Chapter 3: The First Feast
The creek was a welcome reprieve. Sunlight, thin and diluted by the canopy, managed to reach the water here, dappling the surface in shifting coins of light. The air smelled clean, of wet stone and cold water, a temporary mask over the forest’s deeper, fungal breath. Astrid was all business, instructing Zuzana to gather dry tinder from under the firs while she cleared a ring of stones for a fire. Briar had already kicked off her boots and was wading in the shallows, her skirts hiked up, laughing at the cold.
Zuzana worked mechanically, her mind a thousand leagues away from the bundle of twigs in her arms. The warmth from the rabbit had settled into a constant, low-grade pulse in her core, a reminder of what she’d done. What she could do. The black-waxed jar felt like a live coal against her hip.
She finished her task, deposited the tinder by Astrid’s stone ring, and mumbled something about needing her waterskin. She walked a little way upstream, around a bend where a large, mossy boulder blocked her from view. The creek’s babble covered the sound of her trembling breath.
She pulled the jar from her pack. The wax seal broke with a soft crack. The potion inside was thick, the color of old honey and crushed emerald leaves. It smelled of iron and lightning and deep, rich soil.
This is madness, one part of her whispered. The other, louder part, the part connected to the satisfying weight in her stomach, simply said, More.
She didn’t sip. She tipped the jar and drank it all. It coated her throat, warm and syrupy, and hit her stomach like a swallowed star. Energy detonated inside her, a silent, inward concussive wave. It wasn’t pain. It was potential, a yawning, hollow readiness. Her senses sharpened until she could hear the individual scratch of a waterbug’s legs on a rock, could see the minute pulses in the creek current. The hunger woke, not a growl but a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated her very bones.
She staggered, catching herself on the boulder. Her hands left damp prints on the stone. She felt… expansive. As if her skin was a thin parchment stretched over a drum. She looked down at herself. Her tunic seemed tighter across her chest, the laces straining. Her hips pressed against the fabric of her trousers with a new, solid curve. It was subtle, but it was real. The rabbit had been an aperitif. The full potion was the main course, waiting for its companion.
A delighted shriek echoed from downstream. Briar’s voice. “Gods, it’s freezing! Astrid, you have to—"
The shriek cut off, replaced by a sharp, wet roar that wasn’t human.
Zuzana’s head snapped up. The hunger surged.
She stumbled back around the boulder. The scene downstream was chaos.
The water where Briar had been playing erupted. A massive shape heaved itself from the creek bed, shedding water, weed, and decades of accumulated silt. It was a forest troll, a creature of myth and mud. Eight feet tall if it was an inch, its skin a mottled tapestry of moss and lichen over bark-like hide. Water streamed from its milky, pupil-less eyes and its mouth, a gaping hole lined with teeth like broken stalactites. It had Briar by the ankle, hoisting the witch upside down with one gnarled hand. Briar was frantically gesturing, sparks fizzing from her fingertips but fizzling out against the creature’s wet hide.
Astrid’s sword was half-drawn, her face a mask of tactical fury. “Briar, flash-blind it! Now!”
“It’s too wet!” Briar yelled, twisting.
The troll roared again, a sound like splitting stone, and drew back its other clawed hand to swipe at its dangling prize.
Then it saw Zuzana.
Or rather, Zuzana’s hunger saw it. The thrum became a deafening drumbeat. The world narrowed to the creature, its vitality, its massive, straining life-force. Her mouth flooded. Her jaw ached with a familiar, anticipated stretch.
She didn’t run. She walked. Then she lumbered into a sprint. Her new weight, her changed body, moved with a power that was alien and utterly hers. The ground shook under her—or maybe that was just the pounding in her skull.
“Zuzana, no! Fall back!” Astrid bellowed, finally yanking her sword free, but she was too far, the geometry all wrong.
The troll, confused by this charging, unarmed human, dropped Briar into the shallow water and turned to meet the threat. It swung a barn-door-sized arm.
Zuzana ducked, the motion surprisingly agile for her thickened form. The claw passed inches over her head, the wind of it stirring her red hair. She didn’t draw a weapon. She didn’t chant a spell.
She opened her mouth.
Her jaw dislocated with a wet, terrible pop, stretching wider, wider, past human limits, past anything sane. The troll’s swinging arm was the closest target. Her mouth engulfed its mossy wrist. She didn’t bite. She swallowed. Her throat convulsed, a powerful, obscene peristalsis, and drew the limb in up to the elbow.
The troll bellowed in shock and pain, trying to pull back. But Zuzana was anchored, a ravenous singularity. Her own body was changing, reacting. Her stomach, initially just fuller from the potion, suddenly billowed outward beneath her tunic. The fabric strained, threads snapping. Pale, freckled skin, now taut and round, met the cool air. She took a staggering, pulling step forward, and her throat worked again.
It was faster now. The troll’s arm vanished to the shoulder. Its roars became panicked gurgles as Zuzana’s head latched onto its side, her impossible maw widening further to accommodate a heaving ribcage. There was no chewing. Just a relentless, gulping consumption. Legs, torso, all were drawn in, the troll shrinking, fighting, clawing at her face and hair with its free hand to no effect. Its struggles only seemed to help slide it down.
The sound was wet, suctioning, profound.
Zuzana’s body swelled in response. Her gut distended massively, a great, taut dome of flesh that pushed out before her. It crowded against where the troll had just stood. Her curves, already amplified, became monumental, her breasts straining what remained of her tunic, her hips and thighs thickening with tremendous, powerful bulk. She was growing, rounding, expanding with every swallow, the potion catalyzing the monstrous biomass into her new form.
The last thing to disappear was one thrashing, cloven foot. It kicked once, twice, then was slurped down with a final, resonant gulp.
Silence.
Zuzana stood in the creek, water up to her calves. Her jaw slid back into place with a soft click. She swayed, a mountain of a woman now. Her stomach was a vast, pale hillock, easily five times the mass of her original body, curving out and resting heavily on her own thighs. The remnants of her clothes hung in tattered scraps. She was immense, rounded, impossibly full. A deep, resonant warmth, a contented hum, radiated from her core. She felt solid. Real. Powerful beyond measure.
She let out a breath that was almost a sigh.
Astrid stood frozen, her sword pointing at the ground, her knuckles white on the hilt. Water dripped from the blade. Her eyes were wide, all strategy erased by pure, uncomprehending shock. She looked from the empty space where a troll had been, to the gigantic, freckled curve of Zuzana’s belly, and back again.
Briar pushed herself up from the shallows, soaked and shivering, but her eyes weren’t on Astrid. They were fixed on Zuzana with fiery, awe-struck fascination. A slow, delighted smile spread across her face.
Nobody spoke. The creek babbled, indifferent. The forest held its breath.