Ffancy
Well-Known Member
This is a completed 19,500 word cozy fantasy romance erotic weight gain novella.
Mairead woke with an itchy forehead. By the time the stove was lit, the porridge was made and the young ones had dashed out the door, the itchy feeling had spread to the inside of her nose, where it lodged like a sneeze that wouldn't come out. But Mairead knew from long experience that it wasn't a sneeze. It was a premonition.
I have to go to Mrs. Jackson's house, she thought, and she knew it was true. No one would be home. Mrs. Jackson was in the hospital in Merrowhaven Centre three weeks since, and Captain Jackson had been dead twenty years or more. Still Mairead knew she had to go there, as she sat in the parlour with her sister-in-law Annie. She stabbed her needle into the fabric of the white shirt she was mending. The itchy feeling spread to her palms. The metal pins holding her hair in place felt unbearably tight against her skin. The only sound was the ticking of the fancy new mechanical clock her brother John had purchased last market quarter day. The tick-tick-tick seemed to syncopate with the throbbing of a nerve behind her eye. Mairead wanted to jump up and scream, to smash the clock into a thousand pieces. But that wouldn't be respectable, and Annie and John's home was nothing if not respectable.
Instead she put her sewing aside, murmured something not exactly untrue about a headache and fled the parlour. The itching had reached the backs of her knees. Mairead didn't go up to the room she shared with her three nieces to lie down. She slipped to the side door, hesitating with her hand on the knob. Her shoes were lined up neatly by the front door. She heard John's booming voice from the front hall. She opened the door and went out barefoot.
There was a path through the wood that led almost all the way to Mrs. Jackson's house. The moss was cool and squished between her toes. Her headache started to ease off. After a quarter of an hour she popped out of the trees onto the road not far from the house. It was a large house covered in brightly-painted yellow shingles.
Mairead went up to the front door. It was unlocked. She opened it and went in.
"Hello?" she called out. "Is anybody here?"
There was silence, and then a distinct thumping from the front room. Mairead walked slowly down the hall towards the noise.
"Who's there?" she called again. There was more thumping, but no one answered her question.
She stepped into the front room with its elegant sofa and fine, wide fireplace. Her eyes were drawn to the bricks, for that was where the noises were coming from. Mairead's eyes went wide. There were two delicate, white, fur-covered legs dangling in the fireplace. They ended in hooves.
"Oh my goodness!" she gasped.
Mairead leapt across the room. A creature was stuck in the chimney! It seemed too large to be a goat but too small for a cow. Perhaps it was a deer? Mairead was utterly confused. How had such an animal come to be stuck inside the flue in an empty house?
The legs kicked suddenly. Mairead flew to the fireplace. She had to pop her head inside the great fireplace to see what was going on. The fireplace appeared quite large from outside, but the flue was actually narrow. Mairead examined the animal's skin where it met the clay pipe. It was wedged in firmly. She could see red marks on the white hide. She touched it gently and it kicked and twisted. Soot puffed out of the chimney and into Mairead's face. She coughed and rubbed her eyes.
Well, there was nothing for it. She would have to try to get the poor creature out. She grabbed onto the legs. The ankles seemed too fragile to pull on so she tried to catch the legs above the knee. The legs kicked when she caught hold. A sharp hoof caught her in the side, but she persevered. She locked her hands firmly above the knees and pulled.
High-pitched squeals of distress started from inside the chimney, muffled and echoey. Mairead stopped at once. She peered inside the fireplace again. She could see a small gap at the rear of the flue. If she could reach up and pull down one of the front legs… It's just like a calf being born breach, she thought. They did come rear legs first sometimes, instead of head-first as they ought. It was dangerous for the calf, and the mother, too. But if a person could guide the front legs out, there was a chance. This might be just the same, although the clay would have no give to it.
Mairead went round the other side of the chimney and slid herself behind the animal so she could reach the gap. She slipped her arm up into the tiny crevice and worked her hand up, following the animal's shoulder to the front leg. It was pointing almost directly upward. She caught hold of the leg and tried to bend it gently, but the animal bucked and squealed again. Great puffs of soot bellowed forth. Mrs. Jackson needs to call a chimney sweep, thought Mairead. She caught hold of the hoof again and tried to gently guide it downwards. The animal twisted in a panic. Every time Mairead tried to manipulate a leg, the beast fought her. She kept trying, until she was sweaty and covered in grime and thoroughly cross. Her pins had come loose and her hair was falling in limp curls about her shoulders.
She grasped the leg one more time. This time the animal's movements pinned her arm inside the pipe. Her flesh felt pinched. She couldn't move from her position at all now.
At that moment she heard a loud knock at the door. Perhaps it's the chimney sweep, she thought in confusion.
"Come in!" she called out, waving her free hand. The door popped open.
"Come through here!" she added, trying not to let her own distress show in her voice. "If you could grab hold and pull - gently - I could get my arm free."
She felt a tremendous pressure on her arm. She shrieked.
"Not that way! Not that way! You'll have the arm off!"
The pressure eased and suddenly she was able to slide her crushed arm out. She wondered if it was cut. Bruised for certain.
"It's no good," she said. "You'll have to get your gear and go up on the roof. See if you can budge it from above."
"Get my gear?" said an unfamiliar male voice. "Go up on the roof? Who, pray tell, do you think I am?"
"The chimney sweep," said Mairead, popping her head out of the fireplace for the first time. She looked up at a man. Her first impression was that he was tremendously tall, with yellow eyes like a cat, and long, narrow, patrician nose. He was looking at her down this long nose, in a way she felt was quite unwarrantedly supercilious. By the way the lines on his face fell she thought he was quite accustomed to wearing this expression. He was wearing a long robe made of deerskin, which had once been bleached purest white, now spotted and stained by soot. He was rather broad in both the shoulders and belly. She was beginning to suspect that he was not the chimney sweep.
He was wearing white kidskin boots with pointed toes. Boots that fine cost more than a milk cow. Mairead's heart was sinking rapidly.
"I am Tristmagestus Albycynion, wizard of the third rank of the Order of the White Hart, tenured professor of the University of Gelflender. I am not about to go up on the roof!"
He looked nearly as cross as Mairead felt. His skin was sallow and pale, as if he spent a good deal of time indoors. He muttered something and the soot disappeared from his clothing. It left behind a strange dark purple, blue and green stain, like the bruise Mairead knew must be forming on her arm.
"Go fetch your master," he continued, waving one hand dismissively. "Then you can return to, er, whatever it is you're doing here."
"My who?" said Mairead.
"Your master. The man of the house. Quick about it now!"
"Captain Jackson? He's dead," said Mairead slowly, "these twenty years, but if you're a necromancer, perhaps you could speak to him yet."
The wizard closed his eyes and muttered something in a language Mairead didn't understand. This time she thought it was not a spell.
"Your mistress, then? The woman of the house?"
"Mrs. Jackson is in the hospital," answered Mairead.
He looked down his nose even harder then.
"You are in charge, in that case?"
Mairead stared at him.
"I suppose so," she said. "But I'm not… I don't live here."
"Very well," he nodded. "I shall give my message to you. I am here, on behalf of the Order of White Hart and by the authority of the King of Gelflender, to place this household under magical quarantine."
"To… what?"
"I'm afraid, since you are the housekeeper here, you will be unable to leave the premises until I have fully investigated the indications of unlawful and contraindicated magic we have received from this location."
Mairead felt quite overwhelmed by this statement. She responded to only part of this that she understood.
"I'm not the housekeeper," she said.
"The chambermaid, then," said the wizard impatiently. "Kindly gather the rest of the staff at once."
"There aren't any staff. We don't hold with servants in Espala," said Mairead. "There hasn't been anyone here for three weeks, since Mrs. Jackson was taken to the hospital. I'm just a neighbour who stopped in to check on things."
This time the wizard stared at her.
"There must have been someone here!" he boomed. "The signs are unmistakable. Powerful and eldritch magic was performed here recently."
At that moment the poor creature dangling in the chimney lifted its tail and let a wet, yellow-brown bowel movement fall.
Directly onto the wizard's beautiful white kidskin boots.
Mairead couldn't help herself. She really couldn't. It had been a trying morning, between the premonition and the headache and the trapped creature and the soot smearing everything in the room and the pain in her arm. She let out a bark of laughter.
Time seemed to slow. The wizard drew himself up to his full, considerable height. He gestured and said a word. The wall split apart and all the bricks came flying out of the fireplace. They avoided the wizard, but Mairead had no such immunity. She was knocked over by a wave of soot and dust and mortar and bricks. The only consolation was that the trapped animal slid free. Mairead could feel it panting on top of her.
"Goodness," she said.
She sat up gingerly. The soot was probably never going to come out of this carpet, and it was one of Captain Henry's special carpets that he'd brought home on a voyage to Prashad. Whatever was she going to tell Mrs. Jackson? The wizard was looking down at her, horror on his face.
Chapter 1 - In which an itch leads to a highly irregular incident
Mairead woke with an itchy forehead. By the time the stove was lit, the porridge was made and the young ones had dashed out the door, the itchy feeling had spread to the inside of her nose, where it lodged like a sneeze that wouldn't come out. But Mairead knew from long experience that it wasn't a sneeze. It was a premonition.
I have to go to Mrs. Jackson's house, she thought, and she knew it was true. No one would be home. Mrs. Jackson was in the hospital in Merrowhaven Centre three weeks since, and Captain Jackson had been dead twenty years or more. Still Mairead knew she had to go there, as she sat in the parlour with her sister-in-law Annie. She stabbed her needle into the fabric of the white shirt she was mending. The itchy feeling spread to her palms. The metal pins holding her hair in place felt unbearably tight against her skin. The only sound was the ticking of the fancy new mechanical clock her brother John had purchased last market quarter day. The tick-tick-tick seemed to syncopate with the throbbing of a nerve behind her eye. Mairead wanted to jump up and scream, to smash the clock into a thousand pieces. But that wouldn't be respectable, and Annie and John's home was nothing if not respectable.
Instead she put her sewing aside, murmured something not exactly untrue about a headache and fled the parlour. The itching had reached the backs of her knees. Mairead didn't go up to the room she shared with her three nieces to lie down. She slipped to the side door, hesitating with her hand on the knob. Her shoes were lined up neatly by the front door. She heard John's booming voice from the front hall. She opened the door and went out barefoot.
There was a path through the wood that led almost all the way to Mrs. Jackson's house. The moss was cool and squished between her toes. Her headache started to ease off. After a quarter of an hour she popped out of the trees onto the road not far from the house. It was a large house covered in brightly-painted yellow shingles.
Mairead went up to the front door. It was unlocked. She opened it and went in.
"Hello?" she called out. "Is anybody here?"
There was silence, and then a distinct thumping from the front room. Mairead walked slowly down the hall towards the noise.
"Who's there?" she called again. There was more thumping, but no one answered her question.
She stepped into the front room with its elegant sofa and fine, wide fireplace. Her eyes were drawn to the bricks, for that was where the noises were coming from. Mairead's eyes went wide. There were two delicate, white, fur-covered legs dangling in the fireplace. They ended in hooves.
"Oh my goodness!" she gasped.
Mairead leapt across the room. A creature was stuck in the chimney! It seemed too large to be a goat but too small for a cow. Perhaps it was a deer? Mairead was utterly confused. How had such an animal come to be stuck inside the flue in an empty house?
The legs kicked suddenly. Mairead flew to the fireplace. She had to pop her head inside the great fireplace to see what was going on. The fireplace appeared quite large from outside, but the flue was actually narrow. Mairead examined the animal's skin where it met the clay pipe. It was wedged in firmly. She could see red marks on the white hide. She touched it gently and it kicked and twisted. Soot puffed out of the chimney and into Mairead's face. She coughed and rubbed her eyes.
Well, there was nothing for it. She would have to try to get the poor creature out. She grabbed onto the legs. The ankles seemed too fragile to pull on so she tried to catch the legs above the knee. The legs kicked when she caught hold. A sharp hoof caught her in the side, but she persevered. She locked her hands firmly above the knees and pulled.
High-pitched squeals of distress started from inside the chimney, muffled and echoey. Mairead stopped at once. She peered inside the fireplace again. She could see a small gap at the rear of the flue. If she could reach up and pull down one of the front legs… It's just like a calf being born breach, she thought. They did come rear legs first sometimes, instead of head-first as they ought. It was dangerous for the calf, and the mother, too. But if a person could guide the front legs out, there was a chance. This might be just the same, although the clay would have no give to it.
Mairead went round the other side of the chimney and slid herself behind the animal so she could reach the gap. She slipped her arm up into the tiny crevice and worked her hand up, following the animal's shoulder to the front leg. It was pointing almost directly upward. She caught hold of the leg and tried to bend it gently, but the animal bucked and squealed again. Great puffs of soot bellowed forth. Mrs. Jackson needs to call a chimney sweep, thought Mairead. She caught hold of the hoof again and tried to gently guide it downwards. The animal twisted in a panic. Every time Mairead tried to manipulate a leg, the beast fought her. She kept trying, until she was sweaty and covered in grime and thoroughly cross. Her pins had come loose and her hair was falling in limp curls about her shoulders.
She grasped the leg one more time. This time the animal's movements pinned her arm inside the pipe. Her flesh felt pinched. She couldn't move from her position at all now.
At that moment she heard a loud knock at the door. Perhaps it's the chimney sweep, she thought in confusion.
"Come in!" she called out, waving her free hand. The door popped open.
"Come through here!" she added, trying not to let her own distress show in her voice. "If you could grab hold and pull - gently - I could get my arm free."
She felt a tremendous pressure on her arm. She shrieked.
"Not that way! Not that way! You'll have the arm off!"
The pressure eased and suddenly she was able to slide her crushed arm out. She wondered if it was cut. Bruised for certain.
"It's no good," she said. "You'll have to get your gear and go up on the roof. See if you can budge it from above."
"Get my gear?" said an unfamiliar male voice. "Go up on the roof? Who, pray tell, do you think I am?"
"The chimney sweep," said Mairead, popping her head out of the fireplace for the first time. She looked up at a man. Her first impression was that he was tremendously tall, with yellow eyes like a cat, and long, narrow, patrician nose. He was looking at her down this long nose, in a way she felt was quite unwarrantedly supercilious. By the way the lines on his face fell she thought he was quite accustomed to wearing this expression. He was wearing a long robe made of deerskin, which had once been bleached purest white, now spotted and stained by soot. He was rather broad in both the shoulders and belly. She was beginning to suspect that he was not the chimney sweep.
He was wearing white kidskin boots with pointed toes. Boots that fine cost more than a milk cow. Mairead's heart was sinking rapidly.
"I am Tristmagestus Albycynion, wizard of the third rank of the Order of the White Hart, tenured professor of the University of Gelflender. I am not about to go up on the roof!"
He looked nearly as cross as Mairead felt. His skin was sallow and pale, as if he spent a good deal of time indoors. He muttered something and the soot disappeared from his clothing. It left behind a strange dark purple, blue and green stain, like the bruise Mairead knew must be forming on her arm.
"Go fetch your master," he continued, waving one hand dismissively. "Then you can return to, er, whatever it is you're doing here."
"My who?" said Mairead.
"Your master. The man of the house. Quick about it now!"
"Captain Jackson? He's dead," said Mairead slowly, "these twenty years, but if you're a necromancer, perhaps you could speak to him yet."
The wizard closed his eyes and muttered something in a language Mairead didn't understand. This time she thought it was not a spell.
"Your mistress, then? The woman of the house?"
"Mrs. Jackson is in the hospital," answered Mairead.
He looked down his nose even harder then.
"You are in charge, in that case?"
Mairead stared at him.
"I suppose so," she said. "But I'm not… I don't live here."
"Very well," he nodded. "I shall give my message to you. I am here, on behalf of the Order of White Hart and by the authority of the King of Gelflender, to place this household under magical quarantine."
"To… what?"
"I'm afraid, since you are the housekeeper here, you will be unable to leave the premises until I have fully investigated the indications of unlawful and contraindicated magic we have received from this location."
Mairead felt quite overwhelmed by this statement. She responded to only part of this that she understood.
"I'm not the housekeeper," she said.
"The chambermaid, then," said the wizard impatiently. "Kindly gather the rest of the staff at once."
"There aren't any staff. We don't hold with servants in Espala," said Mairead. "There hasn't been anyone here for three weeks, since Mrs. Jackson was taken to the hospital. I'm just a neighbour who stopped in to check on things."
This time the wizard stared at her.
"There must have been someone here!" he boomed. "The signs are unmistakable. Powerful and eldritch magic was performed here recently."
At that moment the poor creature dangling in the chimney lifted its tail and let a wet, yellow-brown bowel movement fall.
Directly onto the wizard's beautiful white kidskin boots.
Mairead couldn't help herself. She really couldn't. It had been a trying morning, between the premonition and the headache and the trapped creature and the soot smearing everything in the room and the pain in her arm. She let out a bark of laughter.
Time seemed to slow. The wizard drew himself up to his full, considerable height. He gestured and said a word. The wall split apart and all the bricks came flying out of the fireplace. They avoided the wizard, but Mairead had no such immunity. She was knocked over by a wave of soot and dust and mortar and bricks. The only consolation was that the trapped animal slid free. Mairead could feel it panting on top of her.
"Goodness," she said.
She sat up gingerly. The soot was probably never going to come out of this carpet, and it was one of Captain Henry's special carpets that he'd brought home on a voyage to Prashad. Whatever was she going to tell Mrs. Jackson? The wizard was looking down at her, horror on his face.
