 'm bg 'nuv nw". He reached for an itch, only to watch a small ripple near his shoulder be the lone result of his paw's useless wiggling.
"Nonsense", said Ashentaine from wherever he was, the removal of his paw having been camouflaged by the increasing weight where it had been. "If I were still doing it, I might stop it. But it's self-sustaining".
Huskee grunted questioningly, then leaned his head back to get more room for his muzzle. "What?"
"Well", said Ashentaine drily, "I decided that it really would be the last time I did this. So, I simply set the magic to make you bigger, without giving it an upper limit. That way, you'll just keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger ... "
"Thunks", said Huskee as the rolls of fat beneath his chin began to encroach on his muzzle again. "Budda thnk's'nuv f'r nuh".
"What was that, Huskee?", said Ashentaine with a chuckle. "I couldn't hear you. Maybe if you come over here?"
Huskee flailed his arms and kicked his legs, only to find that they no longer reached anything solid to push off from. Doggedly, (how else?), he began to rock himself back and forth, trying to roll over. His tail was going to sleep.
It didn't take long to realise that he was losing ground. With each passing moment, his rocking grew weaker and weaker as he grew bigger and bigger. Now, not even a ripple appeared when he strained to move a paw. And still he grew ... With his grunts of exertion growing weaker and weaker in the muzzle that seemed welded shut by the pressure beneath it, he continued to struggle, his motions growing smaller and smaller until even the full force of all his muscles in concert couldn't even stir him an inch, bound helplessly in his gelatinous prison of a body.
Suddenly, a familiar face, upside-down, presented itself before his eyes.
"Hiya, Husk!", said Jedd with the glowing smile typical of a marten in a good mood. "Whatcha doin'?"
Huskee smiled as Jedd exploded in giggles at his own joke.
"Howya feelin', Husk?", said Jedd as he patted Huskee on the chest, now more a pair of foothills to the mountain of the dog-furry's belly.
Huskee tried to open his muzzle, but the spongy resistance of his own neck, swaddled as it was in rings of fat, held his mouth shut like a vise. Jedd, seeing the difficulty, obligingly pushed against the expanding flesh, and he managed a few words.
Huskee coughed, and said, "I'm okay. But I really think I'm big enough for right now"
Jedd turned to look at the immensely swollen figure of his friend, the rolls of fat slipping from beneath his paw to slam Huskee's jaws together with a click.
"Yeah", he admitted after a brief consideration, "You might be right. I'll go tell him".
Huskee nodded weakly, silently glad that whatever magic Ash was using was letting him breathe okay.
"But first", said Jedd with a grin, "a good, solid skritch".
With that, he grabbed the shaggy fur that covered Huskee like moss on a boulder and began to climb.
Huskee sighed. It looked like he was going to have some time to get used to this after all.