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Grigori smiled as he strutted along the back alleys of the mercantile district. He had grown up in the city here, but over in the slums where most of the folk who lived here wouldn’t survive very long. While most of them wouldn’t give him the time of the day if their paths crossed in the busy day-lit streets, he’d actually been in many of their homes and places of business, though never invited. A thief never would be, and Grigori was one of the best.

He’d had contracts to steal all manner of valuables from those wealthy enough to afford the loss. He’d gotten a reputation among those who hired him as being able to get at even the most well-guarded and inaccessible treasures. He would also leave a small woodcarving of an animal that he’d made himself in place of the objects he stole. No one could guess how, though many tales had arisen in the taverns. But none knew his secret – he was an animorph. He had been born with the ability to transform into any fur-bearing animal he wished.

He discovered his gift when he was seven years old, while playing pretend with some other children. One moment he was pretending he was a dog, and the next moment he was one. The other children screamed and ran, so Grigori went and hid in some abandoned building before any adults came to investigate what their children were on about. He did manage to learn the magic of his ability changed his clothes and small items he carried along with his body. After that incident, he was careful not to do that again in front of other people.

Grigori realized early on that, if he wanted to find more animals to shift into than dogs, cats or the occasional horse or rat, he would have to learn about them. So the first building he broke into was a library. Eventually he learned to read and went through books looking for more and more exotic animals. It was in one book that he learned the word “animorph,” which was described as a creature of folktales. He laughed when he’d read that, because he’d never considered himself fictional before.

Making sure no one was around to see, he changed into an orangutan to gain higher ground among the city’s buildings. Brachiating along the masonry and statuary that jutted out near the roofs, he made his way to his current contract. The house looked a bit humble to contain what he’d been hired to steal – a ruby-encrusted broach that apparently had been the object of a family inheritance squabble.

Grigori went to the small window set in a gable on the roof, and changed back to himself so he could pick the lock. Once done, he changed into a housecat in order to gain entrance. Jumping down to the floor of an attic, he prowled around until he found the stairs, which were completely blocked by noisy-looking junk. Shrugging his cat-shoulders, he went to a nearby wall, changed into a rat, and scurried down inside it. He got to the ground floor and found a hole that must have been made by an actual rodent at some point. Warily sticking his head out, he saw he was in a pantry, and went under the door, across the unpopulated kitchen to another door concealing a set of stairs down to the cellar. The employer said that the broach was kept in a safe down there, so he scurried downward.

The safe was easy enough to find, sitting along the back wall of a large alcove. Changing back to his human self, Grigori cautiously approached it. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he got some tools off of his belt and set to work. He soon got the safe open to find – nothing. Frustrated, he turned to go, only to find metal bars at the entrance to the alcove. He thought that strange, since he’d heard nothing, and could find no gap in the ceiling through which the bars could have come down. They seemed sunk in the mortar as if they’d been there all along.

The bars were spaced widely enough to allow Grigori to squeeze past, though barely so. Intending to do just that, he grasped two of the bars, and immediately felt a strange sensation throughout his body that caused him to let go. The sensation continued; it was somewhat similar to what he felt when he changed, but also much different.

The next thing Grigori felt was tightness in his waist, where one the belt holding his tools was clasped firmly. Feeling his midsection press against it with increasing discomfort, he quickly undid the belt and dropped it to the floor. Then he felt tightness again in the same area, and looked down to see his belly had swelled to make his tunic tight. It looked like he was stashing a melon in his shirt. Placing a hand on it, he could tell it definitely was part of his body, warm and soft. As he felt similar sensations in his thighs and butt, he quickly disrobed head to toe. This allowed him to see everything concerning what was happening to him.

His belly was now the size of a large sack of flour, hanging down and touching his thick thighs. His hindside looked huge, each cheek the size of the melon he’d thought of before with his gut. His chest had softened to breasts that swelled out and rested on his still growing belly. He was ridiculously fat, and he seemed to be getting fatter by the minute!

Soon, the sensation ceased, and he appeared to have stopped getting bigger. His neck had thickened, and he’d formed a large double-chin. Looking down, he couldn’t see anything past his belly, which stuck out more than a couple of feet in front of him, and more than a foot to either side in great sweeping love-handles. Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel his gut resting against his huge legs near his knees. His moobs hung heavily on his belly, working their way down either side of it.

There was no way he was squeezing through those bars now.

At this thought, Grigori heard a woman laughing from the shadows. Out from a darkened corner strode a woman, who he had to admit was rather attractive. She was dressed in a dress as black as her long hair that left little to the imagination, and around her neck she wore the ruby-laden broach. Eventually, she stopped laughing and spoke. “I was wondering what sort of person might show up tonight. Well, aren’t we a specimen!” She lustfully eyed Grigori’s huge body up and down.

“What have you done to me, witch?!” Grigori demanded.

“Oh, I just ensorcelled the bars to cause a change in your own body, causing it to gain about 400 pounds of luscious fat.” Licking her lips, she continued, “I think I will enjoy you for some time to come.”

That didn’t sound good at all to Grigori. He had no idea what demented enjoyment this witch would derive from him, and he didn’t want to find out. He changed into a mouse…
…and found his small mouse body was perched on top of a furry belly that had to have been as big as a small pumpkin. It couldn’t have been any bigger than four inches wide, but for a mouse that was too much to move with. He wasn’t going anywhere like that.

The witch resumed her laughter. “Oh, I had no idea you were an animorph! That explains a lot. But look at you! You should feel lucky the amount of fat seems to be proportional to the creature size. Can you imagine what a 400-pound mouse would look like?” She nearly collapsed in insane-sounding giggles.

Being a cat was little better. His legs were longer, but the fat on his body was greater – he could barely touch all of his paws on the floor with his belly in the way. While he could barely move as a large dog, dragging his midsection on the floor, he was now too wide for the gaps in the bars. He changed back into his approximate 540-pound human self, sat back on the safe (with his butt hanging over it on all sides), and rested.

The witch eventually caught her breath and said, “You should just accept your fate. Now that I know what you are, I can think of all sorts of fun we could have! Once you settle down, I promise to make your surroundings more comfortable.”

There was something about the timbre of her voice that was very inviting to Grigori. He could see how she was right…no wait, that wasn’t it. Maybe it might be quite comfortable down here…no! He would slip into a light trance listening to her, and then shake his head clear for a moment, and then repeat. But he could tell he was losing ground, and had to do something quick or he might be lost forever.

He’d never actually turned into a whale before, but from the pictures and descriptions he’d read, he knew them to be quite massive. And the extra several tons of blubber from his enchantment made him even more so. No one really knows what happened in the merchant quarter that night, only that one house was obliterated, and several were damaged and sitting at the edge of a sizeable crater. One beggar swore he saw a rather fat naked man climbing out of the pit clutching a shiny red piece of jewelry, but no one believed his tale.

*********************

Many years later, in another city, there is a merchant’s quarter that is not quite as ostentatious as in larger cities, but prosperous enough for its occupants. There, nestled in between a general store and a bakery sits the shop of the fattest man you’ve probably ever seen. He makes fancy sculptures from wood and soft stone, and if you look inside you can usually catch him in the middle of his latest project.

If you asked around as to who he was, and how he came to own this shop, you might get many different answers. But most would agree that he came from another town, and that he paid for the shop and initial materials outright with coin. A few would say that he had sold a valuable heirloom to some unscrupulous characters, but others would argue that such an upright and honorable man would have no such business.

At noon you would meet his wife who brings him his lunch. She is a handsome woman in her middle years with auburn locks set up in a bun. She would kiss him on the cheek, smile, and leave him to his work. At times you might see one or two of his many children going out to play or run errands, carefully navigating among their father’s finished works. At times like these, the man might pause to look at his children, and smile contentedly before returning to work.